Welcome! You've reached the home of The Jolly Rogers, and your new favorite place on the internet!
The Jolly Rogers are a band of five guys who share a few common traits – a love for maritime music, an unreasoning fascination with the fantasy of Golden Age pirates and, above all, a very warped sense of humor. The result of this combination? A band that has been producing the best in sea music for over 20 years... a band who has performed all over the United States and in Europe (no, really!)... THE band that has defined the pirate sub-genre of the maritime tradition.
We have produced top-quality albums recorded in some of the best studios in our area, and have defined our unique sound by adding new arrangements and original songs to those that come from the rich maritime tradition. Check out our site for a complete look at what we have to offer - we know you'll love what you hear! Use the buttons on the left or bottom to go to main areas of our site, then the buttons at the top for more specific information. Thanks for visiting!
5/04/12 – It's official! The Jolly Rogers will be going back in to the studio this summer to record a new album! What's more, we're offering a special chance for our fans to be a part of it. Now live on Kickstarter, THE place for funding the independent arts, is a page that will allow you to essentially pre–order the new CD, and possibly also get some other great rewards as well. Click HERE to check it out!
4/25/12 – The new home of The Jolly Rogers on the internet is now live! Welcome to JOLLYROGERSKC.COM, and thanks for stopping by. With our new home in place, we hope to begin to make improvements to the site to allow it to run more smoothly and to be optimized for mobile browsing! Check back often!
4/16/12 – The Jolly Rogers' entire collection is now available on CD Baby, the internet's leading source for independent music. At CD Baby, you can purchase physical copies of our albums, or you can download them for use in the mp3 player of your choice. You can even find our DVD there! www.cdbaby.com/Artist/TheJollyRogers1
The Jolly Rogers all came from alien seed pods; we grew as our human hosts slept and we took their places for a single purpose: to form a band! Well, that's not quite true. We also came to Earth because we all really like sushi.
We descended to this primitive world in 1991 in the guise of a 3–man comedy troupe, without a single song to our name. "Chris Berger", "Clint Glidewell" and "Kurt Hanover" were the original three until the Grand Leader from our home planet of Gnip–Gnop sent reinforcements in the forms of "Brian Price" and "Mark Stahl", it was then that we began singing shanties and other sea music. When Zocktar (the galactic assassin known here as "Cliff Lawson") arrived, we were finally complete and could initiate our plans. Sadly, tragedy struck when the Grand Leader recalled "Brian Price" – this was followed shortly thereafter by the untidy implosion of the being you knew as "Clint". Fortunately, Sean Foree proved himself by right of combat and became the first human that was welcomed into our collective. Since then, we have continued to invade your "minds" with the subliminal messages contained in the "music" that we "play" from the "maritime" "tradition".
Fools.
The history of maritime music is a deep one, and virtually every culture that has gone to sea has its own version of it. Our music hails largely from the English and American traditions, and when the band began we mined the shanties, bawdy songs and drinking songs that stood out in the genre. We quickly developed our own sound, creating arrangements that mixed the traditional with a more modern feel that speaks of acoustic rock and blues.
While our respect of the tradition and history of sea music is as strong as ever, we began to write our own songs. We hope we are adding to the tradition – folk music of every kind evolves; that is its nature. It's an honor to think that we might, in some small way, be adding to that great lineage.
Check out our Albums page for our discography, lyrics and samples of our music. You'll also find links to purchase our CDs online!
Ever since there were societies, we've had a fascination with those individuals that operated outside the bounds that our cultures have established for us. Robin Hood, Blackbeard and Billy The Kid are all members of a kind of dark dynasty that runs throughout history – a dynasty that has enthralled the Everyman and Everywoman as we sit in our homes and read books or watch movies that detail their exploits. Their incredible deeds, brazen individuality and seeming devil–may–care attitude sparks a sense of adventure in those of us who have come after them.
Unfortunately, the hard truth about many of these outlaws is that they were murderers, thieves and rapists. If you were to hear of someone committing the same crimes today, without the romantic veil that a couple hundred years can provide, you'd be desperate for their capture and punishment.
The Jolly Rogers, therefore, take their cues from the romance. We're born from the myths and the movies, even though we'll occasionally try to tell you the real story of names like Blackbeard, L'Ollonois, Roberts, Avery and Bonny. For our own sake, though, we hope you'll keep believing in the legend.
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This site designed and created by Kurt Hanover. The site and all content © 2010 – by Screaming Skull Productions, LLC
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