Producer/Groove Architect/Funktrovert Fresh Big Mouf is born of miracles, and we’re not just talking about how many marshmallows he can fit into his massive maw. Aaron was born a blind child (seriously) but had his sight restored via surgery at four months, and thus narrowly escaped becoming the next Ray Charles. Growing up amongst straight-laced but sweet-faced Mormons who are more at home cooking casseroles in the kitchen than kicking it in the club, Fresh Big Mouf went to many dance parties on a quest for joyful beats. He was looking to fall in love, searching for more dance music that was fun yet self-aware, funk-infused but not too old. One day, he determined there must be more. Excellent dance music needs to be multiplied and replenished, and thus he became Fresh Big Mouf, a music procreator.
After brief stints of middle school bands and mashups in his dorm room recording studio, at the age of 21 he started creating original stuff, moving from Indie to funkdance to uncategorizable in appropriate succession. He soon began to focus on producing artists such as Fictionist and Eyes Lips Eyes, but in his spare time, he never stopped tinkering with dance tracks for neighborhood get downs. He writes and records in vans, in studios, in parking lots while his bandmates bum around Guitar Center. It can happen anywhere.
Give his EP a listen, and you’ll realize something. Fresh Big Mouf proves that you can be a good musician, nay, a great musician, but you don’t have to be so uptight about it. It’s hard to watch one of his videos without thinking of the word “cartoonish.” In the best way, not in a Pee-Wee Herman post-arrest way. He moves like Rudy Davis from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, like an upright snake. And he jumps around on stage with verve, with joie de vivre, the joie that echoes in his songs. With his latest EP, Doberman, he is sharing the tracks he’s been emailing to his pals for years with everybody. We’re all pals here.
Fresh Big Mouf’ll be jumping up and down, fall on his butt and jump back up, still grinning, like he was wearing rubber unders. Unabashed. Full of color and motion. As are we all, just friends jamming around at a house party, letting it all out.
