Piñataland

Piñataland is a Brooklyn-based musical group created by David Wechsler and Doug Stone. Their instrumentation has a distinctly old-world feel, and their songs are often about unusual, often forgotten, historical events, including: Mathias Rust's 1989 flight from West Germany to Red Square, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the turn of the century execution of an Elephant at New York's, Coney Island, among others.

The scope of their first full length album, Songs for the Forgotten Future: Volume 1, covers decades and continents, and uses a variety of different instruments. In their stage shows, members of Piñataland have played, and been accompanied by, an electric guitar and bass, an accordion, a violin, a steel guitar, a piano, a sousaphone, and a full rock and roll drum kit.

Although their style and subject matter could be described as old fashioned, the band does not consider themselves as such, Dave Wechsler mentions in an interview with Garageband.com, "We're not old-timey purists at all... What we want is to sound modern - except with these instruments, and with songs about pygmies and railroads." [1]. That said, the band has consistently sought to play venues with historical significance, they have performed at the American Museum of Natural History, a loading dock at the New York Times Building, the Atlantic Avenue Subway Tunnel, the chapel at Green-Wood Cemetery, the Thomas Edison Historical site, and Coney Island[2]. They have also performed at more traditional music venues such as Barbes, Joe's pub, and the (now-shuttered) Fez. They are currently recording a second album, entitled Songs for the Forgotten Future: Volume 2, which will be released in the Fall/Winter of 2007.

Discography

Piñataland - EP
Songs from Konijn Kok - EP
Songs for the Forgotten Future: volume 1

links

http://www.garageband.com/artist/pinataland [3]
http://www.pinataland.com [4]