Hustling down the festive, wintery Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado, I stopped into “George’s Food and Drink” for a quick beer with a long- time Leftover Salmon fan.

I am given a run-through tutorial about Leftover Salmon, The Mark Vann Foundation, and the newly formed Great American Taxi. I had not seen the musicians of Leftover Salmon since I was a teenager, when I’d fabricated some half-baked story in order to dance the night away at their show back in 2002, shortly after the band lost Mark Vann to a six-month battle with cancer.  The spirit of both nights was of commemoration, rather than mourning. The eighth annual Mark Vann Holiday benefit was a celebration of music, community, and the “go big” attitude Vann had towards life.

The foundation had put together a line-up of artists including the Billy McKay Band, Bonfire Dub and Shannon McNally with her band, Hot Sauce. The Billy McKay Band brought to the stage a blue vibe, reflecting on recent losses in the nearby Left Hand Canyon fire.

Later, Bonfire Dub – a band from Vail, Colorado - had the audience stepping with high energy stage presence, combining a basic rock setup with ukulele, percussion, and electronic beats. They are certainly worth checking out next time you are in the Vail valley.

Todd Snider headlined with Great American Taxi and welcomed special guests Jeff Austin (of Yonder Mountain String Band), Bridget Law, and Bonnie Paine (both of Elephant Revival), as well as a small fleet of banjo players. The pickers covered a wide range of music, opening with a classic cover of The Band’s “The Shape I’m In” and moved into a driving fast-grass rendition of “Big Sandy River”.  From bluegrass to blues, Todd Snider slowed it down with “Nobody’s Fault but Mine”.

In his bare feet and with a floppy brown hat pulled over his eyes, Todd Snider has been called “the epitome of a scruffy modern troubadour” (The New York Times). This evening was no exception, as he stirred the audience on songs like “Lookin’ for a Job”.

Jeff Austin filled in on mandolin and together they made a hardy groove that had the audience stepping and swaying.  There were several Snider originals performed, but unfortunately no storytelling.

By the end of the evening the stage was a Noah’s Ark of bluegrass instruments, two of everything, and a clarinet to boot. All of the opening acts and the banjorchestra hopped back onstage for a round of Neil Yong’s “Helpless”. On the eve after the 30^th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, the musician-packed stage ended the night with “Imagine”, both somber and uplifting.

Check out some coverage for the 6th annual Mark Vann Benefit show here. | Also -- be sure to check out some more photos from the show.

Bridget Law of Elephant Revival was kind enough to share some of her thoughts from the Mark Vann Benefit show:

GW: What are Todd Snider and the guys from Great American Taxi like backstage?

BL: Peaceful and friendly. They are all total sweethearts! Todd kind of keeps to himself, but once he knows you he's a totally into talking and playing tunes. He's interested in new music and loves talking about obscure Bob Dylan records and stuff. The GAT guys are usual having a good time, especially in Boulder where all their friends and wives are around. Of course, the Vince Herman vibe is always wonderfully cheerful! He's the most friendly fun-loving guy in show biz!

GW: As a bluegrass musician, what do you think of Jeff Austin’s mandolin playing? Have you ever heard anyone like him?

BL: When I was 20 and just getting into bluegrass, Jeff really inspired me. Mainly because he's so good at engaging the energy. He feels the vibe and usually raises the intensity level, which is always fun when you are dancing! Now I'm 27 and I've met a lot of amazing mandolin players, but Jeff's playing still tugs on my soul! I've heard a lot of people try to play like him, but he's the innovator of his jamgrass mandolin style of playing for sure!

GW: Do you know Jim Lewis personally?

BL: I'm getting to know him more and more all the time. He lives in Santa Cruz, CA so I really only see him at Taxi shows. But he's such a sweetheart!  And an incredible player! I've had some really wonderful musical moments trading solos with Jim. He listens and responds with great musical conversation and his tone is excellent! I'm a fan, obviously!

GW: Any comments on Mark Vann and /or the spirit of the evening?

BL: I never had the chance to meet Mark Vann, but he sounds like an incredible person. Humorous, innovative and multi-talented musician! Not only was he a great player but he also handled the business side for the band and did the carpentry on their tour but "Bridget"! I love his playing too...  It's great to hear Vince and Drew (especially) reminisce about Mark. He sounds like and excellent guy and a wonderful friend. The spirit of the Mark Vann Benefit is a fun-loving annual community event that everyone looks forward to. There are so many great folks involved, obviously because so many people loved him! I'm honored to have been invited into this community gathering and I love engaging his wonderful spirit through the music!

GW: Are there any other profound thoughts you had about the whole experience?

BL: This year was the best year yet! I loved how by the end everyone was soft and sentimental. I believe Bonfire Dub and Todd Snider's presence really helped it flow that way. It was truly a heart-felt amazing musical experience and it was great to share it with so many wonderful friends in the spirit of a truly wonderful life!

Railroad Earth always attracts a massive crowd, and I had to soon forgotten the multiple block lines that can accumulate beside the Ogden on a big night. I was reminded the hard way, get your tickets early, and get to the theatre early, especially if you are short! Fortunately the time in line was passed quickly by observing some of the fans that dressed up in feathers, glitter, flowing skirts, and even one man in a rubber ducky bathrobe.

Luckily I made it in the door with enough time to see transient folk musicians Elephant Revival’s opening set, featuring songs from their newly released CD, “Break in the Clouds.”

Railroad Earth walked onstage shortly after ten with wonderful energy. As they started the night with a classic rock feel and moved into some folk sounds, it was clear that Tim Carbone’s fiddle was getting the audience warmed up for some serious dancing. As the night went on more solos were passed around. John Skehan was on fire with mandolin solos of a wide range, and Andy Goessling had shown his talent on about four different instruments.

Mid-set the band broke into “The Forecast” with sunny sounds from mandolin, violin, and guitar.  Hansom new bass player Andrew Altman made one of his first solos of the evening while John Skehan alternated playing fills on electric guitar and violin.

The absolute highlight of the night was the last twenty minutes of the first set. Carbone deceivingly started the mini-finale out with a traditional fiddle tune, which was passed around the stage once before taking off into another fifteen minutes of jam-grass solos, and ending with rocket launching finale by Carbone on fiddle. His firecracker energy and flashy runs had me thinking for a moment that I was at a performance of Barrage, but without the cheesy choreography.  All the same, the front row was dancing harder than ever.

The second set started up with more an infectious, danceable rhythm as the band jumps into a fast Irish reel. Goessling broke out the flute and penny whistle as Carey Harmon kept the beat going on drums. Audience members young and old break out in their best attempts at an Irish jig before returning to their usually skippy, swaying dances.

Skehan’s mandolin was featured heavily in more of the same folk and jam-grass songs as the night went on. Out of nowhere Anders Beck of Greensky Bluegrass jumped onstage with his dobro along with Elephant Revival’s Bridget Law on fiddle and Bonnie Paine on washboard to play “Donkey for Sale”.

The audience sung along and danced as the band played shortly past 2am. Many will be returning for another couple nights with the lively Railroad Earth, who have just announced they will be a January 1^st date to their New Years concerts at the Ogden.

Check out more photos from the show.

I had never attended a live eTown radio show before, and didn’t know whether to expect a “Prairie Home Companion” type experience or a full-blown concert. What I found was the best of both worlds; insightful interviews intermixed with live music and an enthusiastic crowed.

Keller Williams and the Keels opened the night shortly after seven with the very appropriate Kris Kristofferson original, “Don’t Cuss the Fiddle”. A foreshadowing of the many cover songs Keller and the Keels would be performing off their 2010 album, Thief, the bluegrass trio sang out “we’re in this gig together, so let’s settle down and steal each other’s song’s.”

After their musical entrance Keller and the Keels had a long, cheerful interview with radio host, musician, and eTown co-founder, Nick Forster. Mr. Forster informed the audience and at-home listeners of the band’s accomplishments and current projects before charismatically chatting with the ensemble about how they met and their current lives on the road.

The band played an energetic rendition of Patterson Hood’s “Uncle Disney” before handing the show back over to radio co-hosts Helen Forster. Mrs. Forster then introduced the second act of the evening, Louisiana’s Marc Broussard, who would be backed up by his own drummer, Chad Gilmore, as well as the e-Town house band, the eTones.

Broussard’s first song of the night, an original composition entitled “Lucky”, had an popular adult alternative sound to it, which Broussard later explained was an attempt to expand his fan base. Though his melodic ballads were sung personally and sincerely, they were reminiscent of John Mayer and, dare I say, even James Blunt, in their attempt to please the masses with meek, non-offensive ear candy.  Broussard’s smooth and soulful voice rang out all the same, and the audience really went crazy when he broke back down to his roots in the rhythmic, gospel flavored, and totally funky “Take Me Home”.  Ridding on that old-time soul sound, eTones’ Ron Jolly followed up with a saloon style rag on piano.

Drummer Chad Gilmore was quite notable in his constant transitions of meters and styles. Throughout the set Broussard, Gilmore, and the band would weave in and out of reggae groves, classic rock rhythms, funk, and the bluegrass boom-chuck with versatility, although they did throw off the isles of dancing fans from time to time with unpredictable beat and meter changes.

The eTones, who have played with everyone from Bob Schneider to Jorma Kaukonen, were well adjusted to their guest’s styles and songs.  Helen Forster’s voice ranged from soulful and moving during Broussard’s set to soft, sweet, and even twangy during Keller’s act.   Her husband jumped from playing guitar to mandolin to banjo and always managed to get the crown swaying and tapping during his solos.

After some more chatting Keller and the Keels return to the stage and put on uncharacteristically deep “old western” style voices for a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Loser”.

After the haunting cover, the group pulled a 180 in its mood with the totally inappropriate, totally hilarious Keller Williams original  “Portapotty”. Keller fans skipped around in the isles singing along with the band “I fell in love in the portapotty line, in the parking lot of some show, She was dancing round clutchin’ herself, She was waitin’ for her turn to go”.

Marc Broussard, Chad Gilmore, and the eTones returned to the stage to join Keller and the Keels in a finale of the Rolling Stone’s “Wild Horses”.  The show ended shortly after nine and was a refreshing contrast to the always fun, but completely draining 2 am concert finales that usually take place at the Boulder Theater. My first eTown radio show proved to be a very intimate experience, wonderful for anyone who wants to hear some great tunes and insightful commentary.

PRAANG walked on stage around eleven o’clock and gave the audience a solid three hours of improvisatory jamming. I was difficult for me to distinguish one song from the next over the hours of endless dance music, but at some point around every ten to twenty minutes I would notice the main musical theme would change.  This is PRAANG'S unique style, and because they are based so heavily on improvisation you will never see the same PRAANG show twice. The band is a collection of old and new, the ancient sounding hammer dulcimer playing along side hand drums, guitar, piano and  computerized beets.

Percussionist Jason Hann appears to be the ringleader this specific evening. With his drum set and hand drums right in center stage he ties visual and musical aesthetic of the group together. His beats are intoxicating and posses a quality I cannot describe, but recognize from West African drumming the on-top-of-it sound that makes people want to dance. And we are not just talking about swaying from side to side, the whole front row of the intimate Quixote’s True Blue dance floor was getting down with wild energy. I never though in my life would I see so many people dance madly to a hammer dulcimer solo, but my recent adventures into the jam-band scene have amazed me once again.

During the show it was sometimes difficult to notice the more familiar sounds of guitar and keys next to the very bright tribal sounding hammer dulcimer and hand drums.  Yet every sing musician in PRAANG is remarkable and if there is only one piece of criticism I have it is to find a way to make their guitar player pop out of the groove and shine a little longer.

The audience at Quixote’s that evening reminded me of being at a carnival. Everyone was festive, and many were dressed brightly and decorated with glitter, jewels, and beads. Mostly just the women actually, but a lot of dudes proved their festivity out on the dance floor.

A very different venue indeed, Quixote’s had the opening band, Zobomaze, play in an entirely separate room from PRAANG.  Continuing with the non-traditional concert set up, the openers played a second set to entertain the audience during PRAANG’s break, allowing for some circulation in the small and intimate venue.

A growing jam/funk fusion band out of Boulder, the guys of Zobomaze seemed exited to be playing alongside world class musicians as they broke down into some heavy drum solos, saxophone solos, old school funk songs and a lot of experimental music.

PRAANG came back onstage for a second blow-out set of dance music with some remarkable moments.

The night ended shortly after two as the tropically dressed audience filed out into the freezing Denver air and the guys of PRAANG wrapped up the first night of a lively three night series.

Check out Abrina's interview with Jason Hann.  (We'll have a better mic next time...)

eTown presented another amazing show at the Boulder Theater on Valentine’s day, saving me from the alternative, a romantic home cooked meal (aka cabbage and salmon quiche- my boyfriends favorite) Relieved and excited, I rolled into the theater around 7 and could hear Martin Sexton warming the crowed up already. Call me an old boring lady, but I love how organized and tame eTown shows can be. I love sitting down, I love how the volume is loud but not ear blowing, and I love getting my tickets from smiling happy people (yes, that comment is directed at you grouchy bouncer at the Fox.) And then there is the fact that they have so many shows at the Boulder Theater, beautiful, tasteful, and conveniently located.

Martin Sexton started the night with his single “Sugarcoating” of his new album by the same name. After performing the song, Sexton sat down with eTown’s Nick Forster to discuss the politically charged ideas brought up in “Sugarcoating”. Lyrics like “It was a clear blue day in September, In the year two thousand and one, Everyone seems to remember, Very few knew how it was done” combined with the discussion between Sexton and Forster about a “government within a government” strongly suggested that Sexton subscribes to the highly controversial belief in conspiracy theories surround the 9/11 attacks. Sexton calls out in the song for “somebody to tell it like it is”, though it seems that Sexton feels he is that person.

Sexton set up a challenging task by trying to convey these complex ideas in the very simple pop/folk song structure. He succeeds in some places, creating sharp, concise, yet still poetic lyrics like “if we follow where we lead and we’re eatin’ what we’re fed, Then we might as well be sleeping in our graves”.  Though Sexton is a clever lyricist, the song is simply undermined by the crack-pot stigma society places upon conspiracy theories.

Also performed at the beginning of the set was “Livin’ the Life” and “Friends Again”, two more songs of Sexton’s new CD.  An honest and authentic plea for reconciliation, “Friends Again” is a reflection on Sexton’s troubled relationship with his son. Whether Sexton was singing solo, or being back up by the house band, the eTones, all of the music performed was centered around Sexton’s amazing voice and unique, Sexton-flavored lyrics.

Once the following act, Nellie McKay, walked on stage, that all changed. Some one should have told Sexton that, along with children and cute animals, talented knock-out blondes dressed in stylish retro costumes tend to steel the show. I can not even explain all the things McKay wrapped into a 45 minute musical performance/interview. Her performance persona falls somewhere in the mixture of a confident young feminist, a retro fashionista, a multi-instrumentalist, a singer and composer, an activist, comedian, a flirt, and a woman with an amazingly unique voice.

This Valentine’s evening McKay was performing songs off her most recent CD, “Home Sweet Mobile Home”, including “Beneath the Underdog” and “Bruise on the Sky”.

McKay also sat down for an interview with Nick Forster. “I am a vegan, but I don’t really like the vegetables” McKay stated in earnest as the audience chucked. Later, she left Forster speechless for a moment as she casually mentioned  an experience where her mother and she had taken a drug cocktail and had a less than satisfactory experience on a plane.

At the end of the night McKay, Sexton, the Forsters, and the rest of the eTones all crowded on stage for a finale of Marvin Gay’s “What’s Going On?”, complimenting the political undertones of the evening rather than the Valentines’ day celebration.

Right now there is a special on Desert Rocks Music Festival tickets, go buy yours and get ready to get groovy with some great bands in Moab this Memorial Day weekend, May 27-29. This year Desert Rocks (DR) will be hosting an array of artists, from Hip Hop to Jam Grass. The line up includes:

Great American Taxi feat. Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon

Chali 2na

People Under the Stars

MTHDS

Hot Buttered Rum

White Water Ramble

The Motet

Elephant Revival

Juno What?!

Yamn

Zobomaze

And many more! To see the full line up go to http://www.desertrocks.org/band-line-up.html.

The Desert Rocks Music Festival is known for friendly community and beautiful landscape. “It's just a phenomenal little festival where you feel really connected to the landscape, and you're really out there with the elements… the music seems to go all night and the desert comes alive with music and camping.”  Says Adam Galblum of White Water Ramble, who will be returning this May to play there fourth year at DR.

Campers can arrive Thursday May 26^th for some unofficial jams, followed by stage performances Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Camping is free with the purchase of a Desert Rocks Music Festival ticket. You can visit the Community Board on the Festival web site to try to catch a ride out to Moab if you are traveling far. Desert Rocks is an eco-conscious festival and will be making every effort this year to reduce their environmental footprint. That means everyone in the beer garden will be drinking out of recyclable cups! Or better yet, bring your own.

For more info on the Desert Rocks Music Festival check out their website.

Right in the middle of his nation wide tour with Conspirator, Marc Brownstein took some time to talk with Grateful Web about the tour, his music, his current collaborations, the future of electronica, and how he feels about life, Jazz, and Britney Spears.

GW: My name is Abrina Williams with the Grateful Web, this is Marc Brownstein from the Disco Biscuits and more recently Conspirator.  How are you doing tonight?

MB: I’m doing really well thank you.

GW: Are you still doing your Southern tour dates?

MB: Ya, we’re in Louisville Kentucky tonight.

GW: How’s the South treating you?

MB: Treatin’ me great. Just had a BBQ sandwich. I heard there’s an ice cream Sunday for desert. I heard rumors that there may be an ice cream Sunday on the way.

GW: Nice. South’s treatin’ you well. Ok, so you kind of in the middle of your tour right now, and you guys have a new addition this time around. Chris Michetti?

MB: Chris Michetti!

GW: Can you tell me a little bit about what he’s bring to you guys with this tour and your music?

MB: Well he’s been playing with us since like he played with us a couple of times over the summer, last summer, and we decided, you know, right away after we played a tour with as a replacement guitarist for the disco biscuits last year that we wanted to keep working with him and he is jut bringing good positive vibrations. Good pozzie vibes the whole way you know. It’s a personality thing, he’s really not a very good guitarist  at all. (pause) no, he’s incredible. he’s the best. He’s an incredible producer, he’s written some songs that we’re playing on tour that’s just taking everything in a different direction. He’s teaching me a lot of things and I think I’m teaching him a lot of things. We share with each other’s secrets of studio recording,  ya know, ideas of improvisation, and it’s one of those relationships that’s mutually beneficial. Ya know, like every which way that it could go. He feels like we’ve done a lot to change his life over that last year and he’s done a lot to change our lives.

GW: That’s great. Your teaching him improv?

MB: I mean, I think I’ve taught him a lot about how we improv over the last few years and what kind of things that we do in our improvisation. Things like holding back and being patient you know. Waiting for the chance to develop rather than forcing it to develop. Then he’s teaching me things in the studio like how to make a side train compression and how to make a great bass sound on massive, which is a synthesizer that we use to make our sounds. So there are things that he knows that I don’t know and things that I know that he doesn’t know and we’re just trading all of our secrets and everybody’s getting better at everything.

GW: So you guys have been through a couple of different line-ups with Conspirator, with Chris do you think he this might me a more permanent member?

MB: ya, definitely. Until he quits he’s here.

GW: Can we expect any other guests on this tour?

MB: Well we’ve had different drummers playing throughout the whole tour you know. We had, last week was Mike Greenfield from Lotus, this week is Aaron Shear from the New Deal, we’ve had Adam Deitch from Pretty Lights with us for a bunch of nights. Um, Main Shaw from Mansions on the Moon, he was supposed to do this tour but he’s on tour with Wiz Khalifa right now, opening for Wiz Khalifa for a whole tour. So we’ve been using some of the best drummers from the  so-called jam-tronica world and, you know, these are the best live electronic drummers in the country. So we’ve had this really great cast of rotating drummers and the more we get into it the more we feel like this is the band here, which is tonight, tonight we have Daren. Really, like every time a new drum gets here we look at each other and we’re like “this is the beeest” but when Daren is here we really feel that way, he’s a really special guy and he just brings so much positive energy to the tour and is a really healthy guy, sober, and an inspiration to us all and a really good influence on us all and I find that when he’s here we’re working the hardest and staying the healthiest and playing the best.

GW: Is he sitting next to you?

MB: No he’s not, Chris is sitting next to me, and I don’t know where Aron is . That’s just actually the truth.

GW:  Great, so that leads me into my next question, have you had any really outstanding nights on this tour, like, that you could put above the other and you guys might put out some CD’s?

MB: That’s interesting cuz this last week, since Ultra…well, the tour’s been great all along, but this last week we’ve been all kind of playing sober, which in the rock-n-roll world doesn’t always happen as much as it should and this last week I feel like we’ve been the best that we’ve been. Every night, everybody is just so in tune with each other and everybody is so on the ball and it’s been so refreshing to get up there and everybody be fresh and tight the whole entire night and I feel like we’re hitting a new level right now that we’ve never been at. I don’t know if it’s just that we’ve been on tour for three and a half months, almost four months, and maybe towards the end of the tour we started to wear ourselves our a little bit and we decided just to wake up and not to drink or smoke, ya know, and cut all of the fun stuff out and all of the sudden we’re playing really, really well. I don’t know what it is but it feels great being up on stage with a clear head and knowing you are playing as well as you can possible play.

GW: Cool, sobriety is a new sensation?

MB: Sober is the new high

GW: Cool, what have they been observing about the playing over the last few days.

MB: It’s been kind of a full band thing. We’re all doing it at the same time  and it’s just like everybody is waking up feeling health and everybody is going to bed feeling healthy and the band is the most clear headed part of the whole room, you know, and that’s the way it should be I think. We’re starting to really take it seriously I think. We’ve been out on tour, and it was fun at first, but the deeper we get into it the more serious we are starting to take it. We are writing a lot of new music and we’re getting to the point where everyone’s treating it like a real band, working at it and making it the best in can possibly be every single night. Not that we weren’t trying to make it great before, but you know, everyone’s acting a little more professionally than we’ve ever acted before, which is really fun and exiting.

GW: Cool. So with the Disco Biscuits, that’s a different setting, and you guys have been taking that seriously for a long time. Do you think it’s a similar attitude to that, or is this a development unique to Conspirator?

MB: Well I hope to bring it back to the Disco Biscuits with me, you know what I mean. We just did a show like that at Ultra and it was one of the best shows we have played all year, or couple years. With Biscuit show next week I feel like I’m just gonna ride these vibes and see how that rolls. And the biscuits have always been very serious and very professional acting. Maybe not always the most professional of any band, but always very serious. That band has been the focus of our lives for so many years, you know, we’re trying to be professional at all time. With Conspirator at first it didn’t really matter as much, you know, it doesn’t matter how it goes, but now that we’ve played 45 shows we’re starting to feel like it does matter and we’re trying to make it really special. Every night it’s different, every night it’s special and exiting for fans and it comes out of playing a lot of shows and getting to know your band and developing jams over time, and the songs are just changing, you know, as always, and the jams and the songs that we’re playing are just gonna get better every time you play them. We’re playing 30 or 40 different songs right now with conspirator and over the coarse of the three months that we’ve been playing each and every one has a little improv section that’s just getting better and better as we go along. It’s natural, the more you play with someone the more you get used to playing with them. Your in a band, so.

GW: That’s great. I wasn’t gonna ask this now but since your talking about your free, uh, your improv and your jams and I know you have a jazz background and as an acoustic musician I’m kind of confused about this electronic stuff, like, can you compare the freedom of your electronic to maybe an acoustic jam?

MB: A bunch of years ago there wasn’t a lot of freedom, it was like you press play and this is what it is and this is how it goes but over the last couple years with Ableton and all the different programs that are available to you are changing and adapting to the different styles of music that are our there and the technology is so advanced at this point that you can play electronic music and still make it improvisational. So you can loop out sections and we can improvise on top of them and it’s really no different than improving acoustically only we use the computer as a fifth instrument. The computer is an instrument itself at this point. You can manipulate the backing track, change the backing track, and that’s what’s been going on with us, we have the ability to choose how long we want the jam, to be in real time. Aron can take a section and loop it out and we can jam on top of that track section while we’re playing it. You could mute the section, you know, there are so many different things that he could do in real time while we’re playing. The advent of software out there has freed up musicians to make music on the fly rather than being locked into what they had created already in the studio. And a lot of the time we are looping things that we’re playing like, and that turns it into electronic. Play something live, loop it, and then you could play something on top of it. That’s a really special thing that can be done that wasn’t possible ten years ago. As that technology changed the D.B. opened up our minds to using the computer, using samples, using loops that we control while we are up there. It becomes advantageous to use the technology. Being locked into it, what you created in the studio, makes it really not fun. You play the song, it’s the same every single time. But what we do is so improvisation-ally oriented that we get board if we cant change it up or manipulate it as we go.

GW: So Ableton, you would recommend? Are there any other software’s you are getting really into right now?

MB: Well I use Mainstage, which is an extension of Logic. Mainstage basically allows me to play a soft-sense that’s on my computer live as I go so I’m just using my computer more as a library of sound. It’s no different from me at the keyboard or the synth but I could take synth off my computer or create them on my computer if I want and play them. I could build synthesizers and built sounds myself. I’m using the computer more as a synthesizer, Arons using it more as a beast.

GW: A beast?

MB: Ya, his computer is like a beast and mine’s more like a synth.

GW: Ok. So your writing a ton of new music right now, what doing you think is doing best? What is being really well received by your fans at the live shows?

MB: It depends if your talking about the biscuits or Conspirator,  or the other project I’m doing with Mckenzie Eddy.

GW: Oh, I mean on your tour right now.

MB: We just played a new song called Palfon’s two nights ago that got really well received. This song that Chris and Aron wrote called Velvet Red, that’s up on our sound cloud page and has just been the highlight of the show pretty much every night people are loving it. We’ve been doing a lot of dub step and house-y stuff, house stuff with dub step sounds, but tastefully done, not overwhelmingly and in your face. We’re trying to write more melodic music,  stuff that has changes in the melodies in it, not just overwhelming bass sounds. For me, I can’t speak for anybody else, but I think there is a lot of dub step out there that is hard to listen to, but we like the rhythms, I like dancing to that tempo. I’ve been having fun learning how to make it and making it on the bus but still trying to keep the songs sounding melodic and musical. We like to have sound-y musicality. Sound-y, we like to keep everything sound-y.

GW: Your melodies, do they come from your head or do you have another prominent influence for your melody writing?

MB: For me personally I sing it in my head and then just figure out what I’m singing.  I don’t have perfect pitch, I can’t just sing something and then play it instantly, I have to take a second to figure out what I am singing, and as I get older it gets easier. The more I play the easier it gets to transcribe from my head over to the instrument. It used to take me a while but now it just takes me a second to find the note and then find the next note. That’s what’s keeping Conspirator different from the Biscuits, the melodies are what ties it all together. Kind of like the way Shpongle and Hallucinogen and Younger Brother are all different types of bands but they all have Simon Posford melodies, the common thread. There’s a common thread between the DB and Conspirator that is my melodies and Aron’s melodies are unique and have a very specific vibe to them. We’re always looking for new music, trying to emulate different stuff. Coming off of Ultra Music Festival last week we saw so many incredible acts. It’s like you hear it in your head and then sit down at the computer and try to write them down, the best music I’ve ever written, I’ve written in my head first. I haven’t just pecked away at a keyboard or played on a guitar until it sounded good, the best stuff is strait out of my head and then I figure out what I was doing later.

GW: Cool, that’s great that your getting fast at it too. So speaking of the DB and Conspirator and going back and fourth between them, how are your rolls changing as a song writer and performer?  DB is bigger,  do you have to back off a little to let everyone else have more artistic imput?

MB: It’s basically the same role, everybody’s job is to write music at all times. Nobody can force you to write music, it’s just about taking the initiative to do it yourself. That’s the way I look at my life: my job is to write music. I need to write music for myself, I’m making a hip hop album, I need to write music for that, I’m writing an album of kind of down-tempo music with a girl named Mckenzie Eddie, I’ve written 15 songs with her, I have to write music for the DB, I have to write music for Conspirator. When I’m writing for Conspirator I’m doing it all electronically, on the computer, when I write for the Biscuits I try to keep them a little bit more Biscuit-y. I try really hard to keep the music sounding like the band and not have it be one thing for every band. I used to write songs and then play them with whoever, but now I am specifically writing for Conspirator: electronic, house, dub-step—y, whatever they are, and when I write for the Biscuits I’m writing a little bit more rock-n-roll, songs like Portal to an Empty Head and Twisted and Naïvea  and Last Days of Everything, they’re vocal songs. It’s cool because I love writing electronic music, but I also love writing vocal songs and I don’t want to do one or the other, I want to do both, and that’s one of the reasons we have Conspirator and the DB, they’re two very different bands with two very different sounds and I don’t want to give up one or the other. I’m in Conspirator now, I can’t sit down with a guitar and write a song with lyrics and have it end up working for Conspirator. A song like The Bridge, we wrote last years and played 5 or 6 times with the Biscuits, it’s kind of a folk-sy, blues-y rock song with heartfelt lyrics, borderline cheesy, it means a lot to me emotionally and there is a lot in the song that I needed to get out. I wrote it for a reason, I was feeling something and wanted to get it out into music. That song would never work for Conspirator, there’s no place in the set for it, there’s barely a place in the DB set for it, but we play it and the fans love it, and the band is asking to re-learn it and play it , but, you know, they’re two very different outlets, one is kind of where I came from and one is kind of where I’m going, but I like to do both equally.

GW: You have mentioned Mckenzie Eddy in a couple of other interviews recently, do you want to tell your fans anything about the new music, or dates to look out for?

MB: Next week I have a band that I hand picked and she’s gonna come out and play a few songs to open the show with Chris Michetti on guitar and Adam Deitch on drums and Boram Lee on keyboards and Stu Brooks on bass from Dub Trio. We hand picked that band for a reason, they are four of the most talented musicians out there, and I’m exited. I called Adam and said “Adam, would you do this thing with me and Mckenzie” and he was like “what’s the music? Is it your music?” and I said “Ya, I wrote all the songs and she wrote the lyrics” and Adam was like “If it’s your music I’m doing it!” and it felt so good to have him say that to me, to have a guy of that stature, to have that be the turning point for him to say yes, I want to play this gig. So that’s where we’re gonna release some of this music. We released one song already, Retrograde, and there is a great remix that Chris did, called the Sizzurp remix, it’s a dub step project. He’s an incredible dub step producer; he took this song Retrograde and made a dub-step remix out of it. So we’ve released that one song, but there are 12 others that nobody has heard. If you like the music I’ve written over the years, chances are you’re gonna really like this project because I wrote all the music for it and (pause) …I think it’s really good. It’s a little bit different; I have a lot more freedom when I’m writing for somebody else than when I’m writing for myself, which is great because there are no expectations. There are no fan expectations, you can just write and whatever comes out, it comes out. Then you sift through it and figure out what the good stuff is. Now we have 12 really cool songs, from pop-electronica to down tempo stuff, from massive attack to niarma. I’m exited for people to start hearing it. It’s like writing songs and having a beautiful girl with a beautiful voice be the face of it, I don’t have to worry about singing songs or being the image behind it, I can just be the person in the studio making the music. For me that’s a really different experience and one that I’ve valued a lot.

GW: I read in an interview that you had met Erykah Badu recently, are you trying to do any collaboration there?

MB: I am in fact. She has contacted me a couple of times and I have been having a hard time getting in contact with her because I’m on tour, and I’m having a hard time getting the music I want to get to her actually to her. To be honest I’m a little nervous to send Erykah Badu music, and she’s just like “Brownie, come on already, let’s get the music! You said you were gonna send it.” And I’m lacking on it a little bit. It’s kind of weighing on me, every morning I wake up and am like “I’ve got to get something to Erykah Badu” but I just haven’t decided what I want to get to her. That’s a hard thing to decide when you have a super star like that. But ya, we hit it off and traded numbers and she has been actively asking me for music. I’m exited to know her and hopefully get a collaboration going with her in the near future. And actually,  Dam. Dash has introduced me to so many great people from Talib Kweli to Ray-Quan to Erykah Badu to Wiz Khalifa, Bone Dali, and we’re working with all of them right now. That’s really exiting. When Dam. Dash gets in touch with you it’s just like, hey man, what’s up, lets talk, and the year and a half that we’ve talked he’s just done so much to help further my career on the producer side of things. It’s a new thing for a guy who’s been in a jam band for 14 or 15 years, to have that kind of access to those kinds of artists, and for them it’s exciting because we’re coming from a totally different place, and the music is changing. Pop is going electronic, and that’s where we’re at. We have a lot to offer hip-hop and R&B artists right now, which is why Dam. asked me to produce Mckenzie’s album in the first place. The people from the pop and hip-hop world are looking for people who know how to make electronic. We’re in a really fortunate place right now, we have been working really hard for a lot of years, and it’s starting to pay off in a lot of ways for the DB and for Conspirator, and personally for me as a producer and a songwriter.

GW: Do you feel comfortable going into pop?

MB: Hell ya.

GW: If Britney Spears comes to you and needs something what are you gonna say?

MB: Bring it on Britney! You know what I learned recently: the best way to do things is by saying yes to things you don’t know how to do. Dam came to me and was like “do you know how to do re-mixes?”, and in my head  I was thinking “no, I’ve never done one before” but I just said “of coarse I know how to do re-mixes!” And then we made 25 re-mixes, and now I know how to make re-mixes.  Then Dam. was like “do you know how to produce an album?” and I was thinking “no I don’t know hot to produce an album” but on the outside I was like “let’s funkin do it babe!” Then we produced an album, and now I know how to produce an album. So you know what, the best way to learn how to do things is to say yes to the things you don’t know how to do. Just dive into it head first and learn it. There is no substitute for real world experience. You could go take production classes at a music school, but until you go produce an album you’re not a producer.  Now I’m a producer. And it was nice, now I hang out with people like Alex B. from Paper Diamond and Michetti and we all just trade tricks. We learn. The guys that produced Planet Anthem are in a band called Nico’s Gun and we just sit together and trade tricks. I taught them how to use Lodgic and how to make hip hop beats and that’s just where the art of it is, you get to a certain level and you know a lot of people and if you care enough you sit down with them and you trade tricks, you trade information, you trade secrets. You learn, it’s still about learning. I’m 38 in two days, and now I really get what learning’s all about. In high school it’s like “why am I learning all this garbage?” but now I don’t have a teacher who’s gonna test me later, it’s all about real life. It’s all about opening your mind up and opening yourself up to learning how to do new things you’ve never done before. That’s what it’s about: that’s what life is about.

GW: Great. I just have two more questions for you, and one is that I know you’ve got some kids, do you have them playing music?

MB: Yup, they do, they both play piano. Well, I have three kids but the two of them that are old enough to play piano play. They are six and four. My son wants to learn how to play electric guitar as soon as possible. I’m throwing that one in Michetti’s ballpark. This one’s for you Michetti, teach the kid how to play guitar ok.

GW: Alright, and back to your jazz background, who is your favorite jazz musician?

MB: uhhh well that’s just a really hard question. I could go with the obvious answer, like “my favorite jazz musician is clearly Miles Davis or John Coltrane” but I’m a bass player so if I had to answer “who is my favorite bass player and jazz musician” old school I would say Paul Chambers, new school I would say Christian McBride. If it’s “who’s your favorite musician who’s not a superstar like John Coltrane or Charles Mingus or Felonious Monk or Miles Davis” I would probably say Freddie Hubbard. But there’s so many of those guys, I love Dexter Gordon. I LOVE Dexter Gordon. Don’t you love Dexter Gordon? Do you know Dexter Gordon?

GW: Ah, no I don’t Know Dexter Gordon.

MB: Ya, get on that shit.  It’s the greatest. And then there’s so many. I have 300 jazz CD’s at home that I bought while I was in jazz school. I’d say over all, my very favorite jazz musician of all time, over all categories, is Cannonball Adderley. You know Cannonball Adderley?

GW: I know Cannonball Adderley.

MB: Cannonball Adderley, go home and get Something Else by Cannonball Adderley and just enjoy your night. You can thank me later.

GW: Ha! Ok, is there anything else you want your fans to know before I say goodbye?

MB: Nah, what else can I say? I want them to know one thing, I want them to know that the DB are not breaking up because we are on a Conspirator tour right now. They can just rest easy. Rest easy motha fuckas! Everything is fine, just taking a break.

Hannah Field and her bongo bangin’ band recently released a fun new concept CD: music to be paired with food. Along with the CD comes a small vegan cookbook.

To sample Hannah’s creative project I had some hungry music students over for dinner and jams.  I picked a couple of Hannah’s many recipes to prepare, and tried to follow her instructions as closely as possible. On the dinner menu was Tai noodles, hummus, hemp balls, and banana ice cream.

Dinner was a huge hit, the all vegan meal had even my meat loving friends licking their fingers in satisfaction. And the best part: I was able to feed 15 people a three coarse meal for about $20. Hannah, you are not only a wonderful chief but totally economical! When you get her book the first thing you should make is Tai noodles, you can adjust them to be as spicy or mild as you like, get your daily veggie fix, and have a huge meal ready in about 45 minutes.

I was a little skeptical about vegan ice cream, and kind of screwed it up. We ended up with cold, sweet banana goo, which was still delicious, and went really well with the hemp balls. The balls were essentially a cute little finger food made up of nuts, berries, and help oil.  Tons of protein, super filling, and really fun to make.

Hannah’s CD/cookbook combo was beautifully designed, with fun pictures of her kitchen and studio.

The music portion of the package is a tribute to all of the things that make meals amazing: friendship, love, and ganja. Hannah sings and strums while band members back her up on guitar and drums.

The music sends out tons of positive vibes, but the production is a little rough around the edges.  There are a lot of areas where I understood what kind of sound the group was going for, though the effect fell flat. Hannah’s heart is in the right place though, and the CD is perfect for dancing and singing to in the kitchen.

I expect that we will see a huge development in a second CD (please make one Hannah!) The heart is in the right place, though I bet the price was not right for studio recording and editing.

The cookbook alone is worth whatever she is selling it for! The CD is the icing on the cake. I look forward to seeing the next project that the unique and creative Hannah Field has to offer!

Dan Kurtz gave us a couple of minutes of his time before launching of his final tour with The New Deal (TND). Sentimental and comical, Dan shared with us his favorite venues, music video directors, and moments with The New Deal as well as his thoughts on sexuality in music and the story of how this trio first met.

GW: I'm Abrina with the Grateful Web; we're speaking with Dan Kurtz of The New Deal this afternoon, how are you doing Dan?

DK: I'm doing great.

GW: You're in Florida tonight?

DK: Ya I am, I'm playing a show with my band Dragonette.

GW: Great. I was calling tonight to talk a little bit about The New Deal first, but I check out Dragonette and they seem awesome and I would like to spend some time on that too. But what I wanted to talk to you about was the New Deal and how you just announced that this is going to be your final tour this summer, and I know you've answered this question a couple of times by now but do you guys want to tell us a little bit about why you decided to break up and what projects you all are going to move on towards?

DK: Well, we're not breaking up to go do anything else, I think we're stopping playing as TND because we're not playing the way that we'd like to, or the way that we've always played as TND. It's become really hard to do. Some have other things going on, and in some cases that has gotten in the way of TND. At this point it's become difficult to play 30-50 shows a year with the schedule we were getting to, trying to accommodate everybody. At that point it becomes difficult to operate a band that only play 30-40 shows a year, at our all time high we were play 130-140 show a year. We're whittled those down, there was a sweat spot for a while and that became more complicated, even as we hit 70 shows or 80 shows. Between everybody's schedule commitment, I live in England most the time, Jamie's got two kids, Daren's doing a bunch of other things. In order to get us in the same place to play shows is getting really hard and we would feel the pressure or wanting to play more or feeling! Like we had to play more to maintain the prescience of the band. It was getting to a point where it became really hard to make that happen. It went against the spirit of us first enjoying playing in TND and secondly having it fit into our lives.

GW: Ok, understandable. You've announced one final tour for this summer and fall. You’re playing Wakarusa and Rothbury and a bunch of other really cool shows. What are you looking forward to for the summer?

DK: I think I'm looking forward to not taking a single show for granted and putting everything I have into every show. I think for the most part we've always done that, but there have defiantly been periods where we've had too many shows, you don't have that same urge to savor every second of it, for us now it's about savoring every second.

GW: Cool. And your band mates feel the same way?

DK: Well I think so, I imagine so...I hope so. TND is something we all grew up on, for us it was the biggest thing in our lives for a really long time. For all the music we are all play now, it has a very central roll in the kind of musicians we are, and whenever I play music I can feel how it's being formed from me playing in TND. I think all of us are going to recognize that in the next couple shows, like "oh ya, this is the place where I feel most comfortable when I play music." I really want to savor and remember this. I'm really looking forward to that.

GW: can we expect any special guests or surprises on this tour?

DK: We started talking about that, the funny thing is that we operate best when it's just the three of us. I mean, in very few cases have we had a shitty sound when someone comes and joins us, most of the time it's cool, and in a few rare cases it's like "wow, that was really amazing".  At least for us, it always chances the dynamic on stage for us when we have somebody else playing, not that that's a bad thing, but especially now, it's almost selfish because we want to get everything out of the final number of minutes we're playing together. It's almost like all we want to do is play amongst the three of us. After 12 years it's like we have a secret language between the three of us, it's hard to get just anybody on stage and immediately participate. So we become a very different band with anyone else on stage. It's not a bad thing, it's just what TND does best is play amongst the three of us.

GW: Ok. So you have your tour dates lined up and I imagine you been to most of these places a couple of times before to play but can you tell your fans maybe your most underrated venue on your scheduled tour stops this summer? or in general. Places that people wouldn't think to go out, but that you actually really like.

DK: Well, over the last ten years we have played all of these places, other than north western Michigan, big festival, whatever, I can't comment on that, but I'm sure it's gonna be rad. What we started to do a couple of years ago was to play the South a little bit more, or at least south of Philadelphia and New York, which were kind of our hones in the North East. What I’m leading up to is that Richmond, Virginia has actually been an awesome place. I really love playing in those places and I'm really excited that that's on the schedule two days from now. I began to really look forward to playing in the South, at least that's South to me. I'm a Canadian so ...

GW: so that pretty far south for you.

DK: Ya, it's great that we're going to at least get as far as Virginia.

GW: That’s great, and you’re already in Florida so you can't really get an more South.

DK: Ya, I have to actually put on a shirt now, going so far North to Virginia.

GW: So do you want to tell us a little bit about Dragonette, your side project?

DK: Dragonette is a band I have had for about five years; it's kind of the reason why I ended up in England. It's very different than what TND does, phonically, but it's very influenced from TND with danced beats and big bass sythns, but it's a pop band. We actually have a song on the top 100 billboard right now in the UK.

GW: Nice, what is is?

DK: It's called "Hello", and a French DJ called Martin Solveig. I spend so much time in the US and then Dragonette has this whole other world of playing. I was in Brazil, Chile, China.  I have been to Italy four times with Dragonette in the last two and a half months. France, Germany, it's just a very different experience, which is great. Where on the one hand TND is all about 30 to 40 minute long songs Dragonette is all about two to three minute long songs. It's almost a different part of your brain.

GW: I have seen some of your stuff on line, and I did an interview with Marc Brownstein a couple of weeks ago and he had also mentioned doing a project with a female after coming out of a band with a bunch of dudes, and it seems like your doing a kind of similar thing with your wife, who is totally beautiful and talented. And what he was saying, it almost seemed like he was like "oh thank God I have this beautiful talented voice and face to represent the music and I don't have to worry about that". I'm wondering if you could talk on that experience a little bit. Maybe it's totally different for you, I'm not trying to ask any loaded questions, but um...

DK: No, that's actually a very interesting question. Being a member of a female led rock/pop/dance band, which there are very few in terms of the ones that have ...when they hit they hit big, like Blondie or No Doubt. They are an anomaly other wise. There are plenty of female artists, but bands that are led by women are a different thing I think. It's such a great world to operate in because there's an entirely different sensibility in the music and there's a different kind of posturing or something. There’s very few rules that we have to follow.

It's kind of like if you're an Indie band you have to look a certain way or if you’re a punk band you have to look a certain way. For us it's been a longer process figuring out what it is exactly. Me, Martina, and Joel are stronger and it actually ends up feeling like a family. You have such a different effect on audiences when it's a band confronted by a woman than a three piece band confronted by a guy. The lyrical content, I would say it’s so much broader but it's not necessarily that, the tone is different. You can't go to the same places as you could with an all guy band, but you go to different places because there's a woman singing. Everything from the sonics, the way that you produce music around the voice is really different and if you want to get sensitive to the lyrics as the person making music, which is my job, then it's an entirely different pallet that you work with, and I can totally understand Brownstein’s thoughts on that. I feel like, on the one hand, I have had the best of both worlds for the last however many years. To be crude, I could rock out with my cock out with TND and then I can go be in Dragonette with Martina, and for me I think it’s made me a fuller musician in a way, which is great.

GW: Really cool, if you could touch on that a little bit more, Dragonette’s just like amazingly sexual, and it’s really fun pop music, and Martina defiantly doesn’t hold anything back, and I’m wondering, does that fall into some of the rules your not allowed to really go there with your all male band.

DK: I don’t know, I think the sexuality that has been in some of the songs in Dragonette , like for a long time a lot was made of that, a couple of songs in particular that were easy to be looked at as a song about sex, period. And, of coarse, I think that about 90% of the songs in the world are about sex. In our case they were, like this little voice, little woman was being so sexual, in a way that was more obvious or more challenging than the Beyonce or Shakira video for example, where they’re wet and dry humping a wall while getting rained on and their nipples are visible through their shirt. We’ve never made a video like that, yet we are much more race-y, for example. So to some degree I think the sexuality of Dragonette is misinterpreted in a sense, I think Martina talks about it in a different way. But I think the places that we can go to, that are harder to go to, like there are plenty of guys, and defiantly tons of hip hop artists who, especially guys, and girls, who are all about talking about how fucking great they are in bed or writing sex songs, like whatever, but anybody can do that. But in our case, the place that we can go that perhaps a three piece all male band couldn’t go are actually the exposing, vulnerability in the lyrics. We have lots of songs that talk about hurt feelings, basically, like betrayal or vulnerability. It’s harder for guys, unless their in like an emo genre, to be able to write those kinds of songs, and we can write those kinds of songs and put them to a dance beat, and make them like a big loud dancing song, but it’s actually about being betrayed or your heart is broken. So that’s what I mean about the places that we can go. From my experience in a three guy band, those are areas that are not often explored by an all guy band.

GW: Ok, so you have a bunch of videos out with Dragonette, do you, can you tell me about which music video directors you have really enjoyed working with?

DK: Well most of the time they’ve been friends of ours.

GW: oh wow, they are really beautifully produced.

DK: Ya, there really, well the first one we made, “I get around” was made by our friend Wendy Morgan, who I think she’s doing Nicki Minaj videos, most recently, but she’s done, um, what was that band Danger Mouse and Cee Lo, anyway, whatever, I sound like I, all of these videos you would know about. But anyway, Wendy’s a great video director, another guy, Drew Lightfoot is one of our best friends, also from Toronto, does work all over the place, and then the one video that I personally really enjoyed was for “Take it Like a Man”, which is where we did like a spoof on boogie nights, like porn shoots, 70’s porn, really good idea. Anyway if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth looking that one up. And then I think the video that eclipsed everything is the one Martina did with Martin Solveig, which I think currently has 30 million views, although we we’ rent in the video and it was just Martin playing tennis, but whoever made that video with him falls totally in line with our sensibility. It’s basically like a spoof on the Royal Tenenbaums. But in general making videos has been really fun and because it’s been about having a really good time with a friend of yours it’s like coming up with a story and then turning it into a really short movie.

GW: Cool, ya, it seems like a lot of fun, what you guys are doing. So you and the other members of TND are kind of living in different places right now, bur do you hope to collaborate with them in the future?

DK: I would imagine it would be hard not to, we play magically together in the sense that we jammed together by accident twice, twelve years ago, and were like “fuck man, this is awesome, I have never felt this way before, lets do this” you know. In terms of the three of us working together, Jamie and I have known each other for 25 years and met in high school and played in a dozen bands before TND, and I think it would be absurd to think that we wouldn’t keep doing stuff together. Jamie is doing a very different thing than I am right now, where I’m making pop music and Jamie’s making music for TV and film. And, although Dragonette ends up having a lot of our songs in film and TV, we don’t write for film and TV, and I can imagine as time goes on I would love to do more of that stuff with Jamie. In terms of playing together, the three of us together, who knows, I just don’t think we’re going to be on tour as TND any more. Darren, in my opinion, is probably the best drummer I have seen in terms of the power that he has and sensibility…..and I’m gonna really miss playing with him, so I will probably find the opportunity to do that again.

GW: Ok, well I’m out of questions for you, but since you mentioned, and this is your final tour, do you want to tell us how you guys accidentally met and then ended up jamming together those first couple times?

DK: Oh ya, sure. I think Darren had this weekly gig, kind of like a revolving musician, on Thursday nights, at this douchbag bar in Toronto, and he and I played in a wedding band together at one point, like “oh ya, you should come and play with me at my thing”, you know. We just got hired…… and during that, while we were playing, you know wedding bands always have their kind of like, there’s like a Bible of songs you could play,  and so everybody knows “The Funky Chicken” and “The Macarena” and shit, so we both appreciated how well we played those songs together and he was like “you know Jamie Shields, right?- you should go ask him to come and play too” and so Jamie and I an Darren and at the time this guitar player played lke kind of funky acid-jazz music, one or two Thursdays in a row, and Darren used to kind of have this revolving door, and because the five of us were good enough from the first night he was just like “oh lets just do this again next week”, and then we did it again a third week and then the fourth week, we were about to get fired actually,  from the gig that we had because we were getting a little to far out there, and just we’ rent the funky chicken any more, and so we got a gig in a very underground club in Toronto and we just went and played, and that was also kind of our sliding out of responsibility of telling the guitar player that he was no longer a part of our band, just left, the three of us, and when somewhere else and played. And when we did that we bought a cassette tape at the corner store beside the venue we were playing, and we asked the sound guy to tape what we did, and he taped the show, and …… cuz our plan was to only improvise everything that night, and so we listened to that tape and we were so blown away by it that we went and did it again the following Wednesday and the two shows that we glued together from these 99 cent tapes, we made our first album from it. We came up with a name for our band, and named all the songs, hired the sound guy, who 12 years later is still with us, our sound guy, cuz he did such a good job on the first gig, and that’s how it went. And I truly, like “holy fuck we just did this” and we put everything we had into it after that, for years. It was awesome, when I tell it I’m just amazed by how it really was.

GW: Great, ya, to all those wedding bands out there.

DK: thank God for those wedding bands. You never know, it’s really a jam band in there.

GW: ok, well is there anything else you want to tell your fans reading at the Grateful Web before we say goodbye?

DK: I would just say thanks a million for having come to all the shows. It totally made it all worthwhile, it made us keep coming back, it kept us going.

Town Mountain almost rocked the building strait off  the mountain side when they played at the Gold Hill Inn last night.  Before the show started I spoke to some people at the bar who said they had traveled all the way from Oklahoma that day to catch Town Mountain. This is the quintet’s first national tour, and it seems to be long overdue. The men of Town Mountain projected professionalism and charm when they walked on stage shortly after nine in suits and hats. They opened with a rockabilly-sounding number that was reminiscent of Jerry Lee Lewis, then dove deep into a fiddle sawing breakdown. Throughout the night they alternated between traditional sounding bluegrass tunes and ballades, technical and driving numbers, country gospel, and some more modern sounding lyric.

The whole band, especially guitarist and lead vocalist Robert Greer, had stage presence of maturity and confidence that is not always easy to find. These guys are seasoned performers, and seemed very comfortable with one another.

Bobby Britt started the stomping, swaying, and clapping with his fiddle. He can play fast and loud and well. His fills were strait bluegrass, and though he went above and beyond to make the music what it was, I was a little disappointed to not hear some of the more dissonant and bluesy licks that are on their website.

Mando player and vocalist Phil Barker broke it down in between singing along side Mr. Greer and banjo man Jesse Langlais. They crouched around one microphone, picking and singing some original tunes.

Then Bill Nershi of the The String Cheese Incident hopped on stage.  Wow, driving deep into the mountains for your music really does pay off. Mr. Nershi sang and played with the guys of Town Mountain for more than a half hour to a packed room.

Seeing Town Mountain live was a pleasure, the Bill Nershi cameo was a total surprise (to me at least), but the unsung gem of the evening was discovering the Gold Hill Inn. Maybe I’m behind the times, but if the rest of you Boulder, Nederland, Fort Collins, or Denver dwellers have not made your way up Canyon St. you should go do so soon. It’s a timber lodge with a big, rustic dinning room, great view, and affordable drinks. The best part about it is the small, intimate music venue right in the front room.  You can drive up, enjoy a Left Hand brew, and possibly catch Todd Adelman or Elephant Revival if you make the trip this June.

And here is a little video snippet of Town Mountain @ Gold Hill Inn.

Besides a plethora of giant fiddle contests, I really have no festival experience to speak of. (Don’t get me wrong, fiddle participants can booze, substance-abuse, and play the shit out of acoustic instruments till the sun rises) But that's a different story.  Let's get back to Desert Rocks, and how I am so fulfilled with my first festival journey! It was a weekend of love and acceptance, filled with the young, the transient, the locals, and the Coloradoans (not all of them, but a lot). Your standard transient hippie attire (beautiful, dirty women in bikinis, wraps, jingly belly dancing stuff, feathers, and scarves, and just plain dirty men) made for great desert clothing. It kept us cooler under the desert sun and gave the illusion we might be at a desert Bazaar, which was enhanced for many by the copious amounts of psychedelics circulating.

The only thing that was missing, my festival-going companions observed, was the occasional naked person. Next year I suggest we bring a little Boulder flavor to Moab: some sort of naked running event. Preferably in the evening, because the sun is scorching hot. I will organize. For those on board, come seek me out next year!

Camp ground jams popped up here and there, and I had the pleasure to sit in and listen to some bluegrass, Grateful Dead sing-alongs, and an India raga.

The festival is small, perhaps 2,000 people, enough to cover a desert hillside. From one end of the campground you could see a stretch of tents as the terrain descended into the actual festival ground, and then back up towards the other side of the campgrounds. There were 30 to 40 foot cliffs that set the campground boundaries in some places. No one fell during the nights of festivities, as far as I know. In the distance you could see the snow capped La Salle mountain, where gazed towards and dreamed of the cool, refreshing snow melt while nursing self inflicted extreme dehydration on Saturday morning.

Festivalians were up early, the desert heat made it difficult to sleep after sunrise.  All the better; my crew hit the trail instead of wallowing in hangover pain. We walked along dried up creek beds, taking in the sand, red rocks, lizards, cacti, and desert flowers while making foot prints on the land Butch Cassidy once made his hide away home. On day three we hiked through Arches National Park.  My most memorable experience of the whole weekend was not in the festival grounds, but on top of a huge sandstone cliff being blown around by the wind.

Just discovering what Nederland folk have know for years, my car full of folk enthusiasts raced through the Rocky Mountains and Western slope in hopes of catching a little bit of the Elephant Revival set on Friday evening. Bonnie Paine's voice traveled through the car window, welcoming us to the desert with the lyrics "Once I was a big prop of water, I was in the Desert..."

Thank you Elephant Revival, for reminding us to hydrate on our way into the camp grounds. (If you go next year, definitely bring a camel back or big water bottle!) Friday was a night of Colorado talent.  White Water Ramble followed Elephant Revival and basically laid hot fiddle down on a bed of bluegrass instruments while I, myself was laying down my temporary bed on hot sand and rocks. The campground was small enough that you could hear the music from the edge of it, so even when I was bogged down with packing, eating, and sleeping, the music experience was never lost. White Water Ramble played from their new CD, All Night Drive, and had me wishing I knew how to set up a tent in the dark after drinking a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, I know my limitations, but made it down to the festival in time to catch Great American Taxi. Vince Herman brought the ladies of Elephant Revival back up on stage, in part because they are outstanding musicians, and in part because he probably has a big giant crush on them. Just speculation. Great American Taxi kept things rolling with their signature jam-band, southern, rock 'n' roll, boogie sounds.

Around 11pm, People Under the Stairs played on an adjacent stage, and had to compete with The Motet's sound check while performing. Still, these dudes brought the Hip-hop to a so-far folk/bluegrass/jam band scene like a flash flood brings water to the desert. They killed it as the festival grounds started to grow into a huge crowed.

The Motet, sound checked and ready to go, started playing around 1 am. They played about two hours of solid, no-stop funk. Transitions were seamless, so the audience could dance strait through song to song. I hollered for the bass solos. The mighty, mighty bass solos.

Juno What?! came on a 3am. These all out disco dance party guys were not about to leave the dusty ground dancer-less, and they played almost to sun rise. At this point I was in my sleeping bag, but could hear the show from my cliff side camping site.

There are two other stages at Desert Rocks, the all electronic SoLLun, and the Dead Horse stage. The SoLLun was best after three in the morning, and was packed with dancers, light show, and interactive art. The Dead Horse was only open in the afternoon, and was on top of a slightly daunting hill.

Saturday I returned to camp to catch old friends Zobo Maze, a funk/dance/electronic/jazz sextet who are hugely influenced by The Motet. The sun was hot but Zobo still attracted the crazy dancers and looked good doing it.

Chali 2na came on as the sun was sinking low, broadcasting live and giving us it all. What can I say except that he, and his band, lay it down cool and heavy.  Fire dancers made a circle in the dirt and started twirling as Hot Buttered Rum set up.

These jam-grass boys started with songs off their new CD, Limbs Akimbo, but returned to the old and familiar as the crowed stomped like wild. They kept adding instrument to the set up, bring on a flute at one point, and then a washboard.  They buttered up the audience for Ulysses, who can on after with their laid back Indie-rock.

Then Yamn showed up with the late night dance party, who played under the magnificent, totally unpolluted starry sky.

The highlight of Sunday was the March Fourth Marching Band, who rocked the afternoon and revitalized festival-goers for the final evening of Desert Rocks.

To recap: bring water, coffee, and a well-rested body (music goes till sunrise). Go out and see beautiful Moab, enjoy the stars, and love one another.  Thank you to the Desert Rocks people for putting on such an amazing weekend of music, and to Helen and Conner for putting up with my snoring all three nights.

I first heard of Elephant Revival when I met Bridget Law at a fiddle contest five years ago. She had a magnetic personality and played the fiddle with the best of them, so I made sure to look up her band when I got home. The first Elephant song I listened to was "Ring Around the Moon", and it was stuck in my head for days. Since then I have seen them play many times. After hearing them Saturday night at the Boulder Theater I am convinced they can only skyrocket up from here. Their already amazing musicality is still growing, and so is their fan base.

The line from the Boulder theater box office stretched out the door and into the street, and when the theater announced the show was sold out there were a lot of disappointed faces. I would be too, seeing Elephant is like experiencing all the beauty and spirituality of a Catholic mass (think Ave Maria performed inside a huge stained glass cathederal). Except you can't dance and drink beer inside a cathederal, and no one thinks of their priest the way fans think of this very attractive quintet.

There was a giant statue of a crow on stage, I still don't completely understand why. The Steep Canyon Rangers opened up the night, arranging themselves around the enormous bird to play foot stompin’ originals like "Lovin' Pretty Women" and "Turn Up the Bottle". At some point in the show the lights turned blue as these gentlemen put down their instruments and sang in five part harmony. This was the most memorable part of their set, and their ability to sing together tightly and with a strong, solid tone would give Elephant a run for their money.

The Revival started off the concert with an a-capella piece led by Bonnie, a sort of tribute to the giant crow. As the night went on I noticed they had picked out a set list of many less-played songs, while skipping over crowed favorites like "Sing to the Mountain", "Go On", and "Point of You". Still, everything they played was inspiring. "Spinning" brought me to tears; at times their concerts feel like you were just riding through the woods, lucky enough to cross paths with gypsie travelers around a camp fire.

On a side note- I don't think I have ever seen those girls wear the same outfit on stage twice, Is someone just sending them a new country dress every week? Like a country dress of the week club? Or are they being sponsored by someone, some kind of sexy Laura Ingalls perhaps? They always look absolutely beautiful and I want in on the secret. Oh, and the guys looked good too. They just don't dress up as much. They were, however, wearing some really cool custom-made bird masks.

Oh, right, back to the concert. The night seemed to be more fiddle-heavy than I have seen in the past. Mrs. Law sewed everything together and was playing boldly. In the past I have noticed her playing long, single notes in the background while Bonnie sings her heart out all night or another band member leads the ring. But Saturday night was quite fiddle heavy and that is never a bad thing. I think she probably had to get her bow re-haired the next day, it was almost sawed in half by the end of the night. Maybe she is sent new bows along with new country dresses every week.

So Elephant has always been unique, amazing, awe-striking. What was surprising about tonight was how they have grown as a band (that was never mediocre to begin with). The ability of the group to highlight the best ideas and sounds from each individual is getting even better. I could see and hear them listening to each other, with crescendos and de-crescendos like a school of fish changing directions on the snap-tap-tap of the wash board. Though each one of them is an outstanding musician in their own right, you may not hear each individual’s virtuosity but a few times during the show. No one is trying to be the star; they instead shine together. Hell, I have been listening for years and only heard Bonnie belt with the power of Etta James over this past summer.

Bonnie sang the soulful "Rouge River" to a minimal percussion background while the crowed clapped along to the bluesy lyrics:

"Mother Mary
full of grace
Won't you
watch these children
in my place"

They played what seemed to be a really long version of "Cosmic Pulse". Still amazing.

Elephant went semi-tradition with a few tunes, but still put their own twist on "Sweet Dreams" and "Angeline the Baker."

The quintet left the stage, but was cheered back on with a relentless encore. They played "Ring Around the Moon", that very first song I ever heard from them. It calmed the crowed, but not for long. Steep Canyon Rangers hoped back on stage for the final encore as all ten musicians jammed on "Gonna Dig a Hole in the Ground".

Elephant Revival is really like nothing else out there right now. I can't decide if I should keep telling people about how great they are or give them aweful reviews so their shows don't get ridiculously crowded. I'm gonna go ahead and say that if you get a chance to see them in an intimate concert setting, do it now! Lets enjoy this Colorado grown band while we can, because they are so great and are going to go so far!