Cats Out of the Bag

After meeting in New York City and before the recent formation of Cats Out of the Bag with violinist Megan Gould, Eric Wood (composer, singer & guitarist), T Xiques (bassist & percussionist) and Mark Dziuba (guitars) recorded and toured in Europe together for over a decade. Megan Gould joined the band last year.

T Xiques grew up in Putnam Valley New York in a musical family. His father, Ed Xiques, performed and recorded with Frank Sinatra, Aerosmith, Liza Minelli and The Jackson Five. T has toured and recorded with Garth Hudson, Savoy Brown, Roswell Rudd, Ira Coleman and John Medeski.

Mark Dziuba has been a improvisational guitarist and composer for most of his life. He has performed with a who’s-who of Jazz, Blues, Rock and Bluegrass musicians internationally and has taught and performed at workshops for over 40 years. Mark is currently a tenured professor at The State University of New York at New Paltz where he directs the Jazz Studies program. He was part of the internationally acclaimed National Guitar Workshop for 25 years and has been a part of the Crown of the Continent Guitar Festival since its birth. He is a published author and has been a featured soloist on numerous recordings. Mark can be found performing regularly at home and abroad.

Megan Gould is one of NYC’s most versatile performers of Middle Eastern and Greek music. She’s performed all over the world at venues including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Royal Albert Hall and Lincoln Center. She’s recorded with Phillip Glass and Lou Reed and performed on stage with David Byrne, Sean Lennon, The Silk Road Ensemble and Natalie Merchant. She is the 2nd principle violinist in the Bard Conductor’s Institute Orchestra.

Eric Wood recorded his first LP, Letters From the Earth more than twenty years ago. It reached #6 album of the year in Italy and #11 in the Czech Republic the same year. Afterwards, he went on to record two more albums, Illustrated Night and Don’t Just Dance with T Xiques. In the US, Eric shared bills with Richard Thompson, Shawn Colvin and Suzanne Vega. Letters From the Earth was #9 in Billboard Magazine’s ‘Year-End Critics Top Ten Picks’ (January 3, 1998). The New Yorker called Eric Wood “a compelling singer-songwriter poised for a breakthrough.” Much of the material Wood has written and composed for this new band, Cats Out of the Bag fuses Jazz, American and Balkan Folk idioms to bring attention to the hardships currently endured by an increasingly larger part of the population.