A recap and photos from Saturday at the 2012 edition of All Good.
After a Saturday jam-packed with music at the 15th annual All Good Music Festival, I was looking forward to Sunday’s lighter lineup. One of the biggest challenges of open field tent camping at a music festival is partying into the wee hours and trying to get adequate sleep, without being cooked alive in your tent in the morning summer sun like broccoli in a bamboo steamer.
After waking up in my own personal sauna and cooling off in the West Virginia mountain air I headed up to the stage area where Sunday openers All Mighty Senators were already on the main Dragon Stage. The Baltimore-based funk-soul quintet was working hard to bring their P-Funkesque sound to the noontime set; unfortunately, their set was one of the less well attended of the weekend, probably because so many folks had taken full advantage of Saturday’s final All Good late night sets – or they were still in their tents, being braised in their own juices.
Following the Senators on the Dragon Stage were Michigan-based stringsters Greensky Bluegrass whose Saturday Rock n’ Roll in Disguise playshop set at the Grassroots Stage showed one reason why they continue to garner attention. Unlike the previous day that featured covers of songs by Talking Heads, Prince and Traffic, Sunday’s set featured mostly originals and roots covers. A sizeable audience was on hand to see GB play mostly older tunes like All Four, the Reverend and No Idea which were supplemented by a strong cover of Townes Van Zandt’s White Freightliner Blues. Closing our their hour long set mandolin player Paul Hoffman took lead vocals on a newer original tune Don’t Lie (not to be confused with the Black Eyed Peas song of the same name) that demonstrated even greater maturity in their consistently skillful songwriting.
READ ON for more from Sunday at the All Good fest…
Baltimore based six pieceThe Bridge just released their fifth studio album National Bohemian on February 1, 2011 through Woodberry Records/Thirty Tigers. For this latest effort, the band enlisted Grammy Award-winning producer and Los Lobos multi-instrumentalist Steve Berlin to join the band behind the boards. Ranging from the sonically dense, voodoo-tinged rock of "Sanctuary" to the modern day murder ballad "Moonlight Mission," the 11-track collection is shaped by the dynamics that distinguish the band's two principle songwriters Cris Jacobs and Kenny Liner.
After grinding away at it since forming over eight years ago with incessant touring and a steadily growing fan base, Baltimore’s The Bridge is poised to take it to the next level. And while it’s perhaps a bit ironic for a jamband, it’s an old-fashioned album release that has them elevating to the next tier of improvisational bands.
The band put all its chips in the middle of the table with its latest release, National Bohemian, by hiring former Los Lobos sax-man Steve Berlin to produce; orchestrating a well-coordinated tour of both headlining and support roles (Tea Leaf Green and Galactic); and promoting the music with a professional video and proper publicity push. It’s exciting to see an up-and-coming jamband put so much energy into a record release, so we caught up with guitarist/vocal Cris Jacobs to hear more about the recent developments.
Hidden Track: To get started, I think it’s interesting to hear how bands characterize each others personalities. How would you describe the dynamic of the friendships in the band? Who are the goofballs?
Cris Jacobs: It’s a very brotherly type of relationship. We all thrive on being able to bust each others balls whenever possible. There’s literally no mercy. It’s like “Oh really! Nice shirt there Liberace!” Basically everything that anyone says, does, or wears is under constant scrutiny and is fair game for everyone to jump on and make fun of until the person has their soul beaten to a pulp and they have no self-esteem left. All in good fun of course. But seriously, we really do love each other and get along pretty damn well for six guys in such close conditions day in and day out. Even if the mere sound of someones voice is like nails on a chalkboard first thing in the morning and we bicker over stupid shit out of frustration or just plain road-irritability, I’d say we’d all jump in front of a bus for each other. We’re a very close group, we have a lot of fun, no one is an outsider or a loner really.
We all have our different personalities for sure. As far as who the goofballs are, what time is it? Who decided to have a drunk night? Any given minute it can be any of us and we all have our goofy tendencies, but I’d have to say all around, Patrick. He’s the wide-eyed wonder. And Kenny, one of the most unique personalities I’ve ever come across. And for the first and last 15 minutes of a van ride Dave has the hyperactivity of a 5 year old after too much sugar. We don’t quite know why it only happens during those times, but its quite a consistent and amazing phenomena.
READ ON for more of Ryan’s chat with Cris of The Bridge…
[Originally Published: June 24, 2009]
Following up on last week’s Willin’ Cover Wars, which the Black Crowes won by a small margin over Uncle Tupelo, we’re re-running an old Cover Wars on another Little Feat classic – Skin It Back…
Skin It Back is a track off the 1974 Little Feat album Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. It also has the distinction of being the first Little Feat song where the songwriting credits are solely that of guitarist Paul Barrère.
This is the second Little Feat song selected for CW. Longtime readers might remember that Mule was the winner of the Spanish Moon Cover Wars. [Ed. note – We’ve tackled Willin’ since this was originally posted]
Let’s get down to business and look at this week competitors…
The Bridge: Leading off this week is the only band that also appeared in the Spanish Moon Cover Wars and there is some excellent guitar work in this one. Source: 8-17-2005
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/skinbridge.mp3]
READ ON for the lowdown on the rest of this week’s contestants…
With MGMT’s much buzzed about sophomore album Congratulations hitting stores today, the Brooklyn-based act has revealed their summer touring plans. Andrew VanWyngarden & Ben Goldwasser, who kicked off a sold
For The Avett Brothers, 2009 could easily be considered their “break out” year – releasing their highly acclaimed major label debut I And Love And You and playing to larger
Lenny is the tenth and final track on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 1983 debut album Texas Flood. The song’s title is a tribute to SRV’s wife Lenora Bailey.
Jeff Kitts sums up this tune very well in the book Guitar World Presents Stevie Ray Vaughan,
Like any master musician, Vaughan was just as comfortable with slow, delicate ballads as he was with barn burners. Vaughan composed the beautiful ballad, “Lenny,” for his first wife, and recorded it on Texas Flood. “Lenny” is very Hendrix influenced; it’s sort of a cross between “Little Wing” and “Angel,” two of Hendrix’s greatest ballads.
The Contestants:
The Bridge: The Bridge guitarist Cris Jacobs leads the band through this relatively to-the-point rendition. Source: 2-28-2007
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lennybridge.mp3]READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
Will It Go Round In Circles first appeared on the 1972 Billy Preston album Music Is My Life. The track would then be issued as a single the following year and eventually hit #1 on the Billboard Top Singles chart.
The Contestants:
Band From TV: Band From TV makes their second Cover Wars appearance this week, they previously were featured in the You Can’t Always Get What You Want edition back in July. As we mentioned then, this is a group made up of professional actors and all of their proceeds go directly to charity – pretty cool. Source: Hoggin All The Covers
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bandfromtvcircles.mp3]READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
