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via gmail: peteweiss2000


News:

New album, Hamming It Down, was released on Bandcamp on Friday March 3, 2023 !!  Easily purchase a download or a physical CD there (or CD's at our shows!)

Pete has reunited with his 80's-era musical brethren, Mike Griffin, Russ Alderson, & Dave Hower.  As Valley of Weights, they recently released an astonishing double LP of post-punk/garage/psych originals on vinyl and Bandcamp only, which has garnered high critical praise.  Sporadic live shows have been and will continue to be happening.  Here's an interview from Scottish music 'zine Pennyblackmusic.

Pete, Nate, Jeff & Kenny have been moonlighting with NYC-based Jack Grace Band, and its spin-off Van Hayride (yes, a country-tinged Van Halen tribute band!) The latter recently toured as opening act for Puss N Boots. Keep an eye out for these 'Nauts members to pop up now and then with Jack and VHR.

Back in the 1990's the 'Nauts "forefathers" were known as Pete Weiss & the Rock Band. They put out a couple of subversive, wildly diverse rock albums before calling it quits (and morphing into what eventually became the Weisstronauts.) Well, in October of 2012 they reunited in the studio and created a new 10-song album. And it's quite good... possibly their best work. Check out the amazingly detailed shot-for-shot remake video of PW&RB's version of Tracey Ullman's "They Don't Know" HERE.

Recent Press/Quotes:

There is a freedom and unfettered joy in The Weisstronauts’ music that gets under the skin - that both soothes and sets the pulses racing simultaneously. Maybe it's the outrageous mix of genres (country, '60s go-go, surf, jazz, funk, soul, rockabilly and blues, electronica and dance music, et al) revealed within each original composition and shape-shifting continually within deeply seamed grooves - so there's always something surprising and new; like the view of unfamiliar terrain from a fast moving train. Or maybe it's the way that the triple lead guitar lineup passes the energy among the three guitar players like a ball of energy is passed in Qigong; wordessly, organically, seamlessly - weaving a tapestry of gorgeous sounds that delight and surprise at every turn; taking the listener on a journey that encompasses every aspect of the American sonic landscape. Whatever the ineffable thing is about this band, if it's beauty and adventure you seek: put on The Weisstronauts and take a ride! For there are wide plains in this music, and angled mountains, abandoned old West towns, and deserted arctic blue shorelines. There are also cities, and grit, and nightclubs where drunken revelers kiss strangers and dance long into the night. The Weisstronauts music has no borders. It belongs to the whole wide world.
— Linda Viens, Girl With A Hawk
March 2024

The Weisstronauts are unafraid to dive into any style that fits their current mood. You're apt to hear country stylings, '60s go-go, surf, jazz, soul, rockabilly and blues -- sometimes in the same song. The triple lead guitar lineup gives this band the capacity to, as Keith Richards once described it, "weave" together whatever the muses bring to each track. The guys are accomplished artists who never take themselves too seriously, so you never know where they'll take you next -- I enjoy listening for funny musical quotes embedded within their original compositions. Hamming It Down continues the Weisstronauts' decades-long string of some of most well put-together instrumental albums I've ever heard. You can hear shades of everyone from Buck Owens to Wes Montgomery up in there.
—Mojo Flucke (Fluckwittery, Popdose.com), 2023

Rave review of the new Flat Bottom Cold Greaser album here at the legendary BabySue zine!  And another one in Bill Copeland Music News. 

Some nice coverage of our July 2015 show at Luthier's Co-op HERE.

The good folks at Foam Totem understand what we're all about!

"Please do not disregard my mind-blowing experience caused by your music...The fact that the Weisstronauts didn't exist 25 years ago should be considered an embarrassment to all musicians."
- Brendan Curtis, co-owner/chef, Plough & Stars

"Then there’s the Weisstronauts, who toss major surf rock influences into a blender with everything else they’ve ever even sort of liked and pull out songs built on combinations that look insane on paper but absolutely kill once you hear them."
- Richard Bouchard, Boston Band Crush 9/15/2010

"Wish I could play with you guys more often than once in a lifetime. Definitely the most fun I've ever had in a band."
- Doug Yule (ex-Velvet Underground) following the 2006 tour

"You guys were the best thing EVER!"
- Mitch Easter, artist (Let’s Active, Sneakers) & producer (REM, Velvet Crush, Game Theory, Pavement) following a 2008 show at the Rock ‘n’ Bowl in New Orleans

"You guys are better than Maiden"
- Paul Logus, producer/engineer (P. Diddy, Pantera, Mary J. Blige, Notorious BIG, the Barnies) stopping by the Rodeo Bar in NYC after an Iron Maiden concert

"You guys were totally way better than Maiden"
- Paul’s friend Sean (no, not Combs) in agreement

"If there’s such a thing as a forward-thinking surf band, Boston’s The Weisstronauts are it. Avoiding the purism that makes so many instrumental retro-fetishists seem redundant, The Weisstronauts combine vintage surf and Nashville chicken-pickin’ with cartoon zaniness and spaghetti Western intrigue. They often recall NRBQ’s offbeat musical humor as much as Link Wray’s reverb-drenched Tarantino fodder."
- Jack Silverman, Nashville Scene

The wonderfully-monikered Mojo Flucke interviewed Pete for Popdose. They chatted about the creative process, garage rock, monkeys with fezes, etc. Check it out HERE.

There's a sweet review of Instrotainment! on Epinions HERE.

New England Music Scrapbook News interviewed Pete Weiss about the Weisstronauts and Verdant Studio. Interview is HERE, about a third down the page.

Pete Weiss was interviewed by C.C. DiGuardia in Northeast Performer magazine and by John Clarkson in the U.K. webzine Pennyblackmusic.