Karate was an American band, formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1993 by Geoff Farina, Eamonn Vitt and Gavin McCarthy. In 1995, Jeff Goddard joined the band as bass player, and Vitt moved to second guitar. Vitt departed Karate to pursue a medical career in 1997. The band was characterised by their love for improvised music and classic rock and their adherence to the DIY punk ethos of their youth, which made them difficult to classify, being a strange fusion of indie rock, punk, blues, jazz and post-rock.