Band of the Month

Not On Mars is the culmination of years of evolutionary change, tectonic plate shifts deep within the crust of the Great Divide that has kept Jazz and Rock at relatively safe distances from one another. Not On Mars dares to be among those intrepid explorers that made venture into that Great Wilderness.

At least that's what we are trying to do ...

This original jam band hailing from southeastern Wisconsin was established in 1999. All the members of Cosmic Railroad have found themselves and their styles absorbed by the band. The band is known for putting the groove back in groove music with its shows. A sound that moves through uncharted water night after night never knowing what's going to pop up next.

Brian Lauri (keyboards, vocals) has played in various popular projects around New England including the well known bands Liquid Dead (liquiddead.com), Named By Strangers (namedbystrangers.com), and Green Tea.  While earning a degree in music, he has played in many venues including The Knitting Factory (NYC), Harpers Ferry (Mass), and Higher Ground (Burlington, VT).

Sloppy Roast Beef was formed in the summer of 2002 when six close friends decided to take their guitar driven original rock and roll sound out of the basement and into the public eye.

At the time of "The Beef's" inception, three of the band's members, A.J. Davidson, Michael Moore, and Zac Davidson, were playing with the group "Jo Digs" while the other three members, Andrew Teague, Nick Edwards, and Derek Lewis, played in the band known as "Sweet Automatic".

"This album has a real spirit of renewal," Jeff Hanna says of Welcome to Woody Creek, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Dualtone debut. "In some ways, it's a return to where we began. But it's also the start of a whole new thing for us."

Built around the award-winning, mature songwriting of Kevin Higgins, and representing Texas with their original southern-rockin', genre-bendin' “Farm-to-Market Rock'n'Roll” style of music, The Dust Devils once again state their independence from hype and trends. With the 2007 release of their third album, Change in the Weather, (Little Train Records), the Dust Devils combine diversity with raw talent, allowing them to move about freely on the musical landscape.

There are a lot of cover bands around and a lot of those are Grateful Dead cover bands. You've seen them, they're good. Most include the music of Jerry Garcia, Bobby Weir et al with other cover songs and some originals mixed in. DSO is a different breed of "Dead" band. What Dark Star Orchestra does is recreate the Grateful Dead. Not with hippie wigs and fake beards but through the live music. They play the setlist song for song in the same arrangements used by the Dead members of that period.