Bionic Squid

If Funkadelic and Thievery Corporation had a bastard love child that grew up listening to Pink Floyd, their new favorite band would be Bionic Squid. With this funky instrumental quartet, every show is a psychedelic dance party — soaring guitars and keyboards swimming through a cascading soundscape over driving grooves from drums and bass.

If Funkadelic and Thievery Corporation had a bastard love child that grew up listening to Pink Floyd, their new favorite band would be Bionic Squid. With this funky instrumental quartet, every show is a psychedelic dance party — soaring guitars and keyboards swimming through a cascading soundscape over driving grooves from drums and bass.

Together, these four bring decades of deep musical history and an instinct for the spontaneous.

Pete Novembre (OM Trio, Coffee Zombie Collective, Aza, Elephino) is the kind of bass player other musicians talk about after the show — a Santa Cruz readers' poll Bronze medalist for Best Musician whose pocket runs deep enough to get lost in. Keyboardist Josh Salesin (Crate Diggers, Funk Ur Soul, Plan B, Way Out West) blends jazz, blues, and funk with Hammond B3 fire and jam-band soul, igniting original improvised grooves with grit, grease, and unfiltered exploration. Guitarist Mike Johnson (Crate Diggers, Cosmic Pinball, Kavah Jah) has fingers that find the spaces between the notes where the blues actually lives — coaxing raw, smoldering tone from his guitar like he's pulling confessions out of it. Every bend drips with grit, every sustain hangs in the air just long enough to hurt. Drummer Bret Bailey (Shady Groove, Elephino, BlissNinnies, Cosmic Pinball) was raised on the funky gumbo of New Orleans music and never lost the recipe — his deep-pocket rhythmic intuition is the pulse the whole band breathes around.

With a mix of original jams and covers, Bionic Squid will take you on a voyage to the depths and keep you dancing like an octopus hailing a taxi.