the hum / By Bob Doran

Luminescent

The jamband crowd will be at HumBrews April Fool’s Day to hear Zilla, a jamming trio out of Boulder led by percussionist Michael Travis of String Cheese Incident fame. He’s the drummer (natch) but also simultaneously plays keyboards and something called a mallet Kat. Aaron Holstein handles bass chores, plays keys and does that vocoder thing (voice into music). Last but not least there’s Jamie Janover on electric kalimba, mini-sitar, sampler, percussion, tongue drum, water (you have to see it) and hammered dulcimer - and he’s serious, a national champion on hammered dulcimer. Think ancient and modern, and Godzilla without god.

I had a little work done on my car Monday. When I was paying my bill, Morgan, head honcho at Redwood Automotive, asked what I was doing next Monday. I had to admit I did not know. His suggestion? Make it down to the Jambalaya for the second edition of the Humboldt Blues Association‘s monthly Blues Jam, where he’ll be jamming on guitar. Sorry to say I missed the first one, but by all accounts it was a ripper with many fervent toasts to the Jam’s good ol’ days. The jam at the Jam Monday, April 2, features The Mamma Jammas as house band, which should bode well since Andy Widman is a fine blues guitar slinger. Soulful M.J. vocalist Cathy Thompson will be in the house as well.

“Did you hear about Absynth?” someone asked. I starting hearing rumors a couple of weeks ago, and sadly, it’s true, the members of the Absynth Quintet are going their separate ways, as I learned the night of Pete and Belle’s wedding (great party BTW). So I was surprised to see that Absynth is playing at Red Fox Wednesday April 4. Turns out it’s a different band. As Ryan from A.Q. noted, there are bands with that name all over. This one’s a synthy jamband/electronica trio out of Tahoe, touring with the post-rock trio Lazlo Hollyfeld out of Buffalo, New York. Ryan, who was picking at the wedding party as half of Spandex Djalopy, assured me he will go on to make music with other like-minded souls, as will the other members of the quintet. New bands will sprout, grow tall, fade away and so on. I’ve always told Ryan that A.Q. was dying for a fiddler - maybe he’ll be inspired by the luminescent Sarah and form a local gypsy-tango-klezmer-punk-acoustic-stringband. Hell, I’d go see them. Wouldn’t you?

1 2 3 SHARE