"Meet Endless Boogie, the best-kept secret in New York's rock scene. They have the best name (taken from John Lee Hooker's 1971 album), the best onstage vibe and the best head-nodding jams. In a sea of derivative and freshly outfitted young bands, Endless Boogie -- with a combined age of 169 and members who count Canned Heat as one of their influences -- doesn't have a big agenda. They just want to rock with you, preferably all night long. "We try boogie sometimes, but boogie's hard," says guitarist Jesper Eklow (aka "The Governor") self-effacingly. "Boogie takes skill and we haven't honed those skills yet." The band's sound is a meltdown of metal, psychedelic and classic rock with a heavy dose of riffage, a kick-ass beat and super-cryptic lyrics. It's thunderous and mellow at once. To put it another way, it goes well with beer.

Aside from Eklow, the band is made up of Paul Major (aka "Top Dollar," left) on guitar and vocals, Memories from Reno (right) on bass and Chris Gray (aka "Grease Control," second from right) on drums. Needless to say, their collective knowledge of music is so expansive it's a little scary. Endless Boogie played their first show in January of 2001 when their friend Steven Malkmus asked them to open for him at the Bowery Ballroom. Since then, they've been "working on improving." The band has two as-yet-untitled new albums coming out on Subliminal Sounds and No Quarter Records this summer."

Carol Lee, Papermag (2006)



"You don't have to be on board with the New York Mets to appreciate their rock & roll tradition. For instance, did you know that Art Shamsky & Lou Reed were tight bros back in the day? Or that the seed money to finance the legendary Watkins Glen Festival was fronted by an investment group called JM Partners, who were none other than Jon Matlack & John Milner? They say that Hojo wore his lucky Antietam t-shirt all through the '86 NLCS & World Series. Look what happened! And by now it's pretty common knowledge that Mike Piazza liked to listen to everything from Queen to Klaus Nomi before & after games. If your a fan like Belle & Sebastian, these kinda stats are gonna make ya wanna wave a towel. For fans like Endless Boogie, they're gonna snap it.

Grease Control, Top Dollar, Memories From Reno & The Guvernor......four dudes that deal in manly vibes & tasty action. And serious Mets fans to boot. One of'em even looks like Dave Kingman! For them, practice is as much about listenin to the game as it is carryin a tune. If John McGraw was runnin the music business, Endless Boogie'd be pokin Eric Clapton & THe Rolling Stones w/the shit end of the stick. But alas, that ain't the case. And not because of this injustice, they recorded & released two stupendous lp's of highly fortified improvisational rock slather that less than a thousand people have had the chance to own. How many of the under privileged follow the Mets is unknown but let me tell you this; If Pete Rose had slid into Endless Boogie instead of Bud Harrelson in game 3 of the '73 NL Playoffs he'd be in the Hall Of Fame now. Because he'd be dead! And another thing; when Endless Boogie were born, the nurse looked at'em & said' Oh my God, it's Endless Boogie' & slept with them. At that point she had become the 3rd woman to sleep with Endless Boogie. Talk about chops! You don't get that kinda virility w/a shot from Balco.

Amex holders bandy around names like Coloured Balls, Groundhogs & Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac when they describe the Endless Boogie sound. ATMers mention Thin Lizzy, Foghat & the like. Someone w/a Discover card chimed in w/the Velvets. I dunno, listenin to Humble Pie's 'Live At Fillmore East' the other day I thought of'em. Not a cent on me either! So what's that say? Well, like any good team they're aware of those who've preceeded them. Their rock is solid & fundamental & they can stroke it both in & outside the park. Like the old man said "The team with the most runs wins the game" & Endless Boogie put up a lot of fuckin runs.

And it works well in the live setting too. There's no head swagger or dramatic facial contortions. The strategy is straight ahead, pitch'em knee high & inside 'n back it up by hittin it where they ain't. Someone recently opined to me that they weren't the most exciting band to watch live. Alls I can say to that is neither were Television & people won't stop talkin about them! As far as I'm concerned, Tom Verlaine could be a Yankees fan, but I don't care enough to look at Legs McNeil's MySpace page to find out for sure. Waiter, check please!

So like I said before, gettin their records might be a chore. Fortunately for all of us, Brian Turner had the good sense to invite'em on his WFMU show towards the end've last yr. You can check out their sonic snarl in his archives at www.wfmu.org

Or if stubborn's your bag, you can see what might be available vinyl-wise at www.fusetronsound.com"

from http://siltblog.blogspot.com/ (2006)


"“Maybe it’s not a good thing, but we’re pretty jaded,” says Jesper Eklow of his band Endless Boogie. It’s a strange comment. When I think of Endless Boogie, I think of frontman Paul Major standing at the front of the small stage at New York’s Mercury Lounge as a 15 minute jam winds down. His guitar hangs free from his neck, his hair is cut across his eyes like Cat Power in the front and it hangs below his waist in back. He’s at a slight angle to the audience, one foot forward, just looking out over the cheering club crowd, nodding his head and smiling, almost egging everyone into more applause with that slow, confident nodding. No band has ever seemed so joyful; no band has ever seemed less jaded.

Of course what’s fantastic about Endless Boogie is that no band has ever needed to play rock & roll so little and so much simultaneously. “The only older band collectively in New York is Sonic Youth,” Major says. All four members of Endless Boogie have music industry-related day jobs, including bass player Mark Ohe and drummer Chris Gray. Eklow works at Matador Records. Major is one of the preeminent record collectors in the universe, and has supported himself as such for two decades now. The band’s first rule is that they never play a show unless they’re asked to. They started the band in 1997. Their first gig was in 2001.

Whatever rock & roll fantasies Eklow had as a 16 year-old record store clerk in Sweden—or whatever flights of fancy Major had when he was a kid buying acid rock records in the bins at a K-Mart in Kentucky—are now smeared with too much experience. They’ve all nine-to-fived and buy-sell-traded too many records worth too much money to believe in the romantic ideal of The Dream. If 18 year-olds starting a band are like excited kids trying to get to sleep on Christmas Eve, the guys in Endless Boogie are like weary parents who have to set their alarms and get up to stuff the stockings. “It was just supposed to be an old man hobby,” Eklow says. “Get together on Tuesday nights and have fun.” It still kind of is, but they just put out two limited, hand-numbered 12-inches. They’ve been asked to play more shows. And there they were onstage that night at the Mercury, jamming a single murky riff for minutes and minutes on end, grimacing, nodding, buggalooing like Beefheart and soaking up every last bit of the applause."

Will Welch, The Fader (2007)