Grooms

Biography by Jeremy Shulkin Brooklyn band Grooms formed when Travis Johnson, Emily Ambruso, and Gabriel Wurzel changed their band's name from Muggabears in the spring of 2009. Starting with the standard vocals/guitar/bass/drums lineup and adding bursts of reverb and distortion, Grooms' music contains Polvo-esque jagged frenzy, the winding guitar lines of Pavement, and Sonic Youth's washes of noise -- often all within the same song. In October of 2009 the band released its first album, Rejoicer, a ten-song full-length, on the effects pedal company Death by Audio's record label (in whose factory Johnson worked, and in whose next-door music venue Ambruso used to work). In 2010 Grooms played the South by Southwest music festival in March, and in June drummer Wurzel left, replaced by Jim Sykes (Marnie Stern, Parts & Labor). Grooms also switched to the Kanine record label (which re-released Rejoicer) and headed into the studio in September to record their second full-length, which was slated for a February 2011 release.