Building A Jet Pack: Macramé Tiger Does It All

Macramé Tiger is the wayfaring chameleon of Ferndale.

It doesn't actually have a set sound or style because a different band member — there are six — writes every other song in its catalog.

Its sound leans toward rock 'n' roll, essentially, though the band displays an appreciation for country-tinged twang, fuzzed-out punk rock and, lately, dabbles into more electronic flavors.

The band has not yet stayed at one rehearsal space longer than six months, but four Tigers — Pedro Kasparek, Tony Longo, Kerry Trusewicz and Marilu Andracke — have hung their hats in Ferndale for a year now.

Jesse Ramsey isn’t too far away, down in Southfield, while Sean Shea lives in Detroit. It’s futile trying to ID these 20-somethings by their instruments, since each live show sees them trading off, from bass to guitar to lead vocals to ukulele to microsynth to jetpack.

“Jesse did build a fully functional jet pack once,” said Trusewicz. “It was awesome. He made it from an old oxygen breathing machine.”

“It fell apart once I stepped on stage,” Ramsey said with a smile.

“We can all play almost everything,” Kasparek said, whether through gruff DIY self-teaching or by a share of professional training from their youths.

Through 2009, the band’s signature was an ostentatious stage show, dotted with zany costumes, confetti and conceptual art, while the songs themselves were instigative of letting loose.

They neither lean toward cacophonous punk rock nor toward an overly heady prog-rock trip. They hit the local show circuit hard through 2009-10 with songs winding through an evolutionary arc of psychedelic pop, to folksy singer-songwriter waltzes, to guitar-gutting/all-cylinders-firing space rock.

Their formative basement jams echoed through a house in southeast Royal Oak back in 2008. Then they spent the next year renting space in a midtown Detroit-based artists cooperative, writing, rehearsing, and serenading after-hours parties on the ground floor of a 12-story building distinguished by its west-facing wall's psychedelically swirled waterfall of Day-Glo paint.

Since January, the bandmates have more or less been camping in a basement near Wilson Park.

“We’ve been vibing together lately, more than ever,” said Longo, who stays at drums 99 percent of the time.

“We just spent the day rehearsing down at the Russell Industrial Center, and it was the best, most energetic practice we’ve ever had,” Kasparek said, showing the blisters on his hands as proof.

They released their debut EP in January, effectively clearing the vaults of their older material.

The new stuff is collectively described as “faster” and “harder.”

“Jesse, Tony and I have been playing music together since we were 12," Kasparek said. "We all grew up in the white suburbs of Sterling Heights. After high school, we started Macramé Tiger at our house on Knowles Street in Royal Oak.”

The band solidified, with Shea joining soon after. Trusewicz moved to Detroit around the same time, having toured through the area from the punk-rock-riddled scene of New Jersey and settling in southeast Michigan at the behest of girlfriend Andracke.

Each of the members had been in and out of bands, and each currently fosters his or her own solo project. This leads Ramsey to proclaim them the indie/bohemian answer to famous/infamous hip-hop rotational collective Wu Tang Clan — but instead singing about dolla’ bills or Shaolin sword fighting, the Tigers sing about “Friendship Societies” and “keeping the ones you have close and making sure they know you love them.”

Plus, there’s a new song called “Yummy Cow.”

Also, the Tigers hope to — somewhat — mirror the hip-hop community by following the tradition of making and sharing “mix tapes” of their songs and their friends’ songs.

Together — “like a family,” as they often emphasize — they’ve found a curious and happy medium. It's a blend of intricate guitar picking, propulsive rhythms, dreamily draped synthesizer atmospherics and indelible melodies.

“We’re all songwriters with multiple influences,” said Trusewicz, “so we’re all just genre hopping all the time.”

“I don’t really know what we end up fitting into,” Kasparek said, then surmising, “It’s our band!”  

From here on, they plan on continuing to ride “the summer vibe,” as well as the “hard, fast, rock vibe,” as they commence recording a full-length album at their current space inside the Russell Industrial Center.

Check out their website to keep up with the Tigers' new songs, to view Trusewicz' intriguing artwork and to download the band's Summer Mix Tape (featuring respective solo projects such as "Jefferson Ghost Bear," "Crab Grass Grass" and "SuperF*cked").

This Friday at Hybrid Moments, Macramé Tiger will join fellow local artist Dustin McLaughlin (performing as EGON) in welcoming two Oregon-based touring bands, Girlfriends and Duck Little Brother.