History & Influences:

Originally from Chicagoland, Abby attended Bard College in upstate New York, where she studied music composition with Joan Tower and Daren Hagen, and had her pieces performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players and the Hudson Valley Chamber Orchestra.

At this time she also wrote songs, played guitar, drums, clarinet, and sang with numerous original-rock bands, including Knuckle, Snack Chunk, Little Cat Z, and improvisational-pop-song-project Whoopski.

Abby's musical influences are wide and varied, and range from the Beatles and the Kinks to the Residents and Captain Beefhart to Blondie and Talking Heads to Bartok and Satie to Irish folk music and tango. Together, all the influences come out as something new and unique.

 

2001 - Present: The Abigail Grush Group:

Abby moved to Portland Oregon in 2001, and gathered together three other Portland multi-instrumentalists and kindered spirits to perform and record new songs (and some old songs too.) This line-up included Frank Pullen on drums, bass, violin, sax, and vocals, Jamie Walsh on bass, drums, percussion, and vocals, and John Hagelbarger on xylophone, keyboards, tenor sax, bass clarinet, and various percussion things. They performed frequently in Portland and Seattle, and recorded an album with Curtis Settino (with three songs recorded by Jeremy Brown at PopGun Studios). The new album - "Through Being Mean" - will be self-released primarily as an Internet download, with a limited pressing for those who prefer to have an actual cd in their hands.

 

1997 - 2001: The Phantom Beat:

In 1999 Abby's debut CD "Abigail Grush - The Phantom Beat" was released on Seattle's (then relatively unknown) Barsuk Records. This long awaited CD was recorded by David Dubh Black at Private Radio in Seattle and features varied instrumentation (including clarinet, sax, French horn, accordion, banjo, mandolin, and upright bass, in addition to guitars, bass, drums, and vocal harmonies) on 13 songs written, arranged, and performed by Abby with help from PeaSoup's Frank Pullen and Cassie Peek, Mark Collins, and others. The newly named group "Abigail Grush and the Phantom Beat" performed frequently in Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland to showcase the CD.

 

1992 - 1997: PeaSoup:

Abby moved to Seattle in 1992, and founded art-damaged-pop-trio PeaSoup (Abby on guitar, clarinet, accordion, drums, and vocals; Cassie Peek on bass, French horn, harmonica, and vocals; Frank Pullen on drums, violin, saxophone, and vocals.) PeaSoup performed frequently in the Seattle area, playing with such acts as Death Cab For Cutie, Harvey Danger, This Busy Monster, The Scallywags, and Aiko Shimada. PeaSoup released a 7" single on Barsuk Records, as well as several self-released demo tapes, all of which received positive and often creatively descriptive reviews ("...pop anarchists intent on disrupting the trainlines from the 'Barcelona' of typical pop music.." the Echo).

 

Collaborations:

In addition to concentrating on her own music, Abby has performed and recorded with a variety of diverse Pacific Northwest acts such as pop stars Harvey Danger, New-Acoustic songstress Aiko Shimada, indie rockers This Busy Monster, accordionist Elaine DiFalco's Fabric, improvisational wind player Paul Hoskin's Gleet, folk-duo Hand To Mouth, Hush Records artist Kaitlyn Ni Donovan, and traditional western-swing band Swing Country USA. In recent years Abby could be seen and heard around the Portland area performing and recording with the large jazz band Octet Noir, the improvisational force called Canoofle, the avant-garde spazz-jazz duo Obe'Skupla, and dynamic rock-n-roll band Gin & Tillyanna.