31-Jul-2011 We are so pumped for the first new RHCP album in 5 1/2 years, "I'm With You", due out August 30! We learned the first single from the album, and performed it live for the first time after just running thru it together one time at soundcheck.  You can check it out on our Facebook page or on YouTube.

25-Jun-2011 Check out this interview with our very own Mike Walker in the Algonquin Patch.

28-May-2011 After a year of rotating shows around Illinois and Indiana, we are excited to be heading out to a couple of new states for the band in June.  We will be playing two free outdoor concerts in North Carolina - Alive After Five in Charlotte and Downtown Sundown in Wilmington.  We will also be playing a private party in Las Vegas the following week, our first time bringing the funk to Sin City!

09-Jul-2010 We are officially booked as one of the bands on the course for the Rock 'n' Roll Chicago 1/2 Marathon. The race is soldout, over 10,000 runners registered. We'll be playing from about 6:30am-8:00am, so this will be our earliest gig ever, by far! Should be cool, and for a good cause.

06-May-2010 Check out this great review from our show last Saturday at Otto's!

14-Nov-2009 It was a great pleasure to contribute to the Indiana University Dance Marathon.   We helped entertain over 1,000 IU students that stayed on their feet for 36 hours straight, and raised an amazing $1,520,418.21 for the kids at Riley Hospital for Children.  It was such a touching experience, and we are thankful that we were able to help out.  Photos snapped from the stage are posted in our Gallery, take a look!

01-Aug-2009 We had a blast with our live-in-the-studio performance on ABC 7 News (WLS-TV, Chicago).  It was a pleasure meeting news anchors Linda Yu and Sylvia Perez, and we had a tour of the studio with one of the crew members before the show began.  If you missed our feature, you can catch it here.

30-Jul-2009 We make our big television debut tomorrow morning!  Be sure to tune into ABC 7 News (WLS-TV, Chicago), where we will be performing live to promote Tribute-a-palooza at Mother's!  Roughly 1-2 songs will be performed, between 11am-Noon, estimated time approx. 11:45am.  Set your DVR's!

18-Jan-2009 A special treat for all the Frusciante fans out there...In our continuous effort to recreate the live RHCP experience, we've added a John Frusciante solo song to our catalog.  Our guitarist extraordinaire, Mike Walker, is of course featured on lead vocal.  We learned the song together just yesterday during rehearsal, and it sounded good!

25-Nov-2008 Santo Domingo rocked!  We'll be posting a MySpace blog with more details and stories, but just to capture a few highlights - We received the royal treatment from our most gracious host, Salomon Sanz.  Salomon is an event promoter that brings some of the world's best club DJ's to Santo Dominingo for large-scale dance parties, sometimes exceeding 8,000 people in attendance.  Salomon acted as our personal guide for our 4-day stay, and he took us to incredible restaurants and to a very cool nightclub called LED each night. We were setup with a VIP table and given amazing service at LED, and we even briefly met Sammy Sosa & Orioles pitcher Daniel Cabrera. Aside from partying at LED and enjoying the warm weather at our hotel pool, we had a show to promote.  Salomon took us to visit a local university, and to a couple of radio stations where we were interviewed 3 times.  Ryan sang a few lines of Snow and Give It Away, a cappella, to the amazement of the DJs. The show at Hard Rock Cafe was fantastic.  They sold 500 tickets, and gave away around 200 more in promotions, so we had a wonderful audience of roughly 700 enthusiastic fans.  Presidente beer was one of the main sponsors, and we were happy to plug their products throughout the show.  A club DJ opened the night, and then we rocked hard from 10:30pm-1:00am.  Check out the photos on our Gallery page for visuals from our trip.  We anticipate a bigger and even better return trip in the near future.

08-Nov-2008 Our gig in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is official!  We've been wanting to rock the Caribbean for quite some time, and finally get to make our debut out there on November 20 at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Check out the Facebook event for our show.  It's a long trip from Chicago, but we'll be rewarded with some nice time to enjoy the warmth and beauty of a tropical island before and after our show.  Pictures and stories to come after this one!

04-Sep-2008 Check out our newly created Facebook page!  In addition to our main website (this site) and MySpace, you can check us out on Facebook and be our fan there to interact with the band and other fans.

03-Apr-2008 We have a whirlwind tour of shows for the month of April.  In addition to making our Maryland debut on April 5, we are flying directly from Baltimore to San Antonio, TX for the NCAA Final Four Festival!  We were selected by Coke Zero to play a HUGE show the night before the big final game.  We'll immediately follow headliners 3 Doors Down and All-American Rejects for the after-party of the festival, many thousands of people expected!  We were selected as Coke Zero's top choice tribute band, and are really excited to rock out with the mob of college basketball fans.

29-Jan-2008 Here we are, four months later, and our Puerto Rico tour is still up in the air.  Fortunately, we do have a lot of other exciting shows booked and in the works.  We do hope to make it to San Juan one of these days, but it will probably remain on hold until at least August.  In addition to Puerto Rico, we've been contacted with gig opportunities to play elsewhere around the world - including Australia and Luxemburg... it just seems Mexico is the only place outside of the US where the offers were serious.  But ya never know where the Peppers' fans will take us!

26-Sep-2007 Finally, finally moved our website to a new host.  The pages, pictures, and other content will hopefully be loading a lot faster for everyone now. You may also notice that we rescheduled our Puerto Rico date(s).  There were some major scheduling problems with the agent that originally booked us to perform in San Juan, so we are working with another agent to put something together for Spring 2008.  The new plan may consist of a mini-tour in the Caribbean, hitting one or two other islands.  Stay tuned for more info as our plans evolve!

17-Apr-2007 Added some sweet new video clips to YouTube from our last Copper Dragon/SIU gig.  Check our Video page for all the links.

20-Dec-2006 Have you checked out the requests feature on our website yet?  We are continually expanding our song catalog, and this is the place where you can influence our selections.  By popular demand, we just added Snow (Hey Oh) to our list.  What song will be next?  Help us decide...

20-Nov-2006 This past Friday was our international debut at Nirvana Rock Joint in Monterrey, Mexico.  We had a fabulous time, and we owe a great big thank you to Champi for his kind hospitality.  This cozy little club was such a cool place, we're already looking forward to coming back for more!

4-Nov-2006 If you didn't get to see the print article on us in the Elgin Courier, here is an online version.

2-Nov-2006 An interview with Funky Monks will appear in the November 3rd issue of the Elgin Courier.  If you have access to this newspaper, check it out!

1-Nov-2006 It's alive!  Yes, the official Funky Monks website has been completely redesigned with a sharper look that's hopefully easier to navigate.  New features have also been added and more are in the works.  A REALLY HUGE THANK YOU goes out to Jen O'Claire for her graphical design contributions, and to Wayne Genualdi for his assistance in making the layout functional.  Couldn't have done it without either of you!

12-Oct-2006 We are increasingly finding that the demand for a good RHCP tribute show goes beyond Chicago and its suburbs.  We just had a great time performing in Washington, DC a few weeks ago, and are looking forward to several other shows on the road.  Our first international date is coming up next month in Monterrey, Mexico, and we have a booking in the works for a 3-night stint in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  So if you are a fan of RHCP and want to see the next best thing, Funky Monks may be able to come for a show in your area!

21-Aug-2006 We just received our new video demo, and it rocks!  Another huge thank you goes out to Walker Video Productions for doing a fantastic job on this.

05-Jul-2006 We just recorded a new demo of seven radio favorites in the Walker basement last month.  Two of the tracks have been posted on our MySpace site.  We'll get all of the tunes posted on this website sometime soon, so please check back.

12-Apr-2006 It was very long overdue, but we are happy to say that we have finally added every tune from the breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magik to our repertoire.  We plan on doing a special set featuring the album from top to bottom at an upcoming show. In other news, the video for Dani California was released last week.  If you haven't already seen it, visit the official RHCP site to check it out!

23-Mar-2006 We just received some really cool video footage from our show at the Kappa Sigma / Sigma Chi fraternity party at Hampden-Sydney College, VA.  The audio isn't that great since it just came from the camera microphone, but the video is killer!  A HUGE THANKS goes out to Damien Kincannon for recording and editing this for us, as well as Joey Philpott from EastCoast Entertainment for hooking us up with the gig!  Check it out!

27-Feb-2006 Removed the Forum from this website, as it was not getting any use.  The Forum menu link from our home page was replaced with a link to our MySpace page, so please feel free to drop us a line there.

22-Feb-2006 Exciting news in today's Chicago Tribune!

03-Jan-2006 In case you haven't already heard, Funky Monks will be performing at the 18th annual Ski Like You Drive party!  February 25 is the magic night for us, and you can find out all of the details surrounding this amazingly fun (and drunken) event on the Ski Like You Drive website.  Make sure to tell 'em that Funky Monks sent you when you book your reservations!

21-Sep-2005 It's starting to look like the only News we ever report is lineup changes...but I swear this is it! Our dear friend and drummer, Christian Danger, has taken on new commitments outside of the band, leaving him with limited availability for Funky Monks.  Luckily for us, drummer extraordinaire Paul Guziec coincidentally became available for the position as his own band, Stone Velvet Roses disolved at the same time. Many of you will remember Paul from the 7+ years he played with Jeff in Garbo Swag.  Paul is a welcome addition to Funky Monks, and things were sounding fantastic at our last rehearsal with him behind the kit.  Be sure to catch the new Funky Monks sometime soon!

18-Aug-2005 We have yet another change in our lineup to announce: Eric Sorensen moved back to California this week after his last show with us at The Lazy Chameleon.  Eric's performance energy, attitude, personality, (and tattoos!) will be sorely missed. On a brighter note, we welcome Mike Walker on guitar.  In addition to his great skills on the guitar, Mike will also be helping out with background vocals (thank God), so our sound is going to be fuller than ever.  Come check out the new Funky Monks!

08-Aug-2005 Well lookie here - a couple of new items have found their way onto our homepage.  A discussion forum and links page finally added for your pleasure.

20-Jul-2005 You can read an interview with Jefflea in the July issue of the BlastZone Online.  Here's a quick link to the page.

18-Mar-2005 We finally have a new promo image on the homepage!  A huge thanks to Wayne Genualdi for his graphics work.  Here's a link to our old promo pic, from our first incarnation as a band (another thanks to Wayne for that one too). In other news, we established ourselves on MySpace in late January.  If you wanna check us out there and become a "friend" of the band, here's the link to our profile.

03-Jan-2005 Thanks to the support of our friends and fans, we were one of the top finishers in the poll for the ThirstyWhale.com party.  Details for the show will be posted on our Shows page as they become available.  We hope the gig to be a great night for all.

02-Jan-2005 The results of the ThirstyWhale.com party poll were quite surprising....we ended up as one of the bands caught in a 3-way tie for the 4th and 5th positions.  To resolve the tie, a very brief email-based poll is being run thru January 3rd at noon.  We need your vote once again!  Voting information is on their website.  Thanks to all who have been showing their support for Funky Monks during this crazy little competition.

20-Dec-2004 Thanks to all that came out to rock with us, The Rosedales, and Nightrain at Penny Road Pub on Dec. 3.  It was undoubtedly our best show to date, and we had a blast.  Having a great crowd of 400+ really had us fired up.  We'll look forward to more shows like that! While we take a break thru the holiday season, we have a potentially fun gig that may come together at the new and improved US Beer Company on February 5.  They are throwing a party for ThirstyWhale.com in memory of the historic club that was a staple of Chicago's hard rock/metal scene in the 80s.  Five bands will be chosen to play that night by the results of a public poll.  We need your vote!  Please take a moment to support us by voting on their website, and spread the word!

10-Nov-2004 It's finally about time to anounce our line-up change.  Guitarist Eric Wilimczyk, as well as his brother, drummer Paul Wilimczyk have decided to pursue other interests and have opted to leave the band.  We wish them well in their endeavors. Replacing them, we welcome Eric Sorensen on guitar.  Eric has a strong foundation of punk & funk, having toured the West coast with Vegas Preacher, and gigging 4 nights/week for 3 years with a funk & soul band.  Interestingly enough, Eric actually auditioned for RHCP when John Frusciante left the band....they ended up going with some guy named Dave Navarro. On drums, we are pleased to announce Christian Du Four.  When Christian isn't jamming with us, he can also be found playing his role as Christian Danger in The Rosedales, a very successful horror rock band with an international following.  Think The Misfits meets Type O Negative meets The Beach Boys.

13-Oct-2004 Based on the plot summary, it looks like tomorrow night is the night!  Catch ER if you can, I suspect that the Funky Monks references will be made in this show if it's gonna happen at all.  NBC, Thursday, October 14, 9pm CST.

02-Aug-2004 While it's not quite a national television debut for us, we are still excited to announce that the award-winning drama series ER will be making reference to us in an episode tentatively airing late September of this year.  A character will be wearing a Funky Monks t-shirt and references will be made to the shirt and the RHCP tribute band.  Given that the show is set in Chicago, that makes us the band they will be talking briefly about.  Kinda cool, eh?

21-May-2004 An excerpt from our first official press interview appears in the Daily Herald.  An article supporting the upcoming Taste of Des Plaines festival was released last week, and you can preview it online here.

13-Apr-2004 Hey, we've got video!  We owe thanks to Enormous Fro for his fine cinematography work on our performance of Suck My Kiss.  Check out the Media link, and more video to come.

25-Feb-2004 New pictures are up from the Cubby Bear North show.  A huge thanks goes out Sandy Hoambrecker and Dave Kloc for their photography work.

19-Feb-2004 Come to our next show to witness the debut of two new additions to the band: Jeff's funky Flea pants and Eric's custom-built Frusciante-style guitar.  Diggita-do diggita-do diggita-do dot!

07-Jan-2004 The Photo Gallery is now live and loaded with a batch of pictures from our first show.  We'll be adding a lot more photos as we get them, so be sure to check back periodically.

15-Dec-2003 Jeff finally got our promo photo together and revamped the site.  Hope you enjoy the new look.

22-Nov-2003 Hey, it turns out that singing talent runs in the Machnica family.  Ryan's sister, Erin, is gonna help out with some guest background vocals.

13-Nov-2003 First gig booked!  Check out our Shows page for details.

19-Oct-2003 Funky Monks welcomes Ryan Machnica as our new lead vocalist!

September 2003 Eric and Paul Wilimczyk join Jeff Genualdi to form Funky Monks, Chicago's first RHCP tribute!