February 16th, 2010:
Waiting for our first CD to arrive from the manufacturer! We started tracking for the collection more than a year ago, so it has been a long process. We recorded about 15 songs, and used 11 on the album. Quite a fun project, but the next one will have to be done more quickly.
Speaking of the next one, writing is well underway...
This year, we are being more selective about our shows and where we will be playing. We are not a bar band, but an original blues act. So we are looking for opportunities to play to different and larger crowds. Also, we would like to play outside of the Seattle area more often. Less shows, more exposure.
Come see us live as soon as you can.
November 22, 2008:
Howdy peeps! Just a note here about our band's musical direction! If you have been following us since we started in the summer of 2007, you may have noticed that we have changed quite a bit. Starting out as a five-piece, with keys, horns and percussion, we have slimmed it down to a trio. Gone are the R 'n' B tunes, and now we are a bit more rock. But there is always the unifying thread of the blues in all of our songs.
We are finishing up another round of songs that include one cover, two re-interpretations of older blues songs, and one original. We are continuing to mine the blues archives for new material- especially songs that are riff laden. So, our set list is continually evolving. We have dropped a few songs and set a few others aside for some of the new ones we are trying out.
We are striving to be vital blues artists- we are not just a "cover" band. We still have a way to go, but the ride has certainly been enjoyable so far!
Stay tuned to this page for new songs coming up in the next few weeks. They will also be available eventually through iTunes, Napster, Amazon, Rhapsody etc...
Come see a show, and let us know what YOU think!
September 17th, 2008:
We knew this band would take us in unknown directions. The initial idea was a ZZ Top cover band, then we discovered Freddie King. Surfing YouTube led us to a number of blues artists whose songs inspired us. We learned around 60 songs, and kept the best in our playlist. Adding trumpet and flugel horn allowed us to branch out a bit into R 'n' B. We took all of our new influences and wrote a few songs.
Well, now our good friend Patrick has decided to move on and work on some different original material, and we wish him luck. We will miss his amazing vocals and call-and-response horn solos. We were lucky to have him with us for as long as we did.
Now its just the three of us. We have new challenges, but also some newfound freedom. We are turning a bit towards our rock roots, yet keeping the blues the unifying thread. We are adding originals songs at a faster rate now, so make sure to come and see us soon.
We are adding some more riff-oriented songs to our playlist, and we are enthusiastic about the new direction the band is heading. Please stay tuned...
Why the blues?
Well, I'll tell ya...
It really stemmed out of enjoying ZZ Top. About 8 or 9 years ago, I was talking with my buddy Jimmy Paulson (The Lemons, Top Heavy Crush), and we were talking about Billy Gibbons, and how we loved his phrasing and economic usage of notes. Just the right notes at the right time. Nothin' too fancy. He wasn't trying to slay the audience with speedy riffs... We thought it would be cool as a side project to start a ZZ Top tribute band, and do a couple of shows.
Well, after talking about it, we didn't follow through. But the idea had been smoldering in the back of my head since then, and every time I heard a ZZ Top song, it got me thinking about playing some of that stuff.
Last spring, I played the Emerald Queen Casino with Spike and the Impalers, and we had to get a stand-in bassist. Bob Rivers asked me who that should be, and I thought of Evan Sheeley. Evan and I worked together back in 1991 at Seattle Music. He opened his own bass store, Bass Northwest in 1994, and I have seen him around here and there since then. Well, he was my first choice, because I knew that he would be familiar with the classic rock material, and besides that, he is a phenomenal bass player.
So Evan did the gig, and we talked a little about my ZZ Top idea. He seemed interested, and now I had a little fuel in my blues tank. I was walking around Barnes and Noble one day, and on a whim, decided to buy a Stevie Ray Vaughan biography. I was into his music back in college, and even saw him once in Los Angeles, before he got really big. I have a bunch of his CDs, but had not listened to them in a long time.
After reading the book, I had a better understanding of who he was, where he came from musically, and what he went through. It was interesting stuff, and made me wonder what it would have been like to live in Austin, Texas back in the 1970's... Anyway, I pulled out some of those CDs, and thought that adding some of his material to my blues project would be a great idea.
I started thinking about who else I wanted to be in the band, and immediately thought of Scott Vogel. Scott is a largely unknown, undiscovered, phenomenal drummer. In fact I don't think that he really wants to be a drummer, he wants to be a guitarist. But he is really at home behind the kit, IMHO. Scott played for awhile in OmniVoid, and we missed him after he left. Scott did a lot of time in cover bands in the past, and could easily learn a bunch of material quickly.
So, I was goofing around on YouTube one day, and I stumbled on to this large Black dude playing the hell out of the guitar, and singing his brains out. He had HUGE charisma, and some of the longest shirt lapels I have ever seen. He was playing with a B3 guy that looked like Isaac from the love boat, and a bassist that looked like Jimi Hendrix, and oddly, a pianist who looked like Harry Shearer. The more tunes I listened to, the more I realized that this was the real shit. This was the blues. ZZ Top and Stevie Ray would not have existed if it were not for the blues. And Freddie King knew the blues. Unfortunately he died in 1978. But he lives on... on YouTube, and some great DVDs that you can find if you look hard enough. Eric Clapton and John Mayall were very heavily influenced by Freddie. "Hideaway" on the Blues Breakers record was a cover of one of Freddie's instrumentals. Clapton says that he does his best to be like Freddie, but I don't think that he even gets close...
So, duh! I had to put some Freddie King into our repertoire. Discovering Freddie also led me to dig deeper into earlier blues, like Mississippi Delta Blues, etc...
I showed Patrick Napper the Freddie King stuff on YouTube, and damn if he wasn't blown away as well. Now, I knew that we would need a singer, but was a bit worried that blues wouldn't be in Patrick's bag of tricks, but I had done him a favor by playing in his Word Blender project so maybe he owed me one? At first, I think he was a bit unsure about the whole thing, but knew that he owed me a favor. However, the more that he dug into it, the more blues music he discovered he really liked, which is great because he is such an amazing singer! Patrick has added quite a bit to our song list- some blues stuff, and some R 'n' B. Oh yeah, and if we get a little funky, that's his influence. He is also playing trumpet and flugelhorn and some percussion with us to add even more spice...
So we started practicing early last summer, and have been honing in on a great list of songs. Our goal is to play great blues tunes from the old school southern blues, through the Texas blues of ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddie King, then hit some of the blues influenced rock of the 1960's British Invasion (with a little Jeff Beck tangent), to the blues rock of the 1970's in America, with a little Doobie Brothers, Stevie Wonder and Chicago. I am extremely happy with the result- great musicians playing timeless material in a setting that lets me stretch my guitar playing to a new level. Where the Blues road will take us, we really don't know yet. I am sure that at some point we will pen a few blues tunes ourselves. (Look for one coming up soon on our MySpace page.)
But for now, we are confident that we have an interesting set of material with high octane musicianship that will make us stand out among the hundreds of cover bands in the Seattle area.
