FEATURE

Our section for revolving content. Something special each month. Interviews, Band of the Month, occasional rambling, contests, etc. Send us your ideas to jams@jambandseurope.com

NEW GROOVE OF THE MONTH

We thought we'd start off the year with some new friends from New York. SMALL CRAFT WARNING is a five piece jam band featuring saxophone and mostly original material. By the band's own admission, there is a definite Grateful Dead influence, most noticeably on the tasty guitar riffs.

Check out their music at  smallcraftwarning on reverbnation or the website or download some shows from archive.org.

www.smallcraftwarning.webs.com

smallcraftwarning

INTRODUCING THE MEMBERS OF THE MICKEY HART BAND

ROAD TO JITD VI

An exclusive interview with Armand Sadlier, founder and director of Jam In The Dam

As 2011 comes to a close, the thoughts of jamband fans in europe are turning already to Jam In The Dam VI. After a 2011 hiatus, it is without a doubt the most anticipated jamband music event in europe, and has turned into an almost annual pilgrimage for American jamband fans as well. We know a lot of people have already made their plans to be in Amsterdam in March, and there are probably still a few of you sitting on the fence, so we wanted to get the inside scoop on the 2012 edition of Jam In The Dam, and there's no better person for that than Armand Sadlier, the man who's vision is what has made JitD possible.

Click Here to Read the Interview and Get the Inside Scoop on JitD VI

For more information and tickets go to www.jaminthedam.com

NEW GROOVE OF THE MONTH

As you may have noticed, this feature is not exactly "new groove of the month", more like "new groove whenever I feel like it", which happens to be right about now.

With the unlikely name of Ultraviolet Hippopotamus, these high energy jammers hail from Michigan, not exactly a bastion of jamband music, which may explain why their tours are ever expanding as they reach out to a rapidly growing national fanbase, either that or they just want to get away from the cold. Their musical soul is much closer to Zappa and Floyd than to the Dead, but make no mistake, their dedication to the jam is true. Check out their latest studio release "Square Pegs, Round Holes" at www.uvhippo.bandcamp.com or download something from the archives. Our choice would be the soundboard from 19/10/2007 at Czar's

More info at www.uvhippomusic.com

Rhino Records announces the latest series of Grateful Dead archival releases, Dave's Picks. Curated by the current keeper of the vault, this series replaces "Road Trips" and continues the work of original GD archivist Dick Latva and his legendary "Dick's Picks" series.

MICKEY HART BAND "LET THERE BE LIGHT"

Check out an excellent video of Mickey's new outfit debuting the Robert Hunter penned "Let There Be Light".

Note: That's Ian from Tracorum on drums!

SAME VIBRATION

REGGAE JAM FUSION FROM DENMARK

We're happy to welcome another member to our family of european jamband fans and musicians. Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, Same Vibration mixes up the jamband sound with reggae stylings and an uplifting message. Check out their website to listen to some of music off their self titled CD release.

www.samevibration.com

NEW GROOVE OF THE MONTH

TRACORUM

This is where we recommend an up and coming new jamband, that you've probably never heard of before, but we think you're gonna like, a lot.

Tracorum is a San Francisco based rock & soul outfit playing, in their own words "piano based Cosmic Gospel Thunder Funk." They are already a mainstay on the west coast jamband circuit and have played at major festivals including Las Tortugas and High Sierra.

more info at www.tracorum.com

BOB WEIR & FRIENDS @ TRISTUDIOS

WARREN HAYNES TALKS ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM

Anybody See That Coming?

WARREN HAYNES MAN IN MOTION

While we're waiting for the release of the debut album from The Warren Haynes Band, here are 2 videos to check out.

CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS PROMO VIDEO

FREE PAPER TOY DOWNLOAD

Got some free time on your hands? (as well as paper, scissors, glue and a color printer)

Wouldn't feel so lonely if Trey and the boys were smiling at you from your office cubicle?

or do you have a Zappa fetish?

Download these free make it yourself paper toys from State of Shock Studios, who also make some awesome concert posters as well.

http://stateofshockstudios.com/paper_toys.html

BART BUSKING WITH THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS

Ever wonder what internationally touring bands do on their time off?

THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED

The Movie Trailer

MATT BUNSEN & THE BURNERS

"DRUGS MAKE ME HAPPY"

This website does not of course endorse, approve or in anyway condone the behavior depicted in the above video, then again we don't really have anything against it either.

THE BRIDGE "ROSIE"

New video from The Bridge's new album "National Bohemian," an album which Mike Gordon (Phish) calls his treadmill music.

LOST SOMETHING?

Here's a great article from How to Geek explaining lossy vs. lossless and other arcane digital music file knowledge.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/40465/htg-explains-what-are-the-differences-between-all-those-audio-formats/

(saw this link on Bandsthatjam - credit where credit is due)

THE STEEPWATER BAND

THE STARS LOOK GOOD TONIGHT

NEW WAVY GRAVY MOVIE TRAILER

SAINT MISBEHAVIN'

from Ripple Effect Films on Vimeo.

GOD STREET WINE BRUNG BACK

A 15 minute documentary on the GSW reunion shows. worth the watch.

Presented by State of Mind on Vimeo.

HALLOWEEN UM MASHUP

Ever since the Grateful Dead started playing "Werewolves of London", Halloween has always been a special night for Jam Band concerts. In recent years, groups like Phish, not only wear costumes, but don "musical costumes" as well, covering other bands material, sometimes whole albums at a time. The video below is from Umphrey's McGee's Halloween 2010 concert, and it was just to good to pass up. Enjoy.

LIVE MUSIC IN TENERIFE

Although most of us would prefer to spend our vacation time in San Francisco or New Orleans, or on tour with Furthur, things don't always work out. A lot of us don't make it any further than the Canary Islands (shout out to all our uk and german friends!) But there is hope ...

When you can't stand any more of the canned mambo band playing by the hotel pool and your ipod won't recharge after listening to the entire Fillmore 69 boxed set, twice, there is a live music alternative. Check out the Traveller Blues Band and get a little jam into your vacation.

www.travellertenerife.com

FUNKIFY YOUR LIFE

A look at the Meters:

hosted by The New Mastersounds with Orgone and The Pimps of Joytime

Live at High Sierra 2010

(courtesy of Tony Harrison via Vimeo)

And if you liked that ...

check out the trailer for the new documentary about The New Mastersounds, "Coals to Newcastle"

DOWN AT THE LAKE WITH OLD MAN BROWN

Thanks to whoever it is that has kept the Columbia Lakefront Music Festival alive and kicking for at least 25 years, and thanks to Old Man Brown for introducing me to a new groove. Definitely check out their website www.oldmanbrown.com. There is plenty of music to download, including 2 studio tracks from their last album and a great take on Richie Haven’s Freedom, as well as various live concerts.

JBE interviews BRIAN DIXON of THE AGGROLITES

After a 10 hour drive down from Bilbao to Valencia, the band had little time before the show to set up and sound check. So, it wasn't until after the show that I finally was able to talk to Brian Dixon, founding member of The Aggrolites. With much of the crowd still dancing and looking like they had little desire to go home, and the club's DJ cranking out old school reggae and ska tunes, we had little choice but to retreat to the backstage dressing room. Unfortunately, the rest of the band had sought refuge there as well, and finally the interview itself ended up being done standing in the bathroom. Add that to the list of unusual places we've done interviews.

JBE: So this isn't your first tour of Europe, right?

Brian: this is number 11. This will be about a year we've spent out of the last 5 years ... a year of my life in Europe. The band started in 2002, and we did our first tour here in 2005, and we've been coming back every year, more than once.

JBE: Are you more popular in Europe than in the states?

Brian: We are, but it's starting to change though. We're getting bigger and bigger back home, finally.

JBE: which gets back to the whole idea behind "Reggae Hits L.A."

Brian: Exactly, because we were much bigger in Eruope. I mena, Valencia is a small town for us, but the rest, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, the big European cities, we do really well. And at the time, we'd play in our home town and we'd draw a couple hundred people and that was it. it was like, come on.So, we made a big push to try and bring reggae back to our home town, you know, reggae hit L.A.

JBE: As a reggae band from L.A., when the idea in the U.S. is more oriented towards Bob Marley and Roots reggae, it seems that the kind of music you play, the early reggae and the ska sound, is much bigger in the U.K.

Brian: Absolutely, nobody in the U.S. knows it, by and large. It never really got popular.

JBE: But is there a critical mass in L.A. of musicians to play that kind of music.

Brian: That's the difference. In L.A. there's a small army of musicians that love this music, and the whole beginning of The Aggrolites was, for me, who, which of you guys wants to do this for real? It's so hard for L.A. musicians to tour, because it's like an island. You can play San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Barbara maybe, but that's about it. It's like an island, so it's hard to get out and tour, whereas like on the East Coast there are so many big cities around. So, there's a hundred killer musicians in L.A., ok so who wants to do it? There was a weeding out process and finally we got enough guys who wanted to do it.

JBE: On the west coast, you've got yourselves, Slightly Stoopid, Rebelution, you guys are all sort of together, as the most representative west coast reggae bands and then on the east coast, there's Giant Panda, SOJA, John Brown's Body, and there all on the east coast. IS there a sort of east coast - west coast thing. Is there a west coast sound?

Brian: It's an interesting question, because we actually are not a part of the Slightly Stoopid scene, per se. They play a modern, what we consider kind of like a California Beach reggae. While we play a specifically early reggae, 1969 to 1971 Jamaican music. A very different scene that we come from. But we blend well with them. We've toured with Slightly Stoopid, but this is like a new thing for us, because we've never played with these kind of bands. It's a different scene for us, but it's been cool, because Slightly Stoopid, they're much bigger than us in the States,a dn they've kind of embraced us and taken us in. So we've playing to their audiences and it's been really good. But there's an east coast west coast connection. In New York there's aband called The Slackers, that play ska and rock steady, early reggae, but it's so deep, so buried that most people don't even know about them, that there's this whole underground scene going on.

JBE: The east coast reggae bands are really integrated into the Jam Band scene, and i think to a lesser degree Slghtly Stoopid is also hooke dinto that. How about you guys?

Brian: No, we've never really been a part of that. It sounds stragne, but I had never even heard of Slightly Stoopid until about a year ago. I didn't even know who they were, but they had heard of us and they liked our sound and they asked us to go on tour with them. So we went on tour with them, and we're like, oh my gosh, these guys are amazings and they're cool guys. And they're huge. The scene we come from is so different. Although we're both reggae bands, it's like worlds apart.

JBE: Obviously no one in the band has dreadlocks. The reggae that you play is not roots reggae, and maybe not what people think of as reggae. So, do you ever walk out onto a stage , and think, wait a second, i don't think these people are expecting what we're about to deliver?

Brian: Well sure, our whole thing when we started the band is we wanted to change the percepton people had of reggae. It was really important, it was a big deal for us, to change that thinking. When we started, it was like, oh so you play in a reggae band? do you have any black guys, anyone with dreadlocks, in the band? Do you smoke alot of pot? I was like, no, no, no, or maybe. Whatever, what`s that got to do with it? We play old school reggae. To us, music is music, for anybody. Jamaicans were listening to American music back in the day ...

JBE: Well, are you sure you're a reggae band? The first couple of songs i heard tonight sounded like The Meters to me.

Brian: Exactly, you know what, oh god bless you.

JBE: Firecracker, Funky Fire ..

Brian: The Jamaicans that were making that music in the late sixties, they were listening to The Meters. And it all comes full circle. Like, the guys grew up listening to The Meters, listening to Motown, Staxx. And the Jamaicans were listening to that stuff too. And that's why Im so proud of our band. We're not Jamaicans, I've never been to Jamaica. We're playing reggae, We're playing American, it's like we're taking the music back. Reggae was basically copying Funk and Soul, in a Jamaican style. BUt they're doing Funk and Soul, that's all it is. And we grew up listening to that, and so we're doing our take of our American music. Some reggae bands are just doing a kind of washed Bob Marley kind of thing. We're doing what they were listening to.

JBE: Your sound, even more than in concert, on record is really retro. How do you do that? How do you get that soudn out of a studio?

Brian: Part of it is recording in mono. All of the old reggae records were in mono. It's simple miking. One or two mikes on the drum kit. Most modern people put a mike on every single piece on the set. US, it's just a couple of guys in a room, a couple of mikes, it's in mono.

JBE: What about the instruments?

Brian: The only real difference is we use a real organ. We nerd out on reggae so much, we know every studio in Jamaica back in the day, what organ each studio had. So we've bought each organ, we'r organ collectors. Studio One, the classic Jamaican studio, we have the same organ that they had.

JBE: But then, Jesse's vocals seem a little different, they remind me more of Blood Sweat & Tears, Guess Who, even early Chicago.

Brian: oh nice, he'd appreciate that. Well, that's what he grew up with. And the thing is we didn't want to fake the funk. We don't try to do the Jamaican patois. Our singer is a soul singer, and the Jamaicans were listening to soul. So it's natural.

JBE: This evening in the crowd you had a smattering of dreadlocks and then about a third of the crowd was modded out 100%. Do you get that in the U.S. too?

Brian: Oh yeah, the mods and the skinheads, the orginal skinheads, before the whole racism thing. You know they caled it skinhead reggae becasue it was so popular in England with the skinheads. It's such a crazy story. But the traditional skinheads always come out to our shows, because we're like one of the only bands on the planet that play that... 69 to 71. All the old mods and skinheads all come out, it's cool.

JBE: Well, there's this historic connection between punk and reggae. And even your band, is on pretty much  a punk label, Hellcat records. So what is the connection.

Brian: Yeah, it's strange. The story goes that in the mid seventies, 75, the Ramones go to England. The Ramones are from New York. they go to England, they do a tour. They blow up, they're huge. They were nobodies in the United States, but they played England and they're huge. All of a sudden everybody's like, oh my gosh, these guys play three chords, let's start a band. So all these punk bands start immediately and they start doing shows in England, and in between bands what do you play? what does the DJ play? There were no punk records yet, your a punk show. So they got this reggae DJ to start spinning in between bands, just because they didn't have anything. So you've got this guy spinning reggae and the punk bands and the punk rockers start listening to reggae.It was during the 70s and its got the protest lyrics, and its not pop crap. The punks are singing angry, aggressive stuff. So are the Jamaicans, they're singing real stuff. It wasn't always angry, they're singing about what happened to them that day. Maybe it's a love song, maybe it's a protest thing, whatever. So there was a connection, so bands like the Clash started doing reggae. A punk band like Stiff Little Fingers started doing reggae. There is a real vibe between punk and reggae.

JBE: Now you guys on stage wear sort of a grey, drab L.A. prison uniforms. What's the story behind that? Are you guilty of any crime?

Brian: It's just trying to put on a show. We want to change the face of reggae. We play this stuff. We play legit. We're going to put on a show, and who cares how we dress. You don't have to have dreadlocks to play reggae.

JBE: Your latest album IV has 21 songs on it, way over an hour of music ...

Brian: We couldn't fit anymore on.

JBE: It sells for 9.99 on iTunes. I'm surprised you didn't try and get more out of the session and release IV, V and VI.

Brian: Well, we had more songs, but we literally couldn't fit them on. But, you know, we did that for the fans. I don't know if anyone is going to get that, or appreciate that. They can buy the album for 9.99 or whatever, and its a lot of songs. Some people have complained that it's too much to handle for an album.

JBE:And the next album?

Brian: We have plans to start recording in the fall. No idea what we're going to do. We jsut walk into aroom and everybody starts playing reggae. That's how we do it.

JBE: The classic rock question is of course, The Stones or The Beatles. My question to you: Toots or Bob?

Brian: Ooh, Toots. no, wait, wait. Is Bob with the Wailers? oh man. If it's Bob and the original Wailers, I'd go with Bob. Early Wailers I go with them. Man, that's a tough one. I'm going with early Wailers, with Peter and Bunny.

JBE: What's on your iPod?

Brian: I don't have one.

JBE: Favorite current reggae band?

Brian: A band from Los Angeles, which nobody has heard of, called The Expanders. unreal, incredible. Thay have an album coming out, they're amazing.

- Joshua Bogen

posted 21/04/2010

JBE interviews BRIAN HAAS of JACOB FRED JAZZ ODYSSEY

As we were waiting at the bar for the JACOB FRED JAZZ ODYSSEY to finish their soundcheck, leader BRIAN HAAS wandered over, beer in hand, to introduce himself and we began to chat. His friendly, disarming manner caught me completely off guard, and it wasn't until a few minutes later that I realized that the "interview" had already begun. At that point, I scrambled madly to pull out my tape recorder and plug the microphone in. Unfortunately, in my confusion i accidently set the mute switch on the mike and as a result absolutely none of the interview was recorded. (My apologies to Brian, who spent the entire interview obligingly leaning into the mike to make sure everything got properly recorded over the sounds coming from the stage) Fortunately, I seem to be developing an almost photographic memory for these interviews so I was able to recostruct most of it, and fortunately as well, I did not take Brian up on his offer to move the interview to the "coffee shop" down the street, in which case it is unikely that I would have remembered anything at all, including the concert.

The sound check was delayed, as their manager explained to me earlier, because they had been waiting for the bass to arrive. I naturally assumed he was referring to bass player Matt Hayes, but it turned out that what was late was the double bass itself. JFJO on this tour was "backlining" basically almost everything, which is to say they were traveling with little more than the shirts on their backs, and playing instruments waiting for them at each gig. So the "sound check" was not only a test of the sound system, but also a question of checking out the instruments themselves. And that's where we started off the interview.

JBE: As a piano player, and especially on tour here in Europe, you have to play on whatever piano is there already, because you can't exactly cart one around with you.

Brian: That's part of the excitement. You get a different sound each night. Here in Europe we get some really cool old pianos, and each one has it's own character. I had a teacher once who said that there's no such thing as a bad piano, only bad pianists.

JBE: About the group's name. I know that there is no one in the group named Jacob or Fred, and that "Jazz Odyssey" is a reference to Spinal Tap. But, why Spinal Tap?

Brian: well, I saw the movie when I was a teenager, like everybody else, and i thought wow, that must be what it's like to go on tour. And the thing is, half of it is real.

JBE: Your music has been described as "Red Dirt Jazz", a reference to your hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Brian: It's great, I really like it. You know there's always been "red dirt music", way back with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, they were doing swing, and then in the 60's and 70's there were people like J.J.Cale and Leon Russell, and they're all part of the Tulsa sound. So there's a lot of great musicians associated with that sound, even though they're separated by a lot of years. And we're from Tulsa, so they started callingu us "red dirt jazz", and I think now with the lap steel guitar you can really hear that.

JBE: The JFJO has been through a lot of changes. You started out with maybe 7 or 8 members, then you were a trio for a long time, and now after the departure of Reed Mathis, you've converted into a quartet. What is the common thread there that enables you to keep the same name for the group despite all the changes?

Brian: What really drives us is the composition. All of us are composing, and that's what makes it exciting and makes us what we are. When you aren't composing things can get stale, so I'm really happy right now.

JBE: What is the JFJO audience like? Are they mainly older listeners? Here in Europe especially Jazz seems to be very serious and more appreciated by a middle aged crowd?

Brian: You see people from all walks of life and that's what's so great. All these people getting together in the same room. Both older and younger people. We have a lot of younger fans now, and I suppose that it's the jamband scene that is bringing them in. Because the jamband thing isn't really limited by genre, these people are really open minded, they just want to hear exciting live music.

JBE: Your first album was, jokingly, called "Live in Tokyo" and apparently created some confusion at the time, as it was actually recorded in Tulsa. Have you played in Japan?

Brian: Well, that was actually our second album. You know, we've played 5 tours in Europe, but no, we haven't been to Japan yet. I'd really like to go.

JBE: Your last full LP "Winterland" you've made available for free download on the internet. I can't get my head around the idea of a record company letting you do that. How did you make the decision?

Brian: What happened is we made th album basically with our own money. We turned the tracks over to the record company and we still hadn't received any advance. We had three months of shows booked to support the album, and there was no album in the stores. So we just said, let's go ahead and just give it away. At least the album can promote the tour and not vice versa.

JBE: On that same album, you do a beautiful cover of the Grateful Dead's "Crazy Fingers." Why did you choose that song in particular?

Brian: It's an incredible song. I think it's as good as anything by Coltrane. There's this pedal steel guitar player in Tulsa who does amazing things covering this song, and that's what really turned me onto this song, so we decided to do it.

JBE: Your latest EP "One Day in Brooklyn" is a real break from your last album, although it seems with each album you completely change direction, from electric to acoustic and then back again. What was the idea behind this one?

Brian: We wanted to do something really simple, so it's pretty much an acoustic sound and we did it in one day. We're touring constantly so we really don't have that much time, and we wanted to do something sort of introducing the new lineup.

JBE: So, is that sort of where you're at right now and we can expect something similar on your upcoming album?

Brian: Our next album Stay Gold is completely different. We did that in a studio near Tulsa, out in the country, in this incredible Grammy award winning studio, so that was an incredible experience. And since it was near Tulsa, we could bring all our friends into the studio, so it was almsot like doing it live.

The JFJO have finished their European tour, but the already have a concert planned in Europe for July, so be on the look out for additional dates, and the upcoming album as well.

- Joshua Bogen

posted 30/03/2010

JBE interviews THE STEEPWATER BAND

We spoke with The Steepwater Band just after they checked into their hotel (The Ritz, it was not) near Valencia. After a full day driving in the tour van, the band was pretty beat and probably more interested in a siesta than an interview, but in the end they were excited to talk about everything they were doing and it spilled out into quite a long conversation. (My apologies to Joe, who really wanted to just sack out before the show).

The band members are Joe Winters (Drums), Todd Bowers (Bass) and Jeff Massey (Guitar). We were also joined by Marc Ford, who produced their last album, "Grace and Melody" and was touring with them, who shared some of his wisdom with us.

JBE: You're a pretty hard working band.

Joe Winters: Yeah, I play three hours a night, at least three hours a night, every night for days on end. My hands are all beat up and swollen.

JBE: Plus all the time travelling in between gigs.

Joe: Three, four, four and a half hours on the road, whatever it takes. We've had one day off since we've been here. We don't see much of spain, besides clubs, highways, restaurants and bathrooms. But, yeah, it's cool. I like spain, it's real nice.

JBE: Why Spain in particular? This is your third full tour of Spain, adn you haven't yet played in any other country.

Joe: Weird isn't it. We have a promoter here in spain who brought us over to play at the Azkenaya Rock Festival. We got to play with big name bands ... Wilco, Drive By Truckers, Government Mule, Deep Purple. That spurred this automatic thing. We walked out to play for 10,000 people or whatever it was, so instant fan base to go play the clubs. So, then we had another promoter say, we'll bring you over and do some small clubs, that can help promote your new album. So we gave him the record and he put it in the shops and got the word out on the street. Next thing you know. we're doing these size clubs, like we're doing tonight, and packing 'em in. And the cats just kept coming back.

JBE: Do you notice any difference in the audiences, between here and the US?

Joe: It's similar in that they're excited about music. The thing is, it seems like in Spain they've got good taste. (laughs) In the States getting anything cool to take off, anything bluesy or rootsy or rock'n roll. It's a hard sell. I don't know why.

JBE: The tour is closing out in London.

Joe: I'm really excited about playing in England. I've always wanted to just hang out there. We were in the airport once, on a layover coming here to Spain. Our manager paid a taxi driver like 250 bucks just to drive us into the city and get a beer at a pub, because you know, I really wanted to. It was like a tease. Yeah, there's London, for 20 minutes. So, i am so excited to be going there.

JBE: Outside of Spain, the country where you'll be playing the most this tour is in Germany.

Joe: We've sold a lot of records in Germany, all of a sudden. So there should be some crowds, I'm excited about that, never been there either. It's all just about getting in a van and seeing what happens, you know.

JBE: I want to backtrack a moment. So how exactly did the band get started?

Joe: Todd and I already knew each other. We already played together. We met Jeff through a friend at a Black Crowes concert. He and a friend were starting a blues band. And Todd and I really wanted to join a blues band, or a bluesy band. They invited Todd to come play with them. And if you got Todd you got me, we sort of go together. Todd and I have been playing together since we were in our teens, at least 20 years.

JBE: You were originally a pure blues band, very much Chicago blues.

Joe: At the very beginning, we we're all just like studying it. We were really interested, i don't know if i should say studying, but we were listening to a ton of it, hanging out at blues clubs, and it was natural that that was what we wanted to do. But after a year or so, when you start to discover riffs that are, well, blues based, but not necessarily traditional blues. All of a sudden you're like, if i put two of these together, find something to sing, I'm writing songs, and that's fun. It was really natural. I remember the first time, we were living together and we were still really blues based, and I came home one day. Jeff's playing a country song. "What the hell is that?" "I don't know, I just got this country riff." and he starts singing this cool melody over it. and i kind of went, "really different, you think people will get it?" "I don't know. Let's just play it."

JBE: Although you have a blues beginning, these days you are very much associated with the "new southern rock". So, do you feel southern? or are you just from the south side of Chicago?

Jeff Massey: That's as far south as we get. I don't feel southern. It's probably because of the slide guitar, the grooves. There are a lot of other aspects, the lyrical content. The blues thing is always going to be there too, in one form or another. Even when we're in left field it's still the core.

Joe: I've heard american people say it reminds them of a cross between southern rock and british blues. The british thing is weird, cause we were all into the traditional blues thing, but we also grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and the Stones.

JBE: When I listened to the latest album, it struck me that it could have been a Beatles record, there was a lot that sounded to me somehow like the Beatles.

Joe: Like a Beatles record?

Jeff: I've heard people say that, yeah. Especially like "All the Way to Nowhere" , has that descending Lennon melody to it, the whole attitude of it.

JBE: So do you think it's because of the songs, or the production.

Jeff: I think its the song itself, it's not intentional, but the influence must have come out somehow.

JBE: But especially at times the singing, the vocal phrasing reminds me of the Beatles.

Jeff: I'll take that as a compliment. I agree I've heard people say that. In some manner I can hear the Beatles in there for sure. Maybe some of it is in the production too. "One way ride" the bass line is so Beatles. It's like a Ballad of John and Yoko kind of bass line going on.

Joe: I think Marc heard that, and he's attuned to that same vibe too. So it was like the songs were already that kind of feel and Marc found ways to have them have even more of an authentic sound.

Jeff: We had a batch of songs and we went in with the attitude that they might change. They were more like blueprints of songs, there wasn't any big discussion with Marc. It was just go out there, and it was a very relaxed atmosphere. The days when we thought we weren't going to get anything done, it was just chlling out. We're going to get it done, so he didn't want to create a stressful situation. There was no preproduction. So, we got these songs together, but in my opinion when you're going to work with a producer you've got to have an open ended attitude to mix ideas with what he wants to do. Which is exactly what we did. Some of the songs got turned upside down.

JBE: There's a song on the album called "Waiting to be Offended" which clocks in at almost 14 minutes. Does that get a lot of airplay?

Jeff: Actually it did get some airplay. That wasn't the intention. It was sort of a live situation. All four of us were in a room and Marc said, just keep jamming, we'll edit it later. We got to the studio the next day, and he was like, i was listening to that jam in my truck, and if i was a fan of steepwater i'd want to hear the whole thing. I was like. that's cool. i guess we'll put a thirteen minute song in the middle of our record.

Joe: there's a radio Dj outside of Chicago in the suburbs at a classic rock station. He heard us play it live before the record came out. That jam, that long new song with the jam in it, is that on your CD. and we're like, yeah. and he's like, like that, the whole thing? and we said, yes, and he said, i'll play it on my show.

Jeff: And it was Todd's idea to throw it right into the middle of the record. Not try and hide it at the end, for if you're in the mood or something.

Joe: It sort of divides up the album. we released this on vinyl and its side two of the record, the whole side.

JBE: You just finished up a series of shows with Government Mule, and Warren Haynes you know is very much an iconic figure in the current jam band scene. Is that going to affect at all how you're seen now?

Jeff: I don't think it's going to hurt. The shows went really well for us. That type of audience is perfect for what we're doing. They were excited about us, by the second song. That's not always easy to do, when you're opening for somebody else.

JBE: You get ribbed alot for the similarity of the band's name with "Stillwater" from the movie "Almost Famous." Do you idnetify with them at all, the idea of sort of being almost at the point where you've "arrived."

Jeff: We're just happy to be a functioning band. Still enjoy playing music. There's ups and downs if you're going to be in a band and travel, there's a lot of hard times and a lot of good times.

Joe: We play about a 100 to 120 shows a year, since 2000. Anywhere and everywhere. Good shows, bad shows. We try to keep busy.

Marc Ford: I think its really about relationship, about enjoying the time together. Instead of trying to reach some point. The journey, not the destination.

Jeff: You gotta enjoy being around each other. Enjoy the whole process.

JBE: You've said that you really look forward to coming over to Spain each year.

Joe: People are most excited about our band here. In the states, we're just fighting for any kind of gig we can get, anywhere and whatever. Here it's like ..

Marc: Flamenco spirit

JBE: There's a song on the album which has a sort of Flamenco sound to it.

Jeff: "One way ride", the solo section has that descending spanish kind of guitar. When we wrote the song it didn't sound anything like that, but when we went into the studio with Marc he kind of turned it upside down and it became an acoustic strummer. I just happened to grab a nylon string guitar and the chord progression just happened to be an A minor with a spanish sound to it.

JBE: Your're still promoting your last album "Grace and Melody", but you've gone ahead and released an EP with "The Stars Look Good Tonight"

Jeff: Its just four songs, its really short.

Joe: Is it a single or an EP?

Jeff: I call it a single.

Todd: Its an extended single.

Marc: Whatever it means to have an album, it used to be 48 minutes because thats what you could fit on an LP. Then CDs came along and you had an hour to fill. Why give it a name? Its just like this is what we've got right now. A lot of people have forgotten, they don't get it, my kids don't get it, except maybe with a video game, what it was like to get to the store and hold it in your hand and stare at it all the way home, put it on the wall. Now CDs are gonna become a thing of the past. They're gone, who cares. Its all gonna be internet.

JBE: The internet is certainly having a dramatic impact on the whole music business, but i think inadvertantly it's helping fuel a resurgence in live music.

Marc: You can't fake people out in person. On the internet, on my laptop, you can be a whole band. But you've gotta be honest about it. If it comes down to old school, when you're out their slugging it out, with your buddies, having a great time, looking at the blossoms on the trees. That's sweet. That's live music. And listening to live music over the internet is not the same as being there.

Joe: That energy, the live energy you get from actually being there, connecting. You can't get that off a record.

Marc: Its a relationship. You have to stand in a room with people. Be kind, and keep being kind, and say hello.

Joe: You're not going to be able to duplicate that on the internet, you're never ever gonna get that across, and that's why i think people will always buy concert tickets.

Amen to that last one, Joe. It's not too late to catch The Steepwater Band live here in Europe. If you miss them this time around, I think it's a safe bet they'll be back next year.

- Joshua Bogen

posted 14/03/2010

JBE interviews THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS, the UK's ambassadors of Funk

I was lucky enough to sit down with reigning UK champions of new funk, The New Mastersounds, over tapas and red wine before their penultimate show in Spain. Guitarist Eddie Roberts, the band's leader, and drummer Simon Allen, manager of their label One Note Records, did most of the talking. Keyboard player Joe Tatton, the newest member of the band and the only one without any attachment to Spain, was mostly occupied enjoying one of his last Spanish meals before heading off on their U.S. tour, in any event, his musical presence on stage later that evening spoke for itself. Bassist Pete Shard, tired of Spanish tapas, had wandered off some time earlier, in search of "serious carbohydrates" We were, however, joined by longtime cohort Chip Wickham, who was lending a hand throughout the tour and would be sitting in tonight on sax and flute. The interview itself was mayhem, more of a rambling conversation about their roots, the club scene and life on the road, as well as musings on the meaning of Jam Band. I really only  got in a few obligatory questions at the very end. So, what follows is really a reconstruction, with most of my "questions" added afterwards so that the whole thing makes sense. Any mistakes are obviously mine, apologies to the band, who were great fun to talk to, gracious hosts and as I would discover later, incredible musicians.

JBE: The New Mastersounds is basically a funk outfit from Leeds, UK., which strikes me as a rather unlikely place. Is Leeds a particularly funky place?.

Eddie: Leeds was the first music college in Britain that was running a jazz program, since the mid 70s I think. I come from Wales and I went up to Leeds. A lot of musicians did, it was the only place you could go in Britain. So there's always been a good pool of musicians, like minded and into jazz. At the same time, there were a lot of good DJs playing soul, dance floor jazz, that kind of stuff. So you got all these musicians and they're going to all these same clubs, so they'd put together these bands to play on Friday nights.

Chip: The guys running the scene, they were really into the music, and they had connections with the Jazz Cafe in London. So when the bigger acts came to London and they needed somewhere else to go, you know, they came up to Leeds.

JBE: I listened to all your albums, in chronological order, and the beginning doesn't sound particularly funky to me at all.

Eddie: Well, the thing is the first album was tailor made for the scene that was going on at the time. It was basically emulating all the rare recordings from the sixties that the DJs were unearthing. They were trying to find this crazy sounding psychedelic stuff. Before we made that album we were playing more like we do now.

Simon: That's why we had to go back and do an album called "Be Yourself" and then "This is What We Do".

Eddie: We were trying to recalibrate the whole thing. This is what we are all about. The first album opened up a lot of doors, we wouldn't be as big in Japan if it hadn't been for that album, but it sort of pigeonholed us wrong about what we really wanted to do. When we returned to being a 4 piece band, it was hard for a while to get a gig, because people were like, "what do you mean, only four of you? where are the horns and vocals?" I remember we actually had to persuade people to let us do the gigs, and afterwards they'd be, right, you don't need the horns. We were a bit nervous about just the four of us, so we'd actually sit in back before the show and chant, "we believe in the four piece, we believe in the four piece."

JBE: tonight you're billed as a "sixties" band.

Eddie: That's slightly off.

Simon: We're always very proud of the reviews that say like "with one foot firmly planted in the past, and the other planted firmly in the future".

Eddie: So we're not just a retro band.

JBE: if the venue that invited you can't figure you out, how do you get an audience here in Spain?

Eddie: The reason we're big in Spain is because it's the European country that currently is interested in funk. We've been to France, Belgium, Italy, but at the moment none of these places have an audience for us, even though they used to. England is getting better though. It's very much like a mod scene, very British thing. The style, clothes and fashion are important, not just the music. That's the thing about Europe. The scene is really dominated by the DJs and bands basically come out recommended by the discs that the DJs play. It all comes from listening to the records and being around that sound. That's a bit why you can't sell live records in Europe. They don't want that. They want all the production and package and all that. And in the states they would rather just trade tapes.

JBE: But you play a lot of really tiny clubs here, I can't figure out how the economics of it work.

Eddie: We're able to do a tour like this in Spain, playing small clubs, because we basically do everything ourselves. The Sweet Vandals lent us their drum kit, they've helped out a lot. Chip is in Madrid, and Pete lives in Minorca, so you know, we just had to get a rental van and we drive it ourselves.

JBE: All of your album covers are really retro, something out of Verve records from the sixties.

Simon: Yeah, we got in a lot of trouble with our last album because of the cover.

Eddie: With the last album we were really in danger of alienating our scene in Japan. The album cover was too futuristic for them, so they actually changed it.

Simon: Our friends in the south east said they love the album, but hate the album cover.

Eddie: We have this funny thing where there are three different scenes that we're playing to. But we try not to be too influenced musically. The Japanese would love us to produce more albums like the first, the Europeans want us to keep it retro, and the Americans want it more modern.

JBE. In the U.S. you get billed  as a jam band. In fact, you're already booked for 3 Jam Band festivals this summer.

Eddie: We don't understand that. We had never really even heard of a jam scene before. I mean, we've been going over to America for about 4 years now, and I still haven't worked out what the jam band scene means.

Simon: Lots of tie dyes!

JBE: So, how exactly did you get to become part of the Jam Band scene in the U.S.?

Eddie: We didn't want to, it just happened. The people are fantastic, perhaps a bit more introspective. It's a bit more about the listening experience. They're not very good dancers really, are they?

Simon: We love you! but you can't dance.

Eddie: Our first booking agent in the U.S. basically mapped out how our career was going to go. First you play this hall, and the next time you'll play this hall, and then you'll play ... In the U.S. you might think, well, I'm not really into Funk, but my friend saw them and he really liked us, and so you go to see the show. Whereas, here, there might be 200 or 300 people in any given city that like this particular genre of music and go to see the music.

Simon: There'll never be more.

JBE: A lot of artists get associated with the Jam Band scene because they sit in with a Jam Band or open up for a Jam Band. I remember the Neville Brothers used to open up for the Grateful Dead a lot, so we all got into the Nevilles, and from that into the Meters. Or they also get roped into the Jam Band scene because they do a cover of a song by a Jam Band heavyweight.

Simon: Our friend in Chicago who introduced us to the American scene thinks we should do a mastersounds version of some Jerry Garcia / Merle Saunders album.

Eddie: Not going to happen. It just isn't us.

JBE: Just before, I mentioned The Meters, who you've been compared to before. These days a lot of the whole New Orleans Funk scene has basically been co-opted by the Jam Band scene.

Eddie: At the same time, there are funk bands in the U.S. that are absolutely huge in the U.K. but the jam band crowd knows nothing about. For example, Breakestra. Their show is really rehearsed, there's really no jamming involved. What they do is really clever, it's a great show, but I can see why it doesn't appeal to the jam band people. or Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, they don't jam at all.

Simon: We basically introduced our friend Grace Potter to Miles Tackett (of Breakestra) by email. What happened is we needed to get Grace into a studio to do the vocal track for her song on our last album, but she was in California with her boyfriend, who is also the drummer in her band, and so we asked Miles if he could record her in his studio. it turns out that Miles' father is Fred Tackett, who plays in a band called Little Feat, but we had no idea who he was.

Eddie: Oh yes we did. I bloody well knew who he was.

JBE: Has being part of the Jam Band scene had an effect on the band?

Simon: The way that we play now has been massively influenced by the Jam Band audience in America. Before we fist went to America, all our arrangements were three and half minutes long, we were making music for DJs, so they'd play our records. When we got there to Chicago in 2004, they told us to play two 90 minute sets and we didn't quite understand how that could be possible. We made a list of 60 tunes. Sixty 3 1/2 minute tunes, digging up old covers we used to do. Do you think that will be enough? We just did not grasp the notion that people would want to see us improvising. and now, at JazzFest we played for almost 4 hours.

JBE: You are a very high energy band. Do you take some sort of special vitamins.

Simon: Not anything you can get over the counter. No, really we feed off the energy from the crowd. It's a real give and take.

Eddie: We don't play France anymore. They just stand there with their arms folded, staring at you like you're some freaks.

Simon: Then they say they enjoyed it.

Eddie: They say it was the best show they've ever seen. And you're thinking, if you're not going to give anything back, I don't really see the point of it. It's got to be a two way thing.

JBE: In the last ten years you have played with a lot of people. It seems like there is always somebody sitting in with you. Tonight you've even got Chip Wickham here to jam with you on sax and flute.  Any names in particular which Jam Band fans would recognize?

Simon: Martin Fierro. We were playing 2 nights at Independence Hall and our publicist at the time was in with the whole Kimock family, and so Martin Fierro asked to sit in with us. He played possibly his last concert with us. we didn't really know who he was, but the crowd obviously did. They were there in awe of him. On the other hand, Melvin Sparks, who was on all the records we listened to, he lives in New York and so he sat in with us, and for us, you know, it was a really big deal. And it was a jam band crowd and they had no idea who he was.

Eddie: That was a mistake. We didn't even know, we thought it was just short for Barcelona. We spend a lot of time on the road, so sometimes we get song titles from that, the places where we are at the time, like Road to Fuji Rock on our latest album. Anyway, we didn't know it was the name of a football team. We don't even like football. No one in the band is into football at all. You know, we'll be doing a show in the u.s. and someone shouts out "Leeds United" and I'm like "oh man, I'm trying to get away from all that"

The New Mastersounds will be doing a west coast residency next month, including a concert at The Fillmore (yes, that Fillmore) with Salvador Santana (yes, son of that guitar player). They return to Europe for Jam In The Dam, and then are booked for various festivals in the U.S. this summer. Their latest album, TEN YEARS ON, has received incredibly positive reviews and includes a reworking of Grace Potter's "Nothing But The Water (II)" featuring Grace on vocals. You can purchase Ten Years On by download, CD or vinyl. Or you can pick one up at a show, where the band will happily sign your copy (note: bring a white or silver tipped marker as the CD jacket is mostly black)

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