MIKE GAITO: Beard Of Bees

Mike Gaito

Beard Of Bees

© 2006 Mike Gaito (837101249980)

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"Harry Chapin meets Frank Zappa" - Mike Gaito creates a dreamy, surrealistic world between folk & progressive rock, featuring songs about emus, asparagus, & canoes & containing off-kilter guitar lines, memorable melodies, & the occasional choir.

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Born in Northern New Jersey, now residing in Northern Vermont, Mike Gaito is a singer, guitarist and songwriter whose disparate musical tastes and unique vision has left him with an amalgamated style all his own. With influences ranging from Harry Chapin to Frank Zappa to Phish, from Nick Drake to Mike Keneally to The Flaming Lips, Mike Gaito is proud to present his first solo release, Beard of Bees.

Described, often in the same breath, as odd, beautiful, epic, joyful, heart-felt and inspiring, Beard of Bees is hard to describe and harder to categorize. An introspective exploration by a self-described extrovert, Beard of Bees is a pure creative explosion, assembled with little concern for commercial viability, possibility of live recreation or fear of emotional exposure. In a frenzy of do-it-yourself spirit, Mike sang all the vocal parts and played all the instruments (minus the drums). Mike recorded Beard of Bees himself, while locked in his sweltering home studio for most of the Summer of 2006.

Mike says of his own creation, "Beard of Bees is both cathartic and celebratory. The songs mirror me, my thoughts and feelings to an almost uncomfortable degree. This music is me."

Featuring songs about emus, asparagus, self-doubt, and canoes and containing off-kilter guitar lines, memorable melodies, and the occasional choir, Beard of Bees is a dreamy, surrealistic journey of a singular creative mind.

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  • author: Seven Days

    The real buzz around Vermonter Mike Gaito’s perfectly baffling solo debut Beard of Bees doesn’t come from Gaito’s facial hair, but from his inventive interlacing of folk, prog rock and jazz. Consider that a compliment. Where else can you hear the musical tale of a Cuban-cigar-smoking, flask-guzzling emu named Hobart? And let’s not ignore the liner notes, in which Gaito refers to a bunny-rabbit intern named Art, whom he describes as “a good kid,” but “way too verbose in his email correspondence.” It’s strange, for sure, but also strangely endearing. Gaito’s lyrics sometimes verge on Steely Dan-esque obscurity, such as on “Asparagus and Glass.” Still, more often than not, his tunes tell a story, albeit a heavily imagistic one. “A feeble reach only speeds my descent / I give my consent to be / gnawed and eaten whole,” he croons. Then there’s “. . . the sometimes terrifying realities of getting exactly what you want . . .” with its melée of acoustic and electric riffs, layered vocals and odd, if effective, time signatures. In this way, Gaito subverts his own sweetness, employing an unusual meter, a bluesy electric solo and a collage of cringe-worthy vocal trills. His call-and-response singing sounds like an argument between a laid-back islander and a panicked tourist, but it somehow works. There are a few things on this marathon of an album that don’t work, however. Remember Art the bunny? His eponymous track plays like a pop song at an eighth-grade dance, its melody more punch bowl than pony keg. “The Fogged Frame” and “The Oar” are two epics worth sitting through, but the timing and feel jump back and forth from pool to Jacuzzi several times, leaving the listener a little waterlogged. The unusual song structures on Beard of Bees paint Gaito as a prog rocker in a folk singer’s body — or perhaps it’s the other way around. By the end of the album, my ears felt like a pitcher’s arm after seven solid innings. Although Gaito can be somewhat longwinded, his creativity and humor trump any “What the fuck?” feeling you might have upon first pressing play. If anything, Beard of Bees reminds us that originality usually seems weird at first. And Gaito is definitely a weirdo. DAVE SACHS

  • author: Burlington Free Press

    The Huntington musician formerly in the prog-rock group JRDA bills his solo sound as "Harry Chapin meets Frank Zappa." A little of the former's acoustic simplicity and a lot of the latter's off-kilter silliness carries "Beard of Bees," which includes songs about furry interns ("Art Bunny"), cigar-smoking flightless birds ("Hobart the Emu") and, occasionally, something rooted in recognizable reality, like love ("There Are Mornings"). - Brent Hallenbeck

  • Minor7th.com's Jan/Feb '07 Short Takes: Mike Gaito "Beard of Bees"
    author: Tom Semioli for Minor7th.com

    "Beard of Bees" buzzes with inspiration drawn from the far corners of folk, jazz, progressive rock and experimental pop. With the exception of drums, Gaito emerges as an eccentric one man band, plying his craft with an arsenal of electric/acoustic guitars, bass, and keyboards abetted with the sounds of loose change, hand claps, barley shakers, and whatever else happened to be lying around. The artist's tongue is oft planted firmly in cheek as evidenced in the quirky, stream of conscious diatribe "Giant Canoe" which proclaims "you let me soar like Aladdin/hit like Dan Gladden/talk like John Madden/sing like Mike Patton/play like the Mothers in '74." Odd time-signatures, swift-key changes, layered vocal harmonies, mind-blowing interplay, and a strong sense of storytelling abound through each of the fifteen epic tracks. I could envision Richard Thompson, the ghost of Frank Zappa, or Brian Wilson digging this record. © Tom Semioli

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