“Like a zoo burning down…but in a good way.”
Darrell Romine

“…consummate performers…”
Yakima Herald-Republic

“You haven’t seen a performance band until you’ve witnessed Locust Street Taxi.”
The Local Planet – Spokane, WA

“I’m a picky *!#%*@# but I know true talent when I see it, and
you all are truly talented performers and musicians and songwriters.”
Wayne Zinkand – Austin, TX

“LST hold an audience as well as any band we’ve ever had.”
Dan Craig – President, Yakima Folklife Association

“I enjoy your music – it makes me feel good! You all are just so cute; I want to adopt you!”
Leslie Joy – Mount Vernon, WA

A Blurb

I wrote a very soul-baring and charming piece for this column about the life and heartbreak of being a musician in a band with multiple-genre disorder, and a past littered with drummers. The piece was very honest and revealing, in a good way. I spoke of life on the road: eating together, driving together, sleeping together and snoring in harmony.

But it did not make us sound quite as awesome as we truly are when we hit the stage, and if one of you in the audience is someone important we would hate to sell ourselves short. So instead, I will help you to understand, if you don’t already, why Locust Street Taxi is the greatest band since Jefferson Airplane, I mean since Jefferson Starship, I mean since The Village People, no- since Oingo Boingo. On second thought, all those guys were pretty good. I’ll let you choose whom you think we are better than. Once you’ve figured it out let me know who it is.

Locust Street Taxi is comprised of three musical geniuses and a trombone player. Skeptics may scoff, but there is no other way to describe a band that can make grandmothers smile, children laugh, baby-boomers dance, college students spend money, middle-school students take up trombone, brides and grooms dance to The Muppet Show theme song, sound engineers remove their ear plugs, lady booking agents give up their phone numbers, Seattleites move their heads slightly, country music fans refrain from throwing beer, owners of ship-building shelters check their insurance policies, fifth-generation ska fans skank, swing-dancers dance in 7/4 time and radio DJs shout “Crack-a-lackin’!” I could go on all day, but then I would have to make some stuff up.

If you are not convinced, I hope you will come to a show and let us know what you think. Thank you very much for listening to LST. We are here because of you and also because Nathan needs his exercise and my wife told me to rock out. Hope you enjoy the show and stay hooked on LST forever.

Background

Locust Street Taxi began in 2001 in the music and theater departments of Centralia College in Centralia, WA.

LST has been compared to Barenaked Ladies, Sublime, They Might Be Giants, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Brave Combo.

The band is now based in four different cities around Puget Sound in Washington State.

LST has given 300 performances in six western states and has sold 4000 albums. The group has been featured on at least ten different Northwest radio and television stations.

The biggest single audience the group has appeared in front of was 10,000 people at “Night Glow” in Walla Walla, WA in 2009.

Band Members

Nathan Benjamin Geyer – TROMBONE, TRUMPET, HARMONICA, VOCALS
Nathan became a member of LST when Mario invited him to join the band without consulting the rest of the group first. Luckily, at the first rehearsal Nathan turned out to be pretty good – so we kept him. Mr. Geyer is a certified Music Educator and has completed many years of higher education, but he is most famous for being able to rap while wearing khaki shorts and white crew socks.

James Porter – BASS, VOCALS
James is a quiet character who can play both bass guitar and upright bass beautifully, as well as sing harmonies in tune, dance and compute fractals in his head all at the same time. He studied music and computers at the University of Washington and The Evergreen State College. He grew up in Port Townsend, WA – a friend of Sam’s since second grade. After James joined the band in April of 2010 we realized that Nathan had become the largest member of LST.

Franco Bertucci – GUITAR, VOCALS
Franco is Papa Taxi. He may look thin and haggard at times due to the high stress levels involved with keeping the band fed. Franco is not generally known as a guitar “shredder.” He is too introspective and self-conscious. However, while performing at a private party in 2007, a man named Jose Cuervo gave him some coaching and the band has never looked at Papa Taxi the same way since.

Sam Stockard DRUMS
Sam first played with LST in 2005 when Mario made him collect and wash rocks for use in our CD display. Very few drummers would have undergone such treatment, but Sam’s dedication to his art was such that he sportingly complied. We took Sam’s return to LST in 2008 to be a sign of great portent. A sign that perhaps, after all, we will not always be abandoned by the loudest member of our rhythm section. Sam’s playing, impressive to begin with, has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years – and so has his drum set.

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A few (but not all) former LST cabbies:

Mario Pesacreta TRUMPET, VOCALS
Mario may be the most passionate member of Locust Street Taxi. This is very evident in his trumpet playing. Papa Taxi has actually witnessed smoke issuing from the bell of Mario’s horn while performing on stage. This was no gimmick. As we understand it, this is a real phenomenon that sometimes occurs when notes are exiting the horn with such velocity that they cause friction, heating the metal to a point where it vaporizes any saliva or small insects that happen to come in contact with it. (Mario left LST to move to North Dakota with his wife and baby in early 2010.)

Andrew Chard – BASS
Hailing from Spokane, “Chard” joined LST in 2007. He possesses a very noble and generous spirit. Chard generally volunteers to shoulder the blame for any bad thing that happens to the band, even when it is Mario’s fault. Whether or not he receives pay from one of Mario’s uncles for this is unclear.  (Andrew Chard left the band near the end of the 2009 season. He will be very missed, but his soulful playing can be heard on the album, “Mr. Brown.”)

Darick Baker – BASS
Darick was a founding member of LST and performed with us through 2006. His bass lines were very original and beautifully composed and we still brag about him to the newer members of the band. He left LST to pursue a doctorate in physics. We don’t know if he is Doctor Darick yet, but he has lost some hair and we want to thank him for his great contributions to Locust Street Taxi and thereby to the world of music.