GOJO’ MUSIC is the term musician / singer-songwriter Gary O’Dea uses to describe his musical output of the last few years.Gary’s influences stretch far and wide across many genres of music. He’s never been afraid to blend them all up and serve a musical dish that – although the ingredients may be recognisable – the way he blends them together leaves the taste buds crying out for more. He has a conviction about his music, a determination / attitude to do it his way that stems from Gary’s grounding as a young musician (drummer) / songwriter in the Punk / New Wave rock n’ roll era of the late 70s / early 80s.

With GOJO’ MUSIC the genres are blended together into an all over groove… blues / funk / soul / reggae and a healthy dollop of rock n’ roll. Contemporary artists who hit a groove such as The Fun Lovin Criminals, Ben Harper etc, are an influence alongside the late great Joe Strummers work with The Mescaleros. Gary came up with the term GOJO’ MUSIC to describe his musical output. It resembled the term Mojo (this obviously having association / connotations with the history of black music), it also tipped a cap to Joe Strummers attitude of embracing and mixing / blending many styles into one organic groove (i.e. Jo Music). So GOJO’ MUSIC was / is the name given to this groove.

Gary started GOJO’ MUSIC at the beginning of 2004 playing some excellent summer gigs with a full band line up. Things didn’t gel as well as first expected so Gary looked elsewhere for suitable candidates to work with. He teamed up with guitar virtuoso Garry Oliver in Oct 2004. They had known each other since the Punk / New Wave days and last played together back in 1986 (the Indie years) in a Wolverhampton based band called The Railway Children who were managed by ex Boomtown Rat’s guitarist Gerry Cott.

With GOJO’ MUSIC – O’Dea wanted the flexibility to be able to work with a full band line up and also scale down to a more intimate acoustic set up as well when required. This was achieved via working with some excellent old musician friends who came on board briefly and added to the groove when required – these include Eric Cox – bass and mandolin, Andy Stokes – piano / keyboards and Tony Bate on drums & percussion.

In November 2005 Gary and Olly played a support slot to the wonderful Martin Stephenson at The Little Civic in Wolverhampton– England, it was a great night. Working with Martin was a thrill for them both because they were both big fans. A friendship and mutual respect with Martin was struck up that resulted in Martin producing GOJO’ MUSIC’S debut 4 track EP/CD titled ‘Twenty Years Of Love and Pain…they hurt the same’ that was released on GOJO’ MUSIC’S own label in June 2006. It was recorded at O’Dea’s home on Martin’s portable ZOOM MRS 1266 recording desk and received critical acclaim.

June 2007 saw Gary’s previous back catalogue (originally released via the Birminghambased Anew Music label) made available through GOJO’ MUSIC. This includes the CD/Album ‘Love Hounds & Fortune Cookies’ and also the CD/EP ‘Sittin’ On Your Fence’ (which features amongst others…Steve Gibbons / PJ Wright / Gary Lammin / Glenn Somerville etc). Again these were all received with excellent reviews at their times of release. All Gary’s CDs are available via the music page of this site and his Bandcamp site  http://garyodea-gojomusic.bandcamp.com/ … sample tracks are also included on GOJO’ MUSIC’s My Space page              http://www.myspace.com/garygojomusic  – two tracks from ‘Twenty Years Of Love and Pain…they hurt the same’ CD – ‘Tell Me Please, Is This How The West Was Won?’ and ‘Distant Friend - ‘Slowdown’ from the ‘Love Hounds & Fortune Cookies’ album and the live favourite alternative blues groover ‘Big City Blue’ from ’Sittin’ On Your Fence’.

During 2007Garyappeared with both full band line-ups and scaled down acoustic performances / solo performances at venues around the country. These ranged from small intimate little clubs to Civic Halls and Festivals including The Porter Cellar Bar – Bath, 3345 Club – Liverpool, Little Civic Club and Civic Hall – Wolverhampton, Green Futures Festival – Warwickshire, Glastonbury Festival and Birmingham Arts Festival to name a few. Gary continued to work solo throughout 2008 with guest appearances at numerous venues around the country that included Candlelit in Mansfield, The Sage Theatre – Gateshead (with Martin Stephenson) as part of the SummerTyne Festival, De-Bees – Cheshire, two appearances at The View Two – Liverpool (Mellowtone promotions), the Birmingham Arts Festival and many more – including the legendary Anti-Folk night at The Sidewalk Cafe – Greenwich Village (East) New York City on a trip out to the USA in June 2008.

After a 3 year ‘life’ sabbatical a new solo album entitled FLY, originally planned to be recorded and released in 2008, is now finally back on track for 2012. A second album of re-workings of some of Gary’s back catalogue featuring Gary’s new live collaborations with the musical collective known as Cosmic Souls is also to be released in 2012…this album is to be called ‘Looking Forward By Thinking Back’.

Live dates are being sorted to coincide. 

Looking Forward By Thinking Back…FLY.