Welcome to the first edition of out "Meet The Band" series, where we will attempt to shed some light on the great local and regional bands and artists involved with the underground music scene in here in Ithaca, NY.  You can look for several of these a month!

Band Name: The Motivators

Who is in the band?
Eli Ben-Yaacov (Guitar, Vocals)
Daniel Stackman (Drums)
Dylan Wells (Bass, Background Shouting)
Chris Marr (Guitar, very occasional Vocals)

Founed: Summer of 2007.

Releases:
Self released nine song demo CD in 2008
Self released, self-titled 18 song double album in 2009.

Tell us about yourselves!
As pretentious as it sounds, we actually have a pretty hard time describing our...
our music to people. We'd like to tell people that we play Homoerotic Thrash Metal, but the best genre classifications would be Desert Rock or Stoner Punk. Our biggest influence is probably Queens of the Stone Age, but there's a lot from Kyuss, The Stooges, and all sorts of other bands and genres in there. We all listen to a fairly eclectic mix of music. Our main goal is to play music that we like to play and that other people like to listen to. We love the Ithaca Underground scene and everyone in it. We're going to attempt to branch out later this school year (we're all in highschool) to play other larger cities in upstate NY.

In regards to those interested in listening to our music, we'd prefer you listen to the more recent one. It has most of the songs from the previous one, but the whole thing is recorded and played much better. If you are interested in hearing our music, we will burn you a CD on a by donation basis, or you can listen to and download all of our music for free at http://www.gimmesound.com/TheMotivators.

Upcoming shows:
02/04/10 (with Kiss Kiss, Venetia Fair, and Beach Parade)
02/13/10 (with Scarlac Merkin, Hiroshima Vacation, Ballistic Shit Circus, and Big Bird)
02/27/10 (with Candypants and Lazy Devil)

Related projects:
Dylan Wells is also experimental musician Plasma 36
Eli Ben-Yaacov is also hip-hop producer DJ SpeedDemon
Eli and (possibly) Dylan are members of Scarlac Merkin (soon to change their name)
Eli is also working on an upcoming project with former Motivators bassist Jacob Kotler called Dr. Spaceman.