As the frontman of a well-oiled, American roots rock ’n’ roll quartet, Massachusetts native Stephen Kellogg is no stranger to the road.
The singer/songwriter/ guitarist and his sidemen, The Sixers — drummer Brian “Boots” Factor, bassist and pianist Keith “Goose” Karlson and guitarist Chris Soucy — are so at home on the bandstand that they spent exactly nine days recording the tracks to their latest album, “Glassjaw Boxer.” That’s not to say they don’t like being at home, spending time with friends and family, but it just so happens that the group, in recent memory, has traveled the country, and in fact, racked up nearly 300 shows in a year.
Kellogg said his biggest regret is feeling like he hurried through a project that usually takes a bit more time; nonetheless, the result is an untreated collection of songs with a style evoking a kind of musical realism, which is to say most of the songs on the album don’t disappoint when played on stage. The songs’ recorded textures as heard through an iPod or stereo are easily recreated when played live because they don’t stray into a world of slick productions.
Nicole Atkins is the hottest singer no one has ever heard of. Sort of. The New Jersey native has performed on David Letterman's show while Rolling Stone dubbed her an “Artist to Watch,” not to mention she is considered a precious gem within the artistically bejeweled city of New York.
The 29-year-old's debut album with Columbia Records is inspired by her hometown and shares its name with the New Jersey seaside enclave: “Neptune City,” just down the road from Asbury Park in a state known as the land of Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi.
“I wrote this whole record at a time when I was just moving back to New Jersey after not living there for eight years,” said Atkins, “So it was all about trying to make myself OK with living there again. It's actually getting a lot easier for me to be there because I'm on the road all the time so when I get home, that familiarity is really intoxicating.”
The album, recorded in the height of winter in Sweden, seems to encapsulate the love/hate relationship Atkins once had with Neptune City and the kind of opaque and nautical qualities of the Jersey shore that give the music textures and sounds that feel like the soundtrack to the sea. It also exemplifies her stylistic mood she calls “pop noir.”
“I don't really ask too many questions and later on I can apply it to my own situation to see where it fits into my life, but normally when I write songs I write down whatever comes into my head, and I try not to make it too linear,. I'm not a big fan of writing about what's going on in my life,” said Texas-based rock 'n' roll singer Bob Schneider about the songwriting process.
His latest album entitled “The Californian” is a collection of 14 songs recorded live - with the exception of a few vocal and guitar overdubs - in Austin at Jack Rocks studio, and are part of 27 songs recorded over a period of about four days. The work documents Schneider's band - aptly called The Bob Schneider Band - before the departure of its guitarist Billy Harvey who left once the group wrapped on the work. Schneider originally convinced Harvey to play with the band - Bruce Hughes on bass, Derek Morris on keys and Rafael Gayol on drums - for three weeks in 2001, which turned into four years.
“We have been playing as a band for a few years now and touring nonstop so we knew the material pretty well,” said Schneider about recording “The Californian” released in 2005. “We just went in and blasted through it. It was pretty crazy.”
“There is definitely a spirit of danger and boldness to it, but it seems like no one knows what it means anymore,” said Nathan Warkentin, drummer in the Los Angeles-based band The Colour, on the term rock 'n' roll. “To us, rock 'n' roll is marked by the culture of the times, but also the good songs that have become timeless that people still sing today.”
The Colour is currently playing a January residency at Spaceland in Silverlake every Thursday with its debut album “Between Earth and Sky” set for release in February on the new EMI imprint, Rethink.
Formed in 2003, the quintet - singer Wyatt Hull, guitarists David Quon and Luke MacMaster, bassist Derek VanHeule and Warkentin - took to the road for extensive tours of both the U.K. and the U.S. over the past three years with bands such as Jet, Interpol and the Futureheads. In between past tours, the bandmates, who met when they were all around 18, spent time at their less-than-humble Hollywood abode rehearsing and writing songs in their home studio.
“We kind of write all together - Wyatt generally writes all of the lyrics - even on some of the melodies, so each person contributes their instrumental parts, but we collaborate on that stuff as well, trying to feel what's best for the song,” explained Warkentin. “The two things we really focus on are rhythm and melody.”
If you only had to go on the music of Jonah Smith, chances are you'd probably think he lives in Nashville or New Orleans, but in reality he resides in New York City - a city that has a little or even a lot of everything when it comes to music.
Smith, 30, who rocks out as much as one can on a Fender Rhodes, is the songwriter behind some of the most expressive, serene and soulful compositions of the year all on his self-titled debut album on Relix Records.
“I didn't really have a specific thing in mind, like I wanted to play American roots music when I moved to New York,” said Smith. “I moved to New York to be a songwriter and to be a musician. This is my first national record, I guess you could say. I've recorded two other albums before (one jazz-inspired and the other classic R&B) independently and each record is pretty different from the last one.”
Who says beautiful things can't grow out of Skid Row? With its debut album “Self Help Serenade” recorded in 2002 and now out on the streets in the U.S., the Los Angeles-based band Marjorie Fair has come a long way from its roots in Skid Row and will soon embark on a tour, opening for Sheryl Crow and John Mayer.
According to Evan Slamka, vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the quartet, he and his band mates - Dain Luscombe (keys), Scott Lord (bass) and Mike Delisa (drums) - once lived in a loft in what the city technically deems as Skid Row and what Slamka calls “one of the strangest neighborhoods” in town.
“Living in L.A. is great, the weather can get kind of boring,” said Slamka, who now lives in Echo Park, “But as a musician you have to live in a city because it's hard to stay focused and busy when you're not around other musicians and art. It's pretty lively and vibrant here.”
In what seems to be its most political album to date, Gov't Mule has not only created a work that is a sign of the times, but has also captured the effervescent and vigorous sound trademark to its live shows.
Gov't Mule - Warren Haynes (vocals, guitar), Danny Louis (keyboards), Andy Hess (bass) and Matt Abts (drums) - is coming to town next week performing at the Wiltern Theater in support of its new record, “High & Mighty,” now out on ATO Records.
“We've always had subtle political statements on our albums, but not to this obvious of an extent,” said Haynes about the new work.
In recording “High & Mighty,” all four band members sat around in one room to record the 12 original songs. Some were recorded in New Jersey, but most in Austin, Texas, miles and miles from New York where most of the band resides (Haynes, Hess and Louis live in Manhattan, Brooklyn and upstate New York, respectively). The album marks the second trip into the studio with the current lineup; the last was for the album “Déjà Voodoo.” Based in the rock idiom, the songs reflect a jazz sensibility in terms of the instrumentation with hints of Latin, reggae and blues sounds mixed throughout.
With the release of her debut album “My Denial,” San Francisco-based artist Nya Jade is taking the music world by storm as her music is already garnering the kind of attention common to a no-nonsense female troubadour.
“My Denial” acts like an iPod shuffle in the sense that every song reflects Jade's penchant for the glorious rock sounds of U2 on her song “Molasses,” the social consciousness of a Natalie Merchant on “One Pill,” or the soulful acoustic love song of a Sarah McLachlan on “Next to You.”
“I didn't want to put out a record where every song reminds someone of the last song,” said Jade. “People want a variety, so I thought of what would be cool to put in your car for a road trip from San Francisco to L.A., and not get bored.”
Born in Ghana, Jade (her first name “Nya” means “purposeful” in Swahili and “illustrious” in Gaelic), grew up partly in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Canada as her father traveled the world as a doctor with UNAIDS - a joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS.
Nirvana rocker Kurt Cobain once said something to the effect, “I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.”
Like Cobain, tour-driven troubadour, singer and guitarist Ben Harper doesn't want to be anybody but himself: A man who appeals to a truly diverse array of people from surfers, reggae buffs and the working class to the politically minded, environmental activists and other musicians, just to name a few.
Harper and Damian Marley will embark on a summer tour that begins in Phoenix next week and concludes in mid-September at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The duo will play two shows at the Greek Theatre Aug. 11 and 12.
“I've been a fan of Damian's music for a long time, and all the Marley brothers” said Harper.
Within an eight-year period, the veteran rockers of Soul Asylum have basked in a long-deserving break from life on the road, bid farewell to their drummer, grieved the death of one of its founding members and recorded a new album, appropriately titled “Silver Lining.”
Of Soul Asylum's remaining originators - guitarist Dan Murphy and singer Dave Pirner - the return to the studio - this time in Minneapolis - came with the blessing of bassist Karl Mueller, who died of throat cancer in 2005, but actually played on about half the tracks on “Silver Lining” released on Legacy Records last week.
Michael Bland took over on drums for Sterling Campbell who left the band to play on David Bowie's tour while bassist Tommy Stinson (the only friend of the band that Mueller could endorse for his replacement) rounded out the group for its studio sessions. “Silver Lining” marks Soul Asylum's ninth full-length album.
The Beach Reporter spoke with Murphy about the group's sabbatical, the new work and recording in Minneapolis.
Ray Davies, former frontman for the Kinks and arguably one of the most influential songwriters of rock 'n' roll, set sail on the seas of solitude earlier this year with the release of his first solo record, “Other People's Lives.”
“My strengths as a songwriter, I think I've got a fairly good fix,” said Davies. “I can hone in on detail with people, all right. I do go for the details. You know, it's like little things people do, habits that people have, the way they walk. I do love that sort of observation with my writing, which leads to be sometimes a bit quirky.”
The work, some songs inspired from his time living in the U.S. - an Englishman in New Orleans - also covers subject matter from good and bad breakups to traveling to the media. V2 Records released the long-awaited album in February, which was written, produced and arranged by Davies and recorded in London.
Whether it's about a socialite with an expensive drug habit, a movie star crashing his car on the Santa Monica freeway, a woman who commits suicide by jumping off a bridge or a man finding his gal in bed with his best friend, there is no doubt that singer/songwriter Jackie Greene has a penchant for the unlucky, the disenchanted.
Greene's new album “American Myth” released last month on the Verve Forecast label is the latest installment from a musician who has began to make quite a name for himself as a true American troubadour.
“These songs are all intended to paint a picture of America, in sort of a nonspecific way,” said Greene.
Not only does Greene write lyrics that feature many different walks of life but he also expands upon his many influences to create songs with interesting and melodic hooks that have a taste for the blues, rock and country.
“I try and incorporate all of what I like into my songs, I don't try to censor myself,” said Greene on his wide range of influences that sneak into his work. “I only can make the record I am happy with. I do what I can to try and keep it coherent, but I'm not killing myself over it.”
Greene grew up in Cameron Park, a small town 30 miles outside Sacramento where he taught himself music on the piano in the house. Greene then transitioned over to the guitar, one his father left after his parents split.
As a boy, Greene first took notice to bands like Metallica, Nirvana and Pearl Jam but then turned a corner the summer prior to his freshman year in high school when he discovered his parents' LPs of rock, country, blues and R&B like Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Leadbelly and Muddy Waters.
Greene's recent work “American Myth” constitutes his second album with the label and displays a shift in the recording process in that the record has a live, first-take ambiance as opposed to the overdubbed yet still just as superb “Sweet Somewhere Bound” released in 2005.
“The last album, it just wasn't possible for me to play everything at once, and it was a little bit more meticulous,” said Green about “Sweet Somewhere Bound.” “I had to lay down the guitar parts and drum parts and so on. This new album was recorded better in that we had a much bigger budget so we had better musicians, a lot better gear. At this point in my life, I enjoy playing with a group. There is a whole aspect when you have other people in the room playing with you, it's not just one brain, it's four brains working on one song. They bring to the table all these different elements that you wouldn't get by doing yourself.”
For “American Myth,” Greene recorded with a stellar cast of players including Elvis Costello's borrowed rhythm section bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Pete Thomas, along with Val McCallum, who Green said is one of the “best guitar players” he's ever heard “in his life.”
“A lot of the songs, at least half of them if not more, are live vocals, I had this thing about sitting in a room and recording with a band, a lot of my favorite records are done that way,” said Greene. “It's a way to tap into that burst of discovery and energy, and somehow you lose that when you keep going over things. There are benefits to both methods now that I've done it both ways.”
Both albums are packed with soulful renditions of Greene's original compositions in which the lyrics not only focus on the downtrodden but also a discontentment in life, lost love and regret, the kind of issues common to all people from a mayor to a drag queen to a waitress or a sailor - a few of the characters in “American Myth.” “You can find those kind of people anywhere, but in particular like places like Hollywood it seems like they are a little more abundant there, maybe,” said Greene about his song “Hollywood.” “That is just the way it seems to me. I'm not from there so I don't know but as far as down-and-out people, and whatnot, it's more that everybody has a void, and they deserve to be in songs too, I guess.”
Country artist Lucinda Williams once said, “Willie Nile is a great artist. If there was any justice in this world, I'd be opening up for him instead of him for me.”
Nile, who is a favorite among many songwriters, has yet to garner the kind of mainstream commercial recognition as his contemporaries Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, both of whom he is likened to.
Nile's most recent release, “Streets of New York,” has earned him acclaim from the likes of Lou Reed, Bono, Graham Parker, Jesse Malin and Adam Duritz.
Nile was born in 1949 in Buffalo, N.Y., where he grew up in a musical household thanks to his Irish-Catholic family members.
“My brothers would bring home rock 'n' roll records like the Beatles, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Stones, Dylan and in my home there was a lot of classical music so I was really blessed with a lot of music around,” he said.
His parents observed a policy in which houseguests from all over the world came to stay with the family for extended periods, which had a profound effect on Nile.
Growing up on the East Coast, Nile developed a penchant for the ocean from family vacations (a tradition maintained through the generations beginning with Nile's grandfather) to the coast of New Hampshire.
What do Lakers coach Phil Jackson and the Los Angeles-based group The Southland have in common? Nothing really in particular, except I was introduced to both inside the Hollywood club King King about a year ago.
Jackson, boasting the frame of a superhero with the broadest shoulders I've ever seen, was rumored to be there to check out the quintet's performance as the venue's headlining act.
“Our keyboard player is from Chicago and he (Jackson) knows about us through that, I guess,” said Jed Whedon, the band's lead singer and rhythm guitarist, who co-founded the group with longtime friend Nick Gusikoff, the band's lead guitarist.
“We are old, old friends and we've played together for years. We went to high school together, so it's just sort of a best friend thing, and everything kind of stems from that,” said Whedon on his collaborative relationship with Gusikoff, who co-wrote many of the songs on the band's album, “Influence of Geography.”
In 2002, the duo got together to record a few tunes on a CD that became a Christmas gift for family and friends, one of whom was the son of well-known manager Joe Ruffalo, who was in the midst of establishing his own independent record label, RuffWorld Records.
“We all have gotten a little bit past the part of being a musician where you really want to prove something so we just sort of trust our tastes,” said Whedon about the songwriting process with his band mates. “It's more of a question of taste than a question of creative ability. There are a lot of options at any point. You just try to pick the one that everyone feels is right.”
With offices based in New York City, Los Angeles, the UK and Sweden, RuffWorld Records offered a deal to Whedon and Gusikoff who became its first signed artists. Ruffalo, who has been in the music business for more than 20 years, is the former manager of Prince and a producer of the film “Purple Rain.”
The group's taste in music ranges from John Coltrane, Tony Williams and Stevie Wonder to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Jane's Addiction to Bob Marley, Sly and the Family Stone, the Beatles, Tupac, Randy Newman and, of course, Steely Dan.
“The way that we write music in the band is sort of reactionary. You come up with something and you play off it and see where it would lead,” said Whedon on comparing writing lyrics vs. writing music. “Whereas lyric writing is of the soul, a process that is more of a tortuous experience, but the lyrics are important and usually the lyrics come from the music.”
The duo formed The Southland with former members of Welsh-born singer Jem's band - bassist Ethan Phillips, keyboardist Danny Chaimson - and drummer Andy Crosby, who was working for Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger at the time.
“We all have the ability to play in different projects, and it seems like everyone is in a band in high school and then as you go through life you get down to the people who really want to do it forever,” said Whedon about the group. “We are all at that point when we want to do something you care about and just sort of happened that way in terms of finding all of the guys, we lucked out and we all dig on the same stuff. We all do try and play with other people but this is the band when we play the songs, we really mean it or something.”
“Influence of Geography” consists of 13 songs, some based on real life, like “Creatures,” and others inspired by character studies of fictional people or of friends such as “Debris,” which is about a defunct relationship one can't seem to see past when stuck in it. “There is no way that we can only write from personal experience, especially now that all of our experiences are going to be the same as every other band,” said Whedon with a laugh. “One of the things that I've always been obsessed with is picking a mindset or a person and writing from their point of view.”
The Southland also likes to create variation between the music and lyrics as evident with the song “Shining Sun,” which juxtaposes a brilliantly upbeat melody with less than optimistic lyrics.
“That's one of our favorite things - happy music with sad lyrics,” said Whedon. “Anyone can write a sad song but if you have, musically, a sad song with positive lyrics, then it adds hopefulness or nostalgia to it and on the other end, if you have a really happy song with really dark lyrics then it becomes a Trojan horse in people's minds.”
The album also features the 1950s hit “I Only Have Eyes for You” made famous by the Flamingos.
“The keyboardist Danny (Chaimson) said ‘Why don't we do this.' We listened to the song, it's a very eerie song which you don't really notice when you listen to the oldie version,” said Whedon. “The Flamingos' version is haunting and as soon as we went into the (recording) room, it sort of became what it is in terms of the building choruses, the power of that chorus is so cool, so Danny gets MVP on that song.”
Playing a second straight night at the Long Beach Arena, brash rockers of the band the Foo Fighters made it their mission Sunday night to win over a few of the more devoted Weezer fans, who were there to see their beloved and polite quartet play just prior as co-headliners.
“Our goal tonight is to convert some of the hard-core Weezer fans into drunken, sloppy Foo Fighters fans,” said lead singer and guitarist Dave Grohl who also mentioned that he’s never seen anyone pound a beer bong faster than Weezer’s frontman, Rivers Cuomo.
The foursome - Grohl, drummer Taylor Hawkins, bassist Nate Mendel and guitarist Chris Shiflett - ended the show and dedicated all of the set’s love interludes to their friends in Weezer, who have been touring with the Foo Fighters. The members of Weezer, with their unassuming collared shirts and black-rimmed glasses, are the kind of men you’d invite to an intimate dinner party with perhaps the demure Mendel and Shiflett. However, you’d have to stick Grohl at the kids’ table and ask Hawkins outside to work the valet.
After playing several opening songs including the hit “My Hero” and “Best of You” to a crowd of general admission attendees and the remaining with assigned seats along the arena’s upper levels, Grohl unleashed a robust and loud belch into the microphone.
“I’m a little hung over tonight but I’m feeling a little better and I came into work today, into the office feeling a little sleepy, a little dizzy,” he said.
Throngs of parched teenagers and young college kids put their bodies through the ringer by squishing them up against barricades lining the front of the stage, and with mosh pits forming and security guards grabbing crowd surfers every few minutes, the audience was almost as entertaining as the band.
The group went on to play the romantic ballad “Up In Arms” for those in the nosebleed sections complete with the swaying of floor-level arms that became, “The first and the last arm sway at a Foo Fighters concert,” said Grohl, followed by a short rock ditty for the people in the pit. They also played “Learn to Fly” off the 1999 album “There is Nothing Left to Lose” and the raucous “Stacked Actors.”
Grohl also made light that the Long Beach Arena has been a venue of some “legendary rock concerts,” including the time when Blue Oyster Cult opened for Led Zeppelin, and then went into “DOA” off the new record “In Your Honor.”
Hawkins, behind the drum kit for the entire show, walked out to the front, looking like he just returned from the gym, his thin frame glistening of sweat, wearing a tank top, cotton shorts, white Adidas shoes and the comically colored black socks while smoking a cigarette. Grohl took Hawkins’ place while Hawkins strapped on a red guitar, took a few more drags the same way he did before kicking off the show and sang “Cold Day in the Sun.” The two switched back into their respective spots as Grohl reflected on his years as a drummer (with Nirvana).
“That’s a workout, you got to be in shape. It’s easy being a lead singer,” he said. “I’m glad I gave up that crap.”
The show’s most poignant moment came in a moving rendition of “Everlong” off the 1997 “The Colour & The Shape,” which Grohl sang with only his guitar, showcasing the song’s haunting and striking melody and fleetingly starry-eyed yet tender lyrics that he dedicated to all of the “mellow, old-school fans.” Grohl’s performance culminated when the rest of the band walked back out on stage and finished up the song playing the last four lines of the song (I wonder if everything could ever feel this real forever/If anything could ever be this good again/The only thing I’ll ever ask of you/ You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when) in wild, earsplitting Foo Fighters fashion.
One of its members is making avant-garde jazz records with his quartet; another is part of the group The Sea and Cake; another is the founder of a one-man band featuring guest musicians from Yo La Tengo, Calexico and Stereolab; another is out recording solo projects; and yet another is at home creating mutant jam musicals. So how exactly do the members of Tortoise find the time to record their albums, let alone tour together?
“Our scheduling is pretty ridiculous,” said member Dan Bitney. “But it is really special when we are together and we’ve been pretty active in doing these nearby weekend shows. But it’s tricky as far as writing and scheduling is concerned because we are so involved in other things.”
Spanning 10 years, Tortoise is one of those groups that is a bit hard to categorize and that is just fine with Bitney and his fellow members, John McEntire, John Herndon, Jeff Parker and Doug McCombs, who all don’t just stick to one instrument. They play everything from the six-string bass (McCombs) to the baritone saxophone (Bitney).
It's always worth a trip into Los Angeles to hear a set of songs that maintain the same spirit as their recorded selves, but within the context of a quartet.
The set of songs belonged to Detroit native Brendan Benson's show at the El Rey Theater this past Tuesday.
Benson's albums carry immense musical charm and that is enough even if you don't get to hear the sound of a school bell in his song "Spit it out Now" - its video I recently saw broadcasting in Nordstrom's juniors department - or the patchwork of vocal patterns at the end of "The Alternative to Love," which is the title track to his new album out on V2 Records.
Benson is currently plowing through the last leg of a long-winded tour promoting his new record.
He played tunes ("Tiny Spark," "Metarie," "You're Quite") off his last album "Lapalco" released in 2002 (StarTime Records). He recorded his major label debut "One Mississippi" in 1996 under the Virgin Records label and was subsequently dropped.
According to legend, Benson used the last of his advance money courtesy of Virgin Records to buy a house in Detroit, turning part of it into a studio and pockets of creative spaces where the keys might stand.
The tiny Benson, wearing a V-neck white T-shirt, reflected off the crowd like a well-tuned jazz man, although not as tuned up on his acoustic guitar - the crowd waited dizzyingly as he fixed it.
The group of men playing bass, keys, two guitars and drums also played "Metarie" - the delicate drumming on the chorus had a little more meat on its bones that the recorded version.
Benson did give a "shout out" to Los Angeles with the line "I know a guy, lives in Los Angeles," and then substituting the next line, "Sometimes his life there makes me so jealous" with "I can't figure out why" on the song "Metarie."
Benson continues with a progressive maturity in the department of love in all different forms - from the demise of a relationship to a friend's betrayal to the delusions of an obsessive fan - with "The Alternative to Love" compared to "Lapalco."
Benson has a talent just like Joni Mitchell for creating a sense of identity between their music and the listener through a brilliant rush of lyrics that voice applicable situations, tendencies and personalities expressed by relatable characters speaking in first-, second- and third-person musical narratives. When Benson stands up in front of a crowd and sings, you can't help but feel compelled to stick around after a show and ask him which tunes are actually autobiographical. He so easily slips into the perspectives of various human creatures with all of their flaws and virtues. Like a good piece of fiction, he evokes sympathy in the unsympathetic.
Aside from the lyrics, Benson has also shown his knack for basic composition, writing songs that are brimming with melody, and as once again evident on the new album, the beauty of a rousing arrangement. Benson, born in 1970, left his birthplace of Detroit with his mother and settled a poor neighborhood in New Orleans. He left for Los Angeles when he was 18 and returned to the Big Easy to record "One Mississippi."
If you like Benson on record then you'll probably dig him live and at the end, only wish he played longer.
For most people, the search for one's identity and purpose in the world is a lifelong ambition; and whether it's manifested in the field of education, science, art, writing or activism, the general consensus is that it involves a force bigger than one's self.
For guitar virtuoso Vernon Reid, the task of answering the ubiquitous question of “Who am I?” has been on his mind his entire career.
Although born in England, Reid grew up in one of New York's five boroughs, Brooklyn, where he listened to a variety of musicians and later attended Brooklyn Tech where he studied with jazz legends Rodney Jones and Ted Dunbar.
In the 1980s, Reid founded the trio Living Colour, a two-time Grammy Award-winning group, and has also sat in with musicians as diverse as his tastes from Carlos Santana to Mariah Carey to the Ramones to Public Enemy.
For the first time in its career, the 1990's roots rock band the Wallflowers traveled outside its hometown of Los Angeles to record its latest album, "Rebel Sweetheart," in the southern city of Atlanta.
The group - singer and lead guitarist Jakob Dylan, keyboardist Rami Jaffee, bassist Greg Richling and drummer Fred Eltringham, formerly of the Gigolo Aunts - opted to work with producer Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen) for its new creation completed in 2004. It just so happened that O'Brien enjoys working out of his home studio, Southern Tracks Recording, based in Atlanta.
"Rebel Sweetheart," distributed by Interscope Records, is the group's fifth studio and as usual the songs were written by Dylan. Jaffee and Dylan, both of whom were born and raised in Los Angeles, have remained in the group since its inception in 1991, and over the years have seen a few other members come and go. Richling, however, joined in 1993. The Wallflowers started out on the Virgin Records label, but later got out of its contract and signed with Interscope in 1994.
As a way of bringing the spirit and thrill of the Tennessee-based Bonnaroo Festival to the rest of the United States, headlining musicians Trey Anastasio and Ben Harper will kick off a series of summer concerts across the country dubbed the Zooma Tour, featuring a group of rotating support acts beginning in mid-June.
"It came up and when I heard it was with Trey I jumped at it," said Harper. "Personally, I thought it sounded great, and with the second stage and rotating groups coming on every few days, it just sounded too good not to do."
Harper and Anastasio will begin the tour in New Jersey June 16 and hit 29 cities throughout the season, ending July 31 at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington.
"You know the motion when you're on tour, they take on a life of their own," said Anastasio. "It's a living, breathing thing. At the beginning you're excited, then you go through emotional waves on the whole thing and so this is a change that happens automatically. Location has so much to do with music, so it's going to be different at the Gorge than it is in Cleveland."
The Zooma Tour will showcase music on two stages and an "activity village" with vendors and attractions. Locally, the tour will hit Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater July 28 and includes performances by G. Love & Special Sauce and Galactic.
"What's really cool is Trey and I, we have our own directions of musical interests and appreciation, but we also have a place where we meet dead center," said Harper. "Like our appreciation for, say, Jerry Garcia and Jerry's appreciation for the blues and for Hendrix and for Dylan and for Gillian Welch and Alison Krause. We both have a passion for people like Elizabeth Cotton and Woody Guthrie, all the way to modern music. It would be impossible for us not to musically collaborate and get together on some things.
"I just love making music anywhere any time, and when I'm with Trey, it just feels like the summer has a fresh feel to it. This tour has a fresh feel to it, the way it's structured, the bands that are on it. It draws you in, music pulls you in. There's nothing more seductive than music and love."
Creators of Bonnaroo- Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment - are organizing the Zooma Tour. According to promoters, between 20 and 25 bands and solo artists such as Medeski Martin & Wood, Gomez, Toots & The Maytals, Jurassic 5, Galactic, G. Love & Special Sauce, Black Keys, Brazilian Girls, Ray Lamontagne, Xavier Rudd and Donavon Frankenreiter will perform as rotating guest acts along the tour. Anastasio, Harper and his band the Innocent Criminals will serve as the headlining acts of each show.
"My experience in spending so much time at Bonnaroo is that you've got sort of an informed audience and that this festival is representative of that with all the different kinds of bands, so they wanted to take it on the road," said Anastasio. "That was a natural progression. I know, for myself Phish - my career with Phish was - we did a lot of festivals alone ... and we didn't have a lot of warm-up acts and I'm craving the experience of going out and collaborating with people, right now, at this stage of my career. Ben is somebody I'm dying to play with."
Anastasio, former guitarist of the now-defunct band Phish, played a farewell tour with the group's three other members in 2004 and subsequently began writing new material for his solo effort with his new band, 70 Volt Parade - Peter Chwazik on bass; Les Hall on keys, guitar and synths; Skeeto Valdez on drums; and Ray Paczkowski on keys.
Harper, originally from Claremont, Calif., this year put out the album "There Will Be A Light," collaborating with the Blind Boys of Alabama, a group founded in 1939.
"It's the first record I made that was of one style of music because I tend to jump around a bit. This record reeled me in and showed me the beauty of making a record with that type of synthesis and flow to it of one style and sound," said Harper, "When you're with the Blind Boys, you have to step up in a soulful way that doesn't always serve all the music, so I find myself having to reel myself in from super soul back to just sort of a straighter singing style." Harper is famous for his slide guitar work and soulful crooning while Anastasio has become popular as a virtuoso guitarist.
"The beauty of a jazz festival or the beauty of this kind of a festival, like a Zooma, you know, is you walk around the corner and it's the person you didn't expect to see who'll kick your ass," said Anastasio. "Like Ray's band, my keyboard player, Borgia. They're going to play a couple of shows. They're amazing and nobody knows that they even exist. Gabe Jarrett, Keith Jarrett's son, plays the drums and it's like a jazz trio."
As the frontman of a well-oiled, American roots rock ’n’ roll quartet, Massachusetts native Stephen Kellogg is no stranger to the road.
