REAX Tropical Heatwave Recap

by James Ferreira

Greymarket didn’t disappoint. Their hauntingly captivating progressive style won over the growing crowd, and a sharp version of “Sirens” brought a smile to at least one aging music writer’s face.

The Best of Tropical Heatwave 2010

In addition to his standard stage and drum dives during a typically wicked set, GreyMarket singer-guitarist L. Cave McCoy leaped from the Crowbar stage onto the pool table, several feet away, to wail on his guitar during Hey Mr. Spaceman. Let’s hope his rocksmanship didn’t lead to any irregularities in the felt.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/tbt/2010/05/the-best-of-tropical-heatwave-2010-alejandro-escovedo-jason-ricci-two-man-gentleman-band-and-more.html

“GreyMarket took the stage next. The two piece band featuring Cave McCoy (Guitar/Vocals), and Mike Gargiolo (Drums/Laptop) have been gaining popularity opening for many national acts visiting the bay in recent years. Their blend of tight, electronic driven rock, incredibly skilled musicianship, and catchy pop melodies made them a solid entry in the night’s festivities.”

Review and photos: tbt*’s Ultimate Music Showcase takes over Skipper’s Smokehouse

If I told you there was a concert Saturday in Tampa featuring Muse, Metric and Bright Eyes, you’d have flipped out. That’s a killer lineup, right?

Well, that concert didn’t happen. But the local equivalents of those bands — GreyMarket (Muse), above, Sons of Hippies (Metric), and the Grecian Urns (Bright Eyes, but happier) — did all share the same stage Saturday night at the tbt* Ultimate Music Showcase in Tampa.

GreyMarket — who had the neat idea of letting fans pick their setlist — brought the biggest fan base of the night, and delivered a typically sweaty, incendiary performance, complete with killer light show. They’ve spent a ton of time touring the East Coast and Midwest over the past year, and all that stage experience shows.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/tbt/2010/04/review-and-photos-tbts-ultimate-music-showcase-takes-over-skippers-smokehouse.html

GreyMarket to play the Nick

Tim Melton, Senior Staff Writer
Published On: 03/22/2010

Electronic two-piece from Tampa delivers powerful performance on latest album ‘Some Orbits Will Never Decay’

GreyMarket is a two-member band that will be performing in Birmingham at the Nick on March 24th. The duo hails from Tampa, Florida and specializes in electronic rock.

When seeing the album art for “Some Orbits Will Never Decay” for the first time, the listener will feel as if they are going to be experiencing a futuristic sound with a modern twist which is misleading in a positive sense.

GreyMarket succeeds in what other bands tend to fail at: abundant originality. Their sound is highly addictive without reinventing the wheel. The first four tracks of “Some Orbits Will Never Decay” will hook new listeners into the appealing tempo set early in the album.

The opening track “Lightyear Song” is one of the albums most recognizable with an instantly enjoyable ratio of tempo. The follow-up track “Waterworks”, reinforces the strong vocal performance with hooking instrumental work.

Even though the band has an electronic feel, its sound is truly motivated by its rock expression and GreyMarket prides itself in telling a story with every song which gives the album a sense of lyrical cinematography.

Lead vocalist and guitarist, Cave McCoy, is strong throughout the entire album delivering his greatest performance through a powerful falsetto. The vocals go hand-in-hand with powerful drumming from Michael Gargiulo. The album does a great job in track layout, balancing the mood with a diligent sense of pacing.

GreyMarket is known as a fan-favorite for their visually impressive live shows.

Hopefully their stop in Birmingham will be no different.

If you can’t make the show, get this album. “Some Orbits Will Never Decay” does not disappoint and may change opinions about the future of electronic rock.

For more information about their upcoming show at The Nick on March 24th, visit www.greymarketband.com.

http://www.uab.edu/kscope/kaleidoscope-article-2204.html

GreyMarket: Lights, laptops and a supermassive sound

(All this week, we’re spotlighting tbt*’s 2010 Ultimate Local Artists on Soundcheck. Today: GreyMarket.)

The first time you see GreyMarket in concert, it’s tough to comprehend what you’re seeing.

What’s with the semi-formal outfits? And the spaceship logo? And the otherworldly light show? And the furious onslaught of sound?

And how is all of it coming from just two guys and a laptop?

“It’s funny how many interviews we have where we’re asked, ‘How the f— do you do all this?’” laughed drummer Mike Gargiulo. “It’s a recurring theme, which is funny. We’re not magic.”

You wouldn’t know it from the band’s evolution over the past year. Ever since their blazing set at Tropical Heatwave ’09, Gargiulo and singer-guitarist L. Cave McCoy have landed an ever-more-impressive series of gigs, touring the east coast and midwest and opening for bands like the Hold Steady and Fiery Furnaces.

Their sound — an epic wave of guitars, sci-fi electronics and McCoy’s falsetto wail — is best experienced through their fireball of a live show, which has earned the band comparisons to Radiohead, Muse and Led Zeppelin. Last fall, a music writer in St. Louis wrote: “This is arena-sized rock on a small stage … but not for long.”

GreyMarket gelled together a few years ago, when Gargiulo, then a mass comm student at the University of South Florida, was in a band with another guitarist. McCoy, an engineering student, signed up to play bass based on a flyer at USF (among the directives: “Don’t sound like Creed”). Eventually the guitarist left, and McCoy assumed the creative reins of the band.

For a couple of years, they played together while auditioning musicians from all over Tampa Bay to sing or play guitar or keyboards. But every time, the band’s sound, vision and direction came right back down to Gargiulo and McCoy, who was coming into his own as a songwriter.

“I don’t think any band can really work unless there’s somebody who’s going to sit down and take some sort of creative dictatorship role,” said McCoy, who writes and composes all the band’s music electronically, before adding his own guitar and vocals and Gargiulo’s drums. “Somebody has to see the greater concept of what the song’s going to be about and where it’s going to go; otherwise it’s just a meandering set of parts, and you’re a jam band.”

Ultimately, Gargiulo and McCoy decided they didn’t need a third member. What they couldn’t play live themselves, they would simply add in as a pre-recorded track on a laptop, a la the Ting Tings.

“It wasn’t just a novelty thing and it wasn’t because we had no choice,” McCoy said. “There were really cool opportunities that opened up through being able to use a laptop, doing all this electronic stuff.”

“If we want to play with a choir, we can do that,” Gargiulo said. “If we want to play with a 20-piece orchestra, we can do that.”

What makes their live performances even more exotic is that every song is set to a professional-quality light show, which showers the stage in beams of gold and green and fuchsia. It started, Gargiulo said, because “nobody else was doing a light show, (and) it eventually just escalated.” Through lots of trial and error, the band has gotten better at programming the lights, but it’s still a painstaking process, taking at least two or three hours per song.

But it’s worth the extra effort, they said. They can’t picture GreyMarket any other way.

“We have a very specific idea of what we think is cool,” McCoy said. “The expression goes that you can’t create in a vacuum, but we do our best, with the goal of trying to make something that is totally our own.”

– Jay Cridlin, tbt*. Photo: Luis Santana, tbt*.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/tbt/2010/03/greymarket-lights-laptops-and-a-supermassive-sound.html

GreyMarket reigns supreme

Monday, March 15, 2010

Michael Gargiulo and Cave McCoy know how to put on a show.

Looking for a band to follow to the top? You may have found it in GreyMarket, who performed last Monday night at the Riot Room on Broadway.

Though three bands played 30-minute sets, GreyMarket stood out and was certainly successful in making a positive impression with a polished and perfectly executed sound.

They are like an electronic rock hybrid compound of Muse, The Mars Volta, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Thermals.

After listening to and enjoying their album “Some Orbits Will Never Decay,” I learned there were only two members (Cave McCoy and Michael Gargiulo) to this band and I became apprehensive of the notion of hearing a live performance.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that with just the two of them and their laptop, their live performance outshined the rest of the bands playing that night.

Energy that exploded on stage and a custom light show made it an exciting act.

Another aspect of the night I appreciated was the fact that they didn’t creep around trying to shove as much swag into attendee’s faces as they could.

Sure, every dime helps, but these guys are their own PR?powerhouse; personable and interested in making as many contacts as possible.

It isn’t everyday you see a band that puts so much hard work into every detail of a performance. This is an attention to detail that does not go unnoticed and will benefit immensely in the long run.

If GreyMarket returns to Kansas City, I will without a doubt be there and I suggest you do the same.

http://www.podcastfearless.com/nmb/index.php?id=722

Or download the MP3 here: Fearless Radio Podcast 09.22.09

GreyMarket*—Without a doubt, this Tampa electronic-rock duo wore the crown of the fest. We loved their submission so much we invited them to also play the kickoff party Wednesday night…and that’s all she wrote. Who could have believed two guys would make such a production? Cave McCoy plays guitar and sings lead; Mike Gargiulo plays drums and sings backup, and a handy little laptop provides the preprogrammed parts. Stage lights dimmed, the duo bring their own lights-and more energy than your typical five-piece. With one of the greatest high/falsetto voices I’ve heard, McCoy also shreds on guitar. When the moment captures him-and let’s be honest; it often does-he jumps from the stage, sliding and wailing and playing his heart out. As the guys describe it, this is arena-sized rock on a small stage…but not for long. I caught parts or all of their other two performances—one scheduled, one last-minute fill-in—and never felt anything less than transported.

http://www.playbackstl.com/content/view/9060/158/

Best Alt Rock Duo – GreyMarket

Two smartly dressed, energetic guys — Michael Gargiulo on drums, laptop and backup vocals, and Cave McCoy on lead vocals, guitar and pedals — make more rock-your-face-off noise than bands with twice the amount of members, and they even have a quaint little light show to go with it.

Thank you Creative Loafing!

http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/page?oid=792428