Major Matt Mason USA

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Major Matt Mason USA has been making music since the late 80's. In his father's basement in Shawnee, Kansas (a suburb of Kansas City) Matt would amuse his dog Friskie by lip-synching to Kiss records and hammering out ditties about the threat of nuclear war and peer pressure on a $30 Harmony guitar. While attending the University of Kansas, Matt got his first taste of a thriving underground music scene playing guitar for local punk bands with names like Magic Nose and Dracomagnet.

In the early 90's Matt moved to New York City where he found a home in the now infamous East Village Antifolk Community. The weekly Antihoots at the Sidewalk Cafe provided Matt with a chance to take a crack at writing and performing acoustic songs, much easier than putting a band together and hauling that fender twin up and down his 4th floor walk up. After a brief stint as a record store clerk, he landed a job as an apprentice at a Soho based commercial sound facility. For the next five years he would spend his days in a state-of-the-art digital audio facility servicing high profile advertising clients, while his nights were spent plucking out edgy lo-fi acoustic love songs into a boombox in a mouse- infested lower east side apartment.

Flash forward 5 years. Major Matt has evolved from the boombox to a catalog of 4 full length albums filled with influences that range from Bob Dylan to Sonic Youth. He has established Olive Juice Music: a fully functional recording studio/ independent record label/ online distribution center that he operates out of his NYC lower east side apartment with bandmate /significant other Nan Turner and cat Gummo (who takes care of the mice). Matt is also a member of the bands Schwervon! and Kansas State Flower. The DIY spirit is a big part of Matt’s art and lifestyle as he continues to carve out a niche for truly modern American Folk music.