: a b o u t    M a t t   J o h n s o n

Born and raised in Houston Texas, I'm currently living in Brooklyn, NY.
2009 marks my year 20 as a part of the New York music scene.

Thankfully, those years have been filled with playing experiences with so many artists :
Jeff Buckley,  Rufus Wainwright,  Martha Wainwright,
Chris Dowd of Fishbone ,  Beth Orton ,  Kris Kristofferson , 
Elysian Fields , Rickie Lee Jones,  Marc Ribot,  Yuka Honda , 
Suzanne Vega , Duncan Sheik,   David Poe, Greg Laswell,  John Mayer, 
Chris Stills, Harper Simon,  Edie Brickell,  Itaal Shur,  Tom Freund,  Teddy Thompson,  
Richard Thompson, Kamila Thompson , Katell Keineg ,  Mandy Moore , 
and  Dean Wareham  of  Luna  and  Galaxy 500.  

Recent live dates have included sitting in with  Doveman  for tour dates in Brussels and Austin,
a beautiful year-end gig at  John Zorn's  The Stone  with 
Elysian Fields , the  McGarrigle Christmas Hour  at Carnegie Hall  
( with  Lou Reed,  Laurie Anderson, Jimmy Fallon,  Rufus Wainwright,  Justin Bond,  Emmylou Harris) 

a NYC gig with  Gabriel  Kahane,  and 6 months of touring with  Martha Wainwright.  

In addition to west coast live dates with Martha Wainwright, some new musical relationships are in cultivation for '09.  
Recently I have recorded a full length CD with  Holly Brook  as part of a band composed of long time friends  
Duncan Sheik , bassist   Milo Decruz,   fellow drummer  Doug Yowell ,  and engineer  Michael Tudor.
A string of live dates is scheduled with Australian group   Angus and Julia Stone.    
A set of NYC mondays in February residency gigs are planned with the incredible young artist  Diane Birch.  
A couple dates with  Lia Ices  are planned as well.

In conjunction with the launch of this website, I am putting out (finally) my own CD.
I want to share this project with my fans and peers. Not intended as a drum record, I do however play the drums on it.
Singing and guitar playing were my focus during production. I wrote the record,and then picked an incredible cast of characters to play it.
The record features performances by :  Joan as Police Woman,  Catherine Popper  of  Ryan Adams   band , 
Thomas Bartlett  of   Antony and the Johnsons , Gerry Leonard  of the  David Bowie  band ,
Cameron Greider  of the  Martha Wainwright  band ,  Jeff Hill  of the  Rufus Wainwright  band ,
Oren Bloedow   of  Meshell Ndegeocello's  band.
 
Produced by   Aric Carroll of Slim Francis ,  and featuring a backing vocal cameo by gifted singer  Danielle DeLuca ,
it will be available for download shortly.