Johnny Sketch & The Dirty Notes

Formed in 2001, the legend of Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes is a noble tale of friends, funk and fortitude. It is the coagulation of classically trained musicians breaking the confines of the genre in a most likely musical haven; New Orleans. Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes has been known to boldly impress their audiences with more than music, which sometimes involves the removal of clothes, bizarre costumes and the coercion of certain audience members to partake in odd antics. The band is a collection of carefully crafted alter egos, mystical musicians hesitant to share their personal selves but collectively ready to funk beyond the call of duty. Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes is a collective, an ensemble, a five person phone booth in which mild mannered classical guy Clark Kent goes in and Johnny The Wild Superman comes out. And come to think of it, that also involves costumes and the dumping of garments.

It was the 2005 Hurricane Katrina baptism that solidified the wild alter egos in Johnny Sketch and The Dirty Notes into a seriously cohesive unit of musicians. Sketch redefined the word dedicated when the mega hurricane caught the group in mid tour in Colorado during the fateful August of 2005. Johnny Sketch could not get back to New Orleans and continued the tour unswervingly, serving up New Orleans funk stew to anyone who would listen. And listen they did and responded with free housing, bumped up guarantees and purchases of merchandise over and beyond the band's expectations. Finally arriving home Johnny Sketch was met with an onslaught of simple survival and one huge objective; to not only manage each day with limited resources, but to keep the band together, rehearsed and on the road. Not easy when lost of residencies and loss of possessions and even dissolved relationships were eating at the mental wheels of forward momentum. But the Sketchy crew not only survived the upheaval around them, but also developed a new more focused view of themselves and the music they play.

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Marc Paradis (guitar, electric cello, lead vocals) IS Johnny Sketch. Named during a California trip to visit a brother by a strange hippy chick who dunked his head under ten days of constantly using the word sketch and sketchy, Johnny was destined to purge himself of earthly bonds and become the impetus of Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes. He graduated from Loyola with a degree in classical cello performance with other members of what would mercifully become his release from classical music- Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes. "It was too easy to be in this band.." Sketch reflects," Each member is integral. Each member is a friend. What we do together is what we do best."

David Pomerleau (bass & backing vocals) a.k.a. Busta, readily admits to ,"..never thinking of doing anything else," but playing music.. Busta was fascinated by a childhood friend who played guitar. "He could sound just like the songs on cds and I was hooked. I wanted to do that too." Busta graduated from classical studies at Loyola University in New Orleans. He has studied bass under Peter Harris, Dave Anderson, Dale Cortello and Allen Nisbit. Busta also claims to be able to play any Beatles song including the b sides.

Andre Bohren (drums & backing vocals) is Dirty Johnny. Literally born on the road in an airstream trailer, it is only right Sir Dirty should end up many years later most at home with wheels under his feet. Son of blues legend, Spencer Bohren, Dirty remembers quite vividly a nine year old Andre watching La Bamba and being forever changed. "I learned about the proponents of showmanship, about choreography, about putting on a show." Dirty recalls. After years of traveling with his father, the Bohrens eventually moved to New Orleans to a home stocked with musical atmosphere and instruments including piano, drums and guitars, all of which Dirty Johnny had access to and eventually excelled at all. He attended Loyola in the classical piano studies program.

Omar Ramirez (trumpet & flügelhorn) is Johnny Rico. He calls his time in Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, "the most intense relationship I've ever had." Ramirez cut his teeth playing trumpet in salsa bands eventually ending up in fourteen of them at once. "It was a language thing," Ramirez points out, "I could speak Spanish. I could communicate through language as well as through music. So I ended up in a lot of bands." Ramirez graduated from Loyola with a degree in musical composition. Rico joined the band in October 2005.

Andre Mouton (baritone & alto sax) is Johnny Rocket. Andre was immersed in the wild abandon musical free for all of Johnny Sketch when he joined the band on stage at the April 2006 French Quarter Festival. Master Rocket professes to a serious study of saxophonics in the sixth grade in Mississippi. His brothers played sax and there was "an alto sax just lying around all the time." It wasn't until he attended college at Loyola, Master Rocket truly realized his sax destiny. He graduated with a double major in jazz and English.