Bonerama

Bonerama sounds like a lot of things — a funk band, a brass band, a marching band — and yet, it sounds like nothing else you've ever heard. The seven-man outfit from New Orleans is fronted by four trombones that blare out traditional wah-wah funk wails into a pow-wah rumble reminiscent of a college stadium at halftime. Mark Mullins, Craig Klein, Rick Trolsen, and Steve Suter pump the big horns. Sousaphone player Matt Perrine, guitarist Bert Cotton, and drummer Eric Bolivar round out the Bonerama lineup. Mullins and Klein both played with New Orleans' favorite swing man, Harry Connick Jr., while Perrine and Suter are as different as a bohemian rocker and a classically trained philharmonic player. What's unique about the band is the way they fuse jazz and funk with blues and rock while jamming out original songs as easily as rock 'n' roll classics. On the heels of the EP release You're Not Alone, a collaboration with Windy City powerpop group OK Go to benefit Katrina-displaced musicians, Bonerama makes it down to South Florida for a New Year's Eve funk-fest. They've got the British foursome, the New Mastersounds, as an opener, and both bands will make fans of jam-style funk and soul happy.