The Entrance Band
Born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 29, 1981, Guy Blakeslee was an obsessive music fan and lover of art and poetry at a very early age. At the age of 9, influenced by a baby sitter who turned him on to Skateboarding, Hip-Hop and Punk Rock, he swiped a right-handed guitar given to his brother for Christmas and began teaching himself to play it; since he was left-handed, he flipped the instrument upside-down, inventing his own tunings and writing his own songs. At 14, he started playing in bands with older kids and helping book and organize shows at all ages venues in Baltimore, often putting up touring hardcore bands in his mother¹s basement. He made “zines” full of collage and stream of consciousness writings, spending countless hours in Kinko¹s. At the age of 17, while playing bass in a band called the Convocation Of..,, he went on his first tour and was initiated into the lifestyle of the traveling musician. Many trips around the USA followed, and on September 11, 2001 he quit the band and went solo, calling himself “Entrance.”
Tracing the lineage of the music he loved as far back as it could go, he immersed himself in the classic recordings of American Blues, Folk and Gospel music made in the 1920¹s and 1930¹s, and combining melodies and sounds from these recordings with his own words and compositions. In 2002 he opened for Will Oldham on a West Coast tour; he also met Devendra Banhart and they toured the USA together. He released his first record as Entrance in 2002 on Tiger Style Records, entitled “The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken By Storm,” and began opening for Cat Power shortly thereafter, a tour which continued on and off throughout 2003 and 2004 and took him across the pond to the United Kingdom and Europe. Sketchbook Records from London released a 4-track recorded album called “Careless Love” in 2003 and the touring at home and abroad continued, sometimes with drummer and driver Tommy Rouse along for the ride. In 2004, Fat Possum Records released “Wandering Stranger,” which featured Rouse on drums and Paz Lenchantin on violin and piano. He opened for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the US and Europe and continued traveling alone as well, ending up in the UK for the better part of a year before returning to the US to find a home (Laurel Canyon, California) and make a rock-opera (”Prayer of Death”) with drummer Derek James and Paz Lenchantin playing violin and bass. In Summer of 2006 he created Entrance Records to release “Prayer of Death,” which was released worldwide by TeePee Records that Fall. With Lenchantin and James, he formed “the Entrance Band,” and the group released their Self-Titled debut album as a full-fledged band this past September on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace Records/ UniversalMotown. In addition to touring and recording with the Entrance Band, Blakeslee still creates collages, xerox art and stream of consciousness writings. He still lives in Laurel Canyon with his partner, Maximilla Lukacs.
Official Website: http://www.theentranceband.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/entrancerecords
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheEntranceBand
Blog: http://www.guyblakeslee.blogspot.com
The Entrance Band- Whip Is In the Grave
The Entrance Band Merchandise:
Coming Soon!