From a sea boiling with the schizophrenic rip tides of musicians like The Beatles, Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, The Strokes and The Flying Burrito Brothers, the acclaimed NoCo emerged onto the shores of musical evolution with the steadfast intention of gleaning the soul with fantastic enterprises of the flesh, to “get inside the ear of the wandering eye.” Sticking his finger in pies in cities and shady hamlets across the country, Ron Muga, the hub of the Noco wheel, has pushed and ...
From a sea boiling with the schizophrenic rip tides of musicians like The Beatles, Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, The Strokes and The Flying Burrito Brothers, the acclaimed NoCo emerged onto the shores of musical evolution with the steadfast intention of gleaning the soul with fantastic enterprises of the flesh, to “get inside the ear of the wandering eye.” Sticking his finger in pies in cities and shady hamlets across the country, Ron Muga, the hub of the Noco wheel, has pushed and pulled, torn and twisted, caressed and deconstructed, just about every musical genre that can claim ancestral lineage to American Roots. As a full-time moonlighter in New York in his early twenties, Muga assumed the varying duties of guitar, drums, bass, mandolin, lead vocals, harmonica, and engineer in more bands, configurations and Rube Goldberg inventions than can be named. Most prominently, perhaps, was the bluegrass/alt-country/rock outfit, Northern Comfort, which he co-founded in New Jersey with Brian Murray. When the love a good woman called Murray away to the more subdued life of marriage, Muga stayed the course, a course that eventually led him to the mountains of Colorado where he found the spice of jam/experimental/blues rock to add to the aural concoction. It was in Colorado where his collaboration with lyricist (and indie filmmaker) Joseph Christiana took hold, an experimental project the duo dubbed The Prosthetic Head Shop. Armed with a view of the majestic Colorado mountains, a warm four-track recorder, and Christiana’s celestial/literary/emotional/sometimes abstract word combinations, Muga obsessively churned out song after song (playing all instruments on the recordings), some of which remain in the current NoCo repertoire. The sun of San Diego was the natural next step in the Muga westward progression and among the beaches, taco shops, and zen trickster hipster hippies of the incomparable Ocean Beach, Muga hosted a rotating cast of Prosthetic characters (Tim Hines and Dave Salemi among them), while simultaneously contributing to the San Diego musical phenom The Bad Apples, a hipster garage-rock band that shook the foundations of such legendary clubs as The Casbah and The Kensington. Meanwhile, Muga was busy building an impressive body of songs, incorporating acoustic-folk into his aesthetic sphere. He recorded his first bonafide album at the legendary indie-label Earthling Studios in 2005 with the brilliant Mike Kamoo producing. Though the release lacked proper promotion, Muga enjoyed a burgeoning following and performed regularly in local clubs including the lauded Winston’s in OB. All roads lead home eventually and Muga is currently back in the northeast. He’s hidden somewhere in the woodsy hills of New York, like a madman, recording a new collection of tunes. The current NoCo lineup includes the talented musicians,Ed Mitchell(Bass/vocals),Neal Goldberg (lead guitar, vocals),Ron Muga(Singer/guitar/keys) and Matt Johnson (drummer, vocals). The new members bring a diverse background to the table and the new “conditions” are sure to influence the ever-evolving sounds of Muga’s NoCo. Already the first single, Human, is garnering overwhelmingly enthusiastic response on Internet Radio and is currently in rotation on several college stations in the NY metro area. You can check the track out on his MySpace page (myspace.com/nocomusic). Occasionaly the muse lets Muga out of the studio on furlough and you can find him playing new songs, as well as time-tested gems from his library, in Manhattan.
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