the hum / By Bob Doran

Golden?

(April 5, 2007)  For some reason the band portrait from San Francisco-based jamband New Monsoon had me feeling a bit nostalgic. I was a teenager living in the Bay Area when the Summer of Love rolled around 40 years ago. I know there’s some sort of kinship between modern jambands and the bands I heard that summer, at what one might describe as the dawn of the jam era.

When I tracked down the band, they were in a studio in Marin (the other side of the bridge) making a good old-fashioned record (well, a CD anyway). Bassist Ron Johnson laid down his tracks a couple of days ago, so he’s who I spoke with. The Brooklyn-born Johnson is new to Monsoon: he joined up in December after his last gig, with Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, was put on hold as T.U. went on hiatus. He’s part of a leaner Monsoon, a five-piece that was once a septet.

New Monsoon.

GALLERY >

“The band feels a little edgier,” he noted. “The two percussionists are gone, so there’s a lot more space. People say it’s more focused.”

Of course Johnson does not remember the Summer of Love - he wasn’t even born - but he knows all about it. He looks back on it as a time of social change, with the fight for civil rights, the anti-war movement and so on, and is somewhat distressed at the relative apathy he sees in the youth of today.

“Everybody is still trying to sound like that era, but socially everything’s different. It’s a whole different world now, and it’s kind of sad.”

Then there’s the music you hear on the radio today. “I don’t even listen to the radio, it’s crap.” Most radio stations would not even consider playing music like what New Monsoon makes, a loose kind of rock with eclectic influences from all over the globe.

“It makes you wonder why we’re making a record. Just to sell on the road? You make your living on the road nowadays. You don’t make money selling records to some kid who can watch your band on YouTube or download the last show we played for free. Today one record gets passed around and is put on six or seven computers or more, if you’re lucky enough to get someone to buy it.”

Laughing Tiger Studio is “gorgeous” and the band is working with John Cutler, who once worked with the Dead. “And we’re doing it on vintage analogue gear, 2-inch tape, it all sounds great. The whole experience harkens back to our heroes, those bands out of the Bay Area like Santana, Cold Blood, Blue Cheer, the Dead - it’s a tremendous legacy. These guys [in New Monsoon] came to here from all over to live here and to be a San Francisco band.”

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