About NFC

---

Not From Concentrate was formed in 2008 at The College of Staten Island (CSI) by a group of music majors who couldn’t stop making music. The name comes from the band’s original drummer, Joseph Giunto, who figured that if he managed to form a band with such a name, it would 1) be a ska band & 2) get a ton of free advertising thanks to how frequently he saw the phrase on orange juice containers. 

Alan-Arthur was keen on joining a band at the time because he was kicked out of a band that contained some old friends when he asked, “What key are we in?”. That competitive spirit got him to quickly recruit James Aurelia (Guitar) and Margaret Hampton (Vocals) to form a full quartet… But Joe and Alan wanted a ska band… Thankfully there were motivated members in this core four. 

Alan-Arthur recruited saxophonist James Fletcher and Miles James (Trombone) from the CSI Jazz Band, much to the chagrin of its professor, Jazz Trumpeter and Composer Michael Morreale who was also dealing with Alan-Arthur’s “Rock Club” where students got together, jammed and performed multiple times per semester on campus. The club was popular enough to last four years after the band graduated college in 2011. 

During those college years, the band made many connections, and the group became connected to the now defunct Institute of Audio Research, where they were the final house band for engineer Dan Grigsby from 2009 – 2015. They created a bunch of songs that sat on the shelf. The reason being that Joe wanted to leave the group and moved to Nashville to become a professional County Music drummer and Margaret went to graduate school. This left Jaime and Alan-Arthur. 

After a brief hiatus, they recruited Hannah Cosgriff as the vocalist and Alex Rodier on drums. They toured down to Austin, TX to record an album and broke up due to creative differences after being active from 2014-2016 and playing countless shows. The two couples went their separate ways with more cutting room material. Alex and Hannah indeed got married and are now parents after forming the band Mind Your Own. This era of NFC did result in a collaborative release called “Hate Destroys Us” which received press coverage and is currently available to enjoy. 

Jaime and Alan-Arthur were performing and touring with various cover bands and toured with King Django from 2014-2017. In 2019, Alan-Arthur received a grant from Staten Island Arts to record an E.P. of music based around a fictionalized school shooting. This became No Name and was released on September 12, 2020. NFC began to gain some momentum through social media, making the song Too Late emerge as the most popular track from the No Name release.  

In 2021, Jaime received funding from S.I. Arts to create and host a songwriter’s circle and what emerged for them became Clark Kent and Die Trying.Having spent most of the COVID pandemic and time in quarantine transitioning from female to male, their creative side had something to say and others were resonating with Clark Kent being NFC’s most watched YouTube video and Die Trying their number 1 song on Spotify with placement on the popular Ska Punk Essentials Spotify playlist. 

Jaime and Alan-Arthur purchased a home in 2021 and quickly turned their new home into NFCHQ. Their band house, full of recording, jamming and even a stage in the backyard! This led to the band’s first engineering efforts. Alan-Arthur led the charge by noticing that nobody in ska had covered Creedence Clearwater Revival (or at least to his knowledge nobody had) so he figured Fortunate Son could be a song Jaime would easily knock out of the park. 

While Jaime was out with some old friends for an afternoon of catching up, Alan-Arthur was hard at work in the studio. He bartered some drum tracks from the father of one of his piano students, Paul Buschmann, for free piano lessons for his daughter. Messing around with the ska beat, he tracked Bass, Organ, and percussion and when Jaime came home he explained the cover idea. Jaime then tracked some guitar when Alan-Arthur and Jaime came to the same sentiment: this could be an original!

Jaime searched some old lyric books over Thanksgiving 2022, when they coincidentally caught COVID for the first time, and found the lyrics to what would become Comfortable Life (Getting You Nowhere Fast). 

With their own studio, they’ve produced songs that have been featured on Ska Punk International’s: “Ska For Moms” (For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield)  and Rudy Rudeboots’ Broadway Compilation (The Flesh Failures [Let The Sunshine In] from HAIR). 

In 2023, NFC reunited with its original singer Margaret Hampton as they were set to release a ton of material they recorded during college at The Institute of Audio Research. The result was their first album #tbt. They followed up with the single You & I in 2024. 

Now in 2025, the trio is hard at work to release their second album of music. This album will contain music from their entire career. A lot of cutting room material is finally seeing the light of day with updates that reflect their distinct sound and will not disappoint.