Paul Hoffman vs. Seth BernardAs Saturday morning began to gaze
down over
Hoxeyville, I peeled back our air mattress to check on our saturation status… dry as could be. I guess all that time I spent sealing our tent seams and rain-proofing the ceiling really paid off. With a bit of coffee, we were up and at em’ and down at the main stage in no time to catch Paul Hoffman (mandolin, Greensky Bluegrass) and
Seth Bernard sharing the stage for a little early morning duet. Seth and Paul are good friends and for years now have made it a point to jam together at the annual Hoxeyville festival. But this year, as Paul explains, was the first year they decided to do it on stage. The thing I love about Michigan roots music is that these artists feed off of one another. There is this whole network of musicians and songwriters that fuel this beautiful collection of creative ideas that is much larger than any one individual. So when you experience a performance like this one with Seth and Paul, it’s almost like you are experiencing the sum of so many different Michigan musicians and songwriters… the collective ideas of countless contributors such as Joshua Davis and
May Erlewine who have developed the very sounds that I have come to associate with the state of M
ichigan. Paul brings this notion to life as he and Seth strum a couple of Joshua Davis tunes including “Break of Day”. Just then, the clouds began to separate and rays of sunshine come pouring down on the rain-soaked grounds of Hoxeyville for the first time in about 15 hours. The crowd erupts in cheers, laughter and smiles. It was noon and it was going to be a phenomenal day.
Airborne or Aquatic?
Back at camp, we slowly began to get our bearings back as the eggs and sausage cooked through. Upon completion of this vital Saturday morning meal, it was time for
Airborne or Aquatic. I have seen Airborne a number of different times under a number of different conditions and this show, I must say, was above and beyond anything I have yet to experience. With Greensky guitarist Dave Bruzza joining forces with
Mike Shimmin on the dueling drum sets, the b
eautiful and talented miss May Erlewine offering up her services in the violin, vocal, and harmonica departments, and
The Macpodz’s own Jesse Clayton manning the keys, I knew we would be in for a treat. Hell, even
Jake Robinson himself was there, electric guitar in hand. With Glen Brown manning this crazy synth set up that looked like an air traffic control booth, Airborne broke into a version of “Keep Up the Quest” that you are unlikely to hear anywhere but Hoxeyville. Seth really seems to find his comfort zone when he is jamming with AOA. His style remains tasteful yet powerful, explosive and unquestionably more
exploratory than his other projects. With a suitcase full of pedals (quite literally) he pumps his foot up and down, initiating a range of different celestial sounds all while twisting and bending the strings on his beautiful cherry red Gibson guitar. He falls to his knees at one point with his eyes closed and his long hair swaying back and forth. Perfectly timed notes come screaming off his electric guitar before he brings it down and lets the song itself come back into focus. In between classic Airborne jams like “Overhaul” and “Mooseman”, Seth takes the crowd on a subterranean submarine voyage as he speaks with echo-effected words about Michigan’s rivers and lakes. It was a story, and it was hands down one of the weekend’s most honest, heartfelt, and spectacular performances. No offense to fans of
That 1 Guy (performing on the main stage during AOA), but I would give up seeing that dude’s act for the rest of my entire life just to hear one Airborne or Aquatic performance like this. This is pure music.
Todd Snider > The Ragbirds > Greensky Bluegrass
Todd Snider got started an hour or so after Airborne and I was definitely excited to hear his tunes. I saw Todd play an incredible show this past April in Atlanta and this would be my second time seeing him at Hoxeyville in the last two years. Full of political satire, humor, and pure honesty, it is in the delivery of his lyrics where Todd finds success. His tunes remain simple at their core but when fused with his lyrical wit and hilarious transitional stories, this man dishes out what is a truly entertaining form of talking blues. With
Vince Herman and his mandolin taking the stage early on during Todd’s set, I stuck around long enough to hear the two of them jam a few of
my favorites, including the sarcastic “This Land is Our Land” before heading over to the Cadillac Stage to catch the end of
The Ragbirds. This world-infused blend of Celtic folk has been a Michigan favorite for a number of years now. There is no doubt that The Ragbirds can jam. Erin Zindle is a fiddling force to be reckoned with and her band of brothers play a percussion driven style of music that is sure to send you into a fiery trance at one point or another. On this evening, however, something was amiss. I wish I could shed more light on this performance but all I remember was feeling a disconnect. I think I have witnessed The Ragbirds playing with so much more vigor in the past that this performance just seemed to be lackluster.
Up next on the Hoxeyville Stage was
Greensky Bluegrass whom, because of the magnitude of their Sunday afternoon set, I promise to talk more about in the next edition of my Hoxeyville coverage. They were, however,
joined onstage by none other than
Bill Kreutzmann and
Mickey Hart of
The Rhythm Devils… Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart of The Grateful fucking Dead. I believe Anders Beck said something along the lines of “You can chalk this up on the list of introductions I never thought I’d make”. The Greensky boys were absolutely gleaming as they moved into a bone-chilling version of “China Cat Sunflower” and eventually “I Know You Rider”. As a music fanatic, this was one collaboration that I will never, ever forget. With the conclusion of Greensky came what was surely a deliciously funky performance from
The Pimps of Joytime that I regretfully missed out on in order to feed myself. The Saturday night headliners awaited.
Keller Williams > Great American Jam Session
Keller always has the greatest set-up. It’s a musician’s dream world… an instrumental playground of guitars and loop pedals and mixing boards and drum pads and synthesizers. I honestly believe that
Keller Williams loves playing music more than anyone I have ever witnessed. The thing about Keller is that even in the absence of a crowd, no matter how big or small, he would still be doing the same sort of shit because it’s what makes him happy. He would be jamming alone in his basement, that same goofy smile plastered on his face, just totally screwing off. KW’s sound, along with his carefree attitude, is infectious. By the time the Grateful Dead classic “Brown Eyed Women” rolled around towards the end of his set, K-Whopper had invited every single member of
The Rhythm Devils on stage and the gang continued to completely fry my brain. With the Grateful Dead rhythm section on drums,
Tim Bluhm (
The Mother Hips) on guitar and vocals,
Andy Hess on bass, and the 23-year-old phenom
Davy Knowles on guitar, what had slowly become The Rhythm Devils ripped into a “Scarlet Begonias” that left me with shivers. The anticipatory feelings I was having for The Devil’s set later that night were profound.
With very little overlap, it was off to the Cadillac Stage for
Great American Taxi. I hadn’t had much exposure to this band prior to the Hoxey fest so I was curious to see what they had in store. Holy smokes. Do these guys ever PLAY! As soon as I was within earshot of that stage, I was grinning from ear to ear, bobbing my head up and down with that scrunched up look on my face that says, “These guys are REALLY JAMMING!” Guitar guru, mandolin madman and
Leftover Salmon founder Vince Herman as well as keys player Chad Staehly were clear standouts. In addition to the regulars, Barry Sless of the band
Moonalice sat in and started absolutely WAILING on the pedal steel guitar. His fingers were a blur as Taxi released this swampy blend of progressive bluegrass, swing induced honky tonk, and pure rock ‘n’ roll that had everyone in the crowd flailing around and dancing in this unbelievable delight. Barry and Chad had some of the most blistering solos I had heard all weekend and I couldn’t even register how much fun I was having. Then, as if things hadn’t gotten heavy enough… enter Greensky’s own
Paul Hoffman on mandolin and Anders Beck on dobro. Did I mention that Anders was dressed head to toe in a full gorilla suit and that Todd Snider would come walking out shortly thereafter. What followed was an absolute auditory assault of the highest degree. Great American Taxi is known for these impromptu jam sessions that keep it’s members on their toes and gives you the feeling that anything might happen. Paul and Vince were going totally nuts on their respective instruments while Barry, Chad, the gorilla, and everyone else involved kept the heat coming for the remainder of the set. Wow. Great American Jam Session, to be sure. Hoxeyville was heating up.
The Rhythm Devils
These are the times where I find it difficult to put things into words. This music, this experience… sometimes it’s beyond description. When
The Rhythm Devils came out, I really had no idea what to expect. I knew what Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were capable of, considering their history. These are two of the finest drummers in the business. As if it needs to be said… these guys spent 30 years with the damn Grateful Dead. 30 years. I knew little of bassist Andy Hess, knew nothing about front man Tim Bluhm or his band, The Mother Hips, and had only heard the name Davy Knowles before. That was it. Seeing these guys jam with Keller earlier that evening was nothing more than a tease for what we are about to witness. At six foot, five inches tall, Bluhm stands in the center of the stage, towering over his bandmates. His voice is confident, harmonic, and rings out in graceful contrast to that of Knowles who stands to his left. Wasting no time getting to Dead songs, The Devil’s moved right from the opening song, “Hey Bo Diddley” into “Cold Rain and Snow” and by the time “Cumberland Blues” and “Uncle John’s Band” came around, I began to realize how phenomenal and extremely Jerry-like Bluhm’s voice really was. I began to have flashbacks of the
infamous Furthur show I witnessed at the beginning of this year. This epic performance was part of the reason I felt compelled to start writing about music and documenting these experiences I was having. In my lengthy review of that performance, I speak of John Kadlecik and his vocal range that is eerily similar to that of Jerry Garcia’s. Well, Bluhm’s might be just as scary. The Rhythm Devils, having taken a four-year hiatus since their 2006 tour, are back with a vengeance. Their timing, in large part due to the telepathically communicating rhythm section, was spot on and Hess was as solid as can be. But it was Davy Knowles who really caught me off guard. 23-year-old Knowles looked nothing but comfortable and confident in sharing the stage with such legends. This kid is some sort of prodigy. He took off on some absolutely soaring guitar work full of psychadelia that had me wondering what sort of Grateful Dead train I had been hit by. The baby-faced Knowles seems to be strangely well suited for his role as lead guitarist within The Rhythm Devils, despite having any real history of playing jam-related music. It’s exciting to hear a kid like that play, and know that they have their entire life ahead of them to grow and develop and improve. It sort of scares you to think about how good they could become. With a couple of freewheeling, head-spinning versions of “New Speedway Boogie” and “Fire on the Mountain” as well as an appearance from Keller Williams for the last couple of songs, it had been confirmed… this had been the greatest show I had seen since Furthur. The Rhythm Devils, amidst the intimate grounds of Hoxeyville Music Festival, had blown me away and reminded me what this Live.Music.Life is all about.
Impromptu shows are always the best. I had been scheduled to work a night shift on this Thursday evening but ended up being let out early. I struggled very little with the decision to head straight for Ann Arbor. Cornmeal was in town and I wasn’t about to let this one pass by. A quick phone call to my pal Andrew and we were good to go. He’s always down for some quality live music.
work in the morning so we were looking to get in as much Cornmeal as we could before we hit our self-imposed curfew. But this was nothing compared to the disappointment we were about to face. Now, keep in mind that writing a “bad” review about a band or artist that I have seen live is something that I try to avoid at all costs. In fact, as a music journalist, I find it hard to believe that you would ever put yourself in that kind of situation intentionally. Sometimes, however, it is unavoidable. I am unaware of the name of the band that opened for Cornmeal and to be quite honest, I think its better this way. To start things out, a man with some sort of bongo-like drum strapped around his neck came up to the microphone and gave a super loud, super enthusiastic countdown that made it sound like the group was going to come out guns-a-blazing. But when he hit four, this totally underwhelming, utterly spineless, trashy blend of folk rock of some sort came pouring out of the speakers. The Tom Petty-looking mandolin player and primary vocalist kept squealing and screeching out these vocals that were well outside of his range while he strummed a very simple, very repetitive and quite sloppy number on his instrument. The bass player, albeit enthusiastic, was pl
aying the same 3 notes over and over with his index finger and that was about it. It got so bad, that Andy and I made the unanimous decision to check out the downstairs bar to avoid the rupture of our ear drums that would have surely resulted in hospitalization. We were pumped to find a pool table downstairs and even though the basement smelled like a moldy mixture of feet, armpits, and fish, we shot a drawn out game of pool and then headed back upstairs just in time for the beginning of Cornmeal.
Cornmeal is some of the most high energy, emotionally exhilarating, and jam-centered blend of progressive bluegrass that I have ever heard. To me, this music exemplifies the term “jamgrass”. It is electrified acoustic instrumentation that cascades over such a wide variety of sounds and dips into such a range of genres that it is impossible to pin down. It begins as a slow paced exchange between banjo, fiddle, and guitar and it slowly gains momentum and transitions into this surge of futuristic experimentation that defies everything you thought you knew about acoustic instruments. With Chris Gangi laying down the foundation on this gorgeous-looking stand up bass and J.P. Nowak manning the drums with extreme tempo, timing, and technical proficiency, the stage is set for these otherworldly science experiments to begin.
When you witness a Cornmeal show, it’s easy for your attention to be drawn to fiddle player, Allie Kral. Usually sporting a pretty dress, tall boots, and a look of seduction, Allie has a stage presence that is hard to deny. But her talent on the fiddle is what really sucks you in. Allie’s fingers are a blur as they dance up and down her instrument with great speed and accuracy. As she bounces up and down to the rhythm of the music, stomping her boots to the sound of the beat, it becomes obvious how talented of a musician Allie really is. To her left stands acoustic guitarist Kris Nowak. Kris is an unbelievably adept musician with a brilliant knack for jamming. With a plethora of pedals and effects at his disposal, the range of different sounds that he achieves with the acoustic guitar makes me question why anyone would ever want to play the electric. Nowak’s improvisational ability at the peak of a heated Cornmeal jam session is something you will not forget. Kris absolutely SOARS up and down the neck of his guitar in a truly psychedelic fashion. He rips and bends and pulls and hammers down on top of his strings, exploring the sounds that come pouring into his mind and then transcribing those sounds to the strings of his instrument.With Dave Burlingame sporting a full-blown Zappa-stache and attacking his banjo with a similar enthusiasm, Cornmeal becomes a jam force to be reckoned with.
