Orb Mellon

Orb Mellon is the alter ego and roots music moniker of Mike Malone, founder and guitarist of the seminal 90s indie rock band Dirt
Merchants.

Between 1992 and 1997, Dirt Merchants released a handful of critically acclaimed singles on their own label, V-Hold. Their first full
length album "Scarified" was released on then fledgling label Zero Hour in 1994 and re-released on Sony/Epic in 1995. Dirt
Merchants' DIY concept EP "Swiss Bank" was released in spring 1997 shortly before the band decided to call it quits. Their second
full length album "The Speed At Which You Speak" produced in 1996-1997 remains unreleased.

After Dirt Merchants broke up, Mike joined the short lived Chicago based indie supergroup Ultraswiss which included members of
Veruca Salt, The Joy Poppers, and Nectarine. More recently, Mike contributed slide and electric guitar to 27's album, "Holding On
For Brighter Days" (EU release: Undergroove, 2005; US release: Relapse, 2007).

As Orb Mellon, Mike mines the raw energy of pre-electric American roots music, particularly whiskey fueled house party delta blues.
Influenced by the likes of Son House, Bukka White, Furry Lewis, and Charlie Patton, Orb performs pure, righteous, and sonically
aggressive acoustic blues, free from any quaintness or historicism, prompting one reviewer to identify Orb Mellon's work simply as
"blues in all its primeval glory"(Tangled In The Roots, July 2006).

Recorded in the late autumn of 2006 and including cameos by Dirt Merchants band mates Maria Christopher (now of 27) and John
Malone, Orb Mellon's debut "Love Above" was produced with a commitment to preserving the directness, spontaneity, and
emotional urgency inherent in the best early blues recordings. To that end, all but one of the album's thirteen original tracks were
recorded in a single day with the majority executed in only one take. The result is a raw, diverse, and exciting collection of original
country blues.

Since it's release in January 2007, "Love Above" has gone on to receive rave reviews in regional, national and international press
and was recognized in Real Blues Magazine as one of the Top 100 releases of the past year.