Grand Buffet is a hip-hop duo from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, made up of Jackson O'Connell-Barlow (stage names: Iguanadon, Grape-a-Don, Nate Kukla, and Mr. Pennsylvania) and Jarrod Weeks (stage names: M-Dog, Lord Grunge, Matt Kukla, Fred Durts). Their music is a unique brand of humorous, often satirical rap. They have toured several times with notable artists such as Sage Francis, Sole, Cex, and the late Wesley Willis. They have also toured the USA and Europe extensively, and have a large dedicated fanbase in both. In 2004, they toured Canada on the Suicide Girls tour; they finished a European tour with Sage Francis in 2005, and are, as of August 2005, on tour with Magnolia Electric Co.
Grand Buffet has been together since 1996. They have released two self-produced, full length LP's, Scrooge McRock (1997, out of print) and Sparkle Classic (2000), as well as a "Trilogy of Terror": 3 EP's - Undercover Angels (2002), Cigarette Beach (2002), and Pittsburgh Hearts (2003). Each of these releases has included different names for Jackson and Jarrod in the liner notes; the stage names are listed chronologically from Scrooge McRock to Cigarette Beach - Pittsburgh Hearts attributed them by their real names. Their Myspace account also lists them as Viceroy (Jarrod) and Plaps (Jackson). There was a third member, a DJ named G-Rod, early on who left the group in 1998 - thus the liner art for both Scrooge McRock and Dicer contain three member's pictures instead of two. In 2004, they released a full length CD of outtakes, rarities, and radio performances called Dicer: The Unheard Funk Tracks. In 2005, they released a greatest hits collection, Five Years of Fireworks, which included a new track and a bonus DVD filled with music videos, outtakes, backstage antics, and live material. A sequel to Dicer has also been announced for this year.
The band has often distanced itself from Scrooge McRock when the topic is mentioned in interviews, dismissing it as more of a retrospectively-viewed collection of demos than a proper album. For the following two years, they worked on material for an album that was to be called Peter Weller (after the actor), which ultimately was never released, culminating in an abandonment in 1999. (Several tracks from these sessions were released on Dicer.) The band refers to that year as "The Zero Year", and it was at this point that the foundation work was laid for Sparkle Classic, the earliest of their work they consider part of the official discography.
Grand Buffet have been working for the better part of the decade on a yet-unreleased but long-promised children's album entitled Gorilla and Fox which will presumably include live favorite "Let's Go Find the Cat!" Their next full length, currently unannounced, was last mentioned in August 2004 as being titled King Vision, and is expected to be released in 2006. Weeks also recently mentioned, via their website, the likelihood of a Dicer 3 and even more ambitiously, possibly expanding the project into an annual release.
