Lunar Stew Trio: Bio
Lunar Stew Trio
Lunar Stew Trio believes in the principals of the Sixties...Peace, Love, Understanding, and lots of great music.
The ‘Tipster’, is a veteran of many bands including the well-loved 'Tribal Stew'. Jeff is originally from P.A. and plays electric and acoustic guitars plus writing many of the band’s wonderful songs. A former drummer, the Tipster has a unique grasp of rhythm, plays amazing solos, and he also sings lead and backup vocals.
‘Uncle brother’ has been touring the east coast for over 20 years as a musical raconteur. Originally from Los Angeles this “little angel” writes unique songs with twists that delight. Playing bass and the fool, he sings lead and back-up vocals. U.b. has shared stages with Tom Chapin, Mary Chapin-Carpenter and The Impressions to name but a few.
Special Ed is a DC area native and the youngster of the group. Influenced by Peter Rivera of Rare Earth (and now a friend), he has played with the Classic Rock All Stars and been a member of bands like ‘The Obsessed’ and the ‘Regulators.’ Awesome drumming is his specialty as is adding tasty harmonies to the Stew.
Lunar Stew Trio plays a variety of music not often associated with one group. Their exciting original songs have been compared to a mix between The Grateful Dead and Hootie & the Blowfish, meets Third Eye Blind and Rusted Root. Their influences range from Harold Arlen to Frank Zappa. The Stew blends tasty harmonies and timely songs and steeps them in wild jamming Roots Rock and Reggae rhythms.
Lunar Stew Trio has released ’A Bowl of Lunar Stew’, this is their second all original album of 14 exciting new tunes. More fun than puppies, their first self-titled album is still available (for a limited time) at shows and on-line.
The Tipster
The Tipster lived a charmed childhood in a small town in Pennsylvania. In spite of living above a pet store and being able to run the streets with relative low risk, he still managed to suffer. He struggled with a small town country club environment that embraced the sex and drugs part of the counterculture and all but forgot the progressive social values that went along with it . At the time, he studied both and embraced the brotherhood and social justice of the antiwar movement, the civil rights struggle, feminism, and the music that went along with them. “Today”, he laments, “the politics are even worse but the graphics are better”.
The Tipster’s professional career began in 1970 when he made 20 bucks at a high school dance playing drums with a local rock band. It was through this experience that the Tipster contracted “Musicians’ Disease” and began a long journey of writing, performing, teaching and recording music. After ‘74, the Tipster switched instruments and began teaching and playing guitar professionally. His move to West Virginia in ‘94 came when his recording studio business, 4-Winds Studios, found better digs in Hedgesville.
After over 30 years of performing, the list of rock bands he has played with includes the Leftovers, Tumblin’ Run, Thunder Rose, Sidestreet, and Ghost Dancer (when he was located in Pennsylvania) and Tribal Stew in West Virginia. His current band, Lunar Stew, began performing in 2002. Their first CD, Self Titled, was released in 2004 and their second CD, A Bowl of Lunar Stew, was released in 2006. Lunar Stew continues to hide in the hollars of WV, gigging practically anywhere with a solar panel and some batteries, and recording at Lunarstewdios in Hedgesville. On the Web at: www. lunarstew.com
The Tipster has been writing songs since the 70’s and Lunar Stew performs many Tipster originals. The songs come in various styles, grooves, and formats but all try to convey the underlying principles of tolerance, understanding, justice, and equality for all. According to the Tipster, “the way to help create a world without war for our children is to love one another. So remember to just say no to politicians and religious fanatics trying to start another war.” After all, they do call him the Tipster.
The business of war
The generals are sleeping with - the businessmen who finance all - G-F-C-F etc.
the congressmen who write the checks - from taxes someone else collects -
from you and I so just reflect - how money could be better spent
It’s all a giant numbers game - set up by the ones who gain -
the most from manufacturing - and selling things to kill and maim -
the violence is so insane - they play it like a video game
G F
We are in the business of war so pick up your gun
C G
strap your rocket launcher to your shoulder just for fun
G F
Radio your broker from the latest crisis zone
Am G F
and buy up Haliburton stock from right there on the phone
Our soldiers are the young and poor - sent to fight another war -
that none even bargained for...
The mercenaries fill the door - to take a check for even more -
violence committed for - the business of war
Chorus
I admit it’s hard to face - how the system buckled in disgrace -
no check or balance left in place...
The psyops giving final chase - to truth and justice every place -
across the land in every state
Chorus
© 2006 Lunar Stew Trio
april 16, 1953.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold, and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than thirty cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
Dwight D.Eisenhower
We the People
Somethings got to give here, Somethings got to change
We the People won’t play their games
Politicians crazy, Money pulls their strings
Planning world destruction and the crowning of a king
Chorus:
We the People, we got to get it back
They sold our constitution for a tank of gas
We the People, we got to hold the line
There’ll be no war in our name; we don’t believe their lies
Elections turned to auctions, democracy’s a sham
Republicrats bought and sold to fit the corporate plan
The Villains of tomorrow are accomplices today
Until they shake the status Quo and then there’s hell to pay
Chorus
Jefferson had warned us, it doesn’t take too long
for Governments to fall corrupt and do their people wrong
So a peaceful revolution is what we need to wage
so that “All Men are Created Equal” can mean just what it says
Chorus X2
Words & Music: Jeff Kauffman
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