garcia peoples

i don’t think the band name Garcia Peoples is bad. if it’s bad it’s bad in a fun low-stakes way that jibes with the carefree attitude and shameless influence

what do you get out of GP? just curious

lighters in the air, sun-soaked roadtrip vibes, hippie americana

I'm listening to their live set from 10/10/19 in NYC (it's on Spotify), it's a trip. Bearing in mind the first song is almost 50 minutes long. I'm not totally sure how much Dead I hear in this, but admittedly I'm not overly familiar with the Dead. Not to mention the first twenty minutes was in fact free jazz skronk. Well, maybe not skronk, but it was electric guitar and saxophone (played by maybe the dude's dad? how cute), kind of reminded of the gentler moments of "The Creator Has a Master Plan."

definitely check out rose city band then- ripley johnson project

xp yeah GP do have free sax jams (like the first 8 minutes of the full length version of one step behind) but it's gentle not hard skronk

definitely check out rose city band then- ripley johnson project

― global tetrahedron, Sunday, May 17, 2020 2:22 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thx, will do

been listening to ryley walker - primrose green last couple days and man, if u time-travelled to the 70s and showed someone that album they wouldn't blink

i'd start with their S/T although the new one is great too

i thought about mentioning Mountain Movers but didn't ... but yeah, they rule. their sister band Headroom, too.

also i didn't really mean to imply that Sunwatchers and GP are all that similar ... I was just trying to say Sunwatchers are awesome

I guess I don't see all jam having to descend from the Dead but I see what you mean

There is definitely some cool crossover going on right now between a lot of these bands, even those that aren't "jam bands", like Garcia Peoples backing up Forsyth, Hans Chew and Ryan Jewell playing with One Eleven Heavy, and Matt Valentine openings up for Garcia Peoples.

I'd add Dire Wolves (Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band) to the list, Jeffrey Alexander used to be in Jackie-O Motherfucker and, I think, played with Suburned Hand of the Man.

There's a line traced through the freak folk and noise scenes that loops back around to some of these newer bands which definitely pushes them away from the derisive image of a jam band. I mean, Dire Wolves get plenty heady and cosmic, but I don't think they have a lot of direct Dead DNA either. Stuff like 75 Dollar Bill, Elkhorn and Matt LaJoie fall into this in my mind, though they all come at it from different angles. It's all kinda centered around labels like Beyond Beyond is Beyond and Feeding Tube Records and as noted, Jeff Conklin at WFMU is a big supporter of this kinda stuff (but i like his taste a lot, seemed he was mentioned a little derisively upthread).

I mean, all this stuff is right up my alley and I'm pretty much a big fan of every artist brought up itt so far, so take me with a grain of salt.

Peter Kerlin from Sunwatchers is also (or was for a long time) in Solar Motel too

I kinda mentioned Conklin backhanded, I like his taste and his show was great I dunno sometimes he comes off a little gatekeeperish to me but he's great overall

Elkhorn is a great call, should have mentioned them!

dire wolves and just exactly perfect sisters band are both direct dead references though. brian lucas of the former says he spent his formative years on dead tour in the 80s

Sure, the names are direct Dead references, but I don’t hear a whole lot in their songs themselves that can be directly attributed to Dead songs. I don’t doubt the Dead are a formative influence, but I know folks that can’t stand the Dead but like Dire Wolves.

heh I'll have to check Dire Wolves, just don't know why these bands have to choose names that sound like Dead tribute bands that play bars in a middling state university college town

i haven't quite fallen under the spell of GP, though I agree that their last record (or just the epic that makes up most of it) is my fave thing I've heard them do thus far. so i think they probably have good stuff ahead of them.

sunwatchers are so good, like a free jazz meat puppets.

Wow otm!!^^

Yeah, Sunwatchers are killer.

not like sunwatchers but i think folks in this thread might appreciate this band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6B3KbePQAI

Another great band/album! I'll second Tonstartssbandht for sure.

yeah, they rule ^ not so much this convo, but Edwin from Tonstartssbandht has a project called EOLA where he does weird-ass psychedelic vocal-loop spiritual "future hymns" ... i fuckin' love it: https://eola.bandcamp.com/album/dang

i really think there's an interesting piece to be written about jammy bands breaking through the indie/press glass ceiling to where they're now considered "cool" ... the quality and growing number of bands are part of it, of course, but so is Conklin and Beyond Beyond is Beyond and one or two hip publicity firms, and now it's moved up into the Vampire Weekend / Steven Hyden world. this stuff could never have gotten the kind of love they're getting even 5 years ago, i don't think. and Garcia Peoples was the canary in the coal mine, imo.

It's a fuckn drag to me that there's a whole scene of white dudes who wanting to play/listen to longform jamz that could be jamming to the intricate and groove-centric arrangements of Funkadelic, Fela Kuti, Electric Miles, Ornette Coleman, Can, Isaac Hayes, Neu!, Herbie Hancock, Flash and Bambaataa tapes, Zulu Beat Radio, whatever, but instead they're like "What if jam bands but Union Pool"

Bedford Cheese Shop Incident

Whiney you should check out this band called Phish

where is your past

you should actually listen to Sunwatchers and 75 Dollar Bill before doing your usual parachute in to call people stupid routine

or the best part of the new Garcia Peoples is closer to Neu than the Dead really

but anyway thanks for those cool obscure references no one on ILX ever heard of and congrats on your Wire subscription

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/ca/38/80/ca38803c1a8042507ed129f18c80a625--man-hats-lsd.jpg

sad

you should actually listen to Sunwatchers and 75 Dollar Bill before doing your usual parachute in to call people stupid routine

you should actually listen to Richard Pictures before doing your usual parachute in to call people stupid routine

Yeah, it was a really rough day when I bought that 75 Dollar Bill record and they told me I had to immediately burn my copy of Jack Johnson.

Funkadelic, Fela Kuti, Electric Miles, Ornette Coleman, Can, Isaac Hayes, Neu!, Herbie Hancock, Flash and Bambaataa tapes, Zulu Beat Radio

This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra, Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra, Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc, Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force ("just hit me"!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics

kool herc peoples

Typically uninterested in neo-psych guitar-jam bands but inspired by this thread I checked out One Step Beyond by Garcia Peoples and I liked it. I get as much Feelies (and at one point, The Band) from them as I do the Dead but I definitely hear the Dead thing too. Don't know what 75 Dollar Bill has to do with any of these other bands, though. They're leagues apart imo, at least based on some cursory listens to some of the other jammy bands named in this thread

As to Whiney's point, my hunch is that a lot of these bands actually do aspire to the heights of the artists he names but most can't pull it off, which is not really a criticism because, come on, who the fuck can pull off Fela or Can or Ornette better than Fela, Can, or Ornette? This is also, by the way, why I resist listening to neo-psych guitar-jam bands: life is short and I'd almost always rather go to the source. I mean, there are a lot of electric Miles bootlegs out there

It's a fuckn drag to me that there's a whole scene of white dudes who wanting to play/listen to longform jamz that could be jamming to the intricate and groove-centric arrangements of Funkadelic, Fela Kuti, Electric Miles, Ornette Coleman, Can, Isaac Hayes, Neu!, Herbie Hancock, Flash and Bambaataa tapes, Zulu Beat Radio, whatever, but instead they're like "What if jam bands but Union Pool"

― The Mandymoorian (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, May 18, 2020 7:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

There could be an interesting discussion about the differences/similarities between strands of jam and current bands tapping into them (or not) but, as usual per latter-day ILX, it's couched in box-canyon zings where no discussion is required or wanted.

Though Bedford Cheese Shop Incident is B+. Good job.

Tangentially related and somewhat tying these ideas together, someone put together a 20+ minute live jams playlist on Spotify that does indeed have Dead, Phish, electric Miles, Velvet Underground and Can on it. Starts out promising, but then of course it devolves into some of the worst jam imaginable - Twiddle, Goose (both of which I'd successfully avoided until now), Disco Biscuits, Aqueous, String Cheese Incident and Umphrey's McGee.

Twiddle is the worst of the worst though, imagine someone strangling Dave Matthews over some of the laziest, least imaginative "jamming" possible.

flopson v cool bands 😎

Peter Kerlin from Sunwatchers is also (or was for a long time) in Solar Motel too

he is a secret weapon in both imo -- always holding things together when they spiral out. i esp like his playing on the long track of the Forsyth/Solar Motel/Garcia Peoples live album. i love the second track on that album too -- afaict a uniting factor of these bands is that they are aiming at some sort of transcendence, which i think we all have the musical right to do, and they occasionally reach it. GP covering Popol Vuh was enjoyable to a certain degree (if very by-the-numbers) but the vocals left something to be desired imo.

my only gripe about this general type of band is there are too many men in these bands. the women only came in to sing. my long-awaited (by me) plan to record a women-only instrumental Can-jam was squashed by the rona :( maybe someday

i don't expect anyone else to care about this but as a woman i wouldn't mind some more femme musical energy in the mix.

oh no that would help it's a dude scene for sure

like bring some meg baird, elisa ambrogio, ava mendoza in the mix and i think i could stay interested instead of getting a tiny bit bored. just sayin

looking forward to the upcoming marisa anderson + jim white album but that is a very special combo

yeah that's like the most anticipated album in ilx brigade history! was so glad I got to meet her and tell her how much I loved her music even if I was probably a dork

For sure, there are way too many dudes in these bands. I was surprised by the ratio of women at the Garcia Peoples show I saw at Schuba's, but it would be great to see that reflected in the band line-ups. It's interesting that a lot of the women that do overlap with this scene (Kendra Amalie, Sarah Louise), primarily pursue their own solo projects.

Also, La Lechera otm with Garcia People's vocals, def a weak link.

in general vocals ain't exactly the best feature of any bands in this zone

Baird is great, she sounds should be the lead singer of all these bands

That would not be bad, she's great.

yeah i think i need some physical copies of things, sound pretty good

This is continuing to grow on me, love the instrumental interludes that tie together the suite on the second side. “A Reckoning” is fast becoming a favorite, got a real nice Fairport Convention vibe and love the two guitar acoustic intro.

Aquarium Drunkard EOY list brought me here. Good stuff!

New one is so good and varied.

Definitely. Closest analogy I can think of is Dungen 4, another great and varied album.

We don't have a dedicated thread for their label, Beyond Beyond is Beyond, and I'm not sure it's worth a whole new thread... but RIP BBiB:

After 8 bonkers years, I’m leaving ye olde record label, Beyond Beyond is Beyond, behind in 2021. It’s been a dream to work with all the amazing artists we’ve released records with. ✌️♥️ 🎶

— mikenoomin (@mikenoomin) February 23, 2021

Really bums me out, they'd been a roll lately with Garcia Peoples of course, but also Tengger, Elkhorn, Kendra Amalie, Matt Valentine and De Lorians, to name a few.

Oh man, I misread this yesterday as a guy leaving the label, not ending the label. This is a bummer! Tengger is my faaaaave...

Yeah, that's what I was hoping it was, but reading through the replies it looks like the label is done, sadly. I guess it makes sense, considering they hadn't announced any forthcoming releases since the last Garcia Peoples record came out last October.

Yeah I noticed after a busy couple years, things seemed to have quieted down quite a bit. Oh well ... it was a good run, and that label in particular did a lot for the indie/psych/jam resurgence.

Dodging Dues, new album due out in January, produced by Matt Sweeney and released by No Quarter since BBiB closed shop.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2846999757_10.jpg

Good news.

Three preview tracks up at bandcamp are excellent, I'm stoked.

https://garciapeoples.bandcamp.com/

They are playing in Chicago next weekend (they were actually the last show I saw before the pandemic kicked off) but with an unvaxxed kid at home I'm not ready for an indoor show quite yet. Hopefully they hit the area again on a tour after this comes out.

New one is very very good, tighter and more concise than the stage show, but they still manage to pack so much into every song.

Very nice. Starting the year off right.

Rather than starting a new thread for an album that maybe only three people will care about, I'm going to bump this to say that fans of Garcia Peoples will probably very much dig the debut full-length from Color Green. The closer, "Blizzed Out" is really great and hits a similar vibe for me. Liking this a lot.

https://colorgreen.bandcamp.com/album/color-green-2

Ryley Walker is putting out Danny Arakaki's solo album, Tumble in Shade, in January on his Husky Pants label.

Pretty heady lineup for this one:

Danny Arakaki - Guitar/Vocals
Ryan Jewell - Drums/Percussion
Mike Bones - Guitar
Chad Laird - Bass
Samara Lubelski - Violin (on "All Thanks")
Andi Magenheimer - Vocals (on tracks 1, 2, 4, 7)
Helen Rush - Vocals (on tracks 3&4)
Winston Cook-Wilson - Piano/Organ/Rhodes
Jef Brown - Saxophone
Rachel Herman - Violin
Dan Iead - Pedal Steel/Guitar

^^

This is out Friday, but my copy came yesterday. It's really good.

Great sound and a blistering live performance of a good chunk of "Dodging Dues":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtG5e7JKYx8

love these dudes. danny's new record is really good too.

finally checking these guys out. just wow.

The Arakaki solo record is fantastic — just a really great rock record.

Missed this revive, but yeah that's a great performance. Loving the new Arakaki album and still bummed I had to miss the GP/Forsyth tour due to life stuff.

Also been really getting into Taper's Choice lately, on that "indie-jam" tip.

They really were not good live when I saw them recently which was a bummer because I was expecting great things. Part of it was the sound at the venue (bad) and part of it could have been my general mood that day (not great) but they didn’t really seem all that into it either and the vocals can be a little rough.

i saw them about a month ago and didn't come away super impressed tbh. they are a band i should like on paper.

'vocals are rough' comes with the dead/any dead adjacent act, something i'm willing to overlook if the jams are good, which,

if they weren't called 'garcia peoples' i might like them. maybe

I also saw them a few months ago & wasn't particularly impressed after having previously dug a couple sets of theirs on the archive. Just figured that my expectations were too high, but maybe they've fallen off a bit as of late.

I haven't caught them on the recent tour, bummed to hear they haven't been great. The two times I saw them pre-pandemic were absolutely killer. I've caught a couple tapes of other shows from 2021 and 2022 that were good, but not much has been circulating yet from the most recent tour.

Can’t decide whether I love or hate this band name. I go back and forth.

they did suffer a bit from following Chris Forsyth, his band has Doug McCombs from Tortoise and Ryan Jewell as the rhythm section and they give him a really strong almost krauty vibe, Forsyth can verge on guitar mag stuff at times for me, but he's a much better soloist than anyone in Garcia Peoples (at least that night)

Not surprised to hear that, makes sense.