It was spring of 2000 when keyboard player, Josh Wexler, gathered a handful of eager musicians he had met during his time at NYU. Sparks flew immediately as the guys found shared interests from all areas of music from jazz to metal. From their Williamsburg basement studio, the Rock Mahal, the band began making an eclectic and avant garde blend of music fueled by Country Club Malt Liqueur 40's and a substance simply referred to as "bonitz". Featuring a four-piece rhythm section with a three-piece horn section front and center, and multiple vocalists, Country Club & the Porn Horns was born. 

The band's early live shows were pure electricity. Young and full of piss and vinegar the boys delivered an onslaught of complex orchestration, jams, and performance art. Their costumes were wild and their antics even wilder, which fed the energy of the music and the crowd. A seminal performance at the former Acme Underground which featured a Country Club drinking contest, aerosol fireballs, sonic exploration, and New Orleans dance music, confirmed the boys' suspicion that they were developing something special.

Soon after that show Wexler moved to New Orleans but the band charged on. With Josh gone the band's sound inevitably began a slow shift toward a more guitar driven aesthetic. CCPH cut the four song EP "Stuff to Snack On" in 2003 and followed that up with their first full-length album, "The Stationwagon Revolution", in 2004. The album was a culmination of the eclectic, exploratory early years, and a hint at what was to come. The tongue-in-cheek, southern rocker "Whiskey Tits" became a crowd favorite as songs like "Squeeze It In", "Wishing Well", and a cover of Fear’s “New York’s Alright if You Like Saxophones” indicated a move to a more focused and rock-based sound.

Following a legendary release party onboard the Lightship Fryingpan the band began making northeast swings. Although the live shows were not as experimental as in years past, the energy and humor remained the same. CCPH’s shows have been described as “high-brow riffing mixed with low-brow humor”. The sound was getting bigger and the shows were becoming a blitzkrieg of well rehearsed and well delivered, power-trio-based, horn-infused, vocal-lead, unadulterated rock-n-roll.

In 2006 the band recorded the “Friends Don’t Make Forearms EP” with Joel Hamilton. The EP had a determined drive, leaning on influences from garage rock, arena rock, and grunge, and Joel’s production style gave the album an appropriately enormous sound. With performances at Mercury Lounge, Union Pool, Southpaw, and around the northeast the live shows continued to impress and ignite crowds.

In 2007 CCPH cut the 7” single “2 Under Par” and threw a second legendary “boat party”. Continuing to play live, the band also began a stretch of intense writing as they looked to make another LP. At this time the band felt that the name Country Club & the Porn Horns induced a vision of the avant garde and outlandish style of their past and did not properly represent the current state of the band. As a result they changed the name to Claws of Paradise–a nod to Charles Bukowski–and released a self-titled, 13 song, debut album in 2008. One reviewer described the songs as “early Sabbath doom mongering, the skin-breaking riffs of Guns N’ Roses, the scarred blues of grunge’s most wanted. And all this jump started with a nitro shot of brass.”

Claw of Paradise supported the album with a tour of the eastern seaboard and the mid-west. At the end of the summer of 2008 they decided to take an hiatus and pursue other musical interests. Although there was never an official breakup the hiatus continues. Today the boys are as close as ever and these lunatics have even began to sprout offspring–a scary thought. There is talk of starting the Pecker Patrol Brother’s Family Band, but we will have to wait on that a few years. 

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