Bass player Hal Cragin began in Boston with Grammy nominated Polygram Records group, Rubber Rodeo.
Also worked with artists including Jennifer Trynin, and The Walkers as well as producer Jon Brion in the group The Worlds Fair. He also began the gr [+]Bass player Hal Cragin began in Boston with Grammy nominated Polygram Records group, Rubber Rodeo.
Also worked with artists including Jennifer Trynin, and The Walkers as well as producer Jon Brion in the group The Worlds Fair. He also began the group Too Happy with Tom Dube and Reeves Gabrels
Moved to NYC to work on various recording projects also began what became a 7 year tenure with Iggy Pop. He did three records with Iggy, American Caesar, Naughty Little Doggie, and Avenue B, which was recorded in Hal's subterranean studio at 262 Mott street with producer Don Was.
Involved in the genesis of John Flansburgh's Monopuff and subsequently played for They Might Be Giants. Hal also worked with Marianne Faithfull, Rufus Wainwright, and Freedy Johnson among others. During the mid 90s he started the jazz funk Hal Cragin Trio which was an East Village mainstay and recorded many of the tracks on IMMACULATE CONTRAPTION. The Trio was a weekly top pick in TIMEOUT magazine.
Relocating to Los Angeles Hal continued to compose and record and play with various artists such as Vic Chestnut, Victoria Williams and Sarah McLachlan, and live under the naked light bulb of the California sun.
About Immaculate Contraption
NYC-to LA
by Hal Cragin
It started innocently enough. I had time off from working with Iggy Pop or They Might Be Giants, or some other gainful musical enterprise when longtime friend/ producer William Garrett (whom I had met with a band called Rubber Rodeo, many hair styles before), proposed we record some funky 70's style music. Since he was running one of the myriad Sony music studios in NYC we could, in the midnight hour, record our covert stealth funk. That collaboration yielded three tracks and was the beginning of this CD.
Having begun a project in such a jocular spirit it then seemed easy to record some more music -- on my own. Finding a practice space used by at least one hundred and one bands, in a sub-sub-basement [go down,watch your head! then go down again] in Manhattan's Little Italy at 262 Mott Street, I attempted to record myself. Using some dubious recording gear, and freezing [winter] or gasping for air [summer], some very fine musicians and myself got inspired performances in that hole. These ended up on Imac.
Actua
|
 |
Genre/Tags: 
Ringtones
Full Tracks
