Listening to Marc play with Tom Waits, John Zorn and Elvis Costello, not to forget his own projects like the fabulous Cubano Postizios, we knew that he has this very sophisticated way of making unusual and even diverse ideas come together. His very distinguished sound made (and still makes) him our favourite guitarist. We were very happy, when he liked the idea to join us on stage.
Jakob on the other hand is a musician we’ve known for years. So when his main band Element of Crime doesn’t need his distinctive guitar playing, he has jumped in from time to time to throw in his beautiful tunes on mandolin. Asked whether he could picture himself playing along with Marc, and us his first reaction was to sit down and reach for breath. He sure wanted to!
17 HIPPIES meet Marc Ribot and Jakob Ilja – some experiment that went very right!