Thought You Knew

Meet NYLOC REX & Doctor Knox.

Two siblings who found their own ways in musical composition and performance. Their motivation was instigated by the love of family, friends and environment. Their education came from the fine arts, literature, science, mathematics, comedy, tragedy, history, and of course, music. Doctor Knox went through the rigorous training of Berkeley College of Music, in Boston. He graduated, despite a 90% dropout rate. NYLOC REX began piano lessons at age 4, which he continued for ten years until he decided he knew enough to teach himself. Currently, Doctor Knox has a house on Martha’s Vineyard, where he lives and plays. NYLOC REX has limited his possessions to a backpack, and his home is anywhere under the sky, but you’ll probably find him, or not, down in South America for a while.

Doctor Knox is the older of the brothers, by ten years. As such, he has always been a source of wisdom and musical influence for NYLOC REX. Even though the album is dead, these two brothers decided to band together and make an album, trying to bring it back. They loved music from all genres; thus their composition represents a wide variety of music, and there is a song here for everyone. Also, by leaping genres, from hip hop to folk, they are able to introduce people to music that was not accessible to them before. This album is very unique in its generation gap of a decade. But, their teachers are the great people of all ages, spanning centuries.

Their inspiration came from:

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Copernicus, Galileo, Da Vinci, Newton, Johan Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wolfgang Puck, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Holden Caulfield, Duke Ellington, Einstein, Howard Hughes,  Hugh Hefner, Ozzy Osbourne, Marshal Mathers, Napoleon, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Richard Starkey, Christian & Pam Newcomer, Joe & Alice Phillips, Neener, Timmy, Baby Doll, Jeff Beck, Jimi Page, Eric Clapton, Eric Shoenberg, Martin, Fender, Rickenbacker, Winston Churchill, Abe Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Orson Wells, H.G. Wells, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Abbot & Costello, Ernie & Bert, Earnest Shackleton, Sir Edmond Hillary, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, Lorne Michaels, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Akroyd, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtain, Lorraine Newman, Bill Murray, Kids In The Hall, Spinal Tap, The Mills Brothers, James Bond, John McClain...

Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Bukowski, John P. Alexander, Tupac Shakur, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Larry McMurtry, Frederic Chopin, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Wu-Tang Clan, Christopher Rupe...

No list we could make would be complete.

But one man deserves special mention. This is a man, a true pioneer, who questioned all of the premises of western music to find his own way in this world of notes and rhythms. With his radical use of tambourine, harmonica, whistling, and alternative guitar tunings, he broke all the rules of music, western or eastern, following only the one true rule, which is to play and sing your heart out. He truly inspired these two brothers to make an album, and so they have. This man is John P. Alexander, singer, songwriter, band. His album, Just Another Happy Pirate at Sand Dune, is only for the very brave adventurers who fear not the epic quests required of heroes.

But in the end, NYLOC REX and Doctor Knox are just two happy pirates at sand dune.

Thought You Knew.