THE DISCIPLES OF MARKOS

The Disciples of Markos play Rebetika music from the hashish dens of the 1930’s GREEK UNDERWORLD. The music was a mixture of Greek folk music and the Turkish music brought to Greece by thousands of immigrants from Turkey in the 1920’s. In the ghettos of Athens and Piraeus a new style began to emerge, it was the music of dopers, thieves, whores, beatniks, well dressed outsiders and all sorts of shady characters. This heavy, low down music told the stories of the hardscrabble underworld Rebetika life of knife fights, drug busts, love and longing.

The Disciples play in the style of Markos Vamvakaris, the most famous singer, songwriter and the heaviest, most stoned-out bouzouki player of the 1930’s. While bouzouki is the main instrument in a rebetika ensemble, the Disciples like to include other instruments that were used in the 1930’s; accordion, violin, santouri, baglama, tzouras, even the classic clinking of the ouzo glasses . The Disciples are located in the San Francisco Bay Area where they hold the distinction of being the longest-running rebetiko band in America.
The Disciples of Markos are proud members of The Radical Movement for Rebetiko Dechiotification and Bouzouki Detetrachordization (http://www.rebetiko.org/).