SO, WHAT IS THIS "EXTRAVAGANZA"?

"The Brandino Extravaganza (formerly known as "El Brandino") is the longtime-hobby/quasi-namesake project of versatile, virile and ultimately enigmatic Grand Rapids, Michigan-based musician, Brandon "Brandino" Proch, a boisterously bubbly, scraggly-yet-baby-faced troubadour whose eyes act as a kaleidoscopic stained glass window to his on stage persona. He is spirited, effortlessly lovable and bumblingly self-effacing, while at the same time reserved, contemplative, and deliberate. His crowd endearment is both instantaneous and immediate. One can physically see his welcoming, laid-back, flighty stoner, nearly-surferish persona disarm an audience, stripping their eyes and ears of distraction to witness the born entertainer on stage.

While his personal preference in 'music for leisure' seemingly identifies him as (belated) graduate of the late 90s/early 2000s school of third-wave ska, pop punk, his mosaic of outside influences, musical or not, are as varied as the instruments he employs. A classically trained musician, Brandino capably and skillfully weaves guitar, bass, keyboards, cajon, ukulele, saxophone, dynamic vocals - amongst other tools - to his carefully crafted yarns. And regardless of whether you refer to him as a loopist/loopster or a one-man-band, his process is all-but typical, traditional, or formulaic, and the kind of Folk Pop (or is it Pop Folk?) that emerges from the cauldron's bubbles, waves and swirls is part Peter, Paul & Mary, part David Bowie (for aroma), part Hank Williams III (for bittering), with a sprinkling of Lady Gaga (for flavor balance). It'd be difficult to find another performer and songwriter quite like him. " (Though I would like to give honorable mention to a flavor of the funk, as well)

- A bio written by Joey Basch, very minimally revised by Brandino