Album Notes

Pope Syndicate is the brainchild of Dave Portal, whose harmonic progressions balance a unique blend of accessable melodies and sriving rhythms.

The music's influence stems from the sound of alternative rock with progressions that easily leak through styles such as funk and jazz.

A native of New York, Dave has played with projects spanning several genres of music.

As Portal began to write for Pope Syndicate in the summer of 2000, the first band member to jump on board was bass player Jordan Marion.

A longtime friend of Portal's, the two have worked together on several other projects, such as the NYC based funk band Spywagon.

Shortly after, the two located drummer Mike Bambace through a NYC musicians online classifieds ad.

"So, with the core members in place, the rehersals picked up to a rhythm where the production was getting strong.

Songs were beginning to be written with an understanding we could try different things based on the musical familiarity we were creating with each other," explains Dave.

By the end of the year the Syndicate entered the studio and produced their first recordings "The Energy Pimps (ep)," a collection of seven songs which bounced through the bands repertoire created during he first few months of rehersal.

Daily practices began to spawn new material which has become the sound of Pope Syndicate.

It wasn't long after that the Syndicate became a working unit which plays throughout the northeast.