Rocket Surgery consists of singer and songwriter Rueben deGroot and his supremely talented backing band, guitarist Dan Curtis, bassist Elijah Abrams, keyboardist Josh Lyon, vocalist Christina Foster, saxophonist Jon Stewart, and drummers Rob Radford, Daniel Chalmers, and Mark Fraser. From 2012-2017, their unique melding of jazz, roots rock, alternative, and prog kept audiences dancing and smiling every Monday night at The Toucan in Kingston, Ontario.
In the tradition of Steely Dan, Randy Newman, and John Prine, Rueben populates his songs with an unforgettable cast of hard-luck heroes. Whether he’s writing about a forlorn road worker, a rogue Wall Street trader, or a beleaguered con man, Rueben balances the poignant with the whimsical, the profound with the quirky. He sets his tragi-comic tales to infectious melodies and scintillating arrangements that call to mind classic seventies pop-rock. In the words of Luther Wright, Rueben “has a vast arsenal of themes and ideas for a seemingly endless amount of excellent songs. His phrasing and melodic ideas are as strong and flawless as his clever lyrical choices.”
Date: Sunday, June 23rd, 3PM
Where: Skeleton Park