Ghostbeat is a hyperfolk acoustic duo. With just two voices, one drum, and one guitar, you'll have to look twice to believe the wall of energetic rhythms, music, and tight harmonies coming from Bryan and Ken.
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ken
Ken has mastered the art of playing djembe, ashika, and doumbeks while adding exotic percussion and singing intricate harmonies.
His latest creative addition is a wall of percussibility dubbed the "racket."
It may look like a wall of trash and buckets to some but Ken always finds a groove in it.
rackit
Lately Ken has given his drum kit a new sonic set of arms and legs by incorporating his "racket" into it. Stomp-rock abounds.
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bryan
 Bryan's acoustic guitar manages to bring many instruments together, and you never know what wild twists and turns his unique and driving vocal styles may deliver.
On ghostbeat's studio-heavy albums, any eclectic electric concoction of samples, synths, layered vocals and sonics may appear. It's no wonder; as an intense student of music he has played and written in many musical genres, from ragtime to rap, through every avenue from the Beatles to world beat, including having studied guitar with Robert Fripp of King Crimson.
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Ghostbeat has seen many transformations in central Florida. One included Joe Lamy playing bass exquisitely and singing extraordinarily from 1992 until 1999. He has moved on to even lusher vocal pastures in a spectrum of a capella groups. Thankfully he left his indelible musical signature within ghostbeat's cds Got It, Water, and Living Room Music.
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bryan
ken 
lesons and
sessions with Ken
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the sounds
Ghostbeat's upbeat, quirky, melody driven songs stick with you, evoking your spirit as well as your feet. This is well documented on their 6 CDs; Water, Living Room Music, Off, Dive, Ghostbeat Five, and Got It. Sessions are currently underway for their next release titled Old Friend Surprise.
In 1996 Ghostbeat was signed to an Ichiban Records subsidiary, and sold out the first pressing of their CD Water even before it's international release date. (Don't worry - they made more and it is still available at amazon.com!) That year they were also "Jammy"-nominated for Best Florida Pop Band.
Their shows throughout Florida have ranged from Miami's South Beach to Daytona Beach, from St. Petersburg to Cocoa Beach and Melbourne, and of course in Orlando, including several openers for Badfinger.
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stuff they do
Both Bryan and Ken also played for the extraordinarily creative country-rock-pop of the Ray Allaire Band. Bryan played bass and sang backup, while Ken masterfully added ashika and percussion.
Ray Allaire, a great singer and songwriter, was solid country pop with some XTC and Jellyfish influence thrown in. He is now in Souled Out Band.
Bryan co-wrote and performed on the soundtrack for an independent film, Bad Day, with director Paul Marquis.
He has composed and produced music for cable TV shows, commercial radio promos and jingles, and written original scores for many Florida fashion shows are among other side projects.
Bryan co-produced, played guitars and keys, and Ken played percussion on tracks from Lena's debut album Everything Counts. Check out 17-year old Lena's unique writing and stylings, as well as a top notch selection of Melbourne players. (It's available from our order page.)
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stuff they did
In the early 90s ghostbeat received heavy airplay on Melbourne's WFIT, while it was listed in the country's top 5 most influential college radio stations by CMJ and the Gavin Report.
There they also won an EMI sponsored songwriting competition.
Through the 90s they recorded 148 songs for 8 different albums, ranging from industrial-techno to rock-pop. More details are on our discography page.
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Paul Marquis has stepped in with vocals, percussion, adding a sort of twilight outer limit adjustment to the band. It's okay if you think he's Andy Kaufman and/or Tiny Tim. He's down with that and might cook you a burrito.
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Ghostbeat is like everything but unlike anything you've heard before.
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