Growing up in the scene where Phish became the king of the jambands, and other bands were who I went to see when Phish wasn’t on tour. I forgot what a personal relationship with a band meant. Don’t get me wrong, back in the day Phish was a family band; from chess games, to the secret language, to Big Ball Jams, to 100K plus attendees at festivals.  Phish slowly moved from very personal relationship with their fans to more than arms lengths away from the fans. Part of this is because as fans we have extremely high demands from our bands, we want access, information, and we want what we want, when we want it.  This is very possibly part of the stress level that led to the bands hiatus numbers one and two. 

I think a lot of today touring bands are somewhere in-between. The Disco Biscuits, moe.Umphreys McGee, and the rest of the community have evolved into hybrid. With taping allowed at the shows, you can still do the trading and or download your music. And there are all sorts of websites to go to get your information. Like Jambase.com, Jambands.com, Home Grown Music Network, Archive.org, and many other resources. What you would have needed insider information yesterday to get. Today it’s easily accessible with the technology.

But there are a few bands that are taking the extra step to get back in touch with the fans.
Using today’s technology to keep that personal relationship with their fans. First off check out Ben Kweller, he is not a traditional Jamband icon, but he is loved by many, myself included. His new CD Changing Horses is coming out on February 12th. He has been using Twitter and other social media to drive people to a video of himself describing the new CD, and telling them about a contest that is coming up that each CD pre-order comes with an opportunity to go to dinner with him. It’s not so much the dinner. But the video is engaging, and it makes you want to know Ben. 

Umphreys Mcgee’s new album Mantis came out last week. And they put control of the bonus material back in the hands of the fans. They said “the more people pre-order the album, the more bonus material comes with it.” I actually got a phone call from a friend telling me it was my responsibility to buy the album so we could all get more material. 


The Disco Biscuits, Dave Matthews, Umphreys, Tea Leaf Green, Ben Kweller and even Jambase have all set up Twitter accounts and regularly let their fans know what’s up, occasional pictures, and some personal information. These bands are using what the fans use, to give them exactly what they want. Call it Brilliant marketing, call it a relationship. Either way, kudos boys: This is how we the fans want to build the relationship.

This summer at the Rothbury Festival in Rothbury Mi. everyone got startling news LeRoi Moore an original member and saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band had been in an ATV accident just a few days before the show and that Jeff Coffin of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones was going to sit in for him temporarily. 

Being in the media tent at the moment Jeff came in, I got about 4 minuets with him. I learned more about humility, kindness, respect and the love of an instrument in those 4 minuets than I have learned in a very long time. 

Jeff is a Grammy winning saxophone player, with musical influences ranging from the obvious Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman to Radiohead and Allan Lomax (who was better known as a recording artist rather than musician).  Listening to Jeff talk about music is almost as enjoyable as listening to his music. One of the highlights of Rothbury for me was hearing Jeff say “I play music of necessity, stuff that needs to be played”.  Coffin’s talent and skill is unmatched, he takes chances and plays in styles and combinations that other people don’t. His mix of “New Orleans second line, African music, Indian Ragas, folk songs, Alan Lomax field recordings, jazz, or funk," is distinguishable to anyone who knows what a saxophone sounds like. 

On August 19 2008 just 7 weeks after this interview we lost our friend LeRoi Moore due to complications from the accident. He was 46 years old. His band mates, his family, his fans and his music all miss him dearly. Our hearts and prayers are with those who were close to LeRoi.  A fund has been created in honor of LeRoi in support of charities that reflect both his spirit and passion. 

Jeff finished the DMB 2008 tour and has since announced that he accepted a permanent place with the band. Best of Luck Jeff…

Here is a recording of our conversation. 

Why You Jam is all about Live Music. But this is a blog, a social media vehicle, part of a larger community of people who are intertwined. I was just tagged by a close friend of mine and fellow blogger Beverly Cornell in a campaign called 7 Random Things Meme.

I was trying to figure out what social media has to do with Live Music. Then I realized, social media is to technology what jamming is to music. This is about communicating ideas, sharing, and playing to the beat of your own drum while still playing within the rules of the song. If you don’t like the song that’s ok, there is another one coming after this one. I may go on a rant or rave for a few moments but I will get back to the root of the song soon enough. But I am here to share with you, and you can take it or leave it. Hopefully you like what I have. Every musician knows what I am trying to say. Anyone who has ever been to see one of the many Jambands in today’s scene knows how I feel. 

OK: that being said, here are 7 random things you didn’t know about me.

1)      I have abnormally large feet ( for my height) I am 6’1” and my shoe size is 15

2)      Although I play Bass and Guitar, I have a musical crush on the Tuba, and one day will learn how to play it.

3)      I have lived in 10 Cites (not including different places within one metro area) 3 countries and 2 continents.   I was born in Tzfat (Israel), then moved to Jerusalem, Cleveland Ohio, Windsor Ontario, Chicago Illinois, Silver Spring Maryland, Detroit Michigan, Newport News Virginia, Baltimore Maryland, Back to Jerusalem,  New York City, and then Back to Detroit. If you count the number of houses its 21!!!

4)      I got sober after almost dying at moe.down 5. But thanks to the fantastic Turin NY medical crew and moe.’s organization I got a second shot at life.

5)      I started writing a book called “Pharmies, Phylacteries and Phone Calls” in 2003 but I hit a wall. I still have the transcripts and will publish it one day.  The book is about the underlying threads of good that people have, and how anyone can be truly good.

6)      I have a growing collection of signed music memorabilia: posters, drum sticks, books, CD’s, T-shirts, and all sorts of cool autographed stuff.

7)      I have a bucket list that includes: Skydiving, Recording an album with me playing all the instruments, building a log cabin, staying at the Ice Hotel in Sweden, and many other Random things. 

 Tagging:  In accordance with the meme rules, I must tag 7 more people to participate.  I think all of these have yet to be tagged and I find them pretty damb cool... well cool enough that I read their stuff!

Chris Brogan

Andy Gadiel (he mostly uses twitter now)

Mr. Minor

Frank

Dave Weinberg

Frum Satire

Kirk Rukenbrod

 Here are the rules for my fellow bloggers:

Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

The wonderful world of networking.... with like minded people 

About 3 years ago I had the brilliant idea of creating a social network for live music fans to do business together. Short a few Angel investors, programming and web architecture skills, and an extra 10 hours in a day. I shelved the project, hoping sometime in the future it would be done.   Luckily other people have thought of it. Jambase has social networking aspect to its site so you can see who else is going to a particular show, but that’s not really “business networking”. On Ning you can start a community but basically it’s just you and your friends, its not that easy to spread the word. 

Ahh, comes my salvation. Linkedin opens the door and makes it easy to create groups (for you LinkedIn old timers you know how difficult it used to be).  Now there is a Deadheads with Ties , Business and Professional DeadHeads and Pro.PHISH.ionals group on LinkedIn. Now you can find people who you may have gone to a show with and didn’t realize you could help one another in your professional lives. Or look for other people in your industry that love the same music.  

I have always enjoyed doing business with like minded people. Theses groups are there to help facilitate that. In case you don’t know, there are alumni groups, non-profit, corporations, and pretty much anything you can think of, and its all for the purpose to doing business with like minded people. 

Now I just need them to buy the name I thought of…

 

I am willing to bet that if you are a fan of jambands in general you probably know the band U-Melt. I am also willing to bet that you don’t know that they used to be called A440.

This track is an archive that I pulled from 12/16/2003 when I was living in New York. I had the opportunity to speak with Zac Lasher the Keyboard player from U-Melt. We talked about the origins of A440, Phish, MMW, being divers in the music you make, musical collaborations the show they played on 12/11/03 at the Knitting Factory, and many other things. Also on this track you hear A440 covering Bubblehouse by Medeski Martin & Wood. It’s funny to hear us talking about Bit Torrent and other music downloading technology that was just becoming popular then.

   Here are some links for you to enjoy while you listen.

The Band Website: http://www.umelt.com/

Download of the 12/11/03 show we talked about: http://www.archive.org/details/umelt2003-12-11.flac16.fixed

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The Why You Jam Concert came off without a hitch. A great time was had by all.

Brando and Friends played a fantastic set, and showed us a few new covers that they have practicing blowing out of the water. Flophouse was a special treat for most of the crowd who had never heard or seen them before. Their mix of funk and soul was a welcome mix of old school rock in middle of the classic jamband sandwich of Brando and Covert Ops. Numerous people came over to me and asked me about these guys, and said they loved them. I think Flophouse will start seeing some tie-die in their audience.

 

Covert Operations took us on a journey that was uncalled for. They played from 12am to 5 am with only a short 15 minuet set break. From the moment they took the stage everyone knew we were going to be in for a wild ride. Magnetic Recordings had set up the venue for a spectacular show. The sound was impeccable, the people were dancing hard. The percussion set that Kedree has set up was used many times during the night by different people. Mike Adkins from Fophouse jumped up there to pound away during the first set (if I could only remember what song). Miko Steinberg from Now More Than Ever Productions joined the band on percussions for a funky version of San Jose by The String Cheese Incident. I can’t wait to hear the recording, and eventually get the DVD of NYE 2009. This will not be the last time Covert Ops and Why You Jam work together.

 

You guys, the fans were kind enough to remember to bring donations for the HopeWarmingCenter in Pontiac. In addition to money, we had almost 4 full boxes of clothes to donate.

 

See you guys at the next show.

Benji

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