• McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    McDowell Mountain Profile: 2 Tone Lizard Kings

    2 Tone Lizard Kings

    On to the second act of next Friday’s McDowell Mountain Music Festival. In my opinion, you just can’t go wrong with a good horn section. In the last year or so, I’ve had the chance to catch some mighty impressive horns: Springsteen and his Seeger Sessions Band, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. So I consider myself spoiled.

    The 2 Tone Lizard Kings, a ska band local to the Phoenix area, is a 7-piece outfit made up of a three piece horn section: sax, trumpet, and trombone. I see they have some Specials songs in their repertoire (another band that I had the privilege of seeing a few years ago). Hard to be a ska cover band and not have some Specials on the set list, I suppose.

    The Lizard Kings will be kicking off their set at 2:30 in the afternoon. Get their early to drink $2 Sierra Nevadas and catch some live ska action.

    2 Tone Lizard Kings: Nite Klub (mp3) – Specials cover

    Visit the 2 Tone Lizard Kings web site | MySpace

    A handful of more mp3’s available here.

    Current lineup:

    Adam – Vox
    Anthony – Trumpet
    Grant – Bone
    Mario – Drums
    Jack McGroin – Sax
    Pat McGroin – Bass
    Oliver McGroin – Guitar

    Previous Profile: Gelatinous Groove

  • McDowell Mountain Music Festival

    McDowell Mountain Profile: Gelatinous Groove

    gelatinous groove

    So my girl and I will be spending next Friday, April 27th – all day, all night – at the McDowell Mountain Music Festival. From noon to 2pm, Sierra Nevada (the sponsor) is throwing a little kick off happy hour with $2 beers. It’s the perfect opportunity to get soused in the 85 degree heat before the first note is even played. Look out!

    The music kicks off at 1:30, and goes through 11pm. The lineup for the day is:

    Gelatinous Groove (1:30-2:15)
    2 Tone Lizard Kings (2:30-3:15)
    Tea Leaf Green (3:45-4:45)
    Grace Potter & the Nocturnals (5:15-6:30)
    The Neville Brothers (7:00-8:30)
    Bob Weir & Ratdog (9:00-11:00)

    I thought I’d spend the next week or so profiling each band in Friday’s lineup. So we start tonight with the festival opener, local band Gelatinous Groove.

    They came together in early 2004 in my former home of Tempe, where I spent six years living dangerously close to ASU hang-out Mill Avenue and great local bar Casey Moore’s. The boys in GG lay down the laid back jam-bandish vibe. Usually these types of bands thrive in the live environment, and I haven’t seen them yet, so it’s hard to judge them from the three tunes available on their MySpace page. I’ll give you some better perspective after the show next week.

    The band is made up Mike Roberts (keys, vox), Matt Vestal (bass), Steve Allen (alive and well! on guitar and bass), Mike Hatley (guitar), and the lead vocalist drummer Cory Yardley. And you can’t forget Richard the head. They rave about Richard on their MySpace page, and have a song all about him. Richard apparently goes everywhere with them. I’ll make sure to get an in depth interview at the show. You can see Richard representin’ in the pic above.

    Gelatinous Groove: Big D and the Darwin Theory (mp3)

    Check out their MySpace here.

    Join me at the McDowell Mountain Music Festival in Scottsdale, AZ.

  • McDowell Mountain Music Festival,  Miscellaneous

    An AZ Music Festival and some Keller Williams

    MMMF

    The Phoenix area has its own cool little happening called the McDowell Mountain Music Festival. It’s coming up on April 27th and 28th at WestWorld in Scottsdale. I’m excited about the opening night, which features the Neville Brothers and Bob Weir’s band, Ratdog (among a lot of others, shown here). If you’re in the southwest, come on down.

    I’ve seen both bands a few times each, but not since the mid 90’s (the best was seeing both at Laguna Seca Daze in Monterey, Calif.). So this is a must see for me, with both bands together in my own back yard. You gotta think there will be some sort of collaboration too. We’ll see. I’ll be there listening in, snapping photos, and maybe even chatting with some of the talent.

    Keller Williams

    Regarding Bob Weir, he makes an appearance on the latest release by guitar and loop whiz Keller Williams. Dream was released back on February 6th. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Keller Williams until this album, so I have some catching up to do. But this CD has been on steady rotation since I got it. It’s his 11th release dating all the way back to 1994. Maybe a KW fan here can recommend their favorite, and steer me in the right direction for my next purchase (the boys at Hidden Track, maybe?).

    Keller is known as a one-man jam band. At live shows, he jams by himself on mostly acoustic guitars (many of them 12 string) while looping the guitars and vocals with a Gibson Echoplex Delay. On Dream though, the concept was collaboration. Some of the folks helping out on this album are Bela Fleck, Charlie Hunter, John Scofield, Steve Kimock, Michael Franti, the String Cheese Incident, and Victor Wooten. The album is downright pleasing to the ears, folksy and relaxed. Highlights for me are the Kimock/Williams tune “Twinkle”- an instrumental with some tasty and wholly unique guitar licks and effects ; “Lil’ Sexy Blues”, which incorporates Indian instruments like tablas and the hansa veena (with special guests Samir Chatterjee and Sanjay Mishra) ; and a cool reggae tinged tune with Franti called “Ninja of Love”. Unique sounds are a theme throughout the album.

    And that brings us back to Bobby Weir, who teams up with Keller on “Cadillac”. I never thought of Bob Weir as the kind of guy to sing lyrics like: “and Jesus be riding bitch seat / cuz he’s good like that”. But here he is, doing just that. Oh, and Bob’s dog, Jackson Hamlet Weir, contributes with some quality barking. Keller, by the way, will be on the road with Ratdog this summer.

    Keller WilliamsCadillac (mp3)

    Buy Dream.