DISCOGRAPHY
2018 - The Trouble With Robots
2019 - The Trouble With Humans (Chapter One)
2022 - The View from Under the Bus
Brahms' Third Racket is the latest vehicle for the music of Warren Wellen (AKA Wishsnefsky). Warren is joined by R. Matthew Carroll on bass, David Rodgers on drums, and Mary Ann Pelino on vocals.
Brahms' Third Racket plays a unique type of alternative rock. BTR's live shows feature original videos, created by Matt, which play in sync with the band's performance. The combination of videos and music provide an immersive experience for the audience.
Here follows the BTR story, starting with a brief bit of history:
In the 1990's, longtime friends and musical collaborators Warren Wellen, David Rodgers, and Todd Jameson formed the Los Angeles based alt-rock band Jabberwock. Jabberwock released two highly acclaimed records (Southland and Letterbomb) and an EP (Wishful Sinking). After Jabberwock broke up in 1998, Warren retired from performing live and focused his attention on writing and recording. Under the Lost Dog Records label, he released eight solo records as Wishnefsky and two records as his piano based project Veneer. (You can find Wishnefsky's solo records here and Veneer records here.) Dave went on to play drums for various bands, projects, and sessions. Todd went on to pursue a career in graphic design and art.
Around 2011, R. Matthew Carroll, who happens to be Warren’s cousin, commenced bugging Warren relentlessly to start performing again. Warren relented. In 2012, he, Matt, and Dave started performing Wishnefsky music at various clubs in the LA area. From early on, Matt, no stranger to relentless bugging, started, again, relentlessly bugging Warren to utilize a band name. Warren recognized Matt was probably on to something (as opposed to being on something, though that may have very well been the case considering the amount of prescription medication to which Matt has access - just kidding, though Matt is a physician, by the way).
Indeed. Thereupon, the search for a band name commenced.
After a number of head-scratching sessions developed a towering trash heap of supremely unusable band names and some really great ones which turned out to be taken by other bands, Warren found himself being seductively enticed and enticingly seduced by the band name Mucho Burro: a hilarious line derived from the old British TV show Fawlty Towers. However, Matt suggested that, while Mucho Burro was certainly funny (especially when Warren screamed it at the top of his lungs and rolled the r’s in Burro like a speed boat with a stuck accelerator), he firmly believed it was pretty fucking stupid as a band name and, if Warren insisted on pulling a name from Fawlty Towers, he might as well call the band Brahms’ Third Racket.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Brahms' Third Racket.
Here is a clip of the Brahms' Third Racket moment on Fawlty Towers.
In 2013, Brahms' Third Racket released Strings Attached, which is based on a group of songs Wish wrote on acoustic guitar. As a result, Strings Attached is a bit warmer and more organic than Warren’s usual fare. Yet, despite the absence of the usual electronica, these songs feature the usual recipe of lyrical bite, melodic taste, and harmonic sweetener.
In 2014, BTR released Out of Order, an album of songs roughly based on Warren’s favorite guilty pleasure, Doctor Who. The album, like Doctor Who, is a mixture of hi-tech, organic analog, and lyrical wit.
In 2015, BTR followed up with the album Fantastic Shadows. This album concerns mortality, a subject that Warren explored in his writing following the far too early and untimely passing of a close friend.
In 2016, BTR released a double album entitled Water Hammer, a collection of songs concerning water in California. Shortly before releasing the full album, BTR released a collection of the Water Hammer singles in an EP entitled Dream Wasters.
A number of the songs on Water Hammer feature vocalist Mary Ann Pelino. In 2016, Mary Ann became a permanent member of Brahms' Third Racket.
In 2018, BTR released it fifth album The Trouble With Robots. These songs focus on the marriage of technology and biology.
In 2019, BTR released The Trouble With Humans (Chapter One). TTWH is the follow up to The Trouble With Robots and features amazing guest vocalist Julia Albert. The phenomenal Michael James co-mixed the record. Since humans have such a profound propensity for the art of trouble, we need two chapters to adequately present The Trouble With Humans. This is Chapter One. Stayed tuned for subsequent chapters.
In 2021, BTR released Cave Diary. This album was written during and about the horrific covid 19 pandemic. When a deadly invisible virus turned the world upside down in March 2020, BTR stopped mixing what was supposed to be the next album (working title: The View From Under The Bus) and Warren started writing like a madman in lockdown. That resulted in a bunch of new material which felt more appropriate to release so as to reflect the profound impact the pandemic imposed on literally everyone’s lives.
In 2022, BTR released The View from Under the Bus. This is the album that was temporarily placed on the shelf while Warren wrote Cave Diary. The subject matter concerns a protagonist who gets what he wished for and finds that it led him exactly where he feared it would. Curiously, the lyrics, to a certain extent, presaged where Warren found himself emotionally in late 2021 and early 2022. The moral of the story is be careful what you wish for; yet, this story isn’t over and sometimes it takes valleys to appreciate peaks.
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