Recent news:
- Oak City EP Available Now!
- Visit Teith's MySpace page

About TEITH (pronounced like “KEITH” as in “Carradine,” “Richards” and “Sweat”)

TEITH scored a left-field right-field number one hit in 1968 1992 with “Coffee is a Cruel Mistress,” “Crystal Pepsi is a Sadistic Hag” which epitomized the virtues of their music: funky gregarious, exuberant, danceable timeless soul out for a rousing motherfucking good ol’ time. Born in Henderson, TX, Phnom Penh, J. Grubman grew up in Houston Akron and began singing in church. In junior high, he joined a vocal support group called Little Pop & the Fireballs, Narc-Anon and formed the TEITH in high school a juvenile detention center with friends James Wise Trevor de Brauw, Huey “Billy” Baumann, and Joe Cross Ronnie DeVoe (later replaced by Lisa Shelley). Teith won several local talent shows, performing a repertoire dominated by Chicago soul early reggaeton, and were discovered by local DJ slum lord Skipper Lee Frazier Hollis Merriweather, who became their manager fixer and producer “bodyguard.”

But that was then, and this, as they say, is “now.” And the thing about now is that it waits for no one. As such, TEITH have reinvented and repositioned themselves for the new millennium. They play their own instruments now, and have electronics and shit like that. They even have a MySpace page. Before we get too ahead of ourselves here, we should probably mention that after departing TEITH, James Wise went on to become the mayor of a small town in Papa New Guinea. Ronnie DeVoe, after finding minor success with some dudes from Boston who used to be in New Edition, now owns a RE/MAX real estate agency in Atlanta and is married to Shamari Fears of Blaque fame.  (Here it should be noted that the TEITH have made a conscious decision to leave their “urban music” roots behind, if only to prevent the unfortunate pigeonholing that often stalks purveyors of this genre like a predatory svengali who has just gotten high with Marion Barry in a D.C. hotel room while listening to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” on repeat.)

In all seriousness, however, it should be noted that the members of TEITH are dead serious about being taken seriously. So it comes as no surprise that they hail from Chicago, a city known for its seriously freezing winters, seriously sweaty summers and what just might be the most serious independent music community in the contiguous 48. Despite this unsmiling environment, TEITH achieved cult status in the virtual underground when their “Myspace Demo” hit the Interhole in 2006. It was quickly followed by the band’s debut EP, Oak City, which was packaged in cute little hand-screened vellum envelopes and initially pressed by Migration Media. Now sadly out of print, it is in the process of being reissued by Thirty Ghosts Records for ’08. A discriminating all-instrumental compound of bubbling electronics, buzzing bass guitar, hypnotic beats and ambient noise, Oak City is the sound of a band on the precipice of the unclassifiable, effortlessly straddling both genre divisions (post-rock, IDM, noise/drone, electronic indie, what-have-you) and far-flung artistic/psychic terrain. From buoyant to buzzing, cracking to crackling, eerie to ominous, TEITH run through the gamut of vaguely abstracted human emotion like only musicians with computers can: Carefully.