“The only 1980s-themed band that makes every party awesome…TO THE MAX.”

Weird Science is a Staten Island-based band that plays the best of Prince, Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis, Duran Duran, Madonna, George Michael, Men at Work, Toto, INXS, and lots more.

The band traces its roots back to the fall of 2008, when they performed as the house band for the Cargo Cafe 1984 Prom party. They played the Cargo Prom again in 2009, tastefully billed as the Bathroom Stall Babies, and soon after began playing more regular gigs at local bars.

The lineup changed from gig to gig, members of the Bandulos and Man Down floated in and out, but the constants have been John Lynch and Billy Levay. The current lineup also includes Adam Hecht (guitar), Kevin Jensen (drums), Tina Kenny (keys, vox), and Anne Marie Nacchio (vox). Tina and Anne Marie also perform with the Bandulos’ own Nicole Pignatelli as the Bad Mouth Betties.

You can catch Weird Science at Rhythm & Brews on Friday, March 5.

Here’s a video shot and edited by Steve Corn:

Another video after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Back in Nov. 2009 we played a stripped-down, low-key set for a book release party held at NYC Arts Cypher and hosted by our friend ON 2 of Fresh Style Rockers. The book is titled Graffiti New York, and it’s available at Amazon.com, among other places.

Legendary graffiti photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant were there, and Martha took a few shots of the band. We hope we can get our hands on them sometime soon. Here’s Martha’s blog post about the event.

The guys who put this book together are also behind the site @149st, and they thanked us in a blog post.

Here’s a photo gallery.

We’ve seen a lot of creative spellings and many interesting pronunciations of our name over the years. Bandulous, Bandolous, Banduloos, ad infinitum. We sort of expected it, having picked such an unusual handle. But this post will (hopefully) set the record straight.

The Bandulos

Our name is a pluralization of “bandulo,” a Jamaican slang word which as a noun means “bandit,” “thief,” or “rude boy,” and as an adjective, “counterfeit,” “fake,” or “stolen.”

We first heard the word as the title of the first track on the classic 1979 Studio One record by Jamaican singer Freddie McGregor, Bobby Bobylon. Give a listen to “Bandulo”:

Freddie McGregor - Bandulo

That’s what you been doin’ all the time:
Playing bandulo on everyone’s mind.
Keep the people in utter darkness,
Don’t want them to see no fullness,
Let them go, make them try,
I’m sure there’s a way they’ve got to survive.

Go down, bandulo man, go down,
Go down, you’ve got to reach the ground.

Bandulo also appears as “bandulu,” which is the name of a North London techno trio. The Bandulus are a reggae outfit from Austin, Texas that came together in the early summer of 2008.

Bandulo, Hungary

Coincidentally, there’s a small town in Hungary called Bándůlő. Billy and Mike Levay have Hungarian roots, and the surname Levay is a fairly popular one in Hungary.

We’ve been dabbling in Web 2.0 for a while now, but we just got more Web 2.0-ier.

Won’t you be our “fan” on Facebook?

And while you’re at it:

• Friend us! [MySpace]
• Follow us! [Twitter]
• Subscribe to us! [YouTube]
• Contact us! [bandulos.com]

Freddie Hubbard died on Monday, Dec. 29 at the age of 70. Read his obits in the New York Times and Down Beat.

“Cantaloupe Island” with Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams

“Misty”

“Red Clay”

Yeah, the Bandulos are now tweeting, like, two years after your mom found out what that was.

Our Twitter page is twitter.com/bandulos, natch. If you’re on Twitter, follow us!

There’s also a Twitter widget on the right sidebar of this blog, which will display our tweets.

Sayeth the Staten Island Advance. Thanks, Ben Johnson. You’re pretty great too.

The Bandulos have been proud distributors of NYC Condoms since April 2007, and we’re not stopping until this lubricated latex river runs dry.

By my estimation, we’ve handed out over 5,000 free condoms at bars and clubs on Staten Island and beyond. Granted, some of them end up as slippery balloons that the Big Nose Kate’s staff has to clean up at the end of the night, but that’s a pretty damn good number.

And to my knowledge, and according to this Dept. of Health list, we’re one of very few distributors of this important and free public health service on Staten Island.

We bring condoms to nearly every show we play. If you’re at a show and you don’t see them out, just ask! And if you’re interested in distributing, or if you just want a few hundred to give away instead of a few cases (1,000 condoms/case), just drop us a line in the comments section, or via e-mail, and we’ll hook you up.

Get some!

Congratulations to our very own Nicole Pignatelli for being voted Staten Island’s Best Diva in the 2008 AWE Reader’s Poll.

We’ll be doing something special for Nicole soon.

Props to Lucie Terranova of SexPot Scandal for running a close second.

And congrats to our roomies the Avon Junkies for earning the title “Best Original Band.”