One of the scene's most visible bands has a certain void, now that word's out that John Kadlecik will exit Dark Star Orchestra early next month.But in an exclusive interview with Glide, DSO drummer Rob Koritz reminds us not to worry — Jeff Mattson's aboard (at least for now) and Dark Star has big things ahead in 2010.
Railroad Earth has confirmed to Hidden Track that bassist Johnny Grubb will leave the band at the end of the year. According to a spokesperson, Grubb’s last shows with the band will be its New Year’s Run concerts in San Francisco, CA (Dec. 27, 28) and Portland, OR (Dec. 30, 31).
[Photo by Lewis Cooper of GonzoShots.com]
Grubb first indicated he would leave Railroad Earth in a post to his personal blog on Wednesday. According to the bassist, the decision was one borne of a “medium-range plan that had me exiting RRE at the end of [2010]” and continuing into a career in production and computer programming.
“About a year and a half ago (as regular readers know), the flame of my creativity began lighting a different path than the one I was on with RRE,” Grubb wrote. “I’d always been pretty good with computers. I only recently realized that the main reason that I like recording and production so much was mainly because it involves using and being good with computers. It took an iPhone to spark the idea that I should take matters into my own hands and start learning how to program myself.”
Grubb writes that he accelerated his plans depart once it became apparent that Railroad Earth was about to sign a new record deal. The deal was hinted at by RRE’s Todd Sheaffer in an interview with Hidden Track earlier this week. READ ON for more on Johnny Grubb leaving RRE…
Kevn Kinney’s an easygoing, disarmingly funny kind of guy, but when he gets down to brass tacks — singing and wailing away on guitar, that is — he packs quite a wallop of soul, R&B, power pop, rock, folk, country, blues and more than a little grit.
That’s long been the secret sauce for the music he’s made with Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ and solo: easy to get into, often lighthearted and even funny, but let it get to you, and you realize it’s loaded with heartbreak, wrenching drama and deep soul. The phrase “Drivin’ and Cryin'” — the band itself’s name taken from one of Kinney’s own songs — pretty much covers it. So does Straight to Hell, perhaps Kinney’s best-known song and something of an anthem in southern rock circles.
The band first formed in 1985, and why it never blew up much beyond its southeast U.S. fan stronghold is one of those music industry curiosities that just never made any logical sense. The present lineup, in place more or less since 2001, includes Kinney and co-founding bassist/mandolinist Tim Nielsen, along with drummer/percussionist Dave V. Johnson and guitarist Mac Carter.
This year yielded Drivin’ and Cryin’s first full-length studio album in 12 years, Whatever Happened to The Great American Bubble Factory.
Kinney lives in Brooklyn these days and often makes the rounds at his favorite New York country and roots haunts (his wife, Shayni Rae, runs the ongoing Shayni Rae’s Truckstop jam, now on occasional Wednesdays at the Bowery Electric). But this month is momentous for another reason: Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ itself has several gigs coming up that represent the band’s first northeast tour dates in more than a decade. HT checked in with the man to find out, well, what took so long.
HIDDEN TRACK: We don’t get to see Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ in the northeast too often. What gives, man?
KEVN KINNEY: Ha, yeah, Drivin’ hasn’t played up here — no, hasn’t played north of the Mason Dixon since we were on tour with The Who in, I want to say, 1997. I’ve been back and forth for seven or eight years — New York and Georgia — since 2001, and i’ve been up here full time for three years. We’ve been doing Shayni Rae’s Truckstop. It was me and Anton Fier and Catherine Popper and the Madison Square Gardens and others. What a great scene that was. READ ON for more of Chad’s chat with Kevn Kinney…
As another top-flight year with his Railroad Earth mates winds to a close, Todd Sheaffer will take a trip down memory lane before it ends.
[All photos by Adam Kaufman]
Last month came word that Sheaffer and the other former members of From Good Homes — the eclectic, cult-beloved New Jersey group that didn’t quite escape the 1990s — would reunite for the first time in a decade to play two shows, scheduled for December 18 and 19 at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, NJ.
Hidden Track caught up with Sheaffer recently to hear a little about the long-awaited Homes reunion and what Railroad Earth has in store for the new year, too.
HIDDEN TRACK: Railroad Earth seems well. You guys have been staying busy.
TODD SHEAFFER: We’re good, really good. We’ve got some big shows coming up. and we’re going to be doing a big New Year’s run out in San Francisco and Portland. It’s awesome — we’re doing a couple nights at the Fillmore, which is one of the great venues of all time of course and one we obviously love to play at, and we’ll be in Portland for the new year again, like last year. READ ON for more of Chad’s chat with Todd Sheaffer…
That it’s been a heady year for John Kadlecik is a safe bet: it’s not often that your main band consistently knocks it out of the park, you get a chance to play in a brand new ensemble with the heroes that inspired that main band, and well, you court a little controversy along the way.
[All photos by Adam Kaufman]
Earlier this year, Kadlecik was invited to take part in a new Phil Lesh/Bob Weir project called Furthur, that combined Kadlecik — long having “played Jerry” in the ever-resilient Dark Star Orchestra — with Lesh, Weir, Ratdog’s Jay Lane and Jeff Chimenti, and the Joe half of the Benevento/Russo Duo. By all accounts — listen to the boots — Furthur’s inaugural run at the Fox Theater in Oakland in September was a barn burner, and the band has more shows coming up, including five northeast dates in early December and a pair of New Year’s soirees back out West.
And that’s a little bit of where the controversy starts — and where we freely admit we’re a little guilty of stoking it. With Kadlecik giving more of his time to Furthur, Dark Star has had to move forward, and has recruited Zen Tricksters stalwart Jeff Mattson to spell Kadlecik for many of DSO’s remaining 2009 dates. There’s nothing to suggest the members of DSO don’t support Kadlecik’s decisions — they held back on announcing Mattson while Furthur finalized its end of year plans, for example — but it’s clear Kadlecik and the band face a number of tough decisions ahead. Decisions that may have been made already, that is, even if no one’s talking about them.
READ ON for our chat with John Kadlecik of the Dark Star Orchestra…
If we remember nothing else about Halloween 2009, maybe we’ll at least recall it was the night that two of the world’s marquee jambands both turned in ace renditions of the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street obscurity Ventilator Blues. Stranger things have happened, right? Right? Bueller?
[All Photos by Heath Robson from Mule.Net]
On a smaller scale than some marginal little festival happening out West, Gov’t Mule brought the Mick and Keef goods to Philly on All Hallow’s Eve, playing an oddly selected, strangely paced and yet remarkably satisfying set of Stones material. Would love to have been in on these planning meetings: 14 Stones songs, many well-known, several obscure, from a wide-but-not-too-wide swath of Stones albums, and all but two of those songs in the first-time-played designation, with no attention paid to several Stones covers (Sympathy for the Devil, Dead Flowers, 2000 Light Years From Home, Let’s Spend the Night Together) that the Mule’s had success with in the past. So be it, dudes.
It had the makings of formless hodgepodge, but for all the era-shuffling and seeming randomness of the selections, it felt like a buoyant Mule set: heavy with blues and slippery slide but hardly tied to those things, and for the most part, rollickingly good rock ‘n’ roll with occasionally great spots of brilliant havoc (a rampaging Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’, a pummeling Monkey Man and an out-of-left field Slave) and tender interlude (Angie, Wild Horses). There was balls-out hilarity, as well: at one point, Danny Louis grabbed Jorgen Carlsson’s bass, Carlsson replaced Matt Abts on the kit, and the band launched into Shattered — with Abts running out to center stage and proceeding to sing/shout his ass off, complete with patented Jagger peacock strut. READ ON for more from Chad on Mule-O-Ween…
The after-show is a curious species of concert: ostensibly designed to extend the buzz of a good night of music (or be just a fun, no-frills late night gathering), even a weak one usually succeeds. There’s no pressure from being prime-time headliners; performers have a tacit understanding with the audience that they’re going to keep things loose — place your expectations moderately, they’re saying, hold onto that buzz and have a little fun.
Under those expectations, this was one of the best I’ve ever seen: undoubtedly relaxed, with a terrific, no-bullshit and all-rock crowd, and a band that managed some awesomely fun and even transcendent moments while maintaining a goofy, freewheeling tone, charmingly self-aware but without much need for presentation or concert decorum. “We have no idea what the fuck we’re doing up here,” Mark Karan laughed, even after he and most of his stage mates had traded almost as many juicy solos as they had laughs.
Karan was the nominal bandleader, but for about two hours, it was essentially a RatDog-plus-guests set that saw no fewer than 12 musicians turn up, including a generous, 25-minute appearance from The Chief himself. The hours were wee; people had lined up outside of the cavernous, 150-capacity Triad Theater as early as 11:45 for a show that was supposed to start at midnight, but as with most aftershows, the stated start time was more or less a “suggested” times of arrival, and not a note was played before 1 a.m., if it was even that early.
READ ON for more on Mark Karan & Friends from Chad…
If you’re a Northeast-based fan of the gobsmackingly excellent Bonerama and its brass-based approach to funk, rock & R&B, October’s your month.
[Photo by Dave Vann]
The New Orleans trombone brigade will be spending almost the entire four-week stretch playing in Northeastern markets, from Baltimore to Maine, including three weekly residencies: four Thursdays (Oct. 1, 8, 15 and 22) at Club Metronome in Burlington, Vt., four Fridays (Oct. 2, 9, 16 and 23) at Sullivan Hall in New York, and three Wednesdays (Oct. 14, 21 and 28) at Johnny D’s in Somerville, MA. This is a big-bonin’ deal.
Though founding ‘bonists Mark Mullins and Craig Klein still anchor the lineup, Bonerama’s changed a bit from its horn-heavy beginnings, and in the past year made a seismic adjustment to its sound, beginning to use an electric bass instead of a sousaphone on the low end. In addition to Mullins and Klein, the October touring lineup includes trombonist Greg Hicks, organist Joe Ashlar, guitarist Bert Cotton, drummer Eric Bolivar, and bassist Nori Naraoka.
Hidden Track caught up with Mullins to find the band busier than ever – and the residencies are only the tip of the tentacle. It has a new EP on the way – check out a meaty When the Levee Breaks – and is also launching a new fan donation service, the Boner Donor program, that offers exclusive content and even an opportunity to go on the road with the band based on tiered donation levels. As Mullins suggested, it’s all part of evolution.
HIDDEN TRACK: Those of us in the Northeast are going to be seeing a lot of you in October, and that’s awesome. Why the residencies and why now?
MARK MULLINS: It’s a nice problem to have. People are always pulling on us, asking when are you coming to the west coast, or Colorado, or New York, or whatever. And when we pass through those places it might be once or twice a year. So, instead of visiting a place and taking off, we’ve got like two years’ worth of NYC, Vermont and Boston appearances crammed into October. I do the setlists, and I’m a big fan of keeping things interesting and progressing, and to be able to use that creatively in a one month period and really mix it up, well it’s very exciting for us. It’s going to allow us to reach a whole new bunch of fans I think.
READ ON for more of Chad’s chat with Mark of Bonerama…
I wasn’t sure Jimi Hendrix’s iconic songs could withstand any more bent-note guitar storms, feedback or art damage; as you probably know, the dude became, oh, a bit of a name for not exactly playing solos that sounded like everyone else. But then I hadn’t before heard them through the prism of Richard Lloyd, who has quite the back story with Hendrix & this year released an intriguing album, The Jamie Neverts Story,
The album itself is fun, but winds up a tad slight: sure, hearing Lloyd deconstruct classic Hendrix like Purple Haze, Spanish Castle Magic and Castles Made of Sand is a lark, but there’s not enough Lloyd in any of it – he rarely cuts loose beyond straight covers, bending the edges slightly at times but never making any of the songs his own.
Lloyd’s Thursday night set at (Le) Poisson Rouge, however, saw him bringing many of the Hendrix material to bear the way you’d hope a guitar sorcerer like Lloyd would: still played straight, yes, but with a lot more of Lloyd’s personality and lengthy guitar heroics that sounded more like the mind-squishing art-rock of Lloyd’s career, and helped, of course, by his mixing of other chestnuts from that decades-long catalog (yes, including Television) into the mix. READ ON for more from Chad on Jounce & Richard Lloyd…
If there’s pickin’ to be done, you could do far worse than Drew Emmitt, who thanks to his long tenure in Leftover Salmon and later projects like the Drew Emmitt Band, is one of the scene’s most visible mandolinists and bluegrass aficionados.
Never short on a strong opinion, Emmitt caught us up on all he has going on now, most notably a lengthy tour with the new Emmitt-Nershi Band (featuring Emmitt, Nershi, banjoist Andy Thorn and bassist Tyler Grant) and how getting back to basics — that is, the fun and fleet-fingered business of bluegrass — has been a blessing for both he and String Cheese Incident’s Bill Nershi.
With more on the horizon from the ENB, Emmitt’s band — and a stray Leftover Salmon reunion or two — it’s looking good that Emmitt’s year will finish better than it started, though if you’re holding your breath for that 40-date Leftover Salmon tour, it’s time to let go.
HT: Can you talk a little bit about how you and Bill decided to form a band together. Obviously you go way back and given the Colorado origins, have a lot in common as musicians and otherwise.
DREW EMMITT: Yeah, definitely. I guess where it started was we were at a benefit show in Boulder for the Mark Vann Foundation in 2007. We did some playing together there and just started talking backstage about how it’d be cool to play some bluegrass together. Later, I was down in Florida for a tour with my band and I heard from Billy. He said he was quitting String Cheese and wanted to put this band together and from that point on we’d planned to do it six months later so we’d have time to get it going.
READ ON for the rest of Chad’s chat with Drew Emmitt…
