Puppet Show

“Didn’t Spinal Tap open for you guys once?” - Anonymous

Puppet Show is a performing troupe of musicians hailing from the heart of Northern California’s “Silicon Valley”. Combining fluent melodic work with odd meters and textured vocals, they create a sound to carry rock music beyond the turn of the century! Well, at any rate, they write some pretty cool tunes. Just who are these Puppet Show types anyway? Featuring Sean Frazier on lead and backing vocals, Mike Grimes on keyboards and backing vocals, Matt Lipford on drums, Chris Ogburn on guitar and backing vocals, and Craig Polson on bass and backing vocals, Puppet Show represents the collective musical vision of five individuals.

Music should be fun and Puppet Show takes their fun seriously! Their music transcends the typical boundaries of any one style, incorporating aspects of symphonic progressive rock, hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock, and lots more. Their roots actually go back to 1990 and a band called Jigsaw. Some creative differences, personnel changes, and a name change later, Puppet Show took shape and began writing and rehearsing together. During 1995 and 1996, Puppet Show performed several memorable live concerts. Highlights include the group’s first public performance at East Bay Prog Day in 1995, and headlining the first concert in the Exposé Concert Series in 1996. The band was hard at work in the studio in 1997 recording their debut album. Traumatized is very much a group effort with everyone contributing their talents to the songwriting and arranging departments. The songs were all written and honed over several live performances, and the album captures the powerful energy of the group. The tracks are typically around 10 minutes in length and are complete with multiple sections, instrumental breaks, a solo or two, quiet and loud parts, and occasional snoring. Intricate arrangements, incredible drums, innovative bass/guitar/keyboard interplay, and powerful vocals all begin to describe Puppet Show. But in the end, Traumatized speaks for the band much better than these words.

Puppet Show is a great live band, but don’t take our word for it. See for yourselves what the critics have to say:

“The highlight of [East Bay Prog Day] was the performance by a new San Jose band, Puppet Show... Their material and performance was top-notch... Their music was stylistically diverse (ranging from older traditional prog, especially influenced by Genesis, and to newer metal-prog). All the pieces were structurally complex, having many sections, occasionally repeated but always varied (not unlike the format of Echolyn’s Everyman Suite). Great interchange and interconnected lines between keys and guitar, blazing solos of tastefully short lengths, quiet interludes, sweeping climaxes, all capped with dramatic, dynamic and playful lead vocals... a very enjoyable style and delivery.” [Gibraltar, Volume 5, Number 18]

“I liked these guys a lot. My first impression was that they sounded like what you’d get if you crossed Marillion with Queensryche. The music reminded me of a hard-edged Marillion with some wonderful keyboard and guitar melodic interplay, while the vocalist reminded me a lot of Geoff Tate, with an distinctive and trained voice that was capable of great expressivity. After the first song, I began to realize that their music was in fact more subtle than it initially sounded. If I had to compare them to any other band around today, it’d probably be Echolyn, although with a bit less of a Gentle Giant influence. I was impressed with all the musicians in the band, but the drummer was especially outstanding.” [concert review from rec.music.progressive newsgroup]

Puppet Show’s live reputation is such that, even prior to the release of their first album, they were invited to play Baja Prog 98, an international progressive rock festival in Mexico featuring 9 bands from Mexico, the U.S., Canada, France, Argentina, and Panama.

Puppet Show can be reached via email at: . Puppet Show’s website is at www.puppetshow.com