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A
Grain of Rock "I'm busy. I pretty much play live every night of the month," says Kirk Rundstrom, guitarist and vocalist for rock 'n' roll band Grain & Demise, as he prepares for a sound check in Boulder, Colo., the night before two shows in Denver.
Busy may be an understatement. Besides leading Grain & Demise, Rundstrom is also a guitarist and vocalist for Split Lip Rayfield and the Kirk Rundstrom Band. "In the next three months Grain & Demise does 18 shows a month and Split Lip does seven shows a month," Rundstrom says. "But I love my job. I love touring. I'm very fortunate for sure." His life is all about touring and playing music. When asked what he does in his spare time he took a moment, kind of laughed, then said, "Um … play music." Rundstrom and his Grain & Demise band-mates Ryan Johnson, Calvin Bennett and Bridget Law found time in their hectic touring schedule to put out a new album, To the Heavens. While their debut release was more country rock, this album has a few tracks reminiscent of The Mars Volta. "We're full-blown electric freak-out," says Rundstrom. "If you're into Hootie & the Blowfish, you probably won't like us. Nothing against [Hootie]." Grain & Demise's sound is nothing like the punk bluegrass Rundstrom plays in Split Lip Rayfield, which one online reviewer described as "bluegrass worthy of being blasted out of the windows of a Plymouth Barracuda with a 451 Hemi engine." But Law is a fiddler and she gives the band a unique quality. The 22-year-old didn't learn her instrument in an orchaeasta setting; as a youth she toured the country competing in fiddling competitions. "She shreds," Rundstrom says.
Power
Plays "If you ask me a question you got to be prepared for whatever answer I give you." Thus began my conversation with Jessie Cassious Rico, or J.C., as he's known. Rico's larger than life, a big guy who laughs at everything, or maybe because of everything. "You got to find the humor in life or you won't survive," he says.
Born in the Mississippi Delta, this 58-year-old paid his way through college after his Navy stint by working as a ranch hand. He rides horses, lives in the country and adores Patsy Cline. He thinks it's only a little unusual for a black man to be fronting a blues band at a country-western bar. "I'm more country than most folk in here," he said with a giant-sized laugh. He's been playing music and singing in church with his family since he was 4, and now his well-trained pipes can belt out anything, absolutely any type of song. Every emotion comes from deep down in his toes, welling up, filling the whole room. Rico sees connections between blues and country music pointing out that "They come from the same place, church." He may never be rich, but the only thing that has real value to Rico is the love of music and the fans. "You see someone being sad, and you can make them smile, that's worth a million bucks," he says. Before his family moved from Mississippi to Chicago, he remembers being surrounded by famous bluesmen like B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Z.Z. Hill and T-Bone Walker. But they were just the folks "who lived next door." Actually, he calls B.B. King "Uncle B.B." and says "B.B. told me, 'You can play my blues if you want to, but it'd be better if you played your own blues for your time.' There are blues snobs who think blues should be all like 'My dog done died.'" Then he sings out, "Yeah, the dog died, in 1932! You got to sing about what's happening today! Blues is the pain you feel today. " It's difficult for Rico to align himself with today's blues scene, however, because as he sees it, it's full of fakers who "just want to get their picture in the paper" and don't care that they can't really play. Rico lays down the truth: "You can have the best write-up from a critic, but if the audience don't like you, you ain't going nowhere!" It's been hard to find and keep good musicians over the years, but the crew he has now is top-notch and features some of the best players in town, if not the state. Peter Giri and Steve Ibach play guitar, along with Paul Biondi's incredibly hot saxophone (sometimes playing two horns at once), soulful bassist Russ Whitlach, Sean Jackson putting all his heart into the keyboards, and K.C. Case holding it all together on drums. During a recent set at their regular Thursday night gig at The Country Side, Rico's Alliance Blues band tore through two smoking blues rock tunes then sweetened things up with an unexpected doo-wop number that brought out the lover in everybody. Though Rico's blood runs blue, he plays many different styles of music, and the fans love it. Throw in some Doors, Temptations and Eagles and you've got one incredibly versatile band that plays "a little somethin' for everybody" and has a lot of fun doing it.
Hardcore
Holiness Washington, D.C.'s Bad Brains was a major part of the first wave of hardcore punk rock to blast American shores in the early '80s. Taking their cues from London trends, they also merged punk with reggae and helped touch off a stateside craze for both ska and hardcore, reportedly influencing groups as diverse as Henry Rollins, No Doubt and Metallica along the way.
The group's integrity suffered after the mid-'80s, when vocalist HR (aka Human Rights, born Paul Hudson) and his brother, drummer Earl Hudson, left the band to focus more on the reggae side of the Bad Brains sound. At the same time guitarist Dr. Know (born Gary Miller) and bassist Darryl Jenifer were moving toward the harder-edged rock side of the band's roots. After years of ups and downs including a failed post-grunge era incursion into major label recording, as well as infamous incidents of physical violence on a mid-'90s reunion tour, the original Bad Brains lineup still plays occasional shows together — sometimes under the moniker Soul Brains. We caught HR on the phone in New York City as he prepared to start a new leg of the DIA Global Rock Showcase tour, for which he was the headliner throughout 2005. In conversation, the singer comes off like the world's friendliest hippie philosopher — a Liverpool, England-born American Rastafarian with an eminently gracious, somewhat mystifying manner of speech. "I'm one of the most phenomenal musicians you've ever met," he says, without apology. "I owe so much to my fans and loved ones." Modesty (or lack thereof) aside, HR transcends the obstacles of Bad Brains' turbulent history through his unfailingly bright outlook. "You can get something good out of something bad," he says. "Through the love and guidance and church and all the beautiful friends, I was able to finally achieve my objective. And that was to establish life and creation, and love, and musical happiness through being able to live positively, and in a very professional and upright manner." Though it's been some time since new HR recordings have surfaced (the latest is DIA Records' Out of Bounds, released in 2000), the artist's dreamy/rough-hewn proto-reggae sound, which he describes as "the essence of soul music," still enjoys a loyal cult following. Meanwhile, historians and fans of HR's first professional band, the legendary Bad Brains, will be happy to know that it's not all reggae, all the time. If there's one thing HR thrives on, it's diversity. "I truly am grateful for the gift of God's music," he says, "whether it's reggae, niabingi, hardcore, soul music, or symphonic tribulations of the angels that come from the Holy One." Reprinted with permission from The SOURCE Weekly in Bend.
All
Aboard
Railroad Earth grew out of an informal summer jam session in Northwest New Jersey. "Eight or nine people would show up and we'd grill some burgers, drink some beers, pick some," recalls violin player Tim Carbone. "In the fall, there were three or four of us still standing." Guitar player and soon-to-be lead singer Todd Sheaffer arrived one day, bringing along some original material that the group quickly translated into bluegrass. Everyone liked the result, and they decided to put a demo together. The music got into the right hands, ended up on the Internet and the next thing they knew, they were asked to play the prestigious Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado. "We were like, 'alright, we're playing Telluride, I guess we gotta be a band,'" said Carbone. "And then it was like, 'oh yeah, by the way, since you're playing Telluride, you probably should have an album.'" Within a month, the group added six new songs to the five already on the demo, and in June 2001 they released "Black Bear Sessions" to widespread acclaim. Since then, the band has appeared at Telluride two more times, released three more albums and continued a vigorous touring schedule that, come March, will take them all the way to Negril, Jamaica. They're also preparing for a "ski tour" with Billy Nershi of String Cheese Incident and his band, Honkeytonk Homeslice. Last time Railroad Earth came through Eugene, they opened up for fellow east-coasters moe. at the McDonald. This time, they're playing the WOW Hall in support of their newest release, Elko, a double live CD recorded on tour this past spring. The band has attracted a loyal group of followers who, in true bluegrass spirit, refer to themselves as "Hobos." If you're not one already, here's your chance to be a Hobo for a night.
Tribal
Techno Jam Many jam bands' careers resemble their music: endless noodling on the same theme. Not Sound Tribe Sector 9. In the past few years, the Athens, Ga.-based art-music collective moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, began imbuing their jam-based grooves with funk, drum-and-bass, and other influences, added colorful visuals to their stage shows, and, for their first studio album in five years, 2005's Artifact, even changed the way they created music.
Inspired by the possibilities afforded by digital technology, the band built up their new compositions as "sound sculptures," layering samples from diverse sources including their own live shows and multiple guitar and keyboard parts. The result is their most ambitious effort yet — but how to transfer those studio effects to the live performances they've always regarded as onstage conversations? Even the Beatles never quite figured out how to transfer their mid-'60s studio wizardry to a live setting — a major factor in their decision to cease touring after 1966. But technology has changed a lot in 40 years. STS9's solution: Every member except the drummer wields an Apple Powerbook loaded with sound samples as well as their usual instruments onstage, offering the players many more options. Now the band members can infuse their live show with a diverse potpourri of sonic ingredients that allows them to maintain the album's rich textures while not sacrificing their electrifying spontaneity. You can hear how it all comes together when the ever-evolving STS9 materializes at the McDonald Theatre on Thursday, Jan. 19. For more info, see Melissa Bearns's preview of their last show and check out www.apple.com/pro/music/sts9.
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