Interviews
Though Peter Ostroushko's generosity is well known among other musicians as he quietly sits in the background, adding instrumental support for many solo artists, he is in his own stead an incredibly versatile and sensitive player and composer. He has amassed a legacy of his own original recordings on Red House Records, orchestral compositions, scores for musicals, soundtracks for documentaries, and his own active touring schedule. He also plays several different stringed instruments in a variety of styles.
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The Grateful Web's Sam Holloway had a chance to talk to Born in the Flood's bassist, Joseph Pope III, discussing the inaugural Mile Hi Music Festival, their new album, and what's next.
GW. How did you come to be involved with the Mile High Music fest? What was your reaction when you realized that you were included in the lineup?
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One wonders how the members of an elite band can go from playing sold out amphitheaters to nearly empty bars. Almost one year into the hiatus the artists who comprise the well-known Colorado jam-band The String Cheese Incident have all busied themselves with numerous side projects and guest appearances across the music scene.
Alex Grey is an artist specializing in spiritual and psychedelic art (or visionary art) that is sometimes associated with the New Age movement. Alex Grey is a Vajrayana practitioner. His oeuvre spans a variety of forms including performance art, process art, installation art, sculpture, and painting. Grey is a member of the Integral Institute.
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Every aspiring musician dreams of the day where everything finally falls perfectly into place. For Canadian electronica wizards The New Deal, it all happened by accident when the band was born during an impromptu performance. The tape recording of that first show is actually there first album, "This Is Live." If you live in Boston, Philly, NYC, Boulder or Patersonville, then The New Deal will soon be bringing their unique brand of "Progressive Breakbeat House" music to a theater near you. If you live somewhere else, I suppose your just shit-outta-luck.
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Someone turned over a large rock and roll subculture over the past three night run at "The Beacon Theater", as "Deadheads", "hippies", and "throwbacks", have resurfaced to see "Bob Weir and Ratdog". No other band in bluegrass, blues, country, folk, reggae, or rock and roll history, has woven such a distinct counterculture and sense of community, other than "The Grateful Dead", and the bands offshoots. Known to "Deadheads" as "The Dead", the band's inception began in 1965 in San Francisco, California, from a jugband known as "The Warlocks".
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There is something to be said about the marriage of experience and youth. It usually results in wisdom–or at the least a sort of magic. And magic is what seems to be coming from the new band, Donna Jean & the Tricksters. The experience comes from Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, known best for her harmony voice in the Grateful Dead, and keyboardist Mookie Siegel, who has played with the David Nelson Band, Phil & Friends, and RatDog.
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San Diego-based rock band Dirty Sweet has been heavily touring the US and Europe, turning audiences onto their latest release, Of Monarchs and Beggars. The five-piece blues-infused rock band offers original lyrics, intricate guitar riffs, and melodies that somehow have a familiar feel to them. Not a tribute band that tries to recreate a classic rock band's feel and nuances or even a cover band, Dirty Sweet comes by their retro sound quite honestly.
Background and Influences
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I left Appalachia's Country Music Hwy., (via Flatpick KY), for Rt. 66. It was Labor Day Weekend and I was going to Asbury Park, NJ, a town made famous by Bruce Springsteen and others. I was going to see Soozie Tyrell, of the E-Street band, along with 9 other bands play over the weekend. There were even knowledgeable whispers, before an inconvenient hurricane hit at a most critical moment that Springsteen might make one of his periodic appearances there that Saturday.
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As burlesque bumps, grinds and laughs its way back in vogue, the art of its' golden eras, from Nouveau to the 50s, shimmies in alongside it. Montmarte had Lautrec, (or, perhaps more appropriately, his now lesser known but then more famous mistress, model and contemporary, (though not necessarily in that order), Suzanne Valdon.). The Neo-Burlesque world has Molly Crabapple, artist, subject and muse. Not surprisingly, she's made several 'Top New Yorkers' lists.
