Connie Price & The Keystones

Connie Price and the Keystones are a modern-day deep funk/"new funk" group from Los Angeles. Though the name connotes a female lead, Connie Price & the Keystones is in fact a project helmed by Los Angeles-based guitarist/producer/multi-instrumentalist Dan Ubick (of Breakestra fame) and his friend trumpeter/arranger Todd M. Simon. Ubick, who played most of the instruments for the "group" in the studio, simply wanted an alias for his drum-playing self, and decided to go with the name Connie Price for the funk-throwback group. In 2004 the Keystones put out an EP, Blood's Haul, on the Stones Throw imprint Now Again, and that same year the instrumental Wildflowers was released. Another EP, Sticks & Stones, hit shelves in 2005, and three years later the band—Ubick and Simon with the usual bevy of fellow Angeleno musicians, and now on Ubiquity Records—issued Tell Me Something, which featured guest appearances from MCs like Percee P and Big Daddy Kane (for both of whom the Keystones recorded a separate 12" on Scion), Ohmega Watts, and Freestyle Fellowship's Myka Nyne, among others.