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Mar Caribe started when Tom McGettrick (banjo, ukelele) and Tom Santiago (guitar) began trading simple riffs and unfinished songs with one another while sitting on a rooftop underneath an airline flight path. Cole Blodgett (bass) and Jason Eckerson (mandolin, clarinet) joined in with their creative inventions as professionally schooled musicians accelerating the style in a beachy direction that combined surf, Spaghetti Western, gypsy, and bluegrass. Bob Frech (trumpet) complimented the dynamic and further migrated the sound in a more Southwesterly direction. Cole moved to New York City to pursue his studies at NYU, but Chris Dammann jumped in where Cole left off and evolved the sound of the band in a direction informed by his extensive experience in both jazz ensembles and bluegrass troupes. Soon after Dammann's arrival, Lawrence Peters brought a solid drum to the sound and, by doing so, intensified some of the jankier rythms and brought a much needed sense of order to the troupe which had so often previously dangled perilously on the precipice of a chaotic abyss. Arielle Luckmann offered to play the violin with the troupe after hearing a few songs during an outdoors sidewalk rehearsal in Andersonville and is taking the collective sound into new directions. Jason moved to Massachusetts to pursue his studies at the UMass, and Bob left the band to get married and pursue other musical projects, so it is uncertain which destinations the current lineup of Mar Caribe will take the music. The band operates on many of the same principles as a ouija board.