Although Leftover Salmon have always been grouped in with other jam bands, their roots lay more with The Band and Bill Monroe than the Grateful Dead and Aquatic Hitchhiker delivers a solid set of bluegrass, country, folk, funk and R&B, with a smattering of jazz and psychedelia thrown in for good measure.
We round up some of this week’s tour date announcements in one handy column.
Great American Taxi / Leftover Salmon mando wiz sat in on a The Band cover.
When an annual musical event crosses over the “decade” line of yearly operations, it moves from to the status of a festival to the status as a summer music institution. The Northwest String Summit, which takes place at Horning’s Hideout near Portland Oregon from July 21st-24th, is about to cross that threshold to become an institution and solidify its’ status as a must see event for any fan of bluegrass music and a great time.
We keep our eyes peeled for new tour dates announcements each week and compile them on Tuesdays for this handy column… While Paul McCartney may not be able to hit
As we saw our first snow flakes here in New York City yesterday, there is nothing that gets us through the winter faster and thinking about the warm months ahead,
Emmitt Nershi Band is a newly assembled outfit that is comprised of two of the founding members of Colorado’s biggest acts on the jamband circuit, Drew Emmitt (Leftover Salmon) and Bill Nershi (String Cheese Incident). On their studio debut, New Country Blues, they deliver a slice of breezy Rocky Mountain Americana complete with their blend of pickin’ and grinnin’.
While My Morning Jacket continue their extended hiatus, they did manage an animated reunion. The Southern Rockers will be featured prominently in an upcoming episode of Fox’s American Dad entitled
As part of their ongoing 20th anniversary celebration the creators of The Simpsons are giving their fans an opportunity to appear on the long-running hit series with a design-a-character contest,
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…
