The best music you aren’t listening to: The Venetia Fair

It’s like nothing that you’ve ever heard before and it’s far beyond the range of your imagination as well. High-pitched vocals being laced over dynamically written musical parts, including the use of a grand piano-like sound; something few up and coming bands use (or may ever try to use) nowadays. With all the music that’s being released by fairly unknown bands these days, it is refreshing to hear something different coming out of the scene. This is the sound of The Venetia Fair. Never heard of them? Well you’re about to find out all about the band.

The Venetia Fair is a Boston-based act who are currently signed to Red Blue Records. Drummer Chris Constantino simply describes their sound as “wild”, and they certainly like to bring that wild factor into their music. The band has a fairly unusual name, but Constantino explained it nicely by saying “Venetia Phair is the name of the little girl that named the planet Pluto. Well, she was a little girl at one point… then she grew up got old and died… We changed Phair to Fair and things have been pretty wild ever since.” Once again, wild.

Stemming from numerous musical interests and backgrounds, the band believes that their music should not be made to sound like everything else that’s out there, explains Constantino. “I think Henry Ford put it the best when he first created the Model T. He said ‘If I had given people what they wanted, I would have made a faster horse’.” In other words, the group isn’t looking to simply recreate what has already been done by other groups, but rather, they strive to create music that is completely new and that people will want to listen to. This idea of a new sound is very apparent on their debut release, The Circus, which came out in July of 2009.

The Circus is a concept album detailing a story about, you may have guessed it; a circus. The intricately woven storyline is something that is fairly uncommon nowadays, as concept albums tend to be rare outside of more well known bands such as My Chemical Romance and perhaps Coheed and Cambria. The group is currently working on their sophomore effort, but the details are still fairly sketchy. However, the album will not be another version of The Circus, explains Constantino, in that it won’t be another concept album, continuing the story of a circus. “I can’t say much about the new album, but I will tell you that it’s got lots of the elements that people like about The Circus , plus a lot more.”

The Venetia Fair love to tour. They seem to be touring non-stop. Their Facebook page even lists their current address as “Van, USA” which is certainly a testament to their lifestyle. As Constantino added, in 2011 the band plans to “tour, tour, tour ’till we are dead.”

The band is currently working on their sophomore effort as previously mentioned. Look for that album coming out in the first few months of this year. Also, be sure to check out their first record The Circus. A band like The Venetia Fair does not come around very often, so be sure to look out for them and maybe go out to their shows if they are in your area. I hear they’re nice guys, who also put on wild live show.