Beats Antique

  • Oakland, CA
    hometown
  • World/Reggae
    genre
  • 2007
    started
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About Beats Antique


Beats Antique came together to make music for Miles Copeland's Bellydance Superstars extravaganzas. The trio is composed of David Satori (guitar, saz, viola, and percussion), Sidecar Tommy Cappel (keys, toy piano, drums, and percussion), and Zoë Jakes (belly dancer, composer, and arranger). Their music incorporates Middle Eastern grooves, Balkan wedding music, flamenco, French Gypsy jazz, hip-hop, dub reggae, and other Eastern tonalities, all pulled together with electronica that won't put off club kids, but will appeal to world music lovers as well. All of the bandmembers have a long history of innovative music-making behind them.

David Satori was born in Burlington, VT, on June 6, 1979. He started playing guitar at the age of 12 after hearing his brother Michael pick up the instrument. At 17 he was playing with an experimental high-school garage band called Bubble Tribe while attending Burlington High School. His brother Mike played bass, he took up drums, and the lead instrument was an electric banjo played by a neighborhood virtuoso who was interested in exploring the odder sounds the instrument could make. When he was older, he picked up his grandfather's violin to learn Gypsy fiddle music as well as Indian and Middle Eastern styles. He discovered a connection between the music of North Africa and Mali, which fed his curiosity for world music.

After high school, Satori attended the California Institute of the Arts near Los Angeles and earned a B.A. in music performance and composition. There he was exposed to more world music, and during his last years at CIA he founded an experimental instrumental quartet called the Funnies. They toured in an "eco-bus" that ran on recycled vegetable oil, and they put out two albums, The Funnies and Masters of the Universe. In 2003, Satori moved to San Francisco to joined the ten-piece Afro-beat ensemble Aphrodesia. He toured the U.S. with them and was part of their epic trip to Nigeria, traveling West Africa in another eco-bus. The trip culminated in a performance at the New Shrine in Lagos, built by Femi Kuti, son of legendary Afro-beat progenitor Fela Kuti. Kuti sat in with the band and inspired its 2007 album, Lagos by Bus, which Satori produced.

In 2007, Satori was in L.A. again dating belly dancer Zoë Jakes. She introduced him to Miles Copeland, her boss at the Bellydance Superstars show. Satori produced the music for an instructional belly dance DVD by Rachel Brice. Copeland was impressed and asked about an album of modern belly dance music. Satori suggested a fusion of electronic experimental music and traditional belly dance tunes. Copeland gave him the green light and Beats Antique decamped to a recording studio to produce their first album, Tribal Derivations. Jakes knew Sidecar Tommy from the Yard Dogs Road Show, a traveling hippie circus, and brought him into the band.

Tommy Cappel was born in Fairfax, VA, in 1973. Both his parents were music teachers, so he grew up surrounded by music. His brother played drums to heavy metal records. Cappel was driven by the beat and eventually took over his brother's drum kit. By age six he was playing in a rock band with his friends, and in high school he picked up piano, percussion, marimba, and timpani. He added his father's jazz records to the collection of prog rock LPs he borrowed from his brother to expand his musical vocabulary. When he discovered the funky New Orleans rhythms of the Meters, he knew he was going to be a musician for the rest of his life.

In the '90s, Cappel attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, aiming for a degree in studio drumming. He studied New Orleans jazz, bebop, modern jazz, and world music. One of his teachers was transcribing African and Arab drumming patterns to drum kit and Cappel lent a hand and learned much about non-jazz rhythm patterns. He started digging into hip-hop, Balkan music, Arab music, and Latin rhythms. After graduation he moved to New York and played in rock, jazz, reggae, and jam bands. He attended the free music jams at the Bell, a café in downtown Manhattan frequented by people like Karsh Kale and the members of Bill Laswell's gang. This led to experiments in combining live music with hip-hop and dub reggae effects. When a group of musicians he knew moved out to San Francisco, he joined them. In San Francisco he began producing hip-hop artists and electronic dance music. He joined the the Yard Dogs Road Show and hit it off with Jakes, who invited him to join Beats Antique.

Tribal Derivations was produced to complement Jakes' unique dance style, an innovative blend of traditional and tribal belly dance with tango, break dance, and Indian dance. On Collide, the trio stretched out in other directions. The San Francisco scene is a hotbed of cross-pollinating multicultural ensembles and the band ranged far and wide across North Africa and the Middle East for inspiration. Musicians from the Balkan punk band Brass Menazeri added delirious horn parts to complement a mélange of French Gypsy jazz violin, flamenco handclapping, Romanian wedding music, hip-hop, jazz, dub reggae, and more. They started laying down tracks for their next album in early 2009, and with a name like Beats Antique they're only limited by their imaginations. The band says that ragtime, Hawaiian, blues, and other archaic musics are all liable to find their way into future releases. ~ j. poet, Rovi

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Photos

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News

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  • Beats Antique
    TV On The Radio, Bassnectar, Deer Tick, Beats Antique, Break Science with Chali 2naSet for SnowBall
    www.jambands.com
    The 2012 SnowBall Music Festival has confirmed its lineup. SnowBall will take place from March 2-4 2012 at Nottingham Park in Avon, CO. The roster of ...
    Read More
  • Beats Antique
    Electric Forest Adds Beats Antique, Papadosio, GRiZ and More
    www.jambands.com
    Beats Antique, Papadosio, GRiZ and Nadis Warriors have joined the lineup for the second annual Electric Forest festival. The electronic music fest wil...
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  • Beats Antique
    Beats Antique, 7 Walkers, Conspirator, OTT, Tipper and More to Play Gnarnia
    www.jambands.com
    Beech Mountain, NC will host the The Festival of Gnarnia from August 9-22. With an emphasis on electronic and improvisational music and Burning Man-in...
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  • Beats Antique
    STS9, Beats Antique, Papadosio and More Join North Coast Festival
    www.jambands.com
    STS9, Beats Antique and Papadosio are among the latest additions to Chicago's North Coast Music Festival. The late summer festival will take place in ...
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  • Beats Antique
    Beats Antique, Apparat, Random Rab and More to Play The Great Convergence in Egypt
    www.jambands.com
    Beats Antique, Apparat, Random Rab, Bluetech, and Gaudi are among the artists slated to perform The Great Covergence, taking place December 20-22 at t...
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  • Beats Antique
    Beats Antique Spring Tour Dates
    www.jambands.com
    Beats Antique have confirmed a series of tour dates for the spring. The trio will begin their run on April 20 in Bend, OR before making stops in Nashv...
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  • Beats Antique
    Yonder Mountain String Band, John Butler Trio, Beats Antique, The Werks, Lettuce and More Join All Good
    www.jambands.com
    Yonder Mountain String Band, John Butler Trio, Beats Antique, The Werks and Lettuce are among the latest additions to the annual All Good Music and Ca...
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  • Beats Antique
    Global Dance Festival: Beats Antique, EOTO, Emancipator, Gramatik
    www.jambands.com
    Beats Antique, Eoto, Emancipator, Zoogma, Mimosa, Savoy, Gramatik and more will be at the 11th annual Global Dance Festival. The event will take place...
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  • Beats Antique
    Beats Antique, GAUDI, DrFameus, Bonus Kung Fu and More Confirmed for The Big Up
    www.jambands.com
    Beats Antique, GAUDI, The Egg and Disco Biscuits side-project DrFameus have joined the lineup for The Big Up festival. As previously reported, The Big...
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  • Beats Antique
    The Bounce Festival: Beats Antique, GRiZ, Mark Farina, BoomBox and More
    www.jambands.com
    Beats Antique, GRiZ, BoomBox, Mark Farina, Rob Garza (of Thievery Corporation), Break Science and more will be at the fifth annual The Bounce Festival...
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Tour Dates

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  • Jun 20 Thursday
    Belden, CA, US Unknown venue
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  • Jun 27 Thursday
    Rothbury, MI, US Double JJ Ranch & Golf Resort
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  • Jun 28 Friday
    Windham, VT, US Timber Ridge
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  • Jul 19 Friday
    Morrison, CO, US Red Rocks Amphitheatre
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  • Jul 19 Friday
    Morrison, CO, US Red Rocks Amphitheatre
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  • Aug 8 Thursday
    Claverack, NY, US Hemlock Hollow Farm
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  • Aug 9 Friday
    Somerset, WI, US Somerset Amphitheater
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  • Aug 9 Friday
    Somerset, WI, US Somerset Ampitheater
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  • Aug 31 Saturday
    Seattle, WA, US Seattle Center
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Discography

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  • Contraption, Vol. 2 (2012)
    Beats Antique
    Contraption, Vol. 2 (2012)
    Antique Records
  • Elektrafone (2011)
    Beats Antique
    Elektrafone (2011)
  • Blind Threshold                                                             (2010)
    Beats Antique
    Blind Threshold (2010)
    Audio & Video Labs, Inc.
  • Contraption, Vol. 1 (2009)
    Beats Antique
    Contraption, Vol. 1 (2009)
    CD Baby
  • Collide (2008)
    Beats Antique
    Collide (2008)
    CIA/Copeland
  • Tribal Derivations (2007)
    Beats Antique
    Tribal Derivations (2007)
    CIA
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