FEATURE: Daniel Johnston Is Still Living Life and Making Music

Daniel Johnston is a 47-year-old man who seems trapped in the mind of a boy. His simple, painfully direct songs are refreshing in the way that they cut through the self examination and other filters of maturity and nakedly reveal the most intimate thoughts and feelings. He is a remarkable example of a man who has, in many ways, capitalized on his limitations to further his chosen art form. Of all the things to be admired about this man, the first and foremost is that he has never been afraid of showing his art to the world.

While many artists will take three or four years to put out ten or twelve songs that are “polished enough to release,” Johnston is famous for getting his music out to the public as quick as possible, in any way possible. His first album, Songs of Pain, released in 1981, contained 20 songs recorded in his garage on an old boom box and then dubbed onto cassette. Johnston took the dubbed cassettes around to radio stations, newspapers and music clubs, saying, “I’m Daniel Johnston, here’s a tape of mine for you to listen to.”

At first listen, Johnston’s music is sure to put some people off, and others might simply hate it. However, for those who are willing to look past the sometimes shaky voice, the untrained guitar style and the often sub-par sonic quality of the recordings, the lyrics are a reward greater than most in music. They are not the complex rhyming genius of Dylan, or the hook-filled pop of Lennon and McCartney; they are simple, and in their simplicity, they are beautiful.

Between 1981 and 1985, Johnston recorded and released seven albums of his instantly recognizable material, with two more albums’ worth of songs recorded during that period released in 1987. In all, Johnston wrote and recorded more than 200 separate songs in those five years, the most prolific of his troubled life. In the intervening 20 years, Johnston has gone through periods of mania, delusions, and even forced incarceration in a state mental hospital.

Fortunately, when Listen Up Denver! caught up with Johnston at his home in Waller, Texas, he was in good spirits and was having a good day. “I’m doing a lot better today,” Johnston said, referring to the day before when several interviews had to be cancelled because he simply wouldn’t get out of bed to answer the phone.

For Johnston, public life has always been a rollercoaster ride. From the first time he was featured on the MTV show “The Cutting Edge” in 1985, right up through today, he has been unpredictable as he operates under the microscope of an ever-growing fan base. In addition to canceling interviews with no notice, he has been known to not show up on stage or to turn in an extremely brief performance before calling it a night while on tour. For those close to Johnston, it’s all par for the course.

These days, those close to Johnston have brought the Daniel Johnston brand literally “in-house.” Bill Johnston, Daniel’s 85-year-old father, took over management duties several years ago and Johnston’s brother Dick is currently running his website and handling several other facets of the business. “When my Dad took over as manager, I was instantly rich and I knew what was going on. We have releases coming out and I am happy about the way things are going right now,” Johnston said. “It’s a family thing and it’s going so well, better than ever before. All I have to do is keep on playing, writing and drawing.”

Though much of his time so far this year has been spent on the road, Johnston has been holding up his end of the bargain and has been busy writing new songs that occasionally pop up in his live shows. “I have a lot of new material, enough for maybe five albums,” Johnston revealed. “I was hoping to record some this year but it sounds like they are planning to put me on the road, so I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if I’ll have time or be able to. I keep asking them, ‘Hey can we record?’ and they keep telling me, ‘Oh, if we get a chance.’”

In fact, Johnston hasn’t been spent any significant time in the studio since 2006. Over the past couple of years he has been well enough to brave the road again and has been booked on runs of a week or two at a time in the U.S. and Europe. In many cities his shows are sellouts, as hipster youths mingle with 30- or 40-somethings that came of age when Johnston was cranking out albums hand over fist. Maybe it’s the recent covers album, The Late Great Daniel Johnston, that attracts the kids, or maybe it is the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston, but whatever it is that got them hooked, all these people are turning out for the same reason, to see a legend perform in the flesh.

Though life on the road is obviously exhausting for him, Johnston was quick to say that he really enjoyed the first leg of his 2008 tour. “It was a lot of fun, sell-out crowds, lots of people and it looked like everybody was having a good time,” he said. “There have been some really good looking girls out there, too, and I like it when they come backstage to talk to me.”

Johnston’s recent shows have featured guitarist Brett Hartenbach for a large portion of the evening. “Until we started playing together I hadn’t seen him for almost 20 years,” Johnston said. “I used to go to college with Brett. He was in a band that was great and I was their big fan. I was always trying to get them to hear my music and it really meant a lot to me when I finally got to play Brett some of my songs, because he was a heck of a musician. On tour, we are playing some of the songs that I wrote during that period. ‘Grievances,’ ‘Living Life’ and some others, I guess. It’s been a lot of fun to be on the road with him.”

It was those songs and the ones that followed that made their way into the hands and ears of many influential musicians and artists. From Kurt Cobain, who declared Johnston his favorite songwriter and famously wore Johnston’s “Hi How Are You” shirt onstage at the 1992 MTV Video Music awards, to Tom Waits, Beck and The Flaming Lips, who all paid tribute to Johnston on The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered, that was released in 2004.

It was, however, another kind of artist that gave Johnston’s career its biggest and most recent boost when, in 2005, Jeff Feuerzeig earned the Best Director award at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival when he debuted his documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. The film offers the viewer a candid and largely unbiased view into the life and career of one of the most troubled musicians of our age.

Though the process of making the movie seemed to be a little arduous for Johnston, he is largely pleased with the results. “I have seen it about ten times and I think it’s hilarious. It made all of us kinda stars,” Johnston said. “Because of the movie we are doing a lot better. We are able to play bigger places, things like that. It really made a lot of difference.”

Love him or hate him, it’s hard not to give this man some credit for standing up and believing in himself day in and day out. It seems that in his case, that’s all it took to make people realize that there can be genius in the most simple of songs banged out on a nylon string guitar or toy organ. For those who can look past the surface, the true beauty of this troubled soul will come shining through.

“Hold me like a mother would,
Like I always knew somebody should
Though tomorrow don’t look that good.”
-Daniel Johnston “Living Life”

Check Out Daniel Johnston If You Like:

• Tom Waits
• Eels
• Harvey Pekar

FEATURE: These United States to Employ Local Bands Each Night As They Tour These United States

“These United States” are three words that are full of pomp and circumstance. Three words that, linked together, conjure up feelings of patriotism and visions of red, white and blue no matter what your political leaning may be. Soon, these three words will also conjure up feelings of longing and of passion, not for a particular cause or candidate but for an unmistakable and unique brand of music; the music of D.C.-based band, These United States.

Jesse Elliot, the mastermind behind the elegant and eclectic blend of psyche folk and alt country that is These United States, dabbled in several non-musical arenas before settling on music as a viable option. “About two years ago I kinda ran out of other options,” Elliot told Listen Up Denver! in a recent interview from his home in our nation’s capitol. “I got disenchanted with politics, journalism and international law and this other stuff that I had been thinking about doing with my life and I was like, ‘I guess there’s always music, I could try that.’ Writing songs at the end of the day had always been some kind of solace for me, but it was kinda my last resort.”

All of that end-of-day writing had produced a big collection of songs in various states of completion. “I was like, ‘Maybe I should do something with these.’ However, I didn’t actually really know anything about the music business and my performing experience had been limited to performing for my dog and cat on my nylon string guitar when I was younger and then, like everyone, I had a bad high school band with a really bad name. It was called Dr. Niceguy,” Elliot said.

Since the days of Dr. Niceguy, Elliot has gotten serious about music, learned as much he could, and toured “all over God’s green earth.” In a culmination of sorts to all of this effort, early this month, about the time that his debut album is released, Elliot will embark on a tour that fits the grandeur of his band’s name. He is scheduled to play 40 shows in 42 days in markets across the country, including several he has never visited before.

To complicate matters, he is planning on having a different local band join him on stage at each of the shows. “We are actually going to play with a different band and as a different band in every city after just an afternoon of practice,” revealed Elliot. He then went on to state that “for the benefit of the audience if for no one else, my drummer Robby and multi-instrumentalist Tom will be joining me for the tour to keep the wheels on. That way, the members of the other band can focus on adding to the music rather than holding the song together.”

In an effort to chronicle the improbable events that are sure to take place over the course of this momentous tour, Elliot has invited a documentary film team along for the ride. “We are going to have our buddy who is a filmmaker along to capture all of those moments and everything in between. He’s shot some live stuff for us before and has an amazing eye. I’d been talking with him a while ago and said, ‘You should really come out with us on tour one of these times.’ I guess we figured that if there’s gonna be a fun tour to document it’s probably going to be this one,” laughed Elliot. “We’ll see where it goes; some story always intervenes that is more interesting that any story you could plan in advance. We are going to let him wander where he wants to and it will be a little slice of life out there on the long and winding road.”

Though there are no definite plans for a release of the film, Elliot’s dreams of releasing an album have finally come to fruition. Clocking in at just over 35 minutes, A Picture of the Three of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden, may have a long and wordy title but the directness and simple beauty of the music more than makes up for it.

The record is a layered affair that has just the right amount of pop hook to sell the listener immediately on songs like “First Sight,” “Kings and Aces,” and “Business.” After several listens it becomes clear that there are also several songs that slowly creep their way into your consciousness. Simply put, it’s a wonderful ride and the excellent production value only enhances the most subtle elements of the songs’ structures.

With over 300 performances on two continents under his belt in the last two years, Elliot and his band have had plenty of time to effectively translate the beauty of the album to the stage. The added element of having new personnel on stage with them every night will add a dynamic to the performance that is sure to keep songs alive and evolving. Given this format, These United States will not be able to fall into the trap of just going through the motions on stage and the challenge will enhance each and every performance.

Check Out These United States if You Like:

• John Vanderslice
• Wilco
• Bright Eyes

FEATURE: Pela Reunites with Christopher Herb After Six Years

Note: Due to an injury to frontman Billy McCarthy's hand Pela's current tour was cut short after only a couple of shows. The tour will be rescheduled. Click Here for More Info

Though their first full length album was released only 10 months ago, the Brooklyn, New York-based band Pela has a history that goes back to the early ’90s when lead vocalist and guitarist Billy McCarthy met Christopher Herb. Herb, who has spent his life playing music and working with the disabled, has the unique distinction of being both the man who brought the band together and the newest member of this post-punk quintet.“Billy and I have been best friends for half our lives,” said vocalist Herb in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver! as he sat smoking a cigarette in front of his computer in his Lower East Side apartment. “We traveled around the world together playing music in countless bands up until 2002, when I left to go to Australia for five years.”

While Herb and McCarthy were playing together in Igloo, a band that rarely made public appearances, Herb had a chance meeting with a now integral part of Pela. Though Herb’s story is contrary to Wikipedia and press releases that state it was McCarthy who met Eric Sanderson on a subway platform in Park Slope, it seems only right to take the man at his word. “A lot of people don’t really know the true story. It was actually me who met Eric [Sanderson] in the subways of Brooklyn when I was busking,” said Herb. “He walked up and we started chatting and he said, ‘We should play. I play bass.’ I said, ‘Funny you should say that, we are looking for a bass player.’”

The band set up a practice session and invited Sanderson along and as it turned out, despite Herb’s departure for the Southern Hemisphere, Sanderson became fast friends with McCarthy. The two soon broke up Igloo and teamed up with guitarist Nate Martinez and drummer Tomislav Zovich to form Pela.

“They’ve been pushing this boulder uphill for about six years now while I was lost in Oceania,” Herb said. “Music was kind of dormant in my life at that point and when I did get my hands on an instrument it was an old broken pump organ that I found in a thrift store. I think it had fifty-five keys and only about twelve of them worked. I actually utilized those well and it really helped me get back into music. It was a weird symbolic thing for me because I had to take the keys that worked and make them sound good. I wrote some really beautiful material with just twelve notes.”

While Herb was “lost in Oceania” writing twelve-note symphonies, Pela went on to release two EPs and a full length between 2005 and 2007. It was the full length, Anytown Graffiti, which garnered the band the attention they deserved and got them on the bill with bands like The National, The Flaming Lips and Sleater-Kinney.

Released by the label partnership Great Society/World’s Fair, Anytown Graffiti starts off purposeful, with a quick drum beat that, after a few measures, is joined by a reverb-laden yet twangy guitar. As the bass line fades in, and the music builds, it commands your attention and McCarthy’s powerful voice is soon yelping over the top of the music in a slightly odd, yet intriguing way and you’re sucked in. If these first 45 seconds of the band’s debut full length are any indication, and they are, then Pela has what it takes to make a run at the big time.

In an attempt to do just that last November, Pela took off to Los Angeles to go in to the studio and work on Rise Ye Sunken Ships, a follow-up album that they hope to release this summer. As fate would have it, their friend and musical foil, Christopher Herb, had recently returned from down under and was living in L.A. “When Pela came to record the new record back in November they said, ‘Come hang out with us in the studio, we’re rehearsing, see if you can throw something into the material. We have an old song of yours that we remember and we’d love to cover it on the record,’” Herb said. “I was totally flattered and I went and played and they were like, ‘Wow, this worked so well, why don’t you come tour with us?’ I was like, ‘okay!’ It wasn’t a reluctant decision at all; everything just seemed perfectly natural. It seemed like a natural progression.”

So, just like that, after six years, the man that laid the foundation for Pela was back in the mix. After briefly toying with the idea of working together via the internet, Herb packed his life up into two boxes and got on a plane to JFK, where the musical part of his soul has taken control of his life again. “We just cut our teeth on this secret Valentine’s Day show where we played for almost three hours,” he said. “It was my first performance with the band and it was a lot of fun. It had been a while since Pela had played live and the show was nearly three times longer than the normal set.”

The band will celebrate their reunion with Herb by taking their “normal set” on the road this month, where their incendiary set will rock crowds from coast to coast. They have pledged to break out several of the tunes that they laid down in the studio late last year and it is clear that their sound is catching on as they have already sold out shows far from home in Chicago and Seattle.

Check Out Pela if You Like:

• Tokyo Police Club
• Editors
• Modest Mouse

FEATURE: Keller Williams Forms A Feel-Good Band With an Ominous Name

For more than 15 years the “One-Man Jamband” known as Keller Williams has been touring the country amazing fans with his own brand of improvisational rock music. Though a one man band, Williams stage frequently contains everything from a bass guitar on a stand to a bongo drum or two, several guitars and a piano. Proficient on all these instruments and more, Williams has developed a unique style of performing where he layers and loops these instruments live on stage using a pedal that can record any sound that is played and play it back in a loop allowing him to add other sounds and riffs to it creating the illusion of a full band. At any given time during a performance there could be as many as 10 or 12 different sounds emanating from the PA all perfectly synched and creating a richly textured soundscape for Williams to sing over.

While these solo performances are what have made Williams something of a legend in the Jamband scene, he has branched out recently and is now touring with a full rock band made up of some of the best players in the scene. “I’ve always wanted to put together a band like this but in the beginning I just couldn’t afford to bring the people out that I wanted. I wasn’t making enough money to do that,” Williams said in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver! from his home in Virginia. “Once I was making enough money things were working as a solo act and I didn’t really need it. The reason that this band actually happened was because of timing. Keith Moseley was available and Jeff Sipe was playing with Trey Anastasio and it was looking like he was going to be available and I was able to get Gibb Droll way in advance to where he could actually be available also. This is very much a dream type of ensemble for me. I’ve had an immense amount of respect for each player over the years.”

The group, known as the WMD’S, has only been active for about 8 months and yet Williams is thrilled with the way the band has gelled. “The evolution is happening. It’s amazing, you can listen to the tapes and you can hear each individual listening to the other players and you can hear the songs go in so many different directions that I never imagined. These songs are being played the way I originally intended.”

Though he used to heavily favor the Acoustic Guitar, in this project Williams has been picking up the electric much more often and filling the traditional role of a rhythm guitarist with his non traditional style. While he still utilizes his trademark looping techniques they are not the focal point of the show as they used to be due to the presence of the three other musicians on stage.

Also on the electric guitar is the New York based, but Virginia bred, Gibb Droll. He has been amazing music fans since his first performances back in the early 90’s with his incendiary guitar technique and showmanship. Though he is clearly influenced by legends such as Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Droll has developed his own style and his blues based riffs are a compliment to William’s rhythmic style of playing.

Backing up these two guitar heroes as the rhythm section are Jeff Sipe on Drums and local favorite Keith Moseley on bass. Sipe cut his teeth playing with Col. Bruce Hampton as a founding member of Aquarium Rescue Unit and has continued his career playing with the likes of Trey Anastasio and Phil Lesh. Williams describes Sipe as a rock behind the kit who is able to provide whatever beat the songs call for. Coupled with the bouncy bass lines that Mosely brings to the mix this rhythm section is exactly what Williams needs to bring his songs to life.

Keith Moseley was, for nearly fourteen years, the bass player for local jam favorites The String Cheese Incident. When the band went their separate ways this past summer Moseley found himself looking for another project to focus on and fortunately Williams was quick to offer him a gig. “I was looking to focus on the two guitar bass and drums dynamic. Kind of the rock-n-roll approach,” said Williams. “Keith was one of the first guys in String Cheese that I met and we’ve been close for years and even taken our families on vacation together and things like that so it made sense for him to come on board.”

In a way Williams owes a significant debt to Moseley and his former band as for years in the mid 90’s Williams was the de facto opener for The String Cheese Incident and often shared the stage with band. Moseley and the rest of SCI were instrumental in exposing Williams to a broad audience across the country and while today he stands on his own legs he is quick to recognize the help that he got from String Cheese. “I was a total fan first and saw them all over Colorado before getting the opportunity to meet them and then to have them turn me on to their audience all over the country. Who’s to say what I would be doing right now without them.”

It was clear over the years that the admiration was mutual as SCI served as Williams’s studio band on his 4th album Breathe and invited him to festival after festival throughout their tenure on the scene. The final time that these two musical powers shared the stage was a very special show that served as the culmination of 14 years of performing for The String Cheese Incident. In August of last year, as they prepared to go their separate ways, the band played a four night run at Red Rocks and, in the spirit of keeping it a “family affair,” invited a lone guest to the stage during the entire run. Emerging midway through the final show, Williams was given center stage and took the reigns for two of his own songs, “Best Feeling” and “Fuel for the Road.” He was welcomed by the fans with open arms and it seemed to be a passing of the torch to many in attendance. “I try not to look too much into it philosophically,” Williams said. “If I was to go to the philosophical side it was a pretty monumental event for me. To be at the most amazing venue in the world and to be thinking it might be the last time we would play together was a pretty intense moment.”

The sit-in only added fodder to rumors that Williams would replace Bill Nershi in the band. Though the official stance of the band was, and still is, that “there are currently no future plans for The String Cheese Incident,” people could not let it go and Williams name was inextricably tied to the band as the “replacement” for Nershi. Fans were hoping that the Keller Williams Incident project that surfaced occasionally over the years would make a go of it as a full time touring band.

As it turns out, this speculation was unfounded, and in fact Williams said that “the conversation never took place. String Cheese was a very democratic kind of ensemble where everyone was a leader and everyone kind of either agreed or compromised,” Williams said. “Obviously people were aware of the Keller Williams Incident shows and just assumed that it would turn around and continue on with me in Billy’s place which was so far from the truth. Billy was a huge part of that and I don’t think the rest of the and ever thought about continuing on with me in Billy’s place.”

Some of magic that Keller created with SCI may be rekindled when Williams brings his WMD’S project to Denver this month as Billy Nershi will be handling the opening duties as part of one of his current projects, The Emmitt Nershi Band. While the project leans heavily in a bluegrass direction, Williams anticipates that the old friends will have plenty of time to get reacquainted musically on the stage. “I am hoping that there will be lots of collaboration that night, in both sets. How couldn’t we, we’ll have Drew Emmitt and Bill Nershi there and everyone’s open minded in my group so I’m thinking there will be some serious sit-ins.”

Check Out Keller Williams and the WMD'S if You Like:

• String Cheese Incident
• moe.
• Jack Johnson

The Mars Volta Encounter Demons and Spirits During Recording of Bedlam in Goliath

As with so many records, there is a story behind The Mars Volta’s new album The Bedlam in Goliath, which will hit shelves at the end of the month. However, this one is not one of rock and roll excess, a broken heart, or a journey of self discovery. It is a story that some may disregard completely, while to others it is the foundation of deep seated beliefs centuries in the making. Either way, it is the stuff legends are made of and it is unraveling right before our eyes.

Omar Rodríguez-López, the musical mastermind and producer behind The Mars Volta, and vocalist/lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala spent many evenings on the band’s tour bus while on the road with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the fall of 2006 deeply engrossed in their new favorite pastime. “After a show, most of the college crowds that are at a Chili Peppers show want to know, ‘Where’s Flea? Can I meet Flea? Can you give me a pass so I can hang out with Flea?’” said Bixler-Zavala in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver! as he recovered from foot surgery and rehearsed for the band’s New Year’s costume ball. “We didn’t really want to deal with those kinds of people and we just kind of retreated to the bus where the new drug of choice was playing this antique game that Omar had bought for me.” The Soothsayer, as the game was known, was a talking board in the style of a modern Ouija board, sold by Parker Brothers.

“We would never dim the lights, it wasn’t some corny Disney version like people might picture. The lights were on, the messages started coming through and I kept looking at Omar like, ‘Are you pushing this thing, or am I pushing this thing?’ I just kept writing down everything that it said because it was 10 times more creative than anything I think I could have come up with,” admitted Bixler-Zavala. “The fact that I was writing everything down is what challenged the spirits that we contacted and alerted them that we had the power of unmasking their anonymity.”

“When we first played the board, we found poetry attached to it. We hired two people to translate it because it was in Hebrew and in Latin and sometimes it was in what I think was Aramaic,” Bixler-Zavala said. “One of those translators gave us back our money and didn’t want to talk to us or have anything to do with us again. The other, who was a little more brave, translated the verses for us and it turned out they translated like traditional sing-song nursery rhymes and the more I read stuff and the further I am away from the project now the more I realize that it is a story steeped in the modern day phenomena of honor killings.”

“The spirit, known as Goliath, is a schizophrenic version of three people who were trying to contact us; a male spirit, a female spirit and her mother. The story is of lust, seduction and infidelity, pain and murder. It is a classic scenario of a male character speaking over a female and the female looking for a champion who is brave enough to tell the story,” revealed Bixler-Zavala.

The more that Bixler-Zavala and Rodríguez-López interacted with The Soothsayer and Goliath, the more they became convinced that the male spirit was casting a curse on them as they began to understand the true nature of the story the trio was unveiling. A series of events unfolded as they developed the concepts for the album and began to record. Severe equipment issues hounded them, their drummer quit, Bixler-Zavala was hobbled by a seemingly random foot injury that later required major surgery, a flood wiped out much of Rodríguez-López’s personal studio, and audio tracks were literally disappearing from the computer monitor in front of their eyes. All together, it seemed too much to be a coincidence. Goliath was angry and bent on destroying this record.

Despite the anger, The Mars Volta drove on and fought the uphill battle against the chilling other worldly force with which they were wrestling. Midway through the recording session, Rodríguez-López commandeered The Soothsayer and, in a move that probably saved the recording project, buried it in a location that only he knows. “He buried it because he knows that I am obsessive compulsive and despite everything that was happening, I would probably want to play the game again,” admitted Bixler-Zavala.

As they became more convinced about the true power of the curse they were dealing with, Bixler-Zavala began to try to work some positive forces into the fabric of the record. “We have taken extreme measures to have the project blessed by more positive forces,” he said. “That’s why there is a track titled ‘Metatron,’ who is said to have believed in some of the myths behind curing some of the ailments associated with Ouija boards. Metatron, Ariel and St. Gabriel are some of the saints that you are supposed to call on when you have problems of this nature. I’ve named a song “Ilyena” after the real name of the actress Helen Miren because she is my favorite actress and the song is a little lighthearted and different from the subject matter. There are a lot of different things that I did to fight fire with fire without being touched by the male spirit.”

Due to precautions such as these, general perseverance and a desire to tell the story that they had unearthed, The Mars Volta have created a furious monster of a progressive rock record that seems to walk the knife’s edge between control and chaos. According to Bixler-Zavala, he and Rodríguez-López work hard to achieve that balance. “None of the band members have material to rehearse. When you hear the album and you hear how aggressive it is, in my opinion, it’s the sound of the tension and the anger of the musicians having to learn everything five minutes before they are going to record. The fact that we have musicians that can do that but go into it kicking and screaming, keeps everyone on their toes and really makes it sound like everyone is recording in the same room together.”

The aggression and tension that Bixler-Zavala describes is further enhanced by a brand new member of The Mars Volta. Appearing with the band for the first time on this record is drummer Thomas Pridgen and he seems to be breathing new life into the collective. “He fits in really well and brings in this new energy,” said Bixler-Zavala. “Because he is just 24 years old and comes from gospel, R&B and jazz, he doesn’t know who The Dead Kennedy’s are and has never heard of The Bad Brains. I feel like he is this invisible secret member of The Bad Brains who decided to jump ship and join The Mars Volta.”

Pridgen’s raw youthful energy is evident on the new record and is sure to electrify crowds when the band takes their live show to small clubs across the country this month. “Thomas kind of reminded me of how to treat the moments on stage as if they are the last time I am going to play, so it is a very active show and nowadays you see the band laughing and smiling a lot more ’cause Thomas is just challenging the fuck out of us. We are exorcising a lot of dark humor and light humor on stage, and it is a show that is very self indulgent and it is a lot of information overload and it is designed for people who want to follow us based on blind faith,” said Bixler-Zavala. “We plan on the same kind of stage setup that we are known for so long, as the venues will allow us to have certain sized backdrops. If not, we’ll have our Dream Machine with us, as usual, and it will just be more intimate.”

Check Out The Mars Volta if You Like:

• Rush
• Wolfmother
• Mastodon

The New Mastersounds Regroup and Get Remixed

Inspired by the 70’s funk and groove of Jimmy McGriff, Groove Holmes, and The Meters, jazz guitarist Eddie Roberts and drummer Simon Allen have been striving for nearly 10 years to hone their sound and refine it to something that moves dance floors in a way that few other instrumental bands can.

They began life as the guitar centric Mastersounds before quickly realizing that the sultry churning of a Hammond B3 was essential to the sound they were looking for. Though the band only lasted a couple of years and recorded one single, it laid the foundation for a long standing musical relationship between the two. Roberts and Allen struck out on their own and soon crossed paths with Hammond player Bob Birch and bassist Pete Shand; The New Mastersounds were born and the search was over.

The sound that Roberts and Allen had been searching for is a tight mix of Jazz and Funk that comes to life in the hands of these talented players. While there is ample evidence of the band member’s fondness for Jazz in their sound, the groove that is laid down by the rhythm section of Shand and Allen is what holds the whole thing together and keeps the wheels on when Roberts stretches out in Jazz laced solos.

Though they are based in Leeds, England the Roberts claims that the US is the most promising market for the band. They have been playing club nights and gigs around the UK since their inception in 2000 and though things have always gone relatively well, the scene can’t support them playing more than three or four times a year in the major cities. As a result, they were forced to hop the channel early on and expose the music fans on the continent to their sound. It was touch and go for a while but recently things seem to be picking up a bit for The New Mastersounds as the band continues to tour there regularly. “We are having more records released in Europe these days. There are more labels taking an interest and actually starting to license our albums for the individual countries rather than before when we were releasing them on a UK label and selling them on Import into the different European countries which is harder obviously because there is nobody on the ground selling it for you,” said Roberts in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver! from his home in Leeds.

The increased exposure of the bands sounds around Europe has paid off with Italian label Record Kicks taking some serious interest in the band. Record Kicks knew that The New Mastersounds tight funk-based sound would be perfect for the clubs if it were remixed by some of the scene’s best DJs. “They approached us saying ‘we’d like to release a remix album, how ‘bout it?’ We were like ‘yeah great,’” Roberts said. “Then they asked us if we could sort it out and we kinda turned it back on them because we’ve tried to get remixes done in the past and it is difficult because everyone is so busy and to pull a project like that together takes so much time and effort. It’s just not our thing. We were busy making a new album and touring and everything so we told them they could run with it and we would be happy to provide all the tracks and send them out to who ever wants to do what. They ended up pulling it together and it was relatively easy for us as I just had to dig out all the separates for every track and get them out.”

It wasn’t until the project was finished that Roberts got to hear the result and as chance would have it he heard it in exactly the right setting the first time. “We were in France I stayed at the bar late night having a few drinks after our set and Simon [Allen] had given a copy of the album to the DJ who ended up just putting it on. I was talking and all of a sudden I was like ‘I know this tune,’ and I didn’t realize he had put the album on so back to back there were all these tunes I knew and I was getting so confused,” laughed Roberts. “It was really nice to hear it in the club environment which is what it is made for as opposed to hearing it at home for the first time. The dance floor was full and people were just going for it. They weren’t batting an eyelid and they were dancing like it was all different music and it was only really me that knew what was going on.”

While in the U.S. the music of The New Mastersounds is largely heard only when they are in town and up on the stage, in other parts of the world things are different and their music is part of the aural fabric of the club scene. “With all the 7” singles and the vinyl that we have put out, a lot of DJs around the world have our music and you can be in a club anywhere and all of a sudden a couple of tracks come on and you go ‘huh, this is us,’ and you see everyone dancing,” said Roberts. “That’s how I learnt my production sound. It was being in a club and hearing a track come on and saying ‘uh I wish I put more bass on that or I wish I’d pressed it a bit louder.’”

In many ways the role of a funk band like The New Mastersounds in the UK is one of a DJ and it is up to the live sound engineer to push the bass or the volume to satisfy the demands of the party. “The places we tend to play in the UK there is usually only one band on the bill with DJs on before and after us. We are there to play for an hour and a quarter and that’s it,” Roberts said. “That’s really where our sound has come from. The dance floor is already going and we have to slam it for an hour and a quarter and give them something extra compared to what the DJ is giving them. When we’re done we give it back to the DJ and the people carry on dancing for another 3 hours or more and we usually go out and join them.”

When playing the stages of the US The New Mastersounds are looking to pack the dance floors in the same way, but, without the benefit of a DJ to help out, they have to shoulder the load and play extended sets to the delight of their rabid American fan base. “We have always found it weird when we can to The States and all of a sudden when the band stops everyone leaves,” said Roberts. “We have obviously had to rethink our one and a quarter hour sets because you can’t just go out there, play for an hour and have everyone leave. So we started to get into this thing where we’d play longer and longer and it got all the way up to four hours one time just keeping the dance floor going all that time, like a DJ would.”

In order to keep up that kind of intensity it is critical that the band work well together as a unit. There is a certain “group-think” that is required to move the music into the territory that the beat hungry dancers out on the floor insist on. In late 2006 the band parted ways with long time Hammond B3 player Bob Birch, who had left the band to focus more on teaching and settle down a bit, and he was replaced by another Leeds local and friend Joe Tatton. “Joe [Tatton] fits in well because he knows where we are coming from musically and he has played with all of us at one time or another. He is also familiar with the DJ funk scene that we are coming out of as he has been around it as well,” said Roberts.

After Tatton joined up with the band The New Mastersounds toured for nearly a year before deciding that it was time to refocus the band’s sound and get back to the deep funk roots that they had started out in search of. They parted ways with horn player Rob Lavers who had joined them on the road on recent tours, and set to work re-discovering the group-think the quartet needed to thrive. “You’ve got to get the four piece right and really working, and then you can add things on top of it,” Roberts said. “We just felt that we needed to pull it back again and really concentrate on the sound of the four. So we did a lot of work on our European run in the fall, in sound-checks and things like that; just getting the sounds right and rearranging some stuff.”

On their last pass through the states in November, Roberts felt like things were hitting on all cylinders. “Everything was feeling really exciting and fresh again. The show in Denver, with Mofro, was one of our musical highlights as a band. We slammed it! Everything fell into place and it just felt great.”

The band has recently re-entered the studio to try to capture the new-found energy on tape for an album that is currently slated to be released in late spring. If Roberts’ enthusiasm about the bands current sound is any indication, we can expect another collection of the finest in nu-jazz and funk that the scene has to offer. Until then, The New Mastersounds will continue to hone their sound, road test new compositions and fill dance floors at clubs from California to Colorado during a ten date tour this month.

Check Out The New Mastersounds If You Like:

• The Greyboy Allstars
• The Meters
• Papa Grows Funk

FEATURE: Sea Wolf is Making Waves in the Indie Folk World

There’s a new face on the Indie folk circuit these days. The face belongs to Alex Brown Church and he has emerged from the Silverlake district of Los Angeles, a recent hotbed of activity in the Indie music community. Church is Sea Wolf in the same way that Sam Beam is Iron & Wine and, like Beam, Church rarely performs solo and relies on a diverse cast of backing musicians to flesh out his songs.

When Church first put Sea Wolf together he was an active member of Irving, another band native to Silverlake, and needed an outlet for more of his own material. “Sea Wolf is my songs and Irving is more of a group thing where I only had a few songs on each record,” Church said during a recent interview with Listen Up Denver! that was plagued by the lack of cellular coverage in Southern Oregon as he drove from San Francisco to Portland for the second gig of Sea Wolf’s marathon fall tour with his current bandmates.

“I’ve been playing with this line-up since March and while it’s hard to say how permanent anyone is, everyone seems pretty good to go for now,” said Church. “I’ve been out on the road with these guys a couple of times and we are pretty familiar with each other at this point. We are really getting along pretty well. We all really like each other and it is a good group but being stuck in a van with anybody for that long a time can make you start to hate your best friend. It’s just the way it goes on the road.”

Before cementing the current line up of Sea Wolf Church called on members of the so called “Ship Collective” to fill out his sound both in the studio and on the stage. “The ‘Ship Collective’ was a group of bands from Los Angeles that included the Silversun Pickups, Great Northern, Earlimart, Irving and a couple of others,” Church said. “We were all friends and we created this sort of community. We practiced within a block of each other, played on each others records, hung out together and just really supported one another.”

While the importance of the “Ship Collective” has faded, and Church is now a year removed from Irving, he has found Sea Wolf to be much more creatively rewarding for him and he maintains a good relationship with his ex-bandmates. “Those guys have been really supportive of Sea Wolf the whole way, we’re definitely still pals,” he said. “Sea Wolf was just getting a lot of attention building momentum and Irving wasn’t. It got to the point where I felt like I wanted to go with Sea Wolf full time.”

The attention that Church is referencing has been coming in several forms. On the live front, his friends in Silversun Pickups invited Sea Wolf to join them on a high profile tour this past summer. On the radio front, Church has become a darling of NPR and has been featured at least twice in the last year on the World Café program. And, most recently, Church got the opportunity to reach a much broader audience when Jimmy Kimmel invited Sea Wolf to perform in the Pontiac Garage on his late night television show. Much of the attention has been as a result of the bands first single “You’re a Wolf” from their debut album Leaves In the River. Ironically, it’s a song that Church wrote when Sea Wolf was a very new idea for him.

“I wrote ‘You’re A Wolf’ about four years ago,” said Church. “It’s been a while and I think that I had the idea as I was humming along and the words ‘you’re a wolf’ just kinda came out. I really liked the idea of that being the song and I thought about what it meant and tried to figure out why it registered with me.” He didn’t want to elaborate much about the meaning of the song but did acknowledge that, in addition to liking the implied message the lyrics convey, he was playing on the name of his band.

When asked about the origin of that name, Church reflected on his childhood growing up in Northern California. In a home without a television he was often reading and stumbled upon the work of Jack London, the author of the famous maritime tale, The Sea Wolf. “The name of the band comes from Jack London’s book ‘The Sea Wolf,’” he said. “I grew up in Berkeley and Jack London is from Oakland and is sort of this mythological figure in the Bay Area. I grew up with Jack London Square in Oakland and a restaurant not too far from my house that had pictures of him everywhere. He was very present in my childhood and I felt this connection to him in that way.”

Though Church now makes his home in Los Angeles, it was fitting that he started his first national headlining tour as Sea Wolf so close to his childhood home. “The show was about what I was hoping it would be,” he said. “We just put out our first record and we haven’t played in San Francisco very much, but there were a couple hundred people there.”

The tide seems to be changing for Church and after years of gliding below the radar of most major media he has broken through and his music is getting the notice that it deserves. Chances are it won’t be long until he is taking the next newcomer to the indie folk world under his wing and showing them the ropes.

Spectate If You Gravitate:

• Iron & Wine
• Band of Horses
• Earlimart

FEATURE: The Hold Steady Resurrect Bar Room Rock

Craig Finn of The Hold Steady is a member of a dying breed of writers; the bar-room poet. Finn’s words talk of betting on the ponies, high school dances, acid trips and religion while introducing us to some of the most well developed characters in modern rock music. After a short time with The Hold Steady you feel like you know Charlemagne, the strung out addict, Gideon, the skinhead, and Holly, the hoodrat who found religion. Finn has a way of telling a story that really worms its way into your soul.

With lyrics like "If they ask about Charlemagne be polite and say something vague," or "Holly was a sexy mess. She looked strung out but experienced," he ushers you into the world of "Penetration Park," "The Party Pit," "Ybor City" and "Hostile Massachusetts." It isn't a world that many of us would venture into on our own but hand-in-hand with The Hold Steady it's a hell of a ride.

This world that Finn has created is set to a soundtrack of raucous barroom rock that is largely masterminded by guitarist Tad Kubler and keyboardist Frank Nicolay. Despite lyrics riddled with adolescent angst, it’s this raw sound that attracted a more mature fanbase to the band when they were first playing together. “As we get bigger there are more young faces in the crowd but when we were starting out it was people our own age who were coming to the shows,” Finn said in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver! as he rode a train from New York to Boston.

“The kind of rock-n-roll we play references the E Street band, The Replacements and other bands that people our age probably grew up with.” Finn continued. “We basically make music that we would want to hear. At 36 years old there are a lot of people that have taken different paths than I have in life. A lot of the people that I went to college with have 3 kids, a big house, a good job, a mortgage, dogs . . . all that. Those were the people that I would get into rock-n-roll with when I was a kid so when you look at it that way it is not entirely surprising that they are into our music today.”

In 2004 Finn and his bandmates dropped the first sampling of their brand of rock in the form of Almost Killed Me. The album introduced us to Holly, Gideon, Charlemagne and several of the other characters and themes that appear repeatedly in many of Finn’s lyrics. While many critics and fans speculate that he writes from personal experience Finn is quick to put that notion to rest. “People have this idea of a songwriter as someone who is always telling the truth,” he said. “The characters in my songs are kind of archetypes that can move the story along. They all represent different types of people. One character isn’t based on one particular person in my life and while personal experience does influence my writing, I am not writing about my life.”

Instead, Finn plays the role of a narrator who is telling tales about the lives and experiences of young men and women as they struggle to find their identities. The lives he is writing about are frequently inextricably tied to drugs, wild parties and promiscuous sexual experiences. Basically just a beer drinking guy himself, Finn maintains that these stories are not autobiographical and that he tends to focus on the tumultuous lives of young adults because of the perspective he can bring to their situations.

“I’m 36 right now and can look back and see what is unique about being 17. When you’re that age you are just starting to have a lot of freedom and people are starting to treat you like and adult. You might have a car and you might be living alone for the first time. You think you know everything but you don’t. Turns out you’re really pretty stupid,” he chuckled. “There is potential to get into all this trouble and I think that’s why I find that age fascinating to write about.”

A prolific songwriter, Finn and his band have cranked out 3 complete albums in their relatively brief history together. With Almost Killed Me in 2004, Separation Sunday in 2005 and most recently the critical darling Boys and Girl in America in 2006, the band has been on a remarkable pace that couldn’t last. “2007 will be the first year without a new record for The Hold Steady,” Finn said, confirming what many have suspected. “Things really caught on in Europe this year and we hadn’t really had that part of the world in our touring schedule before. As a result we effectively doubled our touring and spent a ton of time in England, France, Germany and Scandinavia this year. We’re hoping to have a record out in Spring of 2008.”

The success in Europe came as a bit of a surprise to the band. “I think that we all thought we’d be starting over in the European market but almost right away it got up to the level we are at in the states,” Finn said. “Some of the bigger shows that we’ve been able to play have been in the UK are at least as big as the ones we play in the big cities in the US.” It is looking like The Hold Steady can expect that the new record, when it does hit shelves, will receive an enormous amount of attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

After a hectic summer of touring and playing some huge festivals, this fall has provided a rare break from the road for the band and they have taken advantage of the time to work on some new material that may land on the new album. “We have been writing a lot on this break and we’re trying to get some new songs together to road test on the upcoming tour with Art Brut,” Finn revealed.

The tour, dubbed “NME Rock-N-Roll Riot Tour,” will be bouncing around the country for a month with the two bands being supported by a hand picked opening act each night. “Art Brut reached out to us after getting turned on to our music,” he said. “They wanted to come over to the states and partner with someone for a tour supporting their new record. I am a fan of theirs and the call couldn’t have come at a better time for us. We were looking to step it up a notch for this tour as it is our third one for this record in the states and jumped at the suggestion of teaming up. We play last every night but their set will be pretty long as well as it is basically a co-headline.”

With two acts on the bill whose popularity is currently surging as they resurrect classic barroom rock, this is not a tour for the weak of heart. Hailing from England Art Brut mirrors The Hold Steady in their raw sound, outrageous energy and front man Eddie Argos’s vocal delivery. While neither singer has a classically beautiful voice they have both harnessed what they’ve got and are using it to the best of their ability to communicate with who ever will listen.

People are obviously listening as several shows on the tour have sold out in advance and fans are coming out of the woodwork. Even Bruce Springsteen, one of Finn’s heroes and obvious influences, revealed himself to be a fan of The Hold Steady at his own tribute concert. He handed Finn the reigns to his classic “Rosalita” and stood by like a proud papa as The Hold Steady vocalist nailed the first two verses before standing back and letting Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy) take over.

Are Finn and his bandmates the second coming of The E Street Band as some have speculated? No. There's no doubt they draw inspiration from Little Steven Van Zandt and the rest of Springsteen's crew, but they are The Hold Steady; a truly unique band that loves every minute doing playing rock-n-roll that will leave you breathless and begging for more.

Spectate If You Gravitate:

• Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band
• The Replacements
• Ted Leo and The Pharmacists

FEATURE: DeVothKa's Day of The Dead Gala Is Sure To Bring Out More Than Just the Freaks

When first exposed to their startlingly original sound, it is difficult to believe that DeVotchKa hails from right here in Denver and was formed a mere 10 years ago. Their Eastern European sound and the emotional crooning of lead singer Nick Urata could be the soundtrack to an Eastern Block nightmare, circa 1950. Perhaps they are musicians born in the wrong era or, more likely, they are trying to bring a neglected and largely untapped genre into the public eye.

“When I started this band 10 years ago I was kinda treading water in a sea of unknown musical styles,” Urata said in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver!, from a studio in California. “I just kind of honed in on what felt natural and what I felt like I could do some justice to. I definitely wanted to do something exotic, use unusual instruments and break away from the drudgery of guitar rock bands.”

With roots in burlesque theater, DeVotchKa often pairs their unique sound with surreal visual elements in their stage performances. “The visual aspect of our performances has always been a big part of the vision and inspiration for DeVotchKa. It is funny, whenever The Slavic Sisters, the acrobats who tour with us sometimes, perform during our shows, it is what everyone seems to remember most,” said Urata.

The Sisters will be performing their aerial stunts with DeVotchKa at their Day of the Dead Gala at the end of the month. As if that isn’t enough, the band is pulling out all the stops and has invited The Yard Dogs Road Show to join them as well. The Yard Dogs are an amazing act who Urata says, “have developed their show into a dark carnival side show that transports the audience to a different reality much like a great circus should.” Though Urata didn’t want to give up any of the other surprises that DeVotchKa has up their sleeves for the Gala event, he did stress the fact that “when people walk into the show they are going to be treated like they are going to a formal dance.”

As evidenced by the formal aspects of the event, Urata holds the Halloween holiday in high regard. “Halloween is my favorite night of the year,” he said. “There is a spiritual element that dwarfs that of Christmas and hallucinogens can really open your eyes to that. I think back to some of my favorite shows as an audience member and they were life-changing. They led me to abandon the safe straight life and heed my calling. I can only hope that we live up to that sort of standard.”

Over the past several years it is fairly safe to assume that the music of DeVotchKa has changed several lives, including those of the band members themselves. Starting with the 2004 release of the band’s critically acclaimed How It Ends, a national audience began to take notice and touring intensified. “It sorta snuck up on us. We had a little bit of a cult following and it made us able to sustain things and it made going out on the road fun, but we were so used to being the opening act that we were just starting to accept our fate of being a junior varsity band, so to speak,” Urata said.

Though Urata isn’t sure that DeVotchKa has really “taken off” yet, he did allow that they have exceeded the goals they set together as a band. “We never thought it would get to this level. Earlier this year we sold out the Fillmore in San Francisco, which I never thought would be possible, so we’ve already surpassed our expectations,” he said.

While DeVotchKa’s eerie sound may not mesh with today’s indie-rock and new wave punk-filled airwaves, the band has been given some airtime on independent stations such as KCRW in Los Angeles. One morning, the husband and wife team of directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris happened to hear DeVotchKa’s “You Love Me” on the station and thought the sound would be perfect for the project they were working on at the time. “It was sheer luck,” Urata said. “I wrote the song while riding through the wide open expanse of the Arizona desert and, coincidentally, the script they were working on at the time was about a family traveling across the wide open expanse of the Arizona desert. As fate would have it, they heard the connection and called me up.” Working with the directors and composer Mychael Danna, DeVotchKa adapted a film score from several of their existing songs. The project turned out to be the indie smash Little Miss Sunshine and it gave Urata’s band the break it had long deserved and earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack.

Though the soundtrack and a 2006 EP entitled Curse Your Little Heart were interesting diversions, fans of DeVotchKa have been waiting for a proper album of original material since 2004’s How It Ends. Even though Urata was working furiously on the mix of the currently untitled new album when he spoke with The Marquee, he said that it wouldn’t hit shelves until early 2008. He did promise that the band would unveil some of the new material at The Day of the Dead Gala. “We aren’t going to torture anybody because they don’t have the record yet, but we’ll kick out a few of the new tunes for sure.”

Urata was fairly tight lipped about the sound on the album at first, only quipping that it is “like Mexican food on a long Russian winter night. ” However, he did eventually elaborate by saying that “we had some pretty grandiose aspirations on this record and we used a ton of strings and some more dance beats. It is a little more fun than our last few albums have been. It’s just more eccentric and silly, I think.”

Check Out DeVotchKa If You Like:

• Gogol Bordello
• Beirut
• Andrew Bird

FEATURE: Jose Gonzalez Reveals What's "In His Nature"

Seven years ago, a record executive never would have looked for the next superstar singer-songwriter in a University of Gothenburg, Sweeden research lab, yet that was exactly where he was spending his time. The student was Jose Gonzalez, and at the time he was pursuing an advanced degree in Biochemistry and merely dabbling in music on the side.

Today Gonzalez has won several international music awards and sold more than 700,000 copies of his debut album Veneer. He has toured the globe, from Scandinavia to Japan, several times over and captivated audiences with his deftly subtle finger picking and understated vocals.

As you might assume when listening to his music, Gonazalez is a humble and soft-spoken man. However, more than once during a conversation with Listen Up Denver! from a London hotel room he made references to the current state of the music business as being full of “artistic compromises.”

Though he has performed at some of the largest festivals in the world, including Austin City Limits and Coachella here in the states, he made it very clear that “most festivals are compromises for me. Musically they aren’t that good because usually the stages and sound systems are made for rock and loud music and it is difficult to get my acoustic guitar to sound as good as I want it to.”

Later in same conversation he referenced the relatively new practice of licensing songs to corporations for commercials in much the same light. It might seem to some as if these comments were, in a way, biting the hand that feeds him as Gonzalez owes much of his rapid rise to the international acclaim to these two mediums and specifically to one television commercial.

In 2005 his take on The Knife’s “Heartbeats” was featured in an international ad campaign for Sony’s Bravia line of televisions. The ad was a fascinating artistic statement featuring 250,000 super balls careering down a San Francisco street and apparently that was enough for Gonzalez. “Most of the time I get to see the ad before I say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and I usually feel like it depends on what the advert is about and whether it is a great idea or not,” he said before switching gears and complimenting music fans around the world. “Music is music, and I think people see through the feeling that is not the perfect setting, and if they hear something they like they are okay with how it is presented and I think that’s the most important thing,” he said.

It is observations such as these that give us insight to the critical thinking side of his acutely sharp mind, while it is his meticulously crafted music that gives us insight into the more creative side. A side which has masterfully adapted from writing the songs about love and self disclosure that dominated Veneer to reveal a more sophisticated and mature songwriter.

“On In Our Nature I have approached the lyrics more consciously,” said Gonzalez. “I was inspired by philosophical and religious topics and by elements of human nature and other urgent and relevant topics that could be true to anyone. I was reading ‘Practical Ethics’ by Peter Singer and ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins while I was writing this album and those certainly affected the songs.” The result is an album that, while not hook laden, has a way of worming its way into your soul and troubling your mind.

Though he claims that the album isn’t an overtly political statement, lyrics like “How low are you willing to go before you reach all your selfish goals?" and later, on the title track of the album, “Put down your sword. Send home your dogs. Open up your doors. Let down your guard,” are hard to ignore as a listener in today’s world and especially in the United States. It is clear that on In Our Nature Gonzalez has taken a more worldly perspective and is offering much more to think about this time than he was three years ago.

What kind of songs flow from Gonzalez in the next three years are a mystery, but what seems sure at this is point is that he will not be slaving over test tubes and studying viruses in a lab. He will instead be traveling the globe enchanting audiences in his own contagious way.

Check Out Jose Gonzalez If You Like:

• Iron & Wine
• Nick Drake
• Elliot Smith

FEATURE: Phil Lesh Enlists Jackie Greene and Particle's Steve Molitz for Phil and Friends Fall Tour

The music of the Grateful Dead has transcended decades and generations to become some of the most enduring music produced by one band in the history of rock and roll. For 30 years the Grateful Dead jammed and noodled their way through their shows, inadvertently creating an entire subgenre of rock music that continues to grow and thrive 12 years after the band officially parted ways.

While it’s true that the Grateful Dead name was retired in 1995 when legendary lead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia passed away, the music has lived on through the various surviving members. Bob Weir’s Ratdog is actively touring, Mickey Hart and his various projects still interpret the material, and bassist Phil Lesh has done his part to keep the flame alive by enlisting various “Friends” over the past eight years to help him in his quest to reinvent the songs and the spirit of the Grateful Dead.

Lesh’s “Friends” have included a virtual who’s who of the jamband music community, including Trey Anastasio and Page McConnell from Phish, Paul Barrere and Billy Payne from Little Feat, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, who currently play with The Allman Brothers, and, more recently, John Scofield and Ryan Adams. Though each incarnation of Phil Lesh and Friends has produced some memorable musical moments, it has always been tough to get a band together that really gelled.

“It’s been kind of a rollercoaster ride with lots of different musicians coming and going,” Phil Lesh told Listen Up Denver! during a recent interview from his home in Marin County, California. “We had ‘The Q’ [The Phil Lesh Quintet] which went for a couple of years, but it’s kinda hard in the final analysis to work around everyone’s schedules. As a result, we decided to try and get a band together that we could work with a while. All the musicians in the current line-up have given us a commitment that they will be available to work with us for about the next year or so. It is really a relief to have those commitments and now we can really focus on taking the music to another level.”

The men who have signed on to work with Lesh are his longtime drummer John Molo, multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell, singer-songwriter Jackie Greene and Particle keyboardist Steve Molitz. This line-up was debuted in late July at The Independent in San Francisco and drew rave reviews.

The bluesy Jackie Greene has stepped into the spotlight and is handling many of the vocal duties as well as playing guitar and keyboards. “He’s a real find, this guy,” gushed Lesh. “Last year I heard a cut from his album American Myth on the radio and I said, ‘Whoa, who is that?’ ... And I went out and got his record. I absolutely loved it. Everything about it was just so wonderful, the tunes, the singing, the guitar playing, the arrangement and the way the guitars interlocked with one another and all these great little ideas that were bubbling in the background. It was just delightful. I said something about the album in an interview and two months later I got an email from Jackie ... we got together and it just clicked and we invited him to join the band. Fortunately, he jumped at the opportunity, which was really gratifying.”

Steve Molitz is another relative youngster that Lesh has played with for a couple of one-off gigs over the past several years, but this is his first national tour with the bassist and it promises to be a special one. “Steve is a young guy with a whole different perspective ‘cause he comes out of that electronica jamband scene. I’ve been wanting to integrate that aspect of jamband music into my band for a long time and Steve is the ideal person because he can play the root stuff on the regular keyboards and jam out and yet when the moment is right he can do the really spacey, but still jammin’, kind of stuff,” Lesh said.

Lesh is an anomaly in many ways because he is still striving, at the age of 67, to grow and develop as a musician. He consciously brought Molitz and Greene into the band because “the kind of energy that Steve and Jackie bring to the band is so fresh and so exciting that the rest of us old guys kinda gotta get jacked up to that level,” he said. “It makes us play differently and that’s really what I am after with the band. I want to be inspired to play outside of my comfort zone and outside of the box that I have always been in with the Grateful Dead.”

In many ways, when Lesh returns to Colorado at the end of the month, he will be returning to a comfort zone in the form of Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Between the years of 1978 and 1984 the Grateful Dead played the famed venue 21 times and Lesh has returned many times as part of other projects. “Red Rocks seems to bring out the best in us, and we’ve got some special things up our sleeves for that gig,” he said. “We are going to be doing two full electric sets but in the middle we are going to do an acoustic set. Jackie’s music and his playing really lend themselves to that, so we are going to do the special acoustic set which we won’t be doing at The Fillmore.”

Check Out Phil and Friends If You Like:

• The Grateful Dead
• Jackie Greene
• Ryan Adams
  

FEATURE: The National Become National Sensation With The Release of Boxer

It’s been one of those years for Matt Berninger, front man of the Brooklyn-based The National — one that he probably never thought he would have when he was studying to become a graphic designer in Cincinnati. He’s been to Europe three times, he’s played to a sold out crowd at Radio City Music Hall and he met David Letterman all in the span of about five months.

What precipitated this whirlwind of events was a simple release by his band: an album called Boxer. “I think Boxer is the best album we’ve made,” Berninger told Listen Up Denver! from his New York City apartment on a rare break from touring. “This record has a different personality from the other ones. It took us a long time to find the atmosphere or mood that is represented on the album and I think the fact that we were patient and didn’t rush through it helped us to succeed. There wasn’t any big vision when we started, but we did a lot of different things and only used the ones that added to the song in an interesting way. Everything included on the final product has it own purpose.”

That purpose and intent is evident in the music and convinces the listener that The National is more than just a rock band. They are artists that take their craft seriously and are not going to compromise themselves for the sake of meeting a studio deadline. “We were successful on our own terms,” said Berninger. “There were a lot of moments during the making of Boxer where there was pressure to finish and we kept pushing the deadlines. We just didn’t want to put something out that we felt was compromised on any level. It cost us time and a lot of stress but I am glad that we kept pushing and made the record that we wanted to make.”

The album is a lavishly produced affair that features Berninger’s robust baritone backed by Scott and Bryan Devendorf and identical twins Aaron and Bryce Dessner. Joining these longtime friends is Australian composer and multi-instrumentalist Padma Newsome, whose horn, woodwind and string arrangements flush out the band’s dark and brooding sound beautifully.

“Padma has been sort of a sixth member for a long time. He and Bryce [Dessner] are in a chamber orchestra together called Clogs,” Berninger said. “We didn’t just add in his orchestration as an ornament or pile layers on a chorus to make it sound more epic or something like that. The horns and the woodwinds and the strings all play a really important role in the sound.”

In order to do justice to that “really important role in the sound,” Newsome will again be joining The National on the road this fall as they continue to play, and frequently sell out, bigger and bigger venues around the U.S. and internationally.

Berninger, who has had problems with stage fright in the past, doesn’t seem to be phased by the bigger crowds that his band is performing for these days. “It isn’t that different to play to the bigger crowds. I love performing, but it is never really comfortable. I guess I’ve just come to peace with being uncomfortable and I think that’s fine. Playing to big crowds of say 3,000 people is no more or less nerve wracking than if it’s 20 people. In fact, being in a room where there are only 20 people watching is sometimes worse than the big shows because you feel like you are under such a microscope,” he said.

Berninger also apparently doesn’t like to have the lyrics he writes for The National put under a microscope and largely refuses to have them included in the liner notes for the band’s albums. “Songwriting for me is a collage kind of process and I never begin to put a song together without the music that the other guys have created. The lyrics aren’t meant to stand on their own and I never think of them as being separate from the music. I don’t write poetry, I write songs; and without the music it doesn’t work at all.”

It is these songs that Berninger and his band of brothers create that have propelled The National into the spotlight. Each composition draws on the collected talents of the group and is born out of the desire to create simply beautiful, heart-wrenching music. While difficult to categorize, The National are influenced by some of the darker songsmiths of our time. “Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Morrisey, Steven Malkumus and Bob Pollard are some of the many songwriters that I have learned from,” said Berninger. “Listening to the Smiths was when I first realized that rock songs can be more than just entertainment. They can be hilarious and also despicable and depressing at the same time.”

Whether The National will ever live up the musical legacy of The Smiths or Leonard Cohen remains to be seen, but with their soaring popularity and dedication to making music that is not compromised in any way, they may very well be looking at a long string of years as busy as the past five months.

Check Out The National If You Like:

• The Smiths
• Interpol
• Leonard Cohen

View The New Video For The National's "Apartment Story" Below

FEATURE: Brett Dennen Standing Tall in the Folk World

Brett Dennen. Be sure to make note of that name. With intricate lyrical phrasing that calls to mind Paul Simon and a spirited upbeat performance style that has entertained crowds in some of the biggest and some of the smallest venues across the country, Dennen has already made a name for himself in the Folk world and seems destined for true musical greatness.

In the midst of a swing through New England with his band, Dennen took some time to sit down with Listen Up Denver! and, in his own humble way, talk about his summer and his career as a whole. He had just played a tiny show in a small Methodist church in Lebanon, New Hampshire and it was clear that he had really enjoyed the experience. “They were packed in there,” he said. “In an environment like that you can really connect with the audience, they can pick up on your subtleties and you can get really quiet if you want to. It can create a very magical, intimate vibe that I don’t think you could ever replicate in one of those big shed shows.”

On the other side of the coin earlier this summer Dennen was fortunate enough to be invited play several of “those big shed shows” with guitar hero and pop heartthrob John Mayer and witty pianist Ben Folds. While this pulled him from the intimate venues that he loves, he quickly recognized that this was a once in a career kind of chance to build his fan base. “We were the opening act so people were just getting there and energy and attention was all over the place. A lot of people were talking and as a result we were always struggling to get people to pay attention to us, but when we did connect the roar of the big crowds makes for epic onstage moments. At every show I know that we broke through to a bunch of new fans, so it was worth it for us.”

Dennen admitted that he relished the opportunity to learn from two veterans and took in as much as he could on the tour. Unfortunately due the rigors of life on the road and the routines of the artists there was little interaction between the tour mates. “They both keep their ships running pretty tight,” said Dennen. “Ben Folds gets to the venue about 5 minutes before he goes on and while John Mayer hangs out a lot, he’s got his own dressing room filled with computers and TVs and guitars and wardrobe. He’s got his own little world that he hangs out in. When you are on tour all the time it is natural to find comfort in a routine and often that’s what keeps you sane.”

While he seemed to understand why there was so little interaction with Mayer and Folds, Dennen hopes that the Festival setting of The Folks Festival in Lyons will be different when he appears there this month. He is currently slated to take the stage before Judy Collins and Ray LaMontagne, two artists that he great respect for. “I grew up listening to Judy Collins records and I’ve never seen her play. My Mom was a big Judy Collins fan and a fan of Crosby Stills Nash and Young and that whole scene so that is going to be a trip for me. I am also a huge Ray LaMontagne fan and I’ve never seen him before either. There are so many great artists on that bill that I have never gotten to see before and of course I feel honored to be on the same bill with them.”

The picturesque Planet Bluegrass ranch will provide a perfect setting for this 6-5” red head to win over several thousand Folk music connoisseurs who may not be aware of this relative newcomer. Given that he hasn’t had the support of a “major” label Dennen has managed to get his music out via a variety of different channels including an increasingly popular medium for artists these days: Network television. His songs have appeared in the hugely successful shows Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy and his song “Blessed” was featured in a recent Hilton Hotels commercial.

“Ten or twenty years ago I would have said that you have don’t go that route, but that was back in an age when record labels were much more supportive of their artists. These days you gotta do what you can to get your music out there. Luckily, I got to examine that advertisement and agreed that the message that traveling is an experience that in a lot of ways promotes integrity, education and tolerance in society is a good one,” Dennen said. “John Mellencamp said ‘Chevrolet is the greatest record label I have ever been on.’ I agree completely. That Hilton commercial has done more for me than my record label could have done on its own. At the end of the day, maybe it helped Hilton sell a couple of hotel rooms but it is also getting my music out there and it is getting a really positive message across and it is doing it all through television which is the most powerful form of media that we have today.”

Clearly Dennen has the business sense and the musical talent that it takes to succeed in this business and it is only a matter of time to see if his past and future songs end up in the great American Folk Cannon.

Check Out Brett Dennen If You Like:

• Paul Simon
• Ben Harper
• Jack Johnson

FEATURE: Tokyo Police Club Continue to Arrest Fans Despite Lack of A Full Album

With one EP and scarcely 16 minutes of music released in their brief 18 month lifespan, Tokyo Police club have become a sensation of sorts. They have played Coachella, traveled across the pacific to play a gig in their namesake city in Japan, and just days after The Marquee caught up with keyboard player Graham Wright, they would take the stage at the legendary Glastonbury Festival in England.

“We’ve been asked to play a few festivals this year, we’re doing a bunch in the UK and we’ve done Coachella and Sasquatch already. Cochella was the first one that we got the offer for and that was just incredible. It is just one of those big things that you hear about when you’re a kid and you think ‘wouldn’t that be cool if we could drive out to California and go to Coachella.’ Obviously to be asked to play it was really flattering. Then to be asked to play Glastonbury, which is sort of the Great Grandfather of every festival particularly for people like us who grew up on Radiohead and hearing about the legendary Glastonbury performances by bands that we just loved, is pretty indescribable.”

While Glastonbury and the other festivals TPC will be playing this summer will expose the band to hundreds of thousands of new ears, they owe the most to the very first festival they ever played. Pop Montreal. “Pop Montreal is pretty different from Glastonbury in that it is more like South By Southwest. It is a whole bunch of club shows all happening at the same time,” Wright said. “It really isn’t an exaggeration to say that we wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for Pop Montreal. At that time we had really finished with the band and as far as we were concerned we were just doing it for fun. Everyone was going off to University or a job and we had decided we would get together again later have some more fun, but that’s about it. Being asked to play that festival gave us a reminder of how much we loved it and it came at the right time it gave us a kick and the motivation to try it out for real.”

It wasn’t long after Pop Montreal that the band entered the studio to try their hand at recording some of their songs. The result, their debut EP A Lesson In Crime, clocks in at 16:19 which is shorter than some singles out there today. However, the EP sports 7 songs the longest of which runs a scant 2 minutes and 49 seconds. Despite its brevity A Lesson in Crime gives a tantalizing taste of what this young band is capable of.

“Since we finished the tour with the Cold War Kids a couple of months ago, we’ve been writing,” Wright revealed. “We have this garage in Toronto that we share with another band and we’ve been going in everyday. It’s hot and smelly because of us, but we’ve been working on stuff really intensely and we have seven new songs that we are going to play on tour this summer.”

While they just recently moved out of their suburban childhood homes, the whirlwind of their ride hasn’t given these early 20 somethings too much time to spend in their new urban digs. “No one except for the four of us have been there every day from the get go. In the van, playing shows, recording, doing interviews or whatever,” said Wright. “It doesn’t feel like one day I stepped out shielded my eyes against the glare and thought ‘wow, I’ve made it,’ because we’ve been working as hard as we can for this and we can see that it is paying off. But we have also been able to see every little step it has taken to get here.”

When festival season draws to a close and things slow down a bit, Wright and his band mates, Dave Monks (Bass & Vocals), Josh Hook (Guitar), and Greg Alsop (Drums) will get to really experience living on their own as they go back into the studio to work on their debut LP.

Wright admitted that while he was initially skeptical of what their second shot at song writing would yield, he is thrilled with the first seven songs they have demoed for the album. With the LP slated for a February 2008 release, fans may be disappointed to find out that they will have to wait for some time to be able to take these songs home with them. Until then they will have to be satisfied with catching these youngsters tear it up in clubs across Europe and North America this summer.

Check Out Tokyo Police Club If You Like:

• Wolf Parade
• Arctic Monkeys
• TV on The Radio
  

FEATURE: Page McConnell Returns with His First Post Phish Project

It has been nearly three years since four of Vermont’s most famous musicians took their final bow on the stage of their final festival, Coventry. Those four men have gone their own ways and are now seeking new musical identities. Page McConnell, possibly better known as The Chairman of the Boards, has finally broken his silence with a self titled solo album rather than in the form of his hiatus project, Vida Blue.

After that final bow, McConnell more or less went home and said “now what?” “As a member of Phish for so many years that kind of became my identity, even to myself to a degree,” McConnell said speaking with Listen Up Denver! while getting ready to head out on the road for the first time in several years. “I don’t think I even realized how much that was the case until some time had passed and Phish wasn’t around and it was just me. At that point in my life, to have everything completely cleared off the table and to have a blank slate in front of me isn’t an opportunity that everybody has and I wanted to make sure that I appreciated that.”

“Fortunately I wasn’t in a situation where I had to run off and put together Vida Blue and hit the road again. What if I wanted to switch careers entirely and look at some other profession? I didn’t do it, but it was important to just to acknowledge it and to spend some time realizing that I was at one of those points in my life that maybe comes along only once where I had the ability to look around and say ‘what is it that I want to be doing now?’”

As he ruminated over these thoughts McConnell began to toy with writing songs again. “As much as I enjoyed Vida Blue, and maybe someday I will get that together again, this album was really more about me in my own home studio writing. That is really where it all came from,” he said. “I wanted to do something different; I wanted to be comfortable in my own place.”

Though he seems to have gotten comfortable, the songwriting process has never been easy for McConnell who wrote his senior thesis on “The Art of Improvisation.” “It took me a long time to write the songs for this album ‘cause I am just kind of a slow writer. Each song on the record was really a labor of love and just kind of plugging away at it and working and reworking the lyrics until I got something that I was happy with. If I didn’t have the time that I had over the past two years making this record it probably wouldn’t have happened like this. It was something I was doing for myself and I wrote more songs for this album than I’d written in my life collectively up to this point.”

The album is much more of a singer songwriter project than some might have expected from the architect of some brilliant 10 plus minute piano solos, but it still retains McConnell’s signature vocal quality. Old fans will be calmed and new will be welcomed by the personal quality that saturates his high tenor.

While this very welcoming voice appears on 8 of the albums 9 tracks, the one instrumental piece, “Back in the Basement,” which McConnell testifies was written “within hours of the recording session,” has been counted by many as their favorite track on the record.

Joining McConnell on “Back In the Basement” and two other tracks on the album is legendary session drummer, and Beatle chum, Jim Keltner. “I’d always liked his playing a lot and basically made a call and he decided to help me out,” McConnell remembered. “It was a huge thrill.”

In addition to Keltner, each of McConnell’s three former bandmates makes an appearance on the album though he is quick to point out that “none of them were in the same room at the same time.”

“Their playing is so unique and great and recognizable that their contribution to the album is immense but they were involved for a relatively short time in comparison to the 18 months I spent on the project.” Anastasio visited the studio for about 90 minutes with his guitar and laid down a solo, Mike Gordon added his bobbing baselines to three tracks and John Fishman’s distinctive drums are audible on six.

While no one knows where any of these three may show up on tour, none will be officially joining The Chairman’s band on the road this summer. “It will be a five piece band including myself,” said McConnell. “Adam Zimmon, a friend that I met playing with the Spam All-Stars, is playing guitar. Gabe Jarrett is playing Drums, Rob O’Dea is playing bass and Jared Slomoff, who co-produced and engineered the album with me, is playing keyboards and singing.”

“We are a very young band, we’ve only been together for a couple of months, and the responsibility of entertaining for two sets is . . . well . . . daunting.” When the band first hit the road this spring they drew almost completely from the new record. Though the sets on this summer’s tour will focus on McConnell’s new album he and his band have been able to work a few covers and old favorites into the set and presumably more will rear their heads as the band logs more miles. “We’ve expanded the repertoire considerably since our first shows and while we will focus on the album because that is what I am heading out to promote right now, we will make every show different.”

While the shows will not be a trip down a musical memory lane for Phish fans, McConnell has thankfully decided to do his best to ensure that many new musical memories are made. “I’ve really enjoyed myself over the last couple of years and grown comfortable with where I am and I’m happy about this project and where I landed.”

Check Out Page McConnell If You Like:

• ALO
• Bruce Hornsby
• moe.
  
  

FEATURE: The Police Put Ego and Fighting Aside to Reunite for Massive Summer Tour

It isn’t often that the cry "The Police are coming" generates as much excitement as it did in January of this year when Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland announced the much anticipated reunion tour of The Police. The tour " the band’s first since the globetrotting Synchronicity publicity caravan came to a halt in March of 1984 " has sold out within minutes in many markets and is sure to be one of the highest grossing tours of the year.

Known for fierce fighting and massive egos, many thought that a Police reunion was something that would never materialize. In fact, Sting’s infamous quote, "If I ever reformed the Police, I’d be certified insane," ranks right up there with Don Henley saying The Eagles would get back together "when hell freezes over." Apparently hell froze over back in 1994, and now it seems Sting has been fitted for a straitjacket.

While the legacy of The Police has always remained strong, the members have, until recent years, been very quiet about the band. In the last two years, both guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland have broken the silence about the band’s tumultuous history and The Police have bubbled to the surface again.

Summers has recently published two books. In 2006 his memoir One Train Later hit shelves and his most recent, a collection of photographs entitled I’ll Be Watching You: Inside The Police, 1980-83, dropped in March of this year. Copeland chose another medium to share his thoughts, and his documentary film Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out premiered at The Sundance Film Festival in January of 2006.

Listen Up Denver! recently caught up with Stewart Copeland in Vancouver Canada, while the band was rehearsing for their world tour. Copeland was able to shed some light on the current state of The Police and what led to the reformation of one of the most popular bands of the last 30 years. "In the dark canyons of Sting’s mind a creature arose from the slime. It was the monster known as The Police," Copeland said. "What caused this arousal? No one knows. It may have been the noise made by my little film about the group; it may have been Andy’s book. One day, Andy and I were in a meeting with the record company to discuss the Police catalogue and the phone rang. It was Sting, with a proposal that we light up the band again for a full world tour. We said ‘yes.’"

In a March interview with London’s Sunday Times, Sting shared his side of the story when he discussed what drove him to make that phone call. "I meant it when I said it would be a sign of insanity if it ever came back. I said that every day before I made the decision to get back together. But one day I just woke up and thought, ‘Let’s do that.’ My instinct said this is what you should do. My instincts have nothing to do with logic. The logic of leaving the band when it was the most successful band in the world was odd," said Sting in March.

Finally, more than 20 years after their abrupt departure from the world’s stage, these three men returned as The Police with a single song performance that kicked off the 2007 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. "We’re The Police, and we’re back," was all Sting said before the trio launched into "Roxanne," the single that broke the band in the United States nearly 30 years ago.

"The first seconds of any show are all music," said Copeland, recalling that night in LA. "After a few moments, when the engine is running, it is possible to look up. What we saw was a large crowd of our flinty eyed peers, but their eyes were full of tears, their arms upraised. There was a wave of emotion in the cavernous arena."

This "wave of emotion" will be sweeping around the globe with the band as they plan to play nearly every major market on the planet. While there has been some skepticism as to whether the band will live up to their legacy, Copeland is supremely confident. "This has always been a band that rose to the occasion," he said. "We feel so human in rehearsals, but when we get in front of an audience, we are overcome by the voodoo of it all. Something much larger than ourselves rises up among us and we become servants of this greater entity."

One of the things that may keep Copeland’s confidence up is the fact that The Police aren’t writing any new songs at this point. For now, as they prepare to hit the road, all three are holed up together in Vancouver, focusing on relearning the songs that made them the household name they are. "We have so much to do rebuilding our group consciousness and we have so much great material to play, that new stuff just doesn’t seem to be part of the program," he said.

In his Sunday Times interview, Sting echoed Copeland’s thoughts when he said, "There is a lot of work to be done. I have developed a lot of these songs as a solo performer, so they are very different. There are rhythmical and structural differences I’ve woven in and haven’t shared with the others, and they were like, ‘What’s this?’ They said they want to do it the way it was in 1982. I said I want it to represent who we are now as musicians. We had a negotiation about the way to keep things fresh and also respect what we did before. And that’s ongoing and I think it’s exciting. We never really wrote songs together, that was part of the problem. I wrote in isolation " brought them a finished product. When you start a band, your roles aren’t defined but they get defined pretty quickly, causing all kinds of machinations and alliances, but it’s hard. I’m a singer/songwriter. Stewart’s a great drummer, and Andy is a great guitarist. Within those roles we can move forward, but at first it was difficult."

It is clear that while they have respect for each other, the members of The Police do not have the best of relationships. "We drive each other nuts, but we all know that we are good for each other," said Copeland, before going on to confess that "the rehearsals have been brutally cheerful. We all love to work. We don’t waste a minute; we don’t deviate. We don’t even jam because there is so much to do."

It is that work ethic that has kept these men extremely busy in their years apart. While Sting has been the most commercially successful of the trio, with albums like The Soul Cages, Ten Summoner’s Tales, and Brand New Day, both Summers and Copeland have been prolifically creative in their own right. Aside from being a father to seven children, Copeland has managed to score more than 40 films for iconic directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone and John Hughes, and form a power trio with Trey Anastasio (Phish) and Les Claypool (Primus) that they dubbed Oysterhead.

Copeland counts his participation in Oysterhead as the one project that stands out the most to him in his musical life outside The Police. "Oysterhead is the opposite of The Police. The Police experience is about singing along with tightly crafted music that you know. Oysterhead is about a wild adventure into the unknown. Anything can happen at an Oysterhead show," Copeland said.

While Oysterhead has been dormant since their 2006 performance at The Bonnaroo Music Festival, Copeland has stated that he would like to do something with the band every couple of years. While jamband fans wait with bated breath, Copeland seems comfortable in his familiar place behind the kit of the band that he started in 1977, resurrecting the tightly crafted music of The Police.

As their tour begins its way around the globe, the group signed on for support duties on the U.S. leg is the little-known British band Fiction Plane. Joe Sumner, the front man for the quartet, is the son of Gordon Sumner, better known to Police fans and the rest of the world as Sting. "You probably think this is nepotism," Sting told the Sunday Times. "He is aware of this and it is a huge problem for him. He says he doesn’t want to be associated with me. But this is a huge opportunity for him to shine."

Apparently, despite his aversion to a helping hand, the offer from Dad was too good to pass up. This summer, arenas full of flinty (and not so flinty) eyed Police fans will have an opportunity to see if Joe is following in his father’s footsteps and cranking out infectious pop tunes that will stand the test of time.

FEATURE: The Killers Break Out Of Sam's Town

The Killers have been clawing their way up through the ranks of today's musical elite for the better part of five years now. Their humble beginnings in Las Vegas have given way to plush tour buses, sold-out arenas and invitations to participate in some of the highest profile musical projects of our time.

Their up-tempo, hook-driven, melodic style is tailor made for huge stadium shows and modern rock radio. With their sophomore album, Sam's Town, having already sold nearly 3 million copies and their debut Hot Fuss soaring over 5 million, The Killers are well on their way to realizing their dreams of becoming one of the biggest bands in the world. The Killers machine may be a musical juggernaut that is rolling downhill right now, but it isn’t all champagne and massages for the men who make the music.

"We just finished sound check and are scheduled to go in a couple of hours," said bassist Mark Stoermer in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver! from backstage at The Hard Rock Café in Hollywood, Florida. The Florida show is just another night of a seemingly endless road trip. Stoermer has been on the road with bandmates Brandon Flowers (vocals), Dave Keuning (guitar) and Ronnie Vannucci, Jr. (drums) for eight months solid and their schedule shows no signs of easing up with a slew of shows planned well into the summer.

"I think being stuck together as much as we are would be tough for any group of people," Stoermer admits. "We have our ups and our downs, like a family would. However, if we have a bad day at this point we get over it pretty quickly because we know we are stuck together anyway. It’s rare that an argument or a fight will be a big deal a couple of days later." While all this time on the road is tough on the individuals, it has allowed them to become a much better band. "The shows are better than they were for the first album," Stoermer said. "We are a better live band and we are more comfortable on stage."

The Killers meteoric rise to fame started just five years ago when Flowers and Keuning would gig on the small dark stage of a transvestite club on the seedier side of Sin City when they weren’t working their day jobs. They were playing with a drummer and bassist but it was clear the line-up wasn’t gelling as a band and things were about to change.

"Dave and Brandon had a demo floating around Las Vegas and a good friend of mine got hold of it. I immediately thought it was amazing, as it had an early version of ‘Mr. Brightside’ on it. It was a really bad version but I could hear the genius in it. I went to see them, became a fan and started hanging out with Dave a lot," Stoermer remembered. "I had told them that I played bass and it wasn’t long before I got a call from Dave telling me they had gotten rid of their bass player and their drummer. They were pretty sure Ronnie was going to join on t he drums and I knew that if Ronnie played drums and I played bass this would be an amazing band."

It turns out that Stoermer was right. He and Vannucci are still side-by-side, holding down the low end of the sound and "Mr. Brightside" became one of the biggest hits of 2004.

Fortunately, The Killers have left the seedy side of Vegas in their wake and while most of their stateside shows are now selling out, the band is even more popular in Europe and other parts of the world.

"We had never to been to Mexico ‘til December of last year when we went down there and played to a sold-out 18,000 seat arena and the crowd was amazing," Stoermer said. "We have crazy crowds in Europe but I think that it was even crazier in Mexico, where everyone was singing every word to every song. It was probably the best crowd reaction we have had anywhere we have played. It was kind of overwhelming, to be honest."

Though the Mexico City gig is high on the list, Stoermer said The Killers invitation to join the bill on the London stage of Live 8, in July of 2005, is on the top of his list of memorable concerts. "Even though it was only one song, we got to share the stage with U2, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, and The Who. To be there with so many of our heroes all in one day was amazing," he said.

Several of the band’s other heroes, such as Elton John, David Bowie and Morrisey, have showered praise on The Killers and even Bono has gotten hooked. In November of 2005 he invited Flowers to sing a duet of "In a Little While" with him when U2 played the MGM Grand in The Killer’s hometown.

More recently, The Killers have been invited by the BBC to participate in a radio special honoring the 40th anniversary of the release of The Beatles classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

While Stoermer admits it is an honor to be included in the project alongside bands such as Oasis, The Kaiser Chiefs and Travis, he is quick to add that The Killers’ participation is not yet confirmed. "The people who are organizing this thing haven’t gotten back to us, and we aren’t even sure what it is. We just know there is a radio show involved and we are trying to get more information," Stoermer said. "Out of the songs we were told were left, we were going to try to learn ‘Fixing A Hole,’ because all the songs are great and we thought that would suit us the best. So, if we end up doing it, I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the one we do, but as I said, it isn’t confirmed yet and it might not happen."

If it does happen, Stoermer will be one of the happiest members of the group as he been a life-long Beatles fan. In fact, when the subject of playing at Red Rocks came up, he was quick to mention that it was an honor to play the fabled venue for a variety of reasons, including that it was one of the relatively few places in the U.S. where The Beatles played. So far in their young career, The Killers have had quite a run and they seem to have the drive, dedication and devotion to their craft that it will take to succeed in the long term. They may not have the soul of, say, Otis Redding or Aretha Franklin, but these young men are certainly soldiering on toward rock and roll greatness.

Check Out The Killers If You Like:

• Oasis
• New Order
• The Bravery

FEATURE: Miguel Migs Talks About "Those Things" and Other Things

San Francisco has long been thought of as one of the cities at the forefront of the world’s music scene. In the 1960s, the Bay Area exploded with the music that fed the counterculture movement. Bands like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and The Holding Company were thriving in the community and their music was spreading across the country like wildfire. Today, the music-friendly culture of the city has proven a fertile breeding ground for a totally different style of music - electronic.

The active club scene in the city has propelled the careers of several world class DJs, including Miguel Migs (aka Pedalpusher). Migs started his musical journey just south of San Francisco in the surf town of Santa Cruz as the lead guitarist and songwriter for local dub/reggae band Zion Sounds.

When Zion Sounds dissolved in the late ’80s, Migs turned his focus to electronic music. "The fact that you can be one guy in a studio with a keyboard and some equipment and be able to make music that moves dance floors across the globe is fascinating to me," said Migs in a recent interview with The Marquee. "I have the freedom to incorporate all sorts of different elements and styles rather than only drums, guitar and bass."

The influence of being in a band during his teenage years still shows up prominently in his sound today. "I incorporate a lot of live instrumentation into my music. I combine the best of both worlds. I always bring in live percussion, live guitars, live bass and live horns and have fun with combining all those different elements into a track," Migs said.

The result is a very deep, organic sound that throbs with sensuality and churns dance floors around the world into a sweaty cauldron of bodies. Migs has had the opportunity to tour the world promoting his music and is thrilled with the response everywhere he goes. "It is kinda cool to know that this kind of music is so big, not in the commercial sense necessarily, but it has such a strong global following," Migs said. "There are people that buy my CDs in Moscow, South Africa, Japan, Australia and Iceland and it is an amazing feeling when I am playing to a crowd in a city I have never heard of and people are singing along with the songs. It is pretty intense."

Currently, Migs is touring in support of his recently released artist album "Those Things" that he put out in March on his own Salted Music label. The album, which he says is "electronic music inspired by old soul, funk, reggae and hip-hop," features several vocalists from different genres contributing to the tracks. The world of funk is represented by Fred Ross of Sly and The Family Stone, and Migs returned to his reggae roots, getting to work with Junior Reid of Black Uhuru.

"I have been a fan of Junior Reid’s work since I was a kid and I was at one of his shows when I noticed a good friend of mine was playing bass in his band. I called my friend the next day and asked if Junior was in town because I wanted to see if he would be interested in working with me on a song for my album," said Migs. "My friend put us in touch, we talked, and I played Junior some of my music. He liked it and agreed to come into the studio with me to record. We started fresh with a track I had put together and he just started free-styling in the studio. I kind of pieced together his vocals from the various takes and free-styling ideas. It was a bit of an editing nightmare but it came out well in the end."

Longtime Migs collaborator Lisa Shaw also contributed to several tracks on Those Things and will be joining Migs on the road this spring. "She is such a phenomenal singer and performer that she brings a lot to the set," Migs explained. "The gigs will be mostly DJ oriented but I am bringing Lisa [Shaw] and Tim Fuller along to add a live element to the event that satisfies the audiences’ desire to see some sort of performance."

While he is publicly focusing on the DJ angle right now, Migs disclosed that he also is in the midst of putting a live band together that he hopes to have ready for some appearances this summer. "We are going to play most of the songs on the album with the new band," Migs said. "Most of the tracks have a lot of live instrumentation anyway so it isn’t that hard to i magine those songs being performed by a live band."

With his DJ tour, the live band and his record label, Migs keeps himself extremely busy and yet still finds time to remix songs for very noteworthy artists from Macy Gray to Lionel Ritchie to Britney Spears. He is prolifically creative and one of the most organic electronic music artists to come out of a city that is ripe with talent.

Check Out Miguel Migs If You Like:

• Mark Farina
• Blue Six
• Jamiroquai

FEATURE: Iggy and The Stooges Continue The Wierdness

“I remember playing one night and looking up from my guitar and going, ‘Uh-oh, where’d he go?’ I followed the crowd’s eyes and looked up to see Iggy [Pop] climbing the P.A. tower more than 25 feet off the ground. That is the fun of the whole thing, I enjoy watching it because every night is different,” said Ron Asheton, legendary guitarist for punk rock icons The Stooges, when he sat down with Listen Up Denver! hot on the heels of The Stooges first-ever SxSW appearance. He talked about his band’s recent album, The Weirdness, and even gave us some insight into the weirdness that is Iggy Pop.

“If anything, Iggy’s stage show now is better than it was back in the day because he is more in control of himself. He is still full of his trademark spontaneity and we never know what he is going to do,” Asheton said. “Even I have to stay on my toes. I was hit by the microphone stand at least 4 times last year, I just can’t always watch what he’s doing up there. Just this week, I’ve had the mic stand fly right in front of my face and I’ve nearly been hit by the cord as he whips it around the stage. It gets pretty dangerous up there and I don’t even get hazard pay for it!” Pop, heralded by some to be the inventor of the “Stage Dive,” hasn’t lost the passion for his creation and, though he is pushing 60 years old, still hurls himself into the crowd on a regular basis. “I love looking at the faces in the audience when he dives in there or when he is close to them. They are just awestruck,” said Asheton. “The music is driving and everything is really rocking and then he is just right in your face, it’s awesome!”

While he was quick to state that he didn’t want to “blow the Iggy myth,” he felt he had to be honest about the fact that Pop isn’t the wild man off the stage that he used to be and they are all having a much better time because of it. “After a show he might have a glass of wine or something, but even two glasses is a big night out for him these days. All the days of drugs and crazy drinking are gone for him and he even stopped smoking cigarettes 10 years ago,” said Asheton.

The lack of drama, coupled with the wild stage show that fans expect, have helped The Stooges to realize a popularity that they never were able to achieve in the late ’60s and early ’70s, when they last recorded and toured together.

Asheton described The Stooges current operation as “a well-oiled machine,” and went on to say that “everyone on the crew is great and we all love getting together and seeing each other. It is really just a hell of a lot of fun for all of us right now.”

Asheton and his brother Scott (drums) reunited with Pop nearly four years ago when they agreed to appear on Pop’s album Skull Ring. The group hit their stride quickly and was soon doing shows as The Stooges for the first time since 1974. With the drugs and bad blood behind them, their focus turned toward making new music.

“When we weren’t playing shows we would take time out and get together and write songs. By the time we got into the studio to record The Weirdness, we had 42 new songs to choose from,” Asheton said. “We were really very well prepared to record this album. I think the most we did was five takes of a song.”

The Weirdness was produced and recorded by influential audio engineer Steve Albini in his studio just outside of Chicago. “Every day we went into the studio we did two songs and we did them live. Drums, bass, guitar and Iggy’s vocals were all recorded live,” Asheton remembered. “I hate playing the tracks without vocals; I really just don’t get my teeth into them. When my brother and I first asked Iggy to sing live with us he said, ‘Well, you know, maybe I will try to save my voice and do some to keep, but maybe I’ll talk through some also.’ It wound up working so well that he just did them all live and we were able to keep about 95 percent of the vocals he did during those sessions.”

In what was probably the biggest change in the recording process since The Stooges last recorded an album together, Albini was able to do rough mixes of the day’s takes before the band even left the studio in the evening. “Everyday when we walked out of there we had two songs that we could listen to in the van on the way back into the city,” Asheton said. “I remember back in the ’60s recording a track and not getting to hear anything for weeks or even months after the sessions were over.”

Now that the sessions are over and the album is on the street, the band is running themselves ragged on the promotional circuit. TV shows in France, a private live taping for an April Yahoo! broadcast, the upcoming U.S. Tour and, of course, the appearance at SxSW, where they played two shows and did countless hours of interviews.

“The coolest thing about SxSW was that we were doing an interview with Steve Jones on his radio show and Pete Townshend showed up. We got to meet Pete Townshend,” Asheton beamed. “He sat down and talked with us for a while and he had nothing but good things to say about our band. It was really a lot of fun.”

While meeting Townshend was a highlight for Asheton and the band, there were a couple of highlights for Stooges fans who made it to Austin. A festival-headlining set at Stubb’s Bar-B-Que was preceded by a rare in-store performance by the band. “We played at Waterloo Records on this tiny little stage and so many people showed up that the police had to come and chase people away,” Asheton said.

While they have been back together since 2003, The Stooges have shyed away from playing a full tour of the United States until this spring. “We have been getting warmed up for the U.S. dates by playing all over the world. We want to be well oiled when we hit the States,” said Asheton. “The crowds everywhere have been great. They know the words to the songs, and even sing along to some of the new songs and that is what really kicks us up a notch as a band. When the crowd is going, we get going even harder.”

Check Out Iggy and The Stooges if You Like:
- MC5
- The Ramones
- Black Flag

FEATURE: The Greyboy Allstars Are Back with What Happend to TV?

What Happened to TV? is the album that hits the street this month from the reunited Greyboy Allstars, but the better question is, ‘What Happened to The Greyboy Allstars?’ After dominating the jam-jazz scene of the ’90s, the band parted ways in late 1999 to allow its members to take the creative steps necessary to stay musically fresh.

“We just sort of stopped ... everyone started getting involved in other things. We just want it to be the right thing, and it wasn’t at that time,” said Allstars Hammond B-3 genius Robert Walter in a recent interview with Listen Up Denver!.

“About two years ago we started getting these offers to play these ‘reunion’ gigs,” Walter said. “We got together and it took us about two days to get back to feeling like a band, which is pretty quick. We decided to do some of the gigs and it was fun and we were all like, ‘Wow, we can play together again, it feels good and the music sounds great,’ but it didn’t last long.”

After playing a few festivals and a couple of these ‘reunion’ runs, the band began to feel that they were turning into “some kinda nostalgia thing for the ’90s,” Walter said. “The novelty of it wore off pretty quickly and we all got to the point where we said, ‘We don’t want to do this anymore until we have some new material and we get back in the shed together and start writing and feeling creative together as a band, rather than just playing a gig.’”

In the spring of 2006 all five original members got together with the band’s namesake, DJ Greyboy, to record at guitarist Elgin Park’s home studio. Walter, sax-man Karl Denson, bass player Chris Stillwell and drummer Zak Najor joined Park at his home and got to work putting pen to paper and music to tape.

“All the songs on the record are original Greyboy Allstars compositions,” said Walter. “We wrote them all together in the studio, rather than taking people’s various songs they had from other projects. We just wanted everyone in the band to feel really invested in the music.”

The band made the decision to bring DJ Greyboy back into the mix for the first time as a producer since their 1995 breakthrough, West Coast Boogaloo, to keep them in check. “We worked with Grey [DJ Greyboy] again on this record because we really wanted to stick to the root of what the Allstars music is about. It’s supposed to be danceable and have space in it and not be overly musical. We are all fairly accomplished musicians with an affinity for jazz, and if left to our own devices it is tempting to play a lot of notes and put a lot of fancy stuff in there and Grey really keeps us rooted.”

The resulting collection of 11 tracks showcases the Boogaloo sound that Allstars fans have been jonesing for since the release of A Town Called Earth nearly 10 years ago. Their tasty blend of funk, jazz and soul, dusted with subtle touches of hip-hop, is back with all the passion of their earlier efforts.

“The title track on this record really captures the band in our live mode at its best; it is the kind of track that sounds like it does because of the way we are playing the parts and the feel with which we are playing the parts,” Walter said. “You couldn’t just play the parts note-for-note and have it sound like that. There is just something very elusive about the way that track grooves.” One critical part to keeping that track grooving the way it did in the studio has unfortunately stepped aside to make way for new blood. As half of the powerhouse rhythm section that reeled in the sound of the Allstars, Zak Najor’s contributions to the sound are undeniable, but the rigors of the road simply aren’t part of his future.

“Zak is not touring with us anymore, he is on the album and he is a big part of the album, but he just doesn’t want to go on the road at all,” Walter revealed. “So we have a new drummer, Eric Kalb, who is quickly becoming a real part of the group and will probably end up being on the next recordings.”

Kalb’s name has been around the scene for years. He was the original drummer for Deep Banana Blackout and he has worked with John Scofield and others, but as Walter mentioned, it isn’t easy to be the new guy. “He is stepping into a situation with 10 years of history and baggage, for lack of a better term, but he is a tremendous talent and we are musically gelling already after only a couple of shows. I think it will get to that bizarre telepathic place real quick once we really get out in a bus,” said Walter.

If What Happened to TV? is any indication of what’s possible if the Allstars can reach those ‘bizarre telepathic’ places even for a few moments on the road this spring, it will be clear that what happened to The Greyboy Allstars was nothing more than what happens to so many of us: They just needed to time to mature before realizing their full potential.

Check Out The Greyboy Allstars if You Like:
- Soulive
- The New Mastersounds
- Galactic

FEATURE: Assembly of Dust & Honkytonk Homeslice Team Up for Series of Shows

"I met Reid at High Sierra back in ’95 or ’96 and we hit it off because we were both the singer/ songwriters of our bands. I grabbed him at one point and we went to a quiet spot and hung out with our guitars and traded original songs back and forth," said Billy Nershi in a recent interview with The Marquee.

"Yeah, we spent several hours just trading songs in the campground. It sounds almost like it was scripted but it did really happen," Reid Genauer said a short time later in a separate interview.

These two musicians have covered a lot of ground since they first crossed paths in the mid ’90s. At the time, Genauer was with Strangefolk, and Nershi’s String Cheese Incident was just picking up momentum.

Fast forward to today and things have changed a bit. Genauer left Strangefolk in 2000 to pursue his MBA at Cornell University and since graduation has been focusing on his new project, The Assembly of Dust. On the other hand, Nershi is also about to reinvent himself, having recently made it public that he is leaving SCI in the fall to pursue his side project, Honkytonk Homeslice, full time.

What hasn’t changed over the years is that these two songsmiths are still at the top of their games and are still trading compliments. When asked about Reid’s latest album, Recollection, Nershi responded with an enthusiastic, "It’s great! I’ve got a copy in my car stereo right now and I plan on spinning it for a while." Similarly, Genauer discussed his respect for Nershi and HTHS. "At the F.O.N.K. Festival this past summer, we went on right after Billy and his band. I had just watched their set from the grass and really enjoyed it and I asked him to sit in for a song with us. He did, and we had a blast," said Genauer. "When we finished that song he said he was taking off and we said our goodbyes, but when we were through with our set he was still there and we hung out for a while."

It was that conversation that sparked the idea for this winter’s tour. Their two bands share a mutual admiration and fondness for Americana that lends itself perfectly to the format of the tour. The first two sets will allow each band to showcase their own sound and the third set will be a collaboration between the two groups. "We will probably do a few of our songs and a few of theirs," said Genauer. "But there will be a healthy number of mutually agreeable covers thrown in there too."

Though Nershi and Genauer haven’t been in touch in several years, this tour will not be the first time they have shared the stage for a paying audience. Back in the summer of 1998, SCI was on the road with moe. for the Hoodoo Bash tour and Strangefolk joined up for several dates. While Nershi and Genauer only jammed together a few times that summer it was enough to peak their interest in a second shot at the collaboration.

While they are clearly looking forward to hitting the road together, both bands have been concentrating their efforts internally over the last year. Understanding the need to come together musically in order to produce a quality product, Nershi and Genauer sequestered their respective bands in rural environments to record last summer. The results, while very different, share the common denominator of American roots music.

Over the course of a couple of months in 2006, the five men of Assembly of Dust retreated to Maine to create their newest record Recollection. Holed up in a studio with their buddy Josh Pryor playing the role of engineer and co-producer, the band recorded a very rootsy album that conjures up images of Levon Helm, Rick Danko and the rest of The Band. "I am thrilled with the album," said Genauer. "I am proud of the songcraft, and thrilled with the production value. It really feels like a succinct and purposeful artistic statement to me."

In a similarly laid back situation 1,600 miles away, Nershi, his wife Jillian and multi-instrumentalist and singer Scott Law were bunkered in high up in Nederland, Colo. recording their debut studio effort in the hospitable environment of the Nershi’s home. "We just added a studio onto our house. In fact, the day that people started arriving I was breaking down the tile saw in the upstairs bathroom. We had literally just finished the addition and everybody showed up. We had one day to hang out and get reacquainted before we started recording," Nershi remembered.

It will be a similar situation when HTHS hits the road with Genauer and his Assembly of Dust this month. They will jump right into things on the first night and hammer out the set of collaborations over the course of the seven-night tour. Nershi is confident that by the time they reach Colorado for the final three dates everything will be running smoothly. "Touring together gives us a chance to work out tunes together and create a sound that neither band could achieve individually," he said. "We’ll do a little homework in advance but most of the music is learned in sound checks or during after-show jam sessions." "It shouldn’t be much of a challenge," agreed Genauer. "We are philosophically coming from the same place as musicians."

Check Out Assembly of Dust and Honkytonk Homeslice if You Like:

• The Band
• Crosby, Stills and Nash
• Railroad Earth
  

FEATURE: moe. Hits the Road In Support of The Conch

True to jamband form, upstate New York’s moe. toured incessantly throughout 2006. They bounced across the country, road testing new material and hammering songs into shape for their eighth studio release, The Conch, that hit shelves on Jan. 23.

The Conch is a 17-track offering that includes 13 fully-developed songs and four short snippets or interludes. “The process of recording stretched out over the course of a year, as we were extremely busy, recording, working on the DVD, playing live and about 10 other things,” said Chuck Garvey (vocals, guitar, keyboards) in a recent interview with The Marquee. The result is a solid album that subtly discloses the maturity of the band and their rare ability to create intense hook-laden music as effortlessly in the studio as they do on stage.

Fortunately for fans, 2007 is looking to be another busy year for the five boys in moe. The festivities begin this month in Miami, Fla., when they board Norwegian Cruiselines’ newest ship The Jewel and throw a seven-night party on the high seas for their fans. The cruise will feature performances by moe. each night and Garvey even hinted that there may be a private show on a beach during the adventure.

In addition to their packed touring schedule, each year moe. ambitiously hosts two full-fledged festivals in upstate New York. Their winter festival, snoe.down is held in Lake Placid, New York and even featured an outdoor performance last year at the foot of Whiteface Mountain. “I am not sure we are going to do that again. It was fun but it got down to almost zero that day. While we were bundled up and fueled by hot coffee and a touch of whiskey we still had to keep warm by jumping around as much as we could,” said Garvey. “Kudos to the crowd of almost 2,000 that stuck with us for the entire set.”

With Phish calling it quits in 2004 and the recent news that The String Cheese Incident is only going to be around for a couple more months, moe. is advancing into a position as one of elder statesmen of the scene. Their festivals foster musical development within the scene and give fans the opportunity to get their moe. fix while being exposed to some of the best new bands out there. “We have invited bands like Dread Clampett, Tea Leaf Green, and Toubab Crewe and all of them have played the second stage at our festivals and made big impressions,” Garvey said.

All of the touring, festivals and recording has unfortunately had a physical effect on the band recently. “Al [Schnier] (vocals, guitar) had to take some time off from playing guitar due to a pretty severe bout with tendonitis a few months back,” said Garvey. “That caused me to play a little bigger role on the guitar lately, even though we had guests sitting in with us to fill the void. As a result, I am now the one battling the tendonitis. I have been going through physical therapy and other treatments to try to deal with the problem. Fortunately, Al seems to be doing much better and will be able to play on the upcoming tour.”

In April of 2005, before the battles with tendonitis, moe. held a two-night run at The Fillmore in Denver and recorded the second night for broadcast on HDNet as part of their “Sunday Night Concert Series.” By many accounts the show turned out to be one of the best of the year and on Oct. 3, 2006 the band released moe.: Live at The Fillmore on DVD for the world to experience.

When moe. pulls into Colorado this time they will be fresh from their seven-night Carribean cruise and ready to launch the record release tour in support The Conch. The Colorado run is booked in progressively larger venues from night to night. “We call it ‘the evolution,’” said Garvey. “We start off in a small venue and work our way up. We did it once in Atlanta and wanted to do it again. Colorado fit the model perfectly with the range of venue sizes available to us.” The band will start their run at Twist and Shout in Denver and then head to Boulder for a night at the Fox Theater, before returning to Denver for shows at The Gothic and then finally at The Fillmore with Jeff Austin of Yonder Mountain String Band, to round out the four nights. “It’s fun because you get familiar with the faces up front over the run. The hardcore fans come out all four nights and that leads to a really good vibe in the venues.”

While the vibe in the venue is critical to their fiery performances, without a good vibe on stage none of this would be possible. In their 16 year history, moe.’s line-up has remained largely the same and they have all managed to remain friends. Garvey is quick to emphasize that he and his bandmates are still close friends after all these years of touring and playing together. “We recognize that we have it pretty good. Doing something this cool with your friends is a really fun way to go through life.”

Check Out moe. If You Like:

• Phish
• Umphey's McGee
• Disco Biscuits

FEATURE: My Morning Jacket Continues Its Rise

What do The Boston Pops, Cameron Crowe, Pink Floyd lighting designer Mark Brickman and Levon Helm of the Band all have in common? The answer is that they have all recently worked with Kentucky rock outfit My Morning Jacket.

Since the release of their fourth studio effort Z in October of 2005 the band has exploded into the collective consciousness of rock fans across the county. Their shows have been selling out nearly every night and the palpable energy in the room erupts when they take the stage.
“We have had a lot of good things happen to us in the last year and we feel really blessed about it,” said the Jacket’s drummer, Patrick Hallahan, in a recent interview with me. “But I have to say that working with the Boston Pops was one of the best experiences.”

Hallahan seemed almost star-struck as he recounted the experience. “Getting that call was insane. We have always dreamed about getting the chance to play in front of a full symphony orchestra,” he said. “And to have not just any orchestra, but the Boston Pops call you, was an incredible feeling.” Unfortunately for their fans, the concerts were not professionally recorded so only fans who were lucky enough to have been in Symphony Hall in Boston on one of those two evenings have any idea about the true majesty of the experience.

Shortly before the call that invited them to share the stage with The Pops, Hallahan and his band-mates had received another, very flattering, phone call. They were invited to contribute a song to Endless Highway: The Music of The Band, a tribute album that is due out Jan. 30 on 429 Records. My Morning Jacket has the distinction of being the only band that was able to take advantage of an offer to record their contribution in the studio of legendary Band drummer, Levon Helm. “There are very few people in this world that I get all giggly and star-struck over and Levon Helm is on the top of the pile with maybe three others,” said Hallahan. “He wasn’t involved with the actual recording at all, but it was just so incredible to be up there and get a chance to talk to him and have all the stories about how great a guy he is be backed up by his actions. It was amazing.”

To make the situation that much more amazing, they were able to record one of The Band’s most heartfelt and poignant ballads, “It Makes No Difference.” “The song is just so incredible,” Hallahan gushed. “It is such a sad love song and it was one of the first songs of theirs that we all collectively fell in love with. It made such perfect sense for us to record it for that project,” he said.

Joining My Morning Jacket on the tribute are some of the best in the business. Bruce Hornsby, Rosanne Cash, John Hiatt, Widespread Panic and The Allman Brothers Band all paid their respects The Band’s legacy and contributed their own versions of some of the most influential songs in American musical history.

While they did play their cover of “It Makes No Difference” a couple of times in concert, Hallahan confesses that they have a tendency to focus on their own material when playing live. “Covers are fun and we’ll pull one out if it is the appropriate time, but we played a lot more when we didn’t have as much of a catalog to choose from.”

Their most recent project Okonokos is an epic live album released on both CD and DVD that features My Morning Jacket reaching back into their catalog and showcasing 21 original songs. Recorded in front of a packed house at The Fillmore in San Francisco amid an elaborate set decorated to look like a remote forest location, Okonokos captures the ferocious raw energy of the Jacket in their natural element.

It is obvious when watching Okonokos that this is a band that has come of age in the last couple of years. They recognized the significance of putting out a live DVD and they pulled out all the stops and put on the performance of their lives when it counted. For support, they enlisted an A-List crew that included Mark Brickman, legendary lighting designer for Pink Floyd. “Brickman was only working with us for the filming of the DVD but his good friend and protégé Marc Janowitz is working with us now. Basically, Mark Brickman appointed our lighting director and that is a true honor.”

Janowitz was named “Lighting Director of the Year” in 2004 by ED Magazine and by all accounts has added an incredible visual element to My Morning Jacket’s live performances. “This is the first time we have gone out on tour and had a light show that really affects our heads,” Hallahan said. “Sometimes I get so caught up in the lights that I forget where I am and that has been an amazing twist of events.”

In another amazing twist of events for the Jacket last year, the boys were offered their silver screen debut by one of the most respected directors in Hollywood. Director Cameron Crowe “was searching for a band from Kentucky to play [pause] a band from Kentucky in his Elizabethtown project,” chuckled Hallahan. “Fortunately for us we were playing at the Troubadour in LA around the time he was thinking about this and he and some of his staff came out to see us play. After the show he approached us and we hit it off right away.”

It wasn’t long before Cameron was being led around rural Kentucky by this group of long haired rock and rollers. “He flew out to Kentucky and stayed here for a while and we showed him what it was like to be a Kentuckian; everything from Bourbon tastings to Bar-B-Qs to long walks in dark cemeteries. We were really just trying to give him a sense of the culture more than anything.”

When it came to begin filming, Crowe shared his vision for the movies climactic scene and revealed that it focused on My Morning Jacket playing the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Free Bird.” “At first we were a little apprehensive as that could be the nail in the coffin for our musical career,” Hallahan admitted. “However, once we read the script and saw how it fit into the movie, it was a no-brainer.”

From Crowe to The Boston Pops, the Kentucky boys have certainly made their mark on several echelons of American culture recently. It seems in many ways that they have gone from being merely a rock band to being a cultural phenomenon whose star is still rising. It won’t be long before My Morning Jacket will be listed right alongside the people they considered their influences and idols.

Check Out My Morning Jacket If You Like:

• The Band
• Wolf Parade
• Drive-By Truckers

FEATURE: Polytoxic to Perform The Last Waltz on the 30th Anniversary of the Original Concert

Thirty years ago this month one of the most storied concerts in popular music history occurred in San Francisco.

The Band performed their final concert (with the original line-up) on Thanksgiving Day, 1976 at the famed Winterland. The evening featured dinner, ballroom dancing and nearly four hours of music from the guests of honor and several of their close friends.

The evening was documented by filmmaking genius Martin Scorsese and was released two years later as the concert film The Last Waltz. Scorsese managed to capture The Band in all their glory and the film has stood up to this day as one of the best concert films ever made.

Nearly a year-and-a-half ago Polytoxic took to the stage at Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey in Denver in an attempt to recreate the fabled evening. The production was such a huge success that they scheduled an encore performance a couple of months later on the night before Thanksgiving at Cervantes. “They packed in about 900 people that night and I think the official capacity there is 750,” said CR Gruver (keyboards) in a recent interview with The Marquee.

That second performance was heralded as 2005’s Best Local Concert of the Year by Westword.
Polytoxic was a part of the Denver music scene for two years until they recently disbanded, performing their final show at the new Soiled Dove Underground this past September. “It was a great show,” said Gruver. “A sold-out crowd in one of the best sounding rooms in town. It was a treat to play there for our last official show.”

Gruver has recently relocated to his fiancés home city of New Orleans and seems very excited about the musical possibilities the city offers. “I came down to New Orleans because it is probably one of the best music towns in the country. I want to try to meet some of the big hitters and just immerse myself in the music scene,” said Gruver. “Last night we went to see The Rebirth Brass Band and I got to hang out with Ivan Neville for a little while. It is an amazing opportunity for me down here.”

While Polytoxic no longer formally exists, Gruver does allow for the possibility that this year’s Thanksgiving performance many not in fact be Polytoxic’s final performance of The Last Waltz. “We have talked about doing it every year because I would love to be able to be in Denver for Thanksgiving and get to see old friends and stuff,” Gruver said. “But for now we are considering it ‘the last waltz’ for Polytoxic.”

In much the same fashion as the original event 30 years ago, Polytoxic has structured the evening to involve nearly 30 musicians in creating their version of the concert. “One of the show stoppers of the evening is Aaron Rose, who sings ‘Dry Your Eyes,’ the Neil Diamond song. We also have Jessica Goodkin, who sings that Van Morrison song ‘Caravan,’ which is phenomenal. Our friend Christy Chambers does Joni Mitchell’s ‘Coyote’ and Cheyenne Kowal from the Reals comes out and does ‘Evangeline.’ No one is better than the person before them and they are just stellar. It makes for a pretty amazing night,” said Gruver.

While Gruver does admit that they don’t play the songs in the same order as either the original concert or the film, they do cover most of the same material.

Polytoxic may not have the budget that Scorsese and The Band did, but Gruver promises they are going to dress the place up a bit. “Last year we had these huge velvet curtains that hung behind the stage and that gave it a little bit of a classy feel. We also had candelabras up on stage with real candles and real flame and everything. We try to be as authentic to the original event as we can afford to be,” he laughed.

The Last Waltz is a milestone in American musical history. The Band went out on top and they threw themselves one hell of a party. Scorsese did it justice, but there can be no substitute for seeing a concert in person. So, unless you can figure out a way to travel back in time to 1976, this re-creation of the evening will have to do.

Check Out Polytoxic (The Last Waltz) if You Like:

• The Band
• Little Feat
• CSN&Y

FEATURE: The Decemberists Sign to Capitol and Release the Gifted Crane Wife

Colin Meloy of The Decemberists has recently had some significant and wonderful changes take place in his life. First, as 2005 drew to a close his band, The Decemberists, took the plunge and signed to Capitol Records. Then, in February of this year, Meloy’s long-time girl-friend, and the one responsible for The Decemberists album art, Carson Ellis gave birth to the couple’s first child, a healthy baby boy.

“It has irrevocably changed my life, but in a good way. It is really exciting and every day is brand new. There are always new and exciting and terrifying things to deal with, so I am really enjoying it so far,” said Meloy in a recent interview with me from his home in Portland, Oregon, as he geared up for his first major tour since he became a father. “We did a week and a half in Europe in the spring, and a couple of one-off shows but nothing you could really call a full-on tour since Henry was born.”

Meloy recently spawned another, somewhat less significant, creation. On October 3 The Decemberists unveiled their major label debut for Capitol, a masterpiece called The Crane Wife. The album once again features Meloy’s elegant wordsmithing as it musically showcases the maturity of the band. The experience begins with a sound Decemberists fans will recognize and builds to a three-song crescendo that is one part disco/funk, one part prog-rock and one part the gorgeous orchestral indie-rock that the band has become known for.

The powerful, nearly epic songs on this record highlight the fact that Meloy’s songwriting is clearly at the top of its game. He seems to have almost painted the word pictures that bring this album to life. Images such as “I tasted summer on your peppery skin” and “A gray sky, a bitter sting, a rain cloud, a crane on a wing” are not uncommon lines in these dark Victorian tales.

“Most of the songs on The Crane Wife were written while Carson was pregnant and while I was fully considering the implications of being a father. What came out was really dark for whatever reason,” chuckled Meloy. “I don’t really have any explanation for that.”

Technically speaking, the production value on the new record is excellent and the song list was put together flawlessly. The album lifts you up in strong arms and lets you down gently right where it wants you. From the bright and tinny opening notes of “The Crane Wife 3” through the final chorus of “Sons and Daughters,” which features the full company singing “Hear all the bombs, they fade away,” The Decemberists take you for an emotionally wrenching ride through an imaginary world inhabited by soldiers and sailors, bank robbers and fairy tale butchers. It is not a place for the faint of heart.

There has recently been buzz among long-time Decemberists fans that the band has “sold out.” While they have moved on and now find themselves on a major label, the majesty and passion that are conveyed in the presentation of this collection of songs simply could not have been made by a band attempting to placate a record executive. This is a record that reflects the maturity of the band both lyrically and musically. “We have really mined the talents of all the band members on this record,” said Meloy. “Capitol didn’t go after us because they expected us to be their next #1 hit machine. The conditions of us signing a major label contract were really that we retain all creative control over every aspect of the band. They have been very supportive of that.”

In fact, Meloy stressed that the support that Capitol has put behind The Decemberists enabled them to make The Crane Wife exactly the record they wanted it to be. “There were really no compromises that needed to be made. We had the freedom and, more importantly, the time to go back and scrap things and start again if we needed to. We were really able to take all the time we needed to make the record,” said Meloy.

The musical centerpiece of the album comes in the form of a 12-and-a-half-minute prog-rock suite of three songs called “The Island.” “The instrumental intro to ‘The Island’ had initially been written and I demoed it in a much heavier, electric, Sabbathy way. We recorded it that way and started working on overdubbing and when we listened to it we felt that where the rest of the song had a lot of life and spark to it, the intro felt so derivative that it had no soul. We tore it down and really had to trust our intuition as we went back in to the studio and recorded it acoustically and started building from there. Eventually we came up with what is on the album,” said Meloy.

Meloy went on to explain that the three songs that make up “The Island” are connected musically, but not thematically. “I think of it as three separate stories,” he said. “‘Come and See’ is a utopic vision of escapism; this island in the wild left to its own resources. ‘The Landlord’s Daughter’ is obviously a tale about rape and murder. I was following more traditional approaches to writing a folk ballad on that one. The third piece, ‘You’ll Not Feel The Drowning,’ was a line borrowed from In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, where a young boy is told to go to sleep as the ship he is sailing on is engulfed by a squall. The reason he is given is that if he is asleep he won’t feel the drowning.”

While Meloy obviously has an active imagination, he is not afraid to borrow from works of literature to jump start his creative flow. In Patagonia is not the only example of a literary inspiration found on the album. The title track itself is a reworking of a classic Japanese folk tale and Meloy isn’t afraid to admit that he finds inspiration in literature. Much has been made of the seafaring themes of many of The Decemberists songs. Meloy is quick to own up to the fact that “I didn’t have the opportunity to sail much as a child and I have gleaned much of my nautical vocabulary from Patrick O’Brien novels and other maritime tales.”

Meloy is obviously a craftsman who gives credit to his tools where it is due but on this album it becomes clear that without his band he would just be another songwriter, albeit a very good one. While The Decemberists fit into a very rare category musically, they also fit into another very rare category, a category that is defined by bands that rise to popularity simply because they are extremely talented and are hitting their creative stride as a unit, not as individuals. The nature of creativity almost dictates that this can’t last and that it must be cherished when it happens. The Decemberists are at that pinnacle right now. We would be fools not to stand up and take notice while they are in our midst.

Check Out The Decemberists If You Like:

• Yes
• Norfolk & Western
• Belle & Sebastian
  

FEATURE: Silversun Pickups Shine Bright After Full Length Gets Major College Radio Play

“We’ve got an in-store at Amoeba Records here in L.A. tonight,” said Brian Aubert, guitarist and front man for Silversun Pickups, in a recent interview with me. “The gig was planned a couple of months back but we just found out about it. Our label knew, our manager knew and people thought we knew, but we actually found out about it while reading the paper just like you would. We called our manager and said, ‘Hey is this happening?’ Sure enough, it’s happening. We were all just glad we were going to be in town and could make our own gig. It’s really funny how it works sometimes.”

While in-store performances are often known for their stripped-down sound, Aubert said his band had no intention of toning things down or going acoustic for the Amoeba event. “We know a guy at the store and asked him if we should play acoustic or mellow things out for the in-store and he said ‘No, just be yourselves and play loud.’ I’m not sure they know what they’re in for, but we are going to hammer through seven songs back-to-back for the full 30 minutes so no one can tell us we are being too loud. By the time they can tell us we’re too loud we’ll be done and packing things up,” Aubert chuckled.

Over the course of the six years Silversun Pickups have existed, this kind of attitude has solidified their live show into a deafening amalgam of rock, psychedelia and shoe-gaze pop that leaves audiences gasping for breath and screaming for more. The tight, polished sound the band has achieved is a far cry from their humble beginnings in a practice space in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“I had just quit a friend’s band and was just kind of hanging around a practice space in Silver Lake when my friend Nikki decided she wanted to learn how to play bass,” Aubert remembers. “I said come on down. At the same time, my ex-girlfriend Elvira said, ‘I wanna learn how to play drums.’ She came down and learned about three or four beats. A week or so into that, Nikki and Elvira decided to make a tape to send into the CMJ Music Festival in New York. I thought it was ridiculous because we had no idea what we were doing and weren’t actually a band, but I went along with it. We needed a name to put on the tape so we looked out the window at Silver Sun Liquors across the street and said ‘Silversun Pickups? Okay.’ We actually got into CMJ and really couldn’t believe it. We decided to go. Not because we wanted to be a band but because we wanted to go to New York and hang out and see great bands. On that trip we ran into the guy that owns Spaceland here in L.A. and he asked us to play a gig the day we flew home. We took the gig and things just started to happen from there.”

It has been six years since that nameless trio made a tape on a boom box and accidentally started a band. In those six years Aubert (guitar and vocals), Nikki Monninger (bass) and the name (Silversun Pickups) are the only things that have remained constant. For years, The Pickups played with countless line-ups in clubs all over Southern California and slowly but steadily built a loyal local following. Recently, things changed.

In July of this year the first full-length album from Silversun Pickups, Carnavas, was released by Dangerbird Records. College radio around the country picked up the album and put it into regular rotation and it wasn’t long before major stations in Seattle and Los Angeles followed suit. Even MTV got in on the action, featuring the Pickups on the “You Hear It First” segment of MTV News.

“It’s been amazing on tour this summer and really, really bizarre at the same time. There were cities on the tour we had never been to and it was pandemonium in the venue. We’d get up there and people were smashed up against the stage and jumping up and yelling song titles, especially in Minneapolis, Chicago and Indianapolis, of all places,” Aubert said. “People were going insane and we’re just up there like, ‘What’s happening?’ After every show on the tour we’d go backstage and look at each other and just say, ‘I don’t know what’s happening, this is crazy.’ It has really felt good for me, personally, because it took so long for us to put this record out that when people were yelling song titles and singing along I knew it was real and people were buying it, people were listening to it and best of all people were liking it.”

Aubert confesses that with all the recent hype that has surrounded his band he has been getting recognized around L.A. a lot more. “It is a touch surreal when I get recognized in Silver Sun Liquors picking up a six pack. I hear things like, ‘Holy crap I’m watching a Silversun Pickup doing a Silver Sun pick-up,’ and I just have to laugh. I guess it’s good that after all this time people finally know who we are. It looks like we’re doing something right.”

Check Out The Silversun Picups If You Like:

• The Breeders
• The Comas
• Smashing Pumpkins

FEATURE: Eric Bachmann Heads "To The Races"

Whether performing as Crooked Fingers or under his own name, one thing is for sure: Eric Bachmann is an outstanding singer/songwriter. His masterful manipulation of language conjures intricate images of hope or heartache as effortlessly as his delicate finger-picking sets the mood. Standing well over six feet tall and built like a lumberjack, Bachmann is an imposing figure on stage. However, his soft-spoken banter and haunting vocals quickly shatter any preconceived notions as his audience hangs on his every word.

Bachmann’s most recent release, To The Races, is a solo acoustic record in the style of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. Like The Boss, he has stepped away from his band for this record. “Crooked Fingers has really become a band over the years and it would almost be a lie to say this is a Crooked Fingers album because it is really just me. Releasing it as Eric Bachmann just seemed like the obvious thing to do,” Bachman recently told The Marquee while preparing to head out on the road for a string of shows with Richard Buckner.

To The Races is as close to a truly solo project as many artists ever get. In the summer of 2005 Bachmann holed up in his touring van to live and write the majority of the songs that make up the album. As the songs neared completion he packed up and headed clear across the country to the small Outer Banks town of Buxton, NC. There, Bachmann transformed a small hotel room into a private recording studio and set to work on his first project for Saddle Creek Records, and that is where the he began to run into some trouble. “I don’t mind sleeping in my van and I don’t mind locking myself in a hotel room to get stuff done,” he said. “The issues start when you have a computer that is crashing all the time, microphone cables with shorts in them and preamps that are always peaking out. It’s the technical stuff that’s no fun to deal with when you are 300 miles from a music store.”

Musically, Bachmann relied heavily on his acoustic guitar and vocals to carry the songs on To The Races. Supplemented only by the eerie violin of Denver resident Tom Hagerman of DeVotchKa and the angelic vocals of Miranda Brown, it is a stunning collection of songs that is sure to stand the test of time.

With the opening notes of “Man O’ War,” To The Races opens the door to a thought-provoking and, at times, heartbreaking study of solitude, with more than its share of standout tracks. “I like ‘Man O’ War’ and ‘Carrboro Woman’ a lot,” Bachmann said, reflecting on the songs he wrote for the album. “‘Man O’ War’ has a good story behind it for me personally. I wrote it while I was in Spain and had been driving a rental car around for two and a half weeks. At the time, I spoke Spanish poorly and literally didn’t speak to anyone for the entire time and I was feeling pretty weird and isolated. I ended up in Tarifa and this really hot Spanish woman started talking to me and bitching about the United States government having a military base in Rhoda, Spain. I ended up getting drunk that night and around four in the morning I woke up and that song just kinda fell out,” said Bachman.

Bachmann hasn’t always penned melancholy ballads meditating on the darker side of life, and it seems he didn’t discover the emotional gravity of his soulful baritone until several years into his career. In the early part of the ’90s he was the front man and part-time screamer for a group that released a couple of albums that bore a closer resemblance to early Dinosaur Jr. than they did Nebraska-era Springsteen.

Archers of Loaf began life as a punk-influenced indie garage rock band and in 1993 they released Icky Mettle; an album that was quickly noticed by college radio around the country. Their loud edgy songs were perfectly suited for throwing keg parties and pissing off parents. “It was really fun to be in that band and when I hear that music today I am proud of it, but I don’t really respond to that music anymore,” Bachmann said, betraying his maturity. “If I had to go back and sing those songs I’d be lying to people. Maybe I’d be over-thinking things, but that is how I am.”

While he may look back on the music that he is making today in the same way ten years from now, it is clear that these songs emanate from his soul and that his delivery is fueled by the passion of a true artist — the kind of passion that is so deeply rooted it can’t be ignored.

Check Out Eric Bachmann if You Like:

• Bruce Springsteen
• Iron & Wine
• Kris Kristofferson

FEATURE: White Whale comes sailing out of the gate with ‘Roxy Sabbath’ sound

Earlier this summer the Kansas State House of Representatives declared July 26, 2006 to be White Whale Day in the state of Kansas. Had there recently been a discovery of an ancient fossil? Had Moby Dick been hunted down in Kansas? No, the day was established to commemorate the release of Lawrence band White Whale’s debut album on Merge Records. While buzz about bands of an indie nature usually stays at a relatively low level and makes its way only to the ears of those ‘in the know,’ White Whale is apparently a favorite at the Kansas State House.

With lyrical themes that, at times, call to mind The Decemberists, and music that has drawn comparison to The Arcade Fire, it is easy to see why White Whale’s debut album, WWI, has drawn such widespread attention merely months into the band’s existence.

The eleven tracks that make up WWI convey a maturity often lacking in indie-rock. Themes of lost love and the realities of life weave through songs which often take place in nautical settings, leading to the obvious comparisons to The Decemberists. “I think that people are dwelling on it a little too much,” said bass player Rob Pope in a recent interview with The Marquee. “The nautical themes: whatever. It was really much more of a coincidence than you would be led to believe by listening to the record. It all just kind of fell together and took this theme. We were in no way trying to rip off bands like the Decemberists.” In fact, Pope and his bandmates have dubbed their sound “Roxy Sabbath” (equal parts Roxy Music and Black Sabbath).

White Whale’s “Roxy Sabbath” sound is produced by Pope, Matt Suggs of Butterglory, and three members of Thee Higher Burning Fire (John Anderson, Zach Holland and Dustin Kinsey). Pope’s last project, The Get Up Kids, Thee Higher Burning Fire and Butterglory were all successful indie bands in their own right, leading critics to dub the new band a supergroup of sorts.

While ‘supergroup’ may be stretching things a bit, this is a talented group of musicians who have all had the experience of playing in successful bands in the past. “Everyone has toured before in previous bands, so we all know the etiquette of touring,” said Pope, who had recently returned home from White Whale’s first proper run of shows. “I think the highlight of this first tour was that we always found a place to stay. We are getting it together and the audiences seem to be digging it. It will only get better from here, I imagine.”

As they continue to get more comfortable on stage, White Whale will continue debuting songs from WWI. “We just started playing “Fidget and Fudge” on this most recent tour and that was a bit of a challenge, but it is my favorite to play live right now,” said Pope. “I think our live show is a little more bombastic than the record. There is just more energy behind it. In a live setting, where we have control over how loud our amps go, we are going to pour a little more into it. We like to play loud.”

Check Out White Whale if You Like:

• The Arcade Fire
• Decemberists
• Wolf Parade

FEATURE: Cirque du Soleil’s "Delirium" Combines Circus, Cinema and Rock Concert

Cirque du Soleil has made a name for themselves by pushing the limits of what we, as children, knew to be a circus. Over the past 22 years, their awe-inspiring productions have put the Ringling Brothers to shame. Sure, there are acrobats and clowns, trampolines and trapezes, but there is something else, something that puts Cirque du Soleil into a category all its own: a completely fearless approach to performance art.

Guy Laliberté, a founder and currently the President of Cirque du Soleil, has put together 17 shows over the years in big tops, casinos, and theaters around the world. His troupe’s current show, Delirium, has ventured into uncharted territory for the troupe: the sports arena. Usually reserved for the likes of The Rolling Stones, U2, and Paul McCartney, Delirium aims to prove that the Cirque du Soleil experience can translate in a much larger setting.

Laliberté approached Canadian multimedia wizards Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon of 4D Art to create and direct the massive project. “(Laliberté) basically said to us, ‘I know your work, I like your work. Go wild, do whatever you want.’ And that’s what we did. It was like a dream for us,” said Lemieux in a recent interview with me from his home in Montreal. Having been involved with two other major Cirque du Soleil productions, Lemieux and Pilon are no strangers to the surreal and dreamlike world of Cirque du Soleil and the project came very naturally to them.

The production’s 130 foot long stage bisects the arena right down the middle, from basket to basket, effectively splitting the audience into two large theaters facing each other. This relatively intimate setting is dwarfed by 540 square feet of projection area, roughly the equivalent to four IMAX screens. The massive set ensures there is not a bad seat in the house. “If you are sitting far from the stage you experience a very cinematographic show, you experience the entire show as if it were on a movie screen,” Lemieux said. “If you sit right up front it is a very different kind of show. You see the sweat of the performers and you really have to swing your head to catch it all but you are part of the action.”

Images of prerecorded and live footage projected on the floor-to-ceiling screens emanate from 30 high intensity projectors around the arena. The images at once help to spin a tale of a man attempting to escape the realities of his world and also highlight the musicians that provide the live music that is a focus of the show.

For the first time, Cirque Du Soleil has decided to emphasize the musical portion of the show by showcasing live musicians on the stage and employing mainly English lyrics instead of the invented languages that they have relied on in the past. “You are at a movie, you are at the circus, and you are at a rock show, all at the same time,” said Lemieux.

Delirium’s focus on live music is made possible by the genius of Francis Collard, who was called upon to be the musical director of the production. Twenty-one songs were chosen from Cirque du Soleil’s catalogue of an estimated 500, by an 11-member committee made up of Cirque du Soleil directors and creative minds. It is Collard’s arrangements of these songs that combine to be the percussive pop and electronic soundtrack to the show.

The soundtrack is presented live by an elaborately costumed group of performers made up of 11 musicians and six singers. Gaia, a Brazilian band that makes their home in Montreal, holds the sound together as the ‘house band.’ Their eclectic and heavily percussive sound lends itself perfectly to the “urban tribal beat” that dominates the music of the production.

While music and visual effects are clearly the most dominant elements of the show, fans of Cirque du Soleil won’t be disappointed to hear that the trademark acrobatics and circus performances have not been left out. “They go all over the world and audition all different kinds of artists and performers and they have compiled this amazing video bank of all those screen tests,” said Lemieux, reflecting on the talent pool he had access to. “It is truly an amazing reservoir of people to choose from who are all unique in their own way.”

All of these highly choreographed elements blend together effortlessly to become a multimedia spectacle of unprecedented proportions. Delirium is a two-hour trip deep into the minds of some of the most wildly creative individuals alive. It offers the audience the unique opportunity to see into the future of performance, a harbinger of what’s to come in the blockbuster business of stadium and arena rock shows.