The Hornitz

The Hornitz were a dynamic duo from Massachusetts, who combined some great horn and keyboard playing with prodigious use of looping to create a full band sound. Usually, WIlliam "Friendship" Lombardelli would start off a number with some beatboxing, while Lee Neckritz would add some bass with his keyboards. They would set these on loop, and proceed to build a song from there, adding horns and vocals along the way, to produce a very convincing facsimile of a 4 to 6 piece band. I learned a lot from watching these two every time they came through the Hot Spot.

They also played horns on multiple occasions with George Clinton - Dr Funkenstein himself! Lee mentioned once that he felt really bad for George in a way - everywhere he went people would just hand him drugs or slip them into his pockets. Maybe this doesn't sound too bad at all to some of you, but they said the man was basically always F-ed up, and seemed to live in a perpetual drug-fueled fog. Anyway, when we put on a P-Funk tribute show for Halloween one year, they joined us on the horns, and it was really great to play with them! The rest of us practiced for months, but the Hornitz guys knew every horn-line perfectly, and meshed right in despite never playing with us before.

Unfortunately, the duo went their separate ways a few years back, after a silly and very public spat, but both continue to make great music with other projects.