Biography

Can trans-techno-fired guitar instrumentals co-exist with ambient sound collages featuring the likes of American literary great Henry Miller and intimate DADGAD-tuned vocal ballads straight out of the Nick Drake/John Martyn playbook? They can and do on “Sketches of Spam,” the 16-track, 69-minute, genre-surfing debut release from Spaghetti Eastern Music (Bad Egg Records, 30003), the solo project of New York-based guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Sal Cataldi.

Cataldi’s much-varied sound is the product of an insatiable musical soul and a record collection rivaling the Smithsonian’s. This debut album is an hour-plus journey through contrasting moods, with instrumentals inspired by 70’s Miles, Krautrock, Ennio Morricone, Bhangra, Fripp & Eno and ECM’s icy guitar great Terje Rypdal giving way to bare-bones acoustic vocal tunes – ones oft anchored on unusual tunings, with narratives that chart the course of difficult loves, in styles that range from Brit Folk to Bossa Nova.

Spaghetti Eastern Music has received consistent critical raves, for live performances and the selective release of early mixes of works now fully realized on this debut disc. Time Out New York writes: "Cataldi's largely instrumental, Eastern-influenced jams are infused with some delicate guitar work and hauntingly moody atmosphere." Newsday adds: “Mad scientist-guitarist-keyboardist Cataldi brings da funk and throws it in a mixer with electronica, bebop and blues,” while The New York Times adds “the funk-tinged original instrumentals and acoustic vocal tunes have a beat unmistakably his own.” Called “truly excellent” by The Village Voice, “triumphantly funkified” by UPI, “a stimulating soloist” by The New York Press and “a jazz virtuoso without the need to prove it” by Aquarian Weekly. East Coast Rocker/Rolling Stone writer John Swenson, the man who penned the liner notes to Frank Zappa’s “Shut Up n Play Yer Guitar,” may have put it best, “he’s the hippie guitarist playing to another dimension.”

The authority on all things Beatles, The Beatles Examiner recently praised the album’s “ sharp soaring guitar jams” and called the distinctive cover of “Ticket to Ride,” “incredible, a wonderfully moody re-imagining” of the Lennon classic. Huffington Post dubs it “the perfect soundtrack for New York City life,” while WFMU’s Irene Trudel calls it “charming melodic and off-center,” while popular Zappa fan sites Idiot **** and United Mutations gave raves to his reinvention of “Sleep Dirt,” a Zappa acoustic instrumental rarity, which appears on the CD as “Nap Dust.” The album is now enjoy airplay on radio including WFUV’s “Mixed Bag,” SiriusXM, WFMU, Oakland’s KALX, NYC-area college station including WCWP and WHPC and many more. The CD’s title is a lighthearted tribute to Miles Davis’ atmospheric classic, “Sketches of Spain,” one ripe for this digital overload and lunchmeat age!

Sal’s other current project, Hari Karaoke Trio of Doom, is a duo co-lead with Kansas City-based drummer D. Hitchcock, which includes guest appearances by legends like Eno/Brand X bassist Percy Jones. HKToD has released two critically acclaimed discs, “Escape Velocity” (1999) and “Geolago” (2002). Collector, Cataldi’s former “heavy metal bebop quartet,” released another genre-leaping critic’s fave, the all-instrumental “Almost Live” in (1999). Both of these bands have performed frequently in New York and beyond, at progressive clubs like the Knitting Factory.

As guitarist, Cataldi is also remembered for the role he played in one of the most popular, kamikaze bands of the early-to-mid-90s downtown scene, the “clown pop princes of Brooklyn,” Frank’s Museum. This band was a popular attraction at New York-area clubs including CBGB, The Ritz, Tramps, Coney Island High, Lone Star Road House and Maxwell’s in Hoboken. Cataldi’s guitar work and songwriting with the Museum can be found on four Brooklyn Beat compilations and two full-length CDs, “Den of Antiquity” (1992) and “Make Coffee, Not War” (1993)..Cataldi was also featured on the 2010 release of Rhy Chatham’s 200 guitar, Crimson Grail (Nonesuch) Live at Lincoln Center. Also forthcoming is a CD of music set to the poetry of Alaskan Mark Muro and New Yorker Bill Lessard called “Vapor Vespers.”