the hum / By Bob Doran

Hippie/Punk Mumbo Jumbo

Fishbone is at Mazzotti’s Friday for a blast of ska/punk/funk/etc. Bone-heads, you know the drill: “Party at Ground Zero.” Opening is Dogwood Speaks, a band from S.F. who claim they’re “beyond boundaries.”

Mosgo’s hosts a CD release thing Friday for The P-Town Chronicles: Vol. 1: A Farewell Device. The device is mainly Justin Vanegas formerly of Laden Swallow, who explains, “What started as an off-hand attempt at a solo EP quickly turned into an 11-song rock opera written and recorded with the help of numerous guest musicians,” among them: Maia Wiitala acting as female lead in Justin’s story-songs, guitarist Wolf Navarro and drummer Micah Crossley.

Phil Berkowitz and The Dirty Cats are up from the Bay for a couple of gigs, playing Friday at the Riverwood Inn and Saturday at Blue Lake Casino. Berkowitz is a blues harp player who favors swingin’ jump blues, particularly those of the late great Louis Jordan.

Last time I checked my MySpace page I found a “Friend Request” from Jefferson Starship and learned that Paul Kantner has pulled some of the old crew together and released an album of protest-type songs titled Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty. I knew Starship was coming to play at Cher-Ae Heights Casino, and assumed they were touring behind the new disc. I assumed wrong — totally different band. How’s that? A bit of history may explain: Jefferson Airplane was founded in San Francisco in 1965 by Kantner, Marty Balin and friends. By 1967’s Summer of Love, the Airplane was firmly established at one of the premier psychedelic rock bands. From the ’60s into the ’70s, members came and went; by 1974, Balin was out of the picture, and with Kantner at the controls, the name was changed to Jefferson Starship, in part to mark the band’s evolution. In 1984, Kantner, last of the original crew, left the band and took the Jefferson part of the name with him. What remained was a much different band called merely Starship, with Mickey Thomas as lead singer. Recruited in 1979 from the Elvin Bishop Band (he sang lead on “Fooled Around and Fell in Love”), Thomas brought a poppier sound to the band — and renewed success: The 1985 single “We Built This City” was a No. 1 Billboard hit, and Starship tracks landed on soundtracks for cheesy ’80s flicks like Mannequin and Cocktail. In 1992, Kantner reappeared with a revamped Jefferson Starship and Thomas started billing his act as “Starship featuring Mickey Thomas.” That’s the Starship playing the casino Saturday night, so don’t go expecting “White Rabbit” or “Somebody to Love.”

Improv trio Medeski Martin and Wood returns to the Van Duzer Sunday for a show that’s part of an experiment they call The Radiolarian Series. “The problem with us,” explains keyboardist John Medeski, “is that when we record an album, by the time a record company gets it out, we’ve already been playing the music for six or eight months, and we’re ready to move on.” The experiment, begun earlier this year, has the trio assembling for brief writing retreats to work out new material for a short tour; they then record the songs and release the set on their own Indirecto label. Radiolarians 1, completed earlier this year, is already out. This summer’s R-2 is in the works. Sunday’s show will be part of Radiolarians 3, which will be released with the others as a box set. Is this the future of jazz recording? MMW aren’t worried about that.“We’re just trying to keep it honest, keep it true, and keep the real purpose of music alive for ourselves and for the people who like to hear us play,” says Medeski.

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