Frank Santora, 25, of Buffalo, has undergone a transformation of sorts.
"Universe Shark will swallow you whole, and when they spit you out, you'll be something new," Santora said last Friday at DBGB on Allen Street, while local jam band Universe Shark prepared to take the stage.
Thankfully, nobody was literally swallowed whole that night. Santora's description of the band, however, ended up being pretty accurate – Universe Shark's unique blend of rock, jazz, and psychedelia (they call it "carnivorous space funk") had crowd members' feet moving, hips swinging, eyes transfixed, and heads spinning.
Composed of senior fine arts major Adam Bronstein (guitar, vocals), Dave Prinzbach (drums), Mike DiSalvo (bass), and Scott Martin (keys, vocals), Universe Shark has become a local favorite in Buffalo – and the band's roots are at UB.
After Bronstein, DiSalvo, and Martin graduated from Kenmore East High School in 2004, they found themselves in a band, playing wherever they could find a place to jam, including at UB.
"We actually played around the Ellicott dorms, setting up anywhere that there was an outlet outside," Bronstein said.
After things didn't work out with their original drummer, the trio teamed up with Prinzbach, another high school classmate. They called themselves Universe Shark, and they have been together for three years now.
Though Bronstein, a self-proclaimed "superb senior," is the only member of Universe Shark that actually attends UB, all four members are active members in the UB Jam Club, which holds "open jams" on Sundays from 12 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Student Union Theater.
"We're all heavily involved with the Jam Club," Bronstein said. "The keyboard that [Scott Martin] plays is actually owned by the Jam Club, so they endorse us in that way," Bronstein said.
In return for the borrowed equipment, Universe Shark helps to increase the club's visibility throughout Buffalo.
"We're like the representatives of Jam Club," Bronstein said. "We're the only band in Jam Club that plays around the scene. We go there every week. We play sometimes and we don't play sometimes, but we're also a big part of it in other ways, promoting it.… [Jam Club] is awesome – just show up and play."
Another benefit of Jam Club is that it serves as part of Universe Shark's legion of fans – Joseph Thomas, a senior biomedical sciences major and treasurer of Jam Club, was at last Friday's show.
"I've seen them many times, and it's always been good," Thomas said. "Tonight might have been the best. Tonight had some epic moments."
During the show, the open-ended, spontaneous spirit of playing in Jam Club was apparent on stage. The band would routinely transition from heavily-composed, detailed sections to free, improvised jams. Universe Shark would jam their way from one song to another and then go back to the first, communicating only through musical notes and some occasional eye-contact or a nod of the head.
"We have planned cues that lead us into the next part, but the in-between sections, we're pretty much free to do what we want," DiSalvo said.
Prinzbach called the process of switching back-and-forth between songs "a dream within a dream."
Considering that the band members are musically communicating on such a high level throughout the course of a show, it might be surprising to learn that they are all self-taught at their instruments. That doesn't restrict songwriting, though, as Universe Shark has about 20 original songs. None of them, however, have been played the same way twice.
"There's songs that we've been playing for three years, and we're still changing them," Prinzbach said. ("There's no final copy," Martin added.)
That willingness to keep changing songs and making them better has won Universe Shark admiration from others in the music scene.
"Universe Shark, in one word, is ‘funktastic,'" said Brad Darrall, a senior mechanical engineering major and drummer for Aqueous, a band that Universe Shark often plays with. "I love how much detail they put into their originals. I feel like they truly take their time and focus on quality over quantity when it comes to their compositions."
Want to witness the carnivorous space funk for yourself? Universe Shark's next show is Saturday, March 26 at McGarret's, at 946 Elmwood Ave. They'll be playing two sets and will start at 10 p.m.
Can't make it to the show? Those who join the band's mailing list at www.universeshark.com are sent a free link to download the audio of every show the band plays.
E-mail: arts@ubspectrum.com
