Strong parent child relationships

Having a strong parent child relationship can really make it easier to parent, and to guide your child to the kind of life you wish them to live. However, like with every relationship, it can be difficult to find the right balance. The following is a look at some tips for how to develop a strong parent child relationship.

Tip one: Know where to draw the line. Being a friend and a cool parent is great, enjoy concerts together, shopping, playing video games, etc. but encouraging your child to drink, take drugs, or enabling their bad habits is crossing the line, and will undermine the parent child relationship rather than strengthen it. Make sure your child knows that while you want to have a fun relationship with them and be their friend, you are their parent first.
Tip two: Set boundaries. While your child may relish the idea of having all kinds of freedom to do what they please, good parent child relationships include rules, boundaries, and consequences that are attached to the said rules. You can let your children go out at night with their friends, but they should be back by a reasonable hour. You can give your child free reign when it comes to when they do their homework, for example, let them do it when they want rather than on your time line, but if they start ignoring it and their grades drop, you step in. The list goes on. The idea is that your kids should have freedoms, and be allowed to make choices, but within acceptable boundaries. Rules show your child you love them enough to not let them screw up their life.
Tip three: Have fun with your child. Parenting can seem like endless rebukes, enforcing rules, and hounding your kids about their choices. It can be difficult to get a good relationship with your child when most of your interaction seems to be negative in nature. So, improve the relationship, and help make it strong by mixing a fair amount of good and fun into the parenting. Let them know they have to spend time with the family, but make that time fun. Take your kids to movies, the beach, to do things they enjoy, etc. Life does not have to be all work and no play, and your family and child or children are the best people to play with.
These three ingredients are going to make a huge difference in the strength of your parent child relationship. Take the time to sit down with your child and establish rules they will follow, and consequences that will be enforced when those rules are broken. Then, be sure to have fun with them, talk to them, and know what is going on in their life. As a parent it is your job to make sure they are not engaged in things that will hurt them, damage their future, or inhibit their potential.

Theft in relationships

Relationships are always going to be somewhat complex. There are going to be things that upset the balance of things, cause fights, problems, and upsets. There are also going to be the times when things are going really well. So, what do you do when you experience theft in your relationships? Consider the following:

1. Relationships are based on trust, and theft is a severe breach of that trust. Whether your sister, father, or significant other steals from you, theft breaches trust. In your relationship, the person should be able to come to you and ask you for money, items, etc. if they need them, not take them from you. Theft has a way of undermining years of trust, and making you weary, and uncertain around the person. It does not matter what they steal or why, theft dooms a relationship because it kills the one thing required for a relationship to truly be healthy.
2. There is not a good reason for theft. Theft is a serious offense, and if you wanted to report it, they could get a criminal record for it. Even if the theft is small, it is illegal and immoral to take something that does not belong to you without permission, whether it is money or an item. If the person you have a relationship tries to justify their theft, you need to remember that it is a character flaw, and let them know that in relationships you require honesty, and that you expect someone to be able to come to you and ask if they need something. This does not mean you will always give them what they ask for, but that you will not tolerate someone stealing from you, especially someone you have a relationship with. You have to put your foot down, or it will happen again and again.
3. Decide what your line is. If you are okay with them stealing small things from you, what will stop them from stealing larger things. If they are willing to take $10 from your wallet or purse, what would stop them from taking $10,000? The point is, theft is theft, and if you justify or allow "small theft" larger thefts will eventually happen. Usually thieves escalate. The relationship may be important enough to you to forgive a theft, but never make it okay. As soon as you do, you ruin your relationship and condemn it to always being subject to the breach of trust, and the insecurity of never knowing if the relationship is real, or if you are being used.
It is unfortunate, but true that people tend to steal from those they know. It is easier, they have better access to things, and are less likely to be reported or punished for it. However, it is a poison to relationships, and should not be tolerated. Report it to the police, put your foot down, and let them know you love them, but not their actions, and that you will not support such actions, or sit by idly and allow them to happen.

Working with family

We all have work, and we all have family, and on their own they can be wonderful. However, sometimes mixing the two can be a nightmare. Most people would caution against working with family. However, there are ways to make it work. Just as any relationship, you can make a working relationship work with family, as long as you follow some rules of conduct. Consider the following:

1. It is professional, but no one can completely separate his or her personal and professional life, so you should not expect someone to. If you do, you are set up for disappointment, and problems. So, if you do not think that working with someone because of personal feelings may conflict with your ability to act professionally, then do not work with them. If someone is going to use personal feelings and problems to blackmail you into higher pay, more time off, or something else, then do not work with them.
2. No favoritism. When working with family, the thing you have to be the most careful about is not favoring family. This is especially important if you are in a position of management, or make decisions regarding pay rates or something else that could be construed as favoritism. It is difficult not to give a little favoritism to family, but be careful that no one else is getting the shaft because of it. For example, do not give a lousy employee extra shifts because they are family, and exclude a good employee from the extra shifts they want.
3. Don't get involved with large amounts of money. Money has a power over people and can make them do stupid things. So, if you want to maintain the relationship, and have happy business dealings, do not get involved with family with large amounts of money. If you want to invest with family, or work with them involving money, only use the money you can manage to lose.
4. Set up professional, legal contracts. It can't hurt, and it keeps everyone being fair and honest, so that personal grudges and problems can't get in the way of you having a job. If you work for your parent, and you get in a fight over how they cut your child's, their grandchild's. hair, would you want your job to be at risk? The point is that if you want to feel safe in your job when working with family, make it a legal contract.
5. Know whom you can work with and whom you can't. Some family is too sensitive, or too confrontational to work with. It can mean a large headache with the guilt factor in that if you fire someone, or reduce their wage, they will not be able to make their bills, and the family will blame you for leaving them destitute.
The rules of working with family are strict and difficult to follow, and it is like working in a mine field, one wrong step can not only affect your relationship, but your business. So, avoid working with family.

When you miss family

The bond some families have is so strong it can stand the test of time and distance, but that does not mean you won't miss your family. In life there are all kinds of reasons we end up far away from family, from jobs, school, missions, etc. But the one thing in common for most people is that they eventually start to miss their family. No matter how exciting or new the place is, when you are away from family, even for a short time, you may miss them. The following are some tips for coping:

1. Journal. A fun way to stay connected and not miss out on what is going on with your family when you are separated is to keep a journal of events and thoughts. This is not like your personal journal, this is more like a record of your day, time, and big deal things. So, this way your family member can read it when they get back, and they won't feel like they missed anything. They won't need any catching up because you will have it all written down for them. An example entry may look like this:
Went to the zoo today, left late, of course, and when we got there it was freezing cold. Most of the animals were indoors, so it just looked like a bunch of empty enclosures. We still had fun though. Not many people were there, so we goofed off, sang silly songs, and rode the carousel.
2. Skype. When you have to be away from your family, it helps if you can talk to them and see them. A great way to do this without expensive flights, and long distance phone charges is to use Skype. It is a program for computer chat, that uses webcams to allow you to talk. It is free, easy to use, and makes for a fun way to see everyone while you talk and catch up.
3. Social networking. While this is not as personal, it does give you a decent sense of what is going on in people's lives, and allows you to see pictures, events, comments, etc. So, when you can't be with your family, you can still communicate (despite time differences), with notes on walls, instant messages, messages, photos, and the like through social networking sites.
4. Emails and letters. A good old fashioned letter is a wonderful way to communicate with family when you miss them. An email is great as well. Send a little note or update about yourself, ask them about them, and you don't have to feel so far away. People who were separated from those they love have communicated like this for years, so use it, it works!
5. Phone and text. Most everyone has cell phones, and text messaging, so use it. It can be hard to carry on a phone conversation with someone you haven't seen in a long time, but it is possible, so call to say hi, or tell them about your day, or send them a joke through text just to stay connected.

Footwork: An Evening of Tap Dance

Click Up Your Heels: SLC Tap’s Deborah Robertson brings a classic dance style out of the shadows.

Posted // March 3,2010 - It’s early evening in the middle of the week in a Salt Lake City nightclub. Like many nightclubs, it’s dark and deserted midweek. But once inside the door, you find complete chaos, a clamoring from above that thunders down a narrow staircase. Reaching the top landing, the disorienting racket smacks you square in the face as a group of … tap dancers? … attempting a new rhythmic sequence displayed by their fearless leader.

The makeshift dance space—tucked into an upstairs corner of the dance club Studio 600—at first feels quite incongruous, sandwiched as it is between billiard tables and a large DJ plinth. But Debby—Deborah Robertson, instructor and leader of the performing group SLC Tap—explains it this way:

“It’s nothing fancy, but it has a great hardwood floor, mirrors and a sound system.

It’s hard to find rehearsal space because most dance studios now have marley-type sprung floors. That doesn’t work with tap. And although it’s a great warehouse space, it does make us feel like we have to hide in a closet. But, we’re used to that.”

With that simple aside, you get the hint that Robertson and her cohorts feel a bit like outsiders in the broader dance community. That slightly bitter tone has been a long time building—mainly fed by a divide propagated by the other half of the equation, if you ask her. But fixing that problem and bringing the raucous joyfulness of tap to everyone is a conscious goal at this point for Robertson. Footwork, a new SLC Tap performance staged in conjunction with the Foot Poetry Tap Dance Ensemble, is one small step toward bringing tap to the people.

It must be hard for tap devotees everywhere to know that the heyday of their beloved dance form peaked decades ago. The precarious plunge into backroom rehearsal spaces began soon after the motion picture industry came of age, eclipsing vaudeville and its whimsical, amusing live shows.

Sure, subsequent iconic cinematic images are now culturally indispensable—like Bill “Mr. Bojangles” Robinson, little Shirley Temple in hand, tapping up and down a set of stairs or busking on the streets for loose change. Unfortunately though, the original greats quickly gave way to the onset of the serious 1960s. Tap dancing seemed to die a long, slow death, falling out of favor with popular audiences as the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam War raged on.

Not until the late 1970s and early 1980s did New Yorkers begin a tap revival of sorts—coaxing the old legends out of their apartment caves, urging them to pass on the memories, the moves and the rhythmic vibrancy of earlier days. By the late ’80s—a time Robertson herself remembers fondly—Gregory Hines and Robertson’s own mentor, Brenda Bufalino, helped to make the whole tip-tap thing popular again. They moved quickly onto the main stage of Broadway with productions like Tap Dogs and the urban stylings of Savion Glover during the 1990s.

But, according to Robertson, even though the popularity and acceptance of tap has grown thanks to such contemporary artists, it is a tradition that has deep roots. That is why it is important that Footwork has a strong foundation in historical pieces, like “Taking a Chance on Love.”

“It is the quintessential tap class act,” says Robertson. “Originally choreographed by Coles & Atkins and then reworked by Coles & Bufalino, I’ve been very lucky to inherit one of the most iconic tap routines of all times directly from my own mentor.”

The piece is not fancy footwork, dizzying spins and acrobatic leaps. No, this soft-shoe routine is pure style, perfectly demonstrating amazing foot skill, balance and percussive grace. Performed as part of the same program will be pieces choreographed by Bill Evans, plus works by Colleen West, founder of Foot Poetry Tap Dance Ensemble, and others.

As much as Robertson hammers home the necessity of lineage, she is also keenly aware that by pushing the boundaries of tap, she keeps interest fresh for future generations. “I personally love to choreograph to anything with a strong percussive beat,” she says. “I love a lot of rap, and my piece ‘Green Sally,’ which will be in the program, uses a song by Moby. Colleen, for her part, has a great Michael Jackson tribute and a piece called ‘Discomania’ that people just love.”

Therein lies the kicker, because as much as those tap aficionados feel forced to hide in the closet, percussive dance is always an audience favorite. So, although tap dancers everywhere might be relegated to rehearsing in shadowy locations far off the beaten path, the bright lights of the main stage are ready to spotlight that contagious click and clack of the tap.

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company: Propel

Accidentally on Purpose: Propel disrupts the expected with choreographed improvisation.

 Choreographer John Jasperse

Posted // April 21,2010 - There is an oft-quoted John Lennon lyric from his song “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” which was penned as a lullaby for his son Sean: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” This sentiment about the accidental nature of living—and the splendor to be found therein—plays an important role in the inspiration for New York City-based choreographer John Jasperse’s new work, premiering as part of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s spring performance Propel. In fact, the title of the commissioned piece “Spurts of Activity Before the Emptiness of Late Afternoon” comes directly from a poem of another New Yorker, John Ashbery. Embedded in the aesthetic of Ashbery’s poetry is that idea of embracing the slapdash way life comes at us, sculpting those meanderings into meaningful structures and artistic explorations.
“Our lives are very full,” Jasperse says. “We spend a lot of time doing, trying to shape our experiences and our world. What time is left is often filled with planning other things to do. Accidents, where experience diverges from our plan, are mostly considered something to avoid.
“Nonetheless, the accidental is constantly interrupting this flow, ‘messing up’ our plans. Sometimes our plans are so willed that we don’t even notice these accidents in our experience. Virtuosity and the display of difficult actions, where the accidental has been conquered, is a key feature of dance’s history.”
As a creative jumping-off point, Jasperse began with an improvisational score and movement sourced in ideas of confusion and disorientation. He laid out a few basic rules for the dancers and then let them loose. After taping the sessions, he returned to the dancers and extracted specific cells of movement, pulling phrases out of one context and plying them into another, or removing them altogether into a solo space all of their own. By fashioning various pieces in this manner—ultimately creating a collage interspersed with space and experienced over time—Jasperse’s choreography engages the audience in a unique way that will have them questioning the accidental or intuitive nature of both everyday movement and the artistic development of dance.

Lost by Charlotte Boye-Christensen.

If My Right Hand Would Say What My Left Hand Thought  by Alicia Sanchez

“The way we developed this movement became about material that was generated not because we thought something looked cool, or we wanted to make a cool-looking move,” says Jasperse. “We wanted to try and embody a certain experiential state, extract that pedestrian aesthetic of the movement and use that as building blocks.
“The thing is, even with the most excellently trained dancers, the scope of dance is relatively restrained. This way, rather than look at that as some sort of disability or something that dance lacks, I could focus on the way in which it brings you into a new kind of experience of corporal reality.”
Another aspect of doing so is by incorporating heavily designed sets and props, an aspect that Jasperse’s work is also well-known for. With “Spurts …” he clearly departs from this well-worn path; the lack of a set becomes the design. The wings are left open, the stage lights hang bare and the audience can see all the scaffolding that normally sits well-hidden behind the scenes. In fact, the rear wall of the stage—a wall that hardly ever sees the light of day—remains bare, becoming the backside of a proscenium box that almost feels as if it has no boundaries.
Because dance is inherently a visual form, that bare stage and the sheer distance between the dancers and the audience imbues the piece with the important nature of silence and empty space—more specifically, how action and movement openly defies and shapes that emptiness and silence. Further, the seemingly pedestrian movements and lack of set contribute to an overall sense of familiarity, like you are watching someone you think you know moving about a space you almost feel a part of. While sitting in a theater watching a choreographed dance, nothing feels more accidentally natural. 

Jerry Joseph

New York Groove: Former Salt Lake City/Portland singer-songwriter Jerry Joseph finds a new home in Harlem.

Jerry Joseph’s story—addiction, applause, anonymity— is familiar to most Salt Lakers, since this was the singer-songwriter’s home base for so many years. Newbies need to know at least this: His late-1980s band Little Women was poised to be huge. They had famous-friend fans who bowed to Joseph’s songs and wanted to help. Drugs ruined everything, and by 1994 the band was no more. Joseph got clean, moved to Utah (briefly, before returning to Portland, Ore.), and formed The Jackmormons. The powerful support never abated, and each new album got the same effusive praise, but still, success eluded Jerry Joseph.

Each time City Weekly has spoken to him over the years, Joseph has talked of redemption and continuing struggle and gratitude for what he’s accomplished, not what one might call his “due.” Relentlessly philosophical, occasionally cynical, he trudged on, looking ever the picture of forward motion. Talking to him now, hearing about the birth of his third child (many years removed from Joseph’s first two children), that picture is clear—at least until he says he’s been living in Harlem for three-and-a-half years.

Harlem? Harlem, Harlem? As in, New York City? Seriously? “Yeah,” says Joseph. “It’s a little weird, standing here talking to you on the corner of 3rd and Adam Clayton Powell, where I live. It’s like, ‘Welcome to the world, kid.’ Crazy, crazy place to have an infant.”

He says it’s different from the rest of Manhattan.

Everyone knows, even if it’s a stereotype, that this is the alpha ghetto—literally and figuratively. “It’s ridiculously crazy. It’s also kinda cool.”

Joseph knows from crazy, knows from cool. This is almost his world, or at least something like a place he lived for a while and can navigate fairly well. So, when he says it’s kinda cool, “maybe a little more community-oriented on some level,” it sounds like a joke. He laughs, follows up his comment with, “Certainly a lot more dangerous.” It’s funny ’cause it’s all true.

On the corner where Joseph stands, he sets the scene.

Within a 50-yard radius—right now—he can see “all the shit that’s going on,” all the “dealers and hookers and homeless and cops.” All this among the citizens of Harlem, a melange of “Africans, African-Americans, Dominicans, Mexicans” all of them “figurin’ it out.”

“We sit on the corner and watch the struggle,” says Joseph, trailing off and mumbling something that sounds like “Bob Marley,” as if the sentence is a lyric. Whoever said it, the reggae sage or the rock & roll bard, it’s powerful. Finally, I have to ask Joseph if that’s the best place for him. Isn’t recovery a lifelong endeavor?

He laughs a sheepish mea culpa. It’s funny ’cause it’s true. It’s also a huge bummer. Relapse is a bitch. But he’s going to meetings, and it helps to see that others have it worse than he does, and it helps him stay grateful. “It’s not something I really wanna talk about … in print,” he says. He does, anyway; he never runs from it, which may be why he’s still alive.

Life now is good for Joseph. Since 2001, his profile has increased tremendously—on a relative scale—as he released each new album. He wrote about how he was starting to gain on that brass ring, and more and more, it appeared Joseph actually was. In 2004, he formed The Stockholm Syndrome with Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools (Panic being one of those famous-friend fans) and that record got more attention. So did his next two albums, Cherry and April Nineteenth, and his new band project The Denmark Veseys (with erstwhile Dexter Grove member Steve Drizos). There’s a new EP, Charge, a stopgap release on Joseph’s own Cosmo Sex School label, that could increase his profile even more if its title track manages to circulate.

In the song, he sings of standing on that same street corner on the night Obama won the presidency and being overcome by the power of the moment. “It was like the first democratic election in El Salvador. It was like, so heavy,” Joseph marvels. “I’ve never been hugged by so many strangers.”
Joseph’s audibly still awestruck by the experience—and happy. He has a new family in his house and in his neighborhood, his meetings and his music. (Joseph wants to say here that he’s especially thrilled that friend and former Jackmormons drummer Adam Sorensen will join him for a Salt Lake City show on Sunday.)

Killola

Canceled: Saturday Aug. 14 at The Complex

  Lisa Rieffel has two accomplishments to her name that are so dissimilar it’s outlandish to imagine both of them associated with the same person.

First, she once held a recurring role on The King of Queens, the painfully benign, now (thankfully) defunct CBS sitcom. Second, after eight years of being the frontwoman of Killola, she’s able to admit, “I’ve done every function the human body can have on stage.” With a chuckle, she quickly adds, “I don’t know if you should even write that,” before elaborating on her revelation a few seconds later. “Oftentimes, I get too excited when we’re [performing] and I’ll throw up, which is always fun for the people watching. You get so in the moment and your body is like, ‘I can only go so hard right now. You need to calm down or I’m going to vomit.’ And that happens.”

Instead of being embarrassed by her unfortunate habit, Rieffel’s delighted by it. Minutes later, she rattles off an anecdote in which a fellow actress once called Rieffel “disgusting” to her face. The vocalist embraces that epithet as a kind of rock & roll honor. While she’s “a little bit more reserved” when it’s time to act, Rieffel’s stage persona amps up her side as a “really bad girl.” Often coated in glam-rock makeup, she wails, purrs and croons alongside her band’s punchy garage/punk rock, moving where her whims take her. “Some nights, it’s calm, and some nights, I’m literally hanging from the rafters,” she says. “It depends on the night and the moment. I’ve been told I get a little nuts.” Blacking out during sets isn’t an infrequent occurrence. That sensation isn’t really due to boozing, but rather is a byproduct of her manic, full-throttle antics. Sometimes, she can only recall pieces of a show when discussing it the next day—a case of memory loss she regards as positive.

Rieffel started acting at the age of 5 and was performing in musicals soon thereafter, gradually building toward being part of a rock outfit. As she went through a handful of groups (the first was “really, really, really shitty”), she became particularly frustrated with one project that ended up with a producer trying to market her in a way she abhorred. “My manager at the time was into making me the hot pop star, and would take me to labels and be like, ‘She’s sexy, right?’ ” she says. “It was so degrading. I have so much more to offer than just being fuckin’ cute, and it made me want to stab everyone in the office.”

Killola, on the other hand, allows her to exorcise her aggression and get introspective in a way she prefers. Let’s Get Associated, the four-piece’s latest, is stuffed with multi-hued bric-a-brac: straightforward rock rhythms, mopey confessions, unabashed come-ons, an acoustic guitar, overbearing electronica and a track intro that cribs the famous Tetris theme. Even on record, Rieffel’s presence cannot be ignored. She contorts her voice with an impressive fearlessness, changing tones constantly. On “Traffic,” she emulates Divinyls’ Christina Amphlett, but a song later, on “She’s a Bitch,” she’s slithering around like Peaches. Associated isn’t mind-blowing or particularly provocative, and its production does lend it unnecessary polish when some grime would work better, but the sum experience is ambitious and consistently entertaining.

In the upcoming film adaptation of Girltrash!, Angela Robinson’s online television series, Rieffel will get a chance to combine her talents as she both appears in the movie and scores it with Killola. Even though Associated was just released Aug. 10, Rieffel already has a hefty list of Killola projects still forthcoming: Three songs have been written for the next record, there’s Girltrash! and its soundtrack and then perhaps another Killola DVD. Though she carries herself without limits in shows, she can’t fathom the notion of her band burning out any time soon. “Oh, no, no, get used to us. If we weren’t doing this, I don’t know what we’d do,” she says, before cobbling together a strange alternative and laughing again. “We’d be serial killers, so thank your lucky stars there’s Killola.”

SLC's Lost Harmonica Players

Searching for the hidden harps

Photo by Angela Brown // 'Bad' Brad Wheeler

Posted // May 10,2012 - Most musical instruments are not primarily associated with one particular style of music, especially in these days of cross-cultural collaborative adventures.
The exception is the harmonica.
Sure, notable harmonica artists can be found in country, folk, jazz, Irish, bluegrass and even hip-hop, but outside of blues, the harp (from the moniker “mouth harp”) just really isn’t the musician’s instrument of choice. Rock has a goodly number of harp players, but mostly they’re just playing solos and accents. For full-time, full-on harmonica, blues is where it’s at, hands down.
Indeed, the explosion of the blues in the 1950s was fueled by the talents of such great harp players as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Little Walter Jacobs and Big Walter Horton, and Muddy Waters always insisted on having a harmonica player in his bands. The blues flame got a renewed flare in the late ’60s through James Cotton, the late Paul Butterfield and John Mayall, and today continues to burn brightly with such masters as Charlie Musselwhite, Kim Wilson, Mark Hummel and, until his death in 2009, Norton Buffalo.
Still, the mainstream limelight just never quite shines on harmonica players.
Standing tall both literally and figuratively, Brad Wheeler fights that obscurity. A popular DJ on KRCL Radio (90.9 FM), he is also half of local band The Legendary Porch Pounders. Wheeler’s harp stylings helped propel the group to a win in the 2005 City Weekly Showdown to SXSW competition, and since then have also kept him busy on the side with a variety of guest slots for bands around town. “Bad Brad” taught in an educational program for elementary students in the Davis and Weber County school districts called Blues in the Schools, in which he estimates over 50,000 kids were introduced to the harmonica.
Regarding the harp’s apparent MIA status, Wheeler agrees. “Mostly, it is found in the blues. But because blues is the root of American music—a powerful, universal language—I find it touches so many people.” When asked if, as a Universal Life Church minister, he takes to heart the famous Blues Brothers directive, Wheeler is emphatic. “Absolutely! I’m on a mission from God—a mission for the blues. Giving kids a harp is the most amazing thing. It’s shown me that music is therapy, that playing can change a kid socially and give him a real source of pride. Harp may be hidden, but I know that there’s a wave of kids coming up.”
Harmonica playing probably wouldn’t be something most people would associate with Kurt Bestor, the talented, Emmy Award-winning, local composer best known for his long-running Christmas concerts, as well as a lengthy discography and film-scoring credits. “I have 30 harps; it’s the poor-boy’s oboe. It’s true—other than the blues, you don’t hear it featured a lot. But it adds color and is authentic—a bit of Americana.”
In a moment of life imitating art, Bestor learned to play harmonica in Yugoslavia (on another sort of “mission from God”) from an LDS-mission companion while hitchhiking through the country, reminiscent of Kristofferson’s classic harp song “Me & Bobby McGee.” “It’s easy to play quickly,” he says, “but hard to play well. It adds an unmistakable feel, just the perfect accent.”
Rick Anderson has played harmonica for over 30 years, known from a long stint with former locals The Tempo Timers to his last band, Hoodoo Blues. “I might not be the only harp player in Utah County,” he says with a laugh, “but I haven’t heard of anybody else.” Anderson has played a variety of musical styles including country, but feels that harmonica is mostly the province of the blues. “It’s where I heard the players who really move me. I took up harp, as there were not too many others playing it—mostly just lots of guitarists.”
As for harmonica players in Utah, Mickey Raphael was only partly kidding with his reply: “Are there any?” From his 30-plus years of playing with Willie Nelson, Raphael is probably one of the best-known harp men outside of the blues. “I’m an anomaly,” he says of his playing. “I’m trying to change the stereotypical impression and make it so there are not so many parameters for harmonica.”
Raphael, a native of Dallas, Texas, is doing just that through his outside gigs with U2, Elton John, Mötley Crüe and Neil Young, among others. Still, while certainly prestigious, his 2011 nomination for the Academy of Country Music Award for Top Specialty Instrument Player of the Year doesn’t point to much acknowledgment of those eclectic efforts. Raphael spends half his time in Nashville and the other half with his girlfriend, Brenda, in Cottonwood Heights, “but I don’t really do any jamming or playing in Salt Lake City except with Willie.”
Harry Lee & the Back Alley Blues Band have been a staple around town for 23 years. “I started playing when I was 16,” Lee says, “when I found a harp at a party and the guy never came back for it.” Lee agrees that blues, not surprisingly, is where harmonica is mostly found. “You’ll hear it in folk,” he notes, “but with a different technique and scale. For dynamic, reed-bending playing, it’s definitely the blues.”
For 22 years, Howard Horwitz has worked passionately on his harmonica playing when not teaching English at the University of Utah. “I’ve played in a lot of different bands, like Mr. Lucky and The Daily Blues,” Horwitz says. “Right now, I’m with Tony Holiday & the Velvetones, and that’s sort of a Texas-bluesy style.”
Horowitz understands why blues is pretty much the main place harp is found. “It’s the nature of the instrument,” he explains. “People don’t actually study it—there’s not a lot of music for harmonica—and so they start with it and then get lost. Blues is what they hear with the harmonica, and where they hear it.”
While not abundant, there are several good local harp players to be found, including Robby Kap with the Kap Brothers Band, Nick Greco and Blues on First, Chris Condie, and Snakey Jake playing with Zach Parrish.
For me, each time I replay “The Santa Train,” a short harmonica riff Buffalo played so wonderfully on my telephone message recorder one Christmas morning, it forever keeps the harp—and him—front and center. 

Artists for Local Agriculture

Food-sourcing meets DIY activism

Carissa Gardner & Mike Cundick of AFLA
Posted // May 16,2012 -

Michael Pollan slapped Mike Cundick in the face. The best-selling author and food-policy activist, Pollan, doesn’t have anything against the lead singer of local punk band Loom, he’s just like that—at least, when he drops knowledge. The Omnivore’s Dilemma opened Cundick’s eyes to how Americans and, more specifically, how he, his friends and his family, eat and source food. Cundick, on tour at the time, decided to strike out for change.

When he returned home, he called friend Dreu Hudson, I Am the Ocean frontman, to form Artists for Local Agriculture. “The chief complaint that we heard from people is that [activists and agriculturists] can’t make caring about local agriculture ‘hip,’” Hudson says.

The new nonprofit’s mission statement hones in on that: “People gravitate toward art and the artists behind it, and there is no better platform for engaging communities with positive change than through art.” Artists for Local Agriculture hopes to plant awareness seedlings in the community—for a younger, concert-going demographic—about everything from corporate agriculture to the needs of local farmers to what Hudson describes as “the benefits of growing, buying and consuming local and sustainable foods,” while raising money for local farms. The first fundraisers are set statewide with seven showcases from May 15 to 20, with local bands like Muscle Hawk, Cornered by Zombies and Loom, among others, slated to perform. At each concert, a minimum of $1 from each ticket will benefit a selected local farm or nonprofit.

This sort of grass-roots project isn’t anything new to Cundick or Hudson. “Coming from the DIY scene and playing in punk bands, this is where we started,” Hudson says. “It’s a kind of an up-yours-to-the-establishment mentality, and you want to make your own mark on the world.” He continues to say that it’s also about empowerment and education—two principles befitting a local agricultural revolution.

Music and the arts work best in communicating specific, poignant messages, so Artists for Local Agriculture thinks this union will be harmonious. While the current roster of supporting musicians leans primarily toward punk rock, Hudson says their goal is to make the genres all-encompassing; there are currently visual artists involved, as well.

Carissa Gardner, Artists for Local Agriculture operations manager, says that membership to the organization is free, and folks can sign up at AFLARevolution.org to receive information about upcoming events. “We want to educate ourselves and others around us,” Gardner says of the board’s—primarily made up of musicians—interest in expanding its knowledge base in this field. Beyond concerts and membership, AFLA hopes to create a structure so that other branches could be established outside of the homestead, in cities throughout the United States, Gardner says. But it all starts locally first.

CONCERT SERIES
Jesus or Genome, Danny the Skeleton Horse, White Nite, Andy Rice, Dut Dut @ Why Sound 30 Federal Ave., Logan, Tuesday, May 15, 6 p.m. $8
Jesus or Genome, Joel Pack, Utah Slim, Adam Virostka (I Am the Ocean), Trey Gardner (God’s Revolver) @ Poplar Street Pub, 242 S. 200 West, Wednesday, May 16, 9 p.m. $6
Gaza, Loom, Merlin’s Beard, Gunfight Fever, Cedars @ The Basement, 3109 Wall Ave., Ogden, Thursday, May 17, 8 p.m. $7
Day Hymns, Loom, Maraloka @ Muse Music 151 N. University Ave., Provo, Friday, May 18, 6:30 p.m. $5
Despite Despair, John Ross Boyce & His Troubles, God’s Revolver @ ABG’s 190 W. Center St., Provo Friday, May 18 9:30 p.m. $5
Muscle Hawk, Dark Seas, Jesus or Genome, DJ Street Jesus @ The Urban Lounge 251 S. 500 East Saturday, May 19 9 p.m. $6
Cornered by Zombies, Done, Cicadas, Worst Friends @ The Urban Lounge, Sunday, May 20, 9 p.m. $6

Colourmusic

Experimental expressions of color

Colourmusic shares more than the home state of Oklahoma with the Flaming Lips. They’ve shared the stage on multiple occasions, and they share an unrelenting work ethic and desire to create experimental music.

For Colourmusic, each tone, chord and melody has a mood that is associated with a color. Since their inception in 2005, with color as their guiding principle, they released collections of songs about red, yellow and orange. They followed up this year with My ____ is Pink.

“The color definitely comes first,” Colourmusic drummer Nick Ley explains of their creative process. “We’ll ask ourselves, for example, ‘What does pink mean? What does it sound like?’ ” They answer the question with guitars, vocals, bass and drums.

“So it’s our own subjective definition of that color, but we are able to use it as a guideline to debate and sharpen the sound of our project,” he says.

On My ____ is Pink, the resulting product is a hard-rocking, yet somber sound dominated by droning guitar chords, sparse yet lyrical drumming, bass melodies and reverb-hued vocal harmonies. Each song has a vocal hook that could land them on commercial radio. But this band might be too experimental for such a fate.

Their live performance is equally experimental. Band members perform in body paint and suits that correspond with the music’s color themes. When Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne heard of their onstage theatrics, he invited them to play a few gigs with the Lips.

“Since then, we’ve had various interactions with Wayne [Coyne],” Ley says. They’ve played numerous gigs together, including a Tonight Show segment hosted by Wayne Coyne in Austin during SXSW in 2007.
The Coyne/Colourmusic connection continued in the recent video for the song “Tog,” from My ____ is Pink. Coyne added support by covering the crowd with colored goo during the video.

Aside from goo-spraying skills, Coyne and company act as godfathers to the local scene. “The greatest thing about the Lips is the example they set for other Oklahoma bands. Their insane work ethic, creative and ambitious albums and unbeatable live show made us aim for their level of success from the beginning,” Ley says.

And Colourmusic is continually raising their own bar. The color-album project is ambitious, and the band works endlessly to hone their sound and their live performance.

“Right now, we are focusing on the raw energy and power that the new songs compel us to deliver,” Ley says of the live show. But in order to achieve Flaming Lips status, “We’ve got a long way to go. I mean, the Lips are, hands down, the best live show you can see today. If you’ve seen them, you know. If you haven’t, you’re blowing it.”

The Lazy Waves

SLC indie-pop band wait for the tide

Daniel Fischer—aka Fisch—chooses interesting spots for interviews. When City Weekly interviewed his band the Rotten Musicians, it was at The Original Pancake House. For The Lazy Waves, Fisch’s new band with Michael Gross (Michael Gross & the Statuettes, The Brobecks) and Matt Glass (also of the Statuettes), it’s a McDonald’s inside Walmart. “[The Original Pancake House] was just because they had pumpkin pancakes at the time,” Fisch says. “They’re so kill.” Mickey D’s in Wallyworld, however? Simple convenience.

The Lazy Waves came together as expediently. Fisch, a veteran of another well-known local hip-hop group, Numbs, and half of the late Tooth & Nail trip-hop duo Furthermore, wanted to do more “singing-based, beat stuff rather than just rap.” Fisch met Gross two years ago while the latter was in The Brobecks, and they clicked. Fisch had “shotgunned” tracks out to local singers, and the scattershot caught Gross. “He was one of the few that actually responded with lyrics,” Fisch recalls. Mutual friend/studio rat Glass had an armory of recording equipment at his house, so he recorded Gross’s vocals for what became “Sundown.”

Gross said Fisch’s staticky, laid-back groove reminded him of an evening in late spring or early summer when he was planting a garden, and “other nice things.” Glass picked up on the vibe, adding keyboard textures to flesh out the song, which bloomed into a lazy, hypnotic wave of indie pop and feel-good Philly soul. “I was just happy that it wasn’t a rap song,” Fisch quips. “It’s not rap and it feels good, which was new for me.”

He started making more beats “specifically for Mike.” Glass continued to record and embellish them. Soon the band that didn’t mean to be a band had enough songs for an unintended eponymous debut. “After a year of it just sitting around, we just decided to gung-ho it,” Gross says—at least as far as pressing several hundred copies of the disc, sending some out to radio stations and music publications and offering it for free download on BandCamp.com.

Fisch is busy with Rotten Musicians, Numbs, Fisch Loops, Dani Lion and sundry other projects; Gross has Michael Gross & the Statuettes. The Lazy Waves can’t gig because Glass lives in Michigan, where he studies photography at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. And even if they could play out, the three of them couldn’t faithfully reproduce the sounds without “a lot more musicians,” Gross says. For now, they record a song or two whenever Glass is home on break.

It’s a shame. The self-titled debut has legs. Although Fisch extols the virtues of his first not-rap project, the band’s sound has something for everybody—even underground hip-hop fans, who’ll respond to Fisch’s beats. In fact, a wide range of people from kids to MMA fighters to strip club bouncers have raved to City Weekly or the band about the album. “A lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds and tastes seem to be digging it, which is interesting,” Gross says.

That’s because, as well as being stylistically inclusive, The Lazy Waves’ songs have something for everyone. In fact, “Sundown,” as with the Paul Weller-meets-Death Cab for Cutie soul jam “Get Me Through This,” smoothly seductive “Groovin’ With Each Other” and haunted head-game lamentation “Cruise Control,” should have music supervisors from film and television slobbering because they’re cinematic and widely accessible.

True to their name and origin, though, the Lazy Waves are content to wait and see. Their press mailing went out “only to publications we thought would genuinely be interested in what we do,” Fisch says. “And President Obama,” interjects Glass. Other than that, “we told our friends about it,” says Gross. Word of mouth can dictate the album’s success; if something happens, something happens.

Punch Brothers

Classical Meets the Future: Punch Brothers channel Mozart and Radiohead on their new album.

  Readers, you gotta see this. Go to YouTube.com. Search for “Punch Brothers, packt,” and then watch the Punch Brothers play Radiohead’s “Packt Like Sardines In a Crushed Tin Box” on traditional bluegrass instruments.

Yes, they play the song on mandolin, banjo, guitar, fiddle, and bass. No, they do not bluegrassify the song. Rather, Chris Thile begins by imitating the glitchy computer-generated rhythm of the Radiohead original by plucking the mandolin strings behind the bridge and tapping the soundboard. He is soon joined by Chris Eldridge on guitar and Noam Pikelny on banjo, each beating and plucking their instruments to imitate the rich rhythmic tapestry of the original.

If you weren’t watching, you’d never guess the sounds were coming from acoustic instruments.

Only bassist Paul Kowert plays the descending melody. Gabe Witcher sings Thom Yorke’s scratchy and desperate vocal part while playing harmony with his violin.

This isn’t bluegrass, but Punch Brothers did begin as a bluegrass outfit. Thile, one of the most insanely talented musicians in pop music who previously was with Nickel Creek, hand-selected each member to back his 2005 solo album. They imitated the great bluegrassers for that album, and now, two albums later, their instruments are about the only remnant left alluding to their original style.

Punch Brothers openly embrace all genres. In fact, they specifically embody certain genres to help color and shape their own sound. In 2009, the band set up a musical laboratory of sorts in New York City to do just that.

They took up residency at the intimate but well-known Manhattan club The Living Room, where they played a couple of times a month for a room full of lucky people. The nights were billed as “P-Bingo” nights, and the boys used the gigs to try new experiments for a live audience. They played original songs as well as covers of Mozart, Of Montreal, The White Stripes, Bach and The Strokes, among others.

“A cover ends up being sort of a study piece for the band,” Thile says. “We approximate textures that wouldn’t usually come perfectly naturally.”

Among the discoveries: Emulating a drum machine with a mandolin, or dragging a pick across guitar strings to sound like a sustained but scratched synthesizer line. These unorthodox ways of using acoustic instruments ultimately influenced their original music. “The bands and composers that we admire get in our heads [when we cover them], and that helps in our writing process,” Thile says.

In their multi-genre studies, the Punch Brothers also came to study and influence one another. “We’ve gotten to know each other really well,” Thile says. “We’ve become like heat-seeking missiles in relation to each other. When someone plays something, you can anticipate what’s coming next. We never really accomplished that to this level because we all lived in different places.”

Throughout their residency at The Living Room, the band was writing and recording their new album under the influence of the numerous songs and musical entities that they embodied.

Antifogmatic, released in June, consists of 10 original tracks, each written with the full band collaborating. The album is their most fluid and probably their best, with the intuitive communication Thile describes clearly evident.

The album is both accessible and gutsy. There are a couple of romps, but most of the songs take unexpected twists and turns. While this is definitely a pop record, with most songs clocking in at less than five minutes, it’s an extremely intelligent one.

While Antifogmatic sounds like acoustic Radiohead at times, it never stays the same long enough to classify. Thile and the boys are musicians and scholars, and approach Radiohead with the same reverence as Stravinsky. They’re inspired equally by both—that’s why they’re at the top of their game.

“Music is never-ending,” Thile says. “You’re never going to do everything that you can do.”

Trampled By Turtles

Minnesota's Trampled By Turtles sure play fast for sittin’ down.

  Tramped By Turtles is not a bluegrass band. The string quintet out of Duluth, Minn. might draw on fiddle, mandolin, banjo, acoustic guitar and bass to crank out high-energy jams, but as frontman Dave Simonett observes, the definition of bluegrass is too narrow for its own good. The term’s narrow scope is partly why the Midwestern musicians settled on their name. “We wanted anything that wasn’t bluegrassy in nature, like a name with mountain, river or ‘the something, something boys.’ We have never called ourselves a bluegrass band,” he says by phone from the road.

Formed in 2004, Trampled By Turtles takes its cues from folk, country and Americana greats Townes Van Zant, Dylan, and Wilco, but many fans are surprised to hear genres strains of punk rock, heavy metal, gangster-rap in their sound. Progressive for stringed-music, Trampled brings that raw, rip-roarin' energy to their shows, playing like they’re plugged-in.

When I first saw Trampled in concert, I heard someone say, "Hot-diggity-dog, those boys sure play fast for sittin' down like that,” to which Simonett says, "We have tried to play acoustic standing up, but it was really tough. Believe it or not, it is easier to play fast while sitting." The image of the band lined-up on five chairs made its way onto t-shirts and propaganda after a fan-based design competition earlier this year.

Aside from the ferocious fiddlery and high-intensity strumming, Trampled receives little credit for their way with ballads. Songs like "Empire" or "Trouble" strike a chord of legendary proportions. Simonett describes the perfect slow jam as "any Hank Williams song. Take your pick. When loss and heartbreak are easily conveyed, it creates a magical music experience-that's what a ballad is supposed to do."

Every tour has its trials and tribulations. The loss and heartbreak on this tour was Dave Carroll's banjo being stolen in Mankato, MN. But, there was a happy ending: "The guitar store called and said they had it. Some kids sold it for $300, and this was a $5000 banjo. Eventually they were busted by the cops. We have mixed feelings. While glad to get it back, we don't want the kids to go to jail, they are only eighteen," says Simonett. Maybe this story will turn into a ballad.

Taking time from a busy winter schedule, Trampled, as first-time producers, are in and out of several studios to record Palomino, to be released April 13. Different from previous albums, the band is learning the tunes in the studio, instead of honing them on the road. Except for several vocal harmonies, the songs are mostly recorded live, which captures the essence of the band's opulence. After this tour, fans can expect several off-chutes. Dave Simonett has almost finished recording an EP with Dead Man Winter, a straight-up rock band. Dave Carroll will continue to play with Too Many Banjos, while mandolin player Erik Berry will perform solo, including a recently released Christmas album. When asked, despite his musical influences, Dave is emphatically against recording a gangster rap album. "Not because of desire, but a lack of talent."

Smaller shows are often their favorites because of the intimate relationship with the crowd. You can expect some vivacious string music, while enjoying vast depth and quality in song writing. Thus far, they haven't worked any Christmas jingles into their repertoire, but concertgoers might bear witness to John Prine's "Christmas in Prison," says Dave. My request: a stripped-down version of "Soulful Christmas" from James Brown's Funky Christmas. Simonett just laughed.

Well then, do Christmas miracles really come true?

Andre Williams & The Goldstars Still Mobile, Agile, Hostile

Monday Aug. 16 at Urban Lounge

    Like everything else about Andre Williams, the way he ended up playing a show in Salt Lake City has an interesting story behind it.

KRCL 90.9 FM DJ “Bad” Brad Wheeler had just seen him in Chicago at the city’s Bluesfest and ran into Williams after the performance. Wheeler got a phone number and gave it to Will Sartain of The Urban Lounge, and presto, The “Black Godfather”—as Williams was nicknamed by comic/actor Dolomite—will be coming to Salt Lake City to lay down the law. “I’m ecstatic about him coming here,” exclaims Wheeler. “He’s one of the architects of rock & roll.”

Raised in Bessemer, Ala., Williams wasn’t allowed to listen to R&B at first, but the country music playing on the radio in the ’40s made a big impression on him. “That’s because I knew I wasn’t the world’s greatest vocalist,” he explains. “Country music always had great stories, and when you have a great story, you don’t have to have a great voice.”

1950s-era R&B hits on Fortune Records like “Bacon Fat” and “Jail Bait,” recorded under the name “Andre Williams & the Don Juans,” molded his vocal style—more talking than singing—which has influenced today’s rap artists. His visual style was just as inimitable, including wearing velvet suits even in “bucket of blood” style joints, as he calls them. In the early ’60s, Williams’ “Shake a Tail Feather” was a hit for the Five Duo-Tones and Ike and Tina Turner. He moved to Chicago blues label Chess Records and, in addition to his own songs, wrote a number of tunes for other musicians, later to include Parliament and Funkadelic.

“[Motown’s] Berry Gordy, I respected for his administrative style, but didn’t like, and Ike Turner I liked, but didn’t respect,” Williams laughs. The two lined up Williams to produce Bobby Blue Bland as well as Tina Turner’s Let Me Touch Your Mind album. Williams also wrote Stevie Wonder’s first release, “Thank You For Loving Me.”

Through the ’80s, he languished in poverty due to drug addiction, but Williams started making a comeback in the ’90s, a reversal of fortune documented in the 2007 movie Agile Mobile Hostile: A Year with Andre Williams.

His latest album, That’s All I Need, is a homecoming of sorts, with Williams back in Detroit, aided and abetted by locals Outrageous Cherry, the Dirtbombs, the Electric Six and guitarist Dennis Cherry from Motown house band the Funk Brothers. It’s an album full of slow-burning soul.

Cherry in particular adds something special to the recording with his sizzling lead work underlining Williams’ vocals. “I’ve worked with Dennis Cherry on so many projects on Motown, and he’s one of the most admirable musicians I’ve ever met,” Williams explains. “We’re familiar with each other’s style, what makes us tick. It makes the sessions much easier. And he helps relate to the other musicians.”

Williams’ songs still have a large basis in personal experience, like “When Love Shoots You in the Foot:” “It’s about when you make a mistake and choose the wrong person; you fall in love but they don’t love you.” On the title track, what he “needs” is listed: “A banana-colored woman/ an orange Cadillac/ a pea-green suit/ and pocketful of $100 bills” equals a fine evening of romance.

“What I like best about him is that he’s old-school and new-school at the same time,” Wheeler says. Williams sounds contemporary alongside the likes of Jon Spencer and Jack White on his later efforts. “He’s like a dinosaur still walking the Earth, eating smoke and breathing fire,” Wheeler adds. “And he can probably still kick any musician’s ass onstage!”

His live show should be a musical tour de force from all periods of his career. “From the ’50s to now,” Wheeler says, “it all sounds as dangerous now as it did then!”  

The Mighty Sequoyah

Provo band releases Sunken Houses

 

King Niko

King of Everything: SLC’s King Niko don’t sweat the semantics.

If you ask members of Utah’s King Niko the derivation of their name—and over whom their namesake ruled—you’ll get a different answer, depending on not just who you ask but when you ask them.

Vocalist Ransom Wydner (yes, that’s his real name) at first offers a history lesson: “King Niko, formally King Nicholas the first, was the only king of Montenegro. Described by contemporaries and historians alike as a warrior poet, King Niko had the strength of a bear and the voice of an angelic bird of some kind.” Guitarist Ben Moffat, on the other hand, goes the pop culture route, singing “Robert Goulet!”

Later, perhaps hungrier, Wydner might tell a more gustatory tale: “Niko is also the name of a local taco vendor who produces what can safely be called the king of tacos in the greater Salt Lake City metropolitan area.” Still later in the evening, Moffat’s appetites turn from carnitas to the carnal: “Coincidentally, King Niko was the title of a ‘skin flick’ that made a very lasting impression on my young adult life. King Niko of Salt Lake City is a different kind of king entirely. We’d like to think of ourselves as king of all media but Howard Stern copyrighted that, so we’ll settle for king of making out with ridiculously hot chicks!”

But if they can’t get their stories straight about their origins, musically they are completely in sync. Their hookladen rock with indie and emo (in the sense of “emotionally moving”) vocal and guitar touches have a common thread—as their MySpace page proclaims: they’re “committed to making young girls dance.” The beat is infectious, placing them on the map somewhere between a peppier version of the Shins and The Hold Steady or maybe mid-period Spoon.

But they’ve made a study of local sounds since childhood. Wydner remembers, “The first local band that really blew me away was Form of Rocket, but I was also really into The Brobecks growing up. Bands like Broke City and Neon Trees are not only influential musically, but for what they are doing for the Salt Lake scene, bringing more attention to it. Monarch was one of the first bands I ever played a show with and really shaped the way I perform.” As far as national bands go, he says Cold War Kids, Kings of Leon and TV on the Radio have had the biggest influence on his songwriting.

Moffat recalls, “The first local band that I identified with was called Better Way. One of their guitarists, Gentry Densley, basically made me want to start playing the guitar and start a band. I can still remember them playing a show at Classic Skating, and absolutely killing it. I must have been 14 at the time.”

Flash forward, and King Niko played the biggest show of their six-month career, opening for actor Jared Leto’s band 30 Seconds to Mars Nov. 30 at the X96 Nightmare Before Xmas concert. The national band made a big impact on them in person. Wydner notes, “We were backstage when someone told us that Jared Leto was talking about my boots on the radio and then, as if by magic, he was in our green room giving us high fives and those fist bones and saying ‘bones’ as he did it, all in his sleeping clothes. Definitely a true rock star.”

King Niko just released their first EP produced by local studio whiz Mike Sasich, titled Gorgeous and Gory, after a line from their song “Katrina Sleepover.”

“The EP is made up of six songs that we feel make up a good King Niko microcosm,” explains Moffat. It’s a fine opening album of songwriting salvos.
As for future plans, they‘ll consider about anything. Wydner leaks: “A theme park hasn’t been ruled out. An elite group of female assassins who are also world-class models and can turn into wolves is patent-pending.”

Chatham County Line's Dave Wilson Talks About Songwriting

Thursday Aug 12 at the State Room.

    Speaking with Chatham County Line singer/guitarist Dave Wilson on the phone and hearing his low, monotone speaking voice, one has to wonder: How could that voice be the same sweet golden tenor from CCL’s albums?

Wilson’s voice is one envied by other musicians; it’s the perfect blend of gravel and sugar, and his songwriting complements it well. He can be tough and troubled like Johnny Cash, or sweet and tender without sounding like a pansy. Wilson lulls his listeners through stories of wars, old country towns, trains, blue-collar workers, and being on road with all the loves, losses and simple pleasures encountered there.

“They tell you to write what you know,” Wilson explains. “That’s really all I’ve ever done.” Damn, I think, recalling his songs about heartbreak and death, this guy’s had a tough life. “The world of words can take you to a lot of places just on its own,” he explains.

But songwriting isn’t something Wilson can manufacture. Like most art, you can’t force it.

“Sometimes I pick up my guitar and something will happen,” he explains. But his good songs don’t always come that way. “I don’t pick a time for it,” he says, using “it” to refer to those inspirational moments that will result in new songs. “It tells me when it’s going to happen.”

And “it” has happened a lot. In the 10 years that CCL has been together, they’ve produced five well-received albums and have toured extensively around the world. Wilson does, however, show some anxiety that the song well might not always fill his bucket. “It’s a big bucket there. Hopefully we can come up with a bunch more songs for Record 6 and impress people as much as this one seems to.”

Their most recent album, Wildwood, released July 13, has remained on the Top 10 on the Billboard bluegrass charts since its release. When I remind Wilson of this, his low, guttural laugh reverberates through my phone receiver.

“That record sold more copies the first week than all our records combined,” he says. But he is laughing because they are on the “bluegrass” charts. Like most modern bluegrass bands, CCL claims they aren’t actually bluegrass.

“We’re not your standard bluegrass band,” he continues, “We incorporate as much classic and Southern rock as we do bluegrass.”

Yet, they’ve toured almost exclusively to bluegrass festivals and dimly lit bars for their 10-year existence, and they have no plans to stop soon.  

Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band

Junk in the Trunk: North Carolina's Booty Band brings a more grown-up funk.

Asheville, N.C., six-piece Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band has been laying down thick bass lines, funky horns and tight grooves for as long as they can remember. Which, it turns out, isn’t very far back, thanks to the hard-partying lifestyle of the band’s early days.

“A huge part of our act was us raging to the fullest extent, drinking heavily with fans onstage ... Hell, we traveled with a dancing pole to put on the stage,” says guitarist John-Paul Miller by phone from the road. Back in the day, the Booty Band—whose name was delivered from a Las Vegas casino fortune-telling machine—was known strictly as a party band. But now, they’ve decided to put their big boy britches on and, as a result, are crankin’ out an impressive repertoire, one not possible before they got serious about their music.

“That was definitely an amazing part of our career, but at this point we’ve been touring for eight years. We want to be respected musically; we’re more serious as musicians,” says Miller, who refuses to be pigeonholed as a “costume band” with naked people dancing everywhere—a regular occurrence in the old days when the band played their tune “Naked.”

Since shifting focus, Miller says the band’s touring circuit has expanded, and there’s been positive encouragement from old fans. While less gimmicky, they still bring that old-school party vibe—just not the ridiculous, howlin’ at the moon drunkfest it used to be. Fans can do as they please, though; the Booty Band will always put the “fun” in funk.

The new musical focus came, in part, by adding Asheville duo Eymarel—Mary Frances (keys, synth, vocals) and Lee Allen (drums)—to the band’s lineup in 2009. The duo’s house-beat driven technical drumming and funky female vocals add greater depth to the Booty’s Bands sound. And, over time, the original band has become tighter, more intuitive and interested in a broader range of musical genres; think something similar to Freekbass, with a twist of Galactic-gone-jammy and overt, heavy-hitting P-Funk inclinations. In fact, they’re friends with George Clinton and company. And while they’re predominantly funk, there are also flares of hip-hop, reggae, jazz and ska in the mix.

To capture the band’s essence live, a recording engineer toured with them last year and the result, Greatest Hips Vol. II, was released earlier this spring, including Booty favorites like “Badonkadonk” and “@$$.” Miller says they especially shine at small clubs with a tightly packed group of dance-ready funk-lovers. Their current tour has taken them from playing to 4,000 people at Asheville’s arts festival to as far northwest as Alaska and down the California coast, playing to 100 people in towns they’ve never been to before. This will be the Booty Band’s first bounce in SLC, so bring your dancin’ shoes.?

Dwellers

SLC 'gut-rock' band bound for SXSW

Posted // March 8,2012 -

Within the past year, local three-piece Dwellers have made a rapid ascent—not because their music touches listeners’ hearts, but because it hits their guts, with the band’s self-branded bunch of “gut rock”—decisive—tunes.

After three years of paying dues, Dwellers have gone from being virtually unknown to recording an anticipated album and acquiring an invitation from Small Stone Records to play a gig in Austin, Texas, at South By Southwest, the annual music, film and interactive festival and conference.

The band started in late 2009, when lead singer/guitarist Joey Toscano (Iota, Mudfly) and drummer Zach Hatsis (Laughter, Pretty Worms) started jamming together and recording in their spare time between other projects. Early on during their sessions, Hatsis and Toscano jokingly called the music “gut rock,” a term that’s stuck with them throughout the group’s time together.

“[The term is] a way for us to remind ourselves that creativity should never be impeded by indecision, or by some desire to write music that will fit in with some type of genre,” Toscano says. “We write what we feel, and we try to stick with our gut instinct on what sounds right.”

These jamming sessions eventually became the basis for Dwellers’ debut EP, Peace, and Other Horrors. The album consists of four tracks of instrumental music recorded between 2009 and 2010, which include odd varietals like noises from a cardboard box and a leaky faucet, along with randomly placed quotes from films.

“We just came up with various ideas on a single theme and went for it,” Toscano says. “I was reading a nonfiction work at the time called Empire of the Summer Moon [an account of the 40-year battle between the Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West]. That subject matter is what inspired the songs to be performed in the style they were.” The album was released on Bandcamp in June 2011 as a free download.

While finishing up the first EP, both men realized their small side project was slowly starting to become serious, prompting them to find a bass player to complete the ensemble. The two picked up Dave Jones (Oldtimer, ABK Band), whom Hatsis had played with in SubRosa for three years, helping lock up the rhythm section before almost immediately diving into writing and recording the next album.

Prior to hitting the studio, Dwellers tracked several DIY pre-recordings in their private studio, planning their songs in advance before plugging money into professional studio time. The group went with Andy Patterson and his South Salt Lake studio for the official recording, and he helped them hammer out most of the instrumentation over a weekend, allowing for another few weeks to be spent on the vocals and various fine-tuning.

Hatsis recalls these sessions as being “definitely one of the most fun I’ve been a part of. As far as the performance of the record, we tracked the majority of it live, rather than piecemeal. So what you hear is what you get.”

Salt Lake City visual artist Sri Whipple, who has created covers for Laserfang, INVDRS and The No-Nation Orchestra, did the artwork. The three members are draped in worm-like creatures that are coming out of their stomachs—fitting artwork for an album named Good Morning Harakiri.

And this album is not filled with the ambient Southwestern rock from the first EP; Dwellers instead crank up the guitars and kick into loud, bluesy rock. At times, the six-track album borders on old-school grunge, slow and dredging with tense vocals and an overpowering presence. Everything seems to be catered toward deafening the crowd of whatever small venue the band might happen to play, and keep fans coming back for more. The album is loud, pissed-off and unsatisfied with everything around it, and that is absolutely refreshing in a land of by-the-numbers rock.

The group kicked off a small Western U.S. tour, which will see them hitting up major cities in six states before arriving in Austin for their March 16 SXSW performance. Dwellers will open up the Small Stone Records Showcase at Headhunters (720 Red River St.), along with Backwoods Payback, Gozu, Lo-Pan, Suplecs, Dixie Witch and Tia Carrera. “We’re excited to play [SXSW] … and nervous,” Toscano says. “Austin rules in the springtime, and we’ll get to see a lot of great bands.” 

Living Traditions Festival

Strong links connect diverse ethnic cultures

 Ana Tijoux, Mexican Institute of Sound

Posted // May 17,2012 -When you stroll through the Living Traditions Festival grounds and hear the array of sounds and smell the culinary crafts ranging from traditional African fare to Turkish grub to South American specialties, you quickly realize Utah is not as homogenous and lily-white as our reputation would have you believe. As multicultural as Salt Lake City actually is, when it comes to musical offerings at Living Traditions, it is, indeed, a small world after all.

In 2012, even the featured guest musical artists booked by the Salt Lake Arts Council are indicative of just how small the world is. On the surface, it looks like festival organizers split the headliners evenly between two American blues acts and two Latin dance/hip-hop artists. But look deeper and you start to see stronger links between the acts despite their obvious differences in ages, home countries and musical styles.

CWMAs: Spell Talk

Smooth Sailin’: 2010 CWMA winners Spell Talk talk about their year in the spotlight.

The lineup for the 2010 CWMA finals was eclectic, to say the least. Death-metal Bird Eater’s sonic bricks knocked dust from The Depot’s nooks and crannies, while Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm strummed out their roots-rock prowess. But the middle act, the little-known Salt Lake City-via-Ogden band, Spell Talk (then The Naked Eyes), stole the show for the 800-plus in attendance.

The psych-rock band formed in Ogden in 2007 with Jared Phelps on vocals and bass, Andrew Milne on vocals and guitar and Sammy Harper on drums. They added guitarist Dylan Roe in September 2009 after relocating to Salt Lake City to join the more-happening music scene.

That year, at the 2009 CWMAs, Phelps had a Wayne’s World moment: “[This] will be mine. Oh yes, [this] will be mine.” The rockers were later nominated for the 2010 CWMA showcase and tied for third. Squeaking into the finals, their practice and goals paid off.

“It was a pretty magical night. We fucking killed it,” Phelps says, looking back on the wildly productive year since. “It really gave us a lot of exposure; people wouldn’t have known us otherwise.” The $2,000 winners’ purse probably wasn’t so bad, either.

The exposure, along with booking more gigs, necessitated higher-quality recordings. During the past year, Spell Talk produced two albums. The first, Ghost Rider, recorded at KRCL studios, offered a stripped-down look at the band showing off their bluesy side. “There’s something spiritual that happens live, and we like to record live to encapsulate that,” Phelps says.

Then, in late September, the band recorded Electric Cloud at Back Bone Studios in Colorado. From playing the Desert Rocks Music Festival in May 2010, they earned enough studio time to quickly and efficiently record six songs one day, then mix and master the tunes the next. The result is less muddied than Ghost Rider and a more spot-on sampling of the band’s psychedelic sound, which is slightly reminiscent of The Black Angels or Dead Meadow.

The first production run of Electric Cloud came out while they were on tour. Without CD liners handy, the crafty fellows made collages out of found magazines for each copy of the album they sold—truly DIY.

Those two albums have helped the band land gigs at most venues in the Salt Lake Valley, including opening slots for national acts such as Imaad Wasif. But exposure can only get a band so far; they have to perform. Wasif was so impressed with their Urban Lounge set that when his opening band bailed in the Southeast, he called Spell Talk to fill in.

“We had money from CWMA, so we went to Tennessee,” Phelps says. “I said yes without asking anyone.”

Their old Econoline, which Phelps says was a cop-magnet on the highway, sucked up most of the $2,000 prize on tires and gas. A month after coming home, they hit the road again in early winter 2010 and finished a western tour through Nevada, California, Oregon and Idaho. This year full of opportunities has made the band tighter, musically and as a community, Phelps says. Roe, a late add-on, has become keen on the “secret language [they] share onstage.”

The success stems from goals, ambition and a generally humble attitude, like the story of the sheepherder in Paulo Coelho’s epic tale, Phelps insists. “The Alchemist changed my life. My goals are the most important thing to me; if I’m not trying to achieve them, life is just empty. And now, all these things keep popping up. We’re really fortunate, I guess.”?