News

November 15-17, 2024 Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
REFLEKTOR: Marc Ribot

Jazz, rock, noise and protest songs: Marc Ribot has become a guitar legend. In his »Reflektor« festival, he presents his splendidly diverse band projects at the historic Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany.

There are guitarists you recognise from the first note. American Marc Ribot is one of them. His long-time musician friend John Zorn calls him a »twisted genius« – presumably referring to Ribot’s incredible stylistic versatility while retaining his unmistakable playing style. Ever since he helped shape the sound of Tom Waits’ masterpiece »Rain Dogs« 40 years ago, Ribot has made countless recordings alongside the biggest stars with his full-bodied, raw guitar sound. He has remained anchored in New York’s experimental music scene and is responsible for a series of iconoclastic band projects with their jazz, rock, noise and protest songs, which he now presents en bloc for the first time as part of his three-day »Reflektor« festival.

April 10, 2024
The Jazz-Bins on Mezzo TV France

If you're in France, check out The Jazz-Bins - Live at Banlieues Bleues from April 2023 on Mezzo TV starting today with rebroadcast throughout April!

If you're in the the Mid-West, you can catch them live starting tonight in Milwaukee!
April 10 | Milwaukee, WI | Vivarium
April 11 | Minneapolis, MN | Dakota
April 12 | Berwyn, IL | FitzGerald’s
April 13 | Cleveland, OH | Bop Stop

Oct 2, 2023
WTF w/ Marc Maron

This week's WTF w/ Marc Maron podcast is a special double episode: Les Claypool / Marc Ribot !!

Les reveals his favorite guitar solo ever…listen to find out!

http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1475-les-claypool-marc-ribot

July 14, 2023
Ceramic Dog CONNECTON is out TODAY!

“ Ceramic Dog, a power trio of jazz geniuses who inflect literate rock with formidable chops. The synthesis is frenetic, potent, and at odds with the zeitgeist, even if Ribot’s lyrics decry today’s political oppression: Musically, he rejects both the voguish and the virtuosic in favor of his own whims…His progressive sentiments are welcome, and unfortunately more relevant than ever.” -Pitchfork

"On Ceramic Dog (which also features Shahzad Ismaily and Ches Smith), Connection, the prolific guitarist and bandleader continues to showcase his versatility through noisy jazz freakouts, Jesus Lizard-like noise rock rippers, and occasionally some dirty funk...With Ribot, an album is never just one style, never simply one thing, and Connection finds him following that instinct to fantastic effect.”
-Treblezine

"Connection is the fifth Ceramic Dog studio album and finds Ribot, Ismaily and Smith sounding particularly fired up, both lyrically and musically. -Brooklyn Vegan

"Different styles sit side by side on Connection, which showcases a challenging, exciting, and extremely rewarding listen from angular start to its fully inspired finish." - Glide Magazine

"Hallucinated yet illuminated, there’s guts and progressive activism in a revolutionary new recording that’s definitely worth digging into." - JazzTrail

June 21, 2023

Ceramic Dog release their 2nd single, ‘Soldiers in the Army of Love’, their anthemic manifesto from upcoming album, CONNECTION!

LISTEN TO “SOLDIERS IN THE ARMY OF LOVE” 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident...” Sound familiar? Ah, they were off to such a good start! But then they fucked it up: “...that all men are created equal”. Yup folks, they really wrote that. What about women? Non-multi-queer-and other gendered humans? Even worse— when they said “men”, they meant "white men". Oy. What a mess. [And yet, if there’s nothing “we” hold to be self-evident, there’s no “we”, right?  Big problem.] But its all ok now. Ceramic Dog fixed it! "We hold these truths to be self-evident…that all PEOPLE are created equal…[for example] Muslim Jewish Black White Yellow Brown Gay Straight are all created equal.” (would have added a bunch of other varieties of PEOPLE too, but ran out of 8th notes).”  - M. Ribot

June 15, 2023
Marc on Giles Peterson’s Brownswood Basement

Beloved UK DJ Giles Peterson sits with Marc in his studio to listen to music, diving deep into Marc’s 40+ year career as both a sideman & leader, as well as a short performance for BBC6 Brownswood Basement

May 22, 2023

Ceramic Dog’s 5th studio album, CONNECTION, to be released July 14th and on TOUR starting June 8th!

The first single and title track ‘Connection’ is out today and album Pre-orders available now on CD/LP/Digital!

Declared by Ribot to be “the best record we’ve ever done,” Connection sees Ceramic Dog furthering their long flirtation with various strains of rock ‘n’ roll while remaining fully entrenched in their signature approach to improvised music, augmented by contributions by such special guests as singer-songwriter Syd Straw, keyboardist Anthony Coleman, saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, organist Greg Lewis, clarinetist Oscar Noriega, and cellist Peter Sachon. The album is heralded by today’s premiere of the ferocious title track, “Connection,” a loose, lo-fi instrumental deeply informed by the scuzz-fueled history of Lower East Side noise rock from the Velvet Underground to White Hassle.
 
LISTEN TO THE SINGLE “CONNECTION”

January 13, 2023

Ceramic Dog performs “Lies My Body Told Me” for Gucci’s Men’s Runway Show FW2023

September 30, 2021

New Video for Ceramic Dog’s “The Activist” premieres on BrooklynVegan

From BrooklynVegan: Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog released Hope earlier this year, a terrific album that was made during the darkest times in recent memory (2020) but yet found light and humor, all through Ribot's unique, charmingly cantankerous worldview. 

One of the standouts on the album is "The Activist," a skronky, seven-minute rant that goes off on more than a few tangents and pokes fun at some aspects of activism while being very much the work of an activist. Marc notes that the views expressed in this song may not be the views of himself and the band. "We're narrators, but we've never pretended to be reliable," he says, offering up these lines from the song as evidence: “I don’t accept my shoes. I don’t accept my age, my hair, my weight, my breath, my face. I don’t accept my language, my religion, or my death. I vote no! I break consensus! I refuse! I resist!” He adds, "We love fighting for our rights. And we love rockin the house. And we hate bullshit. And we love rockin the house. And we love Antonio Gramsci because he said 'The truth is always revolutionary.' And we love rockin the house."  Continue reading post and Marc's full statement here..

THE ACTIVIST also appears in UNSTRUNG: Rants & Stories of a Noise Guitarist 
(Available with limited edition signed copies + "Selected Lyrics" chapbook)
And now on AUDIBLE narrated by Marc!

August 3, 2021

UNSTRUNG: Rants & Stories of a Noise Guitarist
Out TODAY on Akashic Books!

Marc's literary debut made it into this weekend's Wall Street Journal Books!
Critic Larry Blumenfeld writes…
"The essays and stories here cohere around connected themes: Artful distortion reveals essential truths; meaningful struggle yields wisdom and rare beauty; unreliable narrators are the only worthy kind."

And the Kirkus Reviews writes...
"Ribot is an all-American original, and this collection provides plenty of insight into his fascinating mind."

Join Marc ‘In Conversation’ on these upcoming Virtual Book Events
August 7, 12pm (PST) / 3pm (EST) -City Lights Booksellers (San Francisco, CA)
In conversation with Elliott Sharp
Register: Zoom link

August 8, 4pm (EST), WORD Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY)
In conversation with Greg Tate
Register: Crowdcast link

August 15, 1pm (CST) / 2pm (EST) The Book Cellar (Chicago, IL)
In conversation with Kurt Hollander
Register: Zoom link



April 28, 2021

Ceramic Dog’s latest full-length, HOPE, coming June 25th!

April 21, 2021

Marc’s debut book, UNSTRUNG: RANTS AND STORIES OF A NOISE GUITARIST available for preorder

March 4, 2021

Reissue of “Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus” for Bandcamp Friday

In effort to preserve the musical legacy of Marc’s guitar teacher and mentor, the Father of Haitian classical guitar, Frantz Casseus, Marc recorded a collection of Casseus' solo guitar compositions for his 1993 album "Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus". This remastered and expanded edition, with three additional bonus tracks recorded in 2020, marks the first time Marc's interpretations of this work is available on vinyl as a double LP. Pre-order is available now through Bandcamp, with street date of May 14th.

October 29, 2020

SOLO Set for “Shelter in Place” Sessions

Full SOLO set up until Nov 5th on Southwest Roots Festival’s YouTube Channel

October 23, 2020

Ceramic Dog LiveStream Concert October 23, 8pm EST!

October 2, 2020

New Ceramic Dog EP Release + LiveStream Concert on Sale Today!

August 7, 2020

Digital Reissue of “Requiem For What’s-His-Name” for #BandcampFriday

Bandcamp has announced #BandcampFIrstFridays will extend until the end of the year, when they waive 100% of their revenue shares in support of Artists during these unprecedented times. So, Marc will be dusting off some files from the archives along with some new music for a series of Bandcamp releases! Follow Marc on Bandcamp or sign up on his email list for release updates.

April 28, 2020

A CALL BY MUSICAL ARTISTS FOR BASIC FAIRNESS IN THE DIGITAL MARKETPLACE

John Zorn, Beth Orton, Bill Frisell, Mekons, Marc Ribot, Nels Cline, Laurie Anderson, Panda Bear, Rosanne Cash, Thao Nguyen, Crystal Waters, Boots Riley, Bela Fleck, and more musicians have signed a petition from Music Workers Alliance that aims to help artists who are all struggling during the coronavirus pandemic and calls for "basic fairness in the digital marketplace"

December 28, 2018

Best of 2018 Lists for “YRU Still Here?” and "Songs of Resistance"

2018 saw the release of two albums by Marc and they both landed on a few 'Best of' lists!    

December 4, 2018

"Songs of Resistance" included on NPR's All Songs Considered The Year in Music 2018!

November 15, 2018

New Album, Songs Of Resistance 1942-2018

Out now ANTI- Records

OFFICIAL STORE | SAVE ON SPOTIFY & APPLE | AMAZON | ITUNES | SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC | GOOGLE PLAY | DEEZER

DOWNLOAD LINER NOTES/LYRIC BOOKLET

“Every movement which has ever won anything has had songs,” says accomplished New York City guitarist Marc Ribot. For his new political album Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 – with a September 14 release date on ANTI- Records - Ribot set out to assemble a set of songs that spoke to this political moment with appropriate ambition, passion, and fury.

The eleven songs on the record include a few original compositions as well as traditional songs that are drawn from World War II anti-Fascist Italian partisans, the U.S. civil rights movement and Mexican protest ballads. It also features a wide range of guest vocalists, including
Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello, Justin Vivian Bond, Fay Victor, Sam Amidon, and Ohene Cornelius, Tift Merritt, Domenica Fossati, Syd Straw.

At a time of such overwhelming social turmoil, finding a focus for this kind of project is challenging. Nevertheless, Ribot’s purpose remained clear. “There’s a lot of contradiction in doing any kind of political music,” he says, “how to act against something without becoming it, without resembling what you detest. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what to do, and I imagine we’ll make mistakes, and hopefully, learn from them. But I knew this from the moment Donald Trump was elected: I’m not going to play downtown scene Furtwangler to any orange-comb-over dictator wannabe. No way.”

Portions of the album’s proceeds will be donated to The Indivisible Project, an organization that helps individuals resist the Trump agenda via grassroots movements in their local communities. More info on The Indivisible Project can be found at www.indivisible.org.

November 1, 2018

Donald Trump: RATA DE DOS PATAS (Rat with Two Legs)

DON’T DESPAIR: MOBILIZE! VOTE ON NOVEMBER 6th!
VOLUNTEER/ PHONE BANK / CANVASS: Swing Left https://swingleft.org / Rise and Resist https://www.riseandresist.org / Voto Latino http://votolatino.org
“We support all Democratic candidates running in the November 6 2018 midterm elections. We need to stop Donald Trump and his enablers. The days between now and the November 6th midterm elections will be the most important of our political lives. We need to flip 24 seats to retake the House. You can make a difference by phone banking and canvassing." 

Paquita la del Barrio didn’t mince words when she was calling out the bad guy in “Rata De Dos Patas” (Rat with Two Legs): 
Rata inmunda, Filthy rat
animal rastrero, creeping animal
escoria de la vida, scum of life
adefecio mal hecho, deformed monstrosity
infra-humano, sub human
espectro del infierno, specter of hell
maldita sabandija, accursed worm
cuanto daño me has hecho, how much damage you have done to me

Listen to the full version of Rata de dos Patas here: https://spoti.fi/2OiG9ZV or http://bit.ly/2DfF6sLVideo by Nye Taylor.
Artwork/Graffiti by Al Diaz.