| |
| |
| Date |
City |
Venue |
Details |
| Fri 6/6/08 |
Los Alamos, NM |
Los Alamos Summer Concert Series |
|
| Sat 6/7/08 |
Pagosa Springs, CO |
Pagosa Folk & Bluegrass Festival |
|
| Sun 6/8/08 |
La Veta, CO |
Top of Old La Veta Pass |
|
| Mon 6/9/08 |
Albuquerque, NM |
The Cooperage |
|
| Wed 6/11/08 |
Charlotte, NC |
McGlohon Theatre at Spirit Square |
|
| Fri 6/13/08 |
Richmond, VA |
Science Museum of Virginia |
|
| Sat 6/14/08 |
Tryon, NC |
Blue Ridge BBQ Festival |
|
| Fri 6/20/08 |
Chicago, IL |
Old Town School of Folk Music |
|
| Sat 6/21/08 |
Iowa City, IA |
The Mill |
|
| Sun 6/22/08 |
Minneapolis, MN |
7th Street Entry |
|
| Thu 7/17/08 |
Greensboro, NC |
Eastern Music Festival |
|
| Fri 7/18/08 |
Asheville, NC |
Dowtown After 5 |
|
| Sat 7/19/08 |
Spartanburg, SC |
The Showroom at Hub-Bub |
|
| Fri 7/25/08 |
Detroit Lakes, MN |
10,000 Lakes Festival |
|
| Sat 7/26/08 |
Wolfeboro, NH |
Great Waters Music Festival |
|
| Sun 7/27/08 |
Fall River, MA |
Narrows Center for the Arts |
|
| Sat 8/16/08 |
Oak Run, CA |
Gray Pine Farm |
|
| Sun 8/17/08 |
Los Altos Hills, CA |
Hidden Villa |
|
| Mon 8/18/08 |
Crystal Bay, NV |
Crystal Bay Club - The Red Room |
|
| Tue 8/19/08 |
Crystal Bay, NV |
Crystal Bay Club - The Red Room |
|
| Thu 8/21/08 |
Santa Rosa, CA |
Krush's Backyard Concerts |
|
| Fri 8/22/08 |
San Francisco, CA |
Great American Music Hall |
|
| Thu 8/28/08 |
Teaneck, NJ |
Mexicali Live |
|
| Fri 8/29/08 |
Northampton, MA |
Iron Horse Music Hall |
|
| Sat 8/30/08 |
Charlestown, RI |
Rhythm & Roots Festival |
|
| Sun 8/31/08 |
Brownfield, ME |
The Stone Mountain Arts Center |
|
| Wed 9/3/08 |
Annapolis, MD |
Ram's Head Tavern |
^ |
| Sat 9/6/08 |
Boone, NC |
Daniel Boone Days |
|
| Sun 9/7/08 |
Chapel Hill, NC |
Forty Acres at Trails Clubhouse |
|
| Sat 11/1/08 |
Moundridge, KS |
Old Settlers Inn |
|
| Fri 11/7/08 |
Houston, TX |
McGonigel's Mucky Duck |
|
| Sat 11/8/08 |
Fischer, TX |
The Rice Festival |
|
| ^ Co-headline with Erin McKeown |
|
 |
They
draw freely from the old school and the old world, but The Waybacks
are no throwback. They’ve been erroneously pigeonholed
as a bluegrass band and celebrated as purveyors of “acoustic
mayhem.” They are as uninhibited and unpredictable as
the eclectic San Francisco Bay area that claims them, and for
nearly a decade, their experiments have always proven sharp-witted
and musically dazzling. They’re living proof that in music
anyway, evolution and intelligent design are entirely compatible.
“The whole spirit of improvisation – that’s
always been the cornerstone of this band for me,” says
founding singer, songwriter and guitarist James Nash. “Through
all the stylistic changes and regardless of the instruments
we’re playing, to me the fun of this band has always been
that in some ways I can do whatever I feel like doing at any
moment.”
They’ve been through changes for sure. Now a four-piece
with a full arsenal of acoustic and electric instruments, The
Waybacks are releasing Loaded, the boldest, rangiest and most
exciting album of their career. Produced by Nashville bassist,
composer and consummate sideman Byron House, it’s a musical
rebuke to anyone who would typecast true artistry.
The folk and roots underpinnings that have long been a Waybacks
hallmark are still there, but after years of playing a huge
range of venues and festivals, touring with Grateful Dead founder
Bob Weir, and reconfiguring themselves around the hot guitar
of James Nash and the fiddle virtuosity of Warren Hood, The
Waybacks are enjoying a refreshed repertoire – one that’s
touched by Memphis soul, honky-tonk, Parisian swing, classical
music, vintage blue pop and much more besides. Nash and Hood
have stepped forward as songwriters, allowing The Waybacks to
assemble their first project of entirely original music. They’re
finding a new collective voice, right before our ears.
Besides Nash, the Waybacks include drummer Chuck Hamilton, bass
player Joe Kyle Jr. and the newest member, fiddler and mandolinist
Warren Hood. Those who have followed the band’s progress
over the past five years have had to bid good-bye to two long-time
members, finger-stylist and singer Stevie Coyle and multi-instrumentalist
Chojo Jacques. But in welcoming Hood (who sometimes refers to
the revamped band as a power trio plus fiddle) and focusing
around a more rhythmic, far-reaching sound. You might say The
Waybacks have grown by shrinking.
"I just thought they were all very talented players,”
says Hood about his attraction to The Waybacks. “I really
couldn't put them into a genre, but I guess that's what I liked
about it. I'd rather be in a band that plays a little of everything
than a band that lives in one genre all night."
The Waybacks were launched in 1999, when Nash, a guitar phenomenon
raised in Nashville, was making a living in San Francisco playing
solid-body electric guitar. His involvement in an acoustic side
project was not supposed to change his life, but it did. "It
was kind of a novelty to me,” he says. “It was a
liberating, exciting thing where I kind of rediscovered that
I love playing acoustic instruments." As they began touring,
Nash was quickly recognized as a top-flight picker even in the
rarified company that circulated at the world’s best folk,
roots and bluegrass festivals. The Waybacks' show was built
around blazing instrumental skills and large doses of hilarity.
They’d play traditional fiddle tunes with their own twist,
original songs that fell into no category, and insanely difficult
jazz tunes like Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple From
The Apple.”
Fans loved it, and so did the critics. The Chicago Tribune’s
David Royko praised their “near-ideal balance of irreverence,
chops, discipline, and originality." Bay Area writer Michael
Miller admired their “exotic settings” and “mind
blowing picking.” It led to major festival bookings and
eventually a recording arrangement with Nashville’s roots
label Compass Records.
The Bob Weir shows were one of the most recent validations that
The Waybacks had tapped into something profound. The Grateful
Dead co-founder has remained incredibly prolific over the years,
and in The Waybacks he saw something he recognized. He and the
band collaborated on several memorable shows in 2006, including
much buzzed-about sets at Merlefest in North Carolina and Hardly
Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco. They translated some of
the Dead's electric repertoire into a newgrass format, while
working up covers together from the likes of Johnny Cash and
Led Zeppelin. So it should come as no surprise if you hear overtones
of the Dead's freedom and eclecticism in songs like “Good
Enough” and “The River” on Loaded.
When they were getting ready to make the new album, Nash and
company scheduled their longest- ever period of pre-production.
It was a necessary step to finding out how to work as a four-piece
and a productive investment in crafting an album that accomplishes
a lot of things. “We were so much better prepared for
the studio and we had a lot more fun this time,” says
Joe Kyle. “Once we got to Nashville with the meter running
we were able to get down to business at once. The vibe was strong
in the studio. We were at once purposeful and focused and we
were having a ball.”
Kyle also says that for the first time The Waybacks had more
original material to record than they had space for. That’s
because of the songwriting energy of Nash and Hood. Warren’s
songs lean toward the vintage, and he shows chops beyond his
24 years in the complex chord changes and sophisticated melodies
of tunes like “Savannah.” “Nice To Be Alone”
sounds like something Sam Cooke might have recorded, and “Tired
of Being Right” is a full-tilt roadhouse boogie. Hood
also proves he’s a gifted singer and every bit the son
of Champ Hood, whose seminal Uncle Walt’s Band is one
good historical touchstone for The Waybacks.
Nash’s songs tend to jam out harder and tell great stories.
The characters in Loaded and “City Boy” are palpable
and have motivation. The proud-because-she-has-to-be girl in
“Conjugal Visit” is no lighter weight for being
the subject of a funny song. “Beyond the Northwest Passage"
is a no-holds- barred sea shanty with a rousing sing-along chorus
that features the band's beer-fueled pals from the Greencards
and the Infamous Stringdusters.
Drummer Chuck Hamilton says “each successive Waybacks
recording project has been an improvement on the previous one
– more fun, better musicianship, better production –
and Loaded continues in that tradition. Somehow everything seems
more authentic now. There’s a combination of freedom and
pressure that I really like.”
When you think about it, that’s the essential tension
behind all great music. One without the other just doesn’t
work. It’s that balance that makes The Waybacks a real
ensemble, one that transcends genres in the best possible way.
As Hood says, “I’d like to hear them try to call
us a bluegrass band now!” |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Loaded
Compass Records
March 25, 2008 |
|
|
|
