Music

Great, strange things come from great, strange things. Case in point: EOTO, the electronic music duo comprised of former String Cheese Incident drummers Michael Travis and Jason Hann.

You gaze around the crowded smoke filled room. The party is a cacophony
of people laughing, drinking and in different stages of discourse and
intercourse. Staring out the window is that one strange girl who
doesn't really want to socialize, but has an allure that everyone wants
to know. Chan (pronounced Sean) Marshallm better known as Cat Power, is
that girl. A storyteller whose story needs to be coaxed outward, but
when you invest the time to listen, it pays in huge dividends.

Like to rock, don’t like talkRob Crow is in a band, but doesn't seem all that jazzed to be talking about his music. He's polite and seems to appreciate that we're writing about him, but not all that enthused to discuss his much-revered new record. But when I bring up Star Wars … there's a little extra spark in his voice.
The men of Pinback obsess over science fiction to the point that Crow says he should get a tax break for his devotion to the genre. At times, it's hard to tell whether Crow, the band's multi-instrumentalist, is a musician that's into sci-fi movies, comics, and video games, or if he's maybe a sci-fi nut who just happens to be a damn good musician.

Whatcha looking at? Did Jerry just drop out of the clouds?In the hip circle of music critics to which I pretend to belong,
admitting that you like jam bands is akin to wearing Velcro shoes in
public or showing off the collection of G.I. Joes you keep beneath your
bed - it isn't going to give you too many cool points. I like indie
rock, indie folk, indie power pop, indie hip-hop (indie, while once an
abbreviation of "independent," now seems to mean "cool") and a good
deal of other genres and styles, but I've held fast to my fascination
with the noodles and genre mashing only found in the poorly labeled
"jam band" arena.
Jeff Mattson plays guitar and sings in The Zen
Tricksters, a New York-based quartet with heavy Grateful Dead
influences and affiliations, and he too likes jam bands - probably
because he plays in one (two, actually). While Zen Tricksters has been
Mattson's band for the past couple of decades, he, along with the rest
of his band, also meet up and tour with former Dead vocalist Donna Jean
Godchaux McKay to form Donna Jean and the Tricksters.

Soldiers of Jah Army, honorary mayors of Reggaetown.We've pounded it into these pages more than enough in the past six
months, and a sincere apology to all if this seems like a message from
the Department of Redundancy Department, but … what is up with all the
friggin' reggae going down in this town? At this point, I'm not even
sure how I feel about it, but I sure as hell can't avoid it. And maybe
we shouldn't even worry - the Benders (we're taking a week off from
mentioning "Bendites" in the paper) seem to love it.
This weekend could very well be the peak of the local reggae movement with three separate reggae shows in a matter
of 48 hours. Here's a rundown of what
you can (if you so choose) sway, bob and swing your dreads to:

Keeping the steel in the family.In a weird way, it's accurate to call the Campbell Brothers "church
music," because, technically they play their tunes in a church, just as
they've been doing since they were kids. But this isn't the church
music of organs, autoharps and white-haired women singing falsetto with
one hand raised, leading a drowsy congregation though a down-tempo hymn
- this is pretty much rock music.

Chuck Campbell grew up in the House
of God Church, a Pentecostal, predominately African-American
denomination that shies away from the pipe organ, opting for the steel
guitar to lift the spirits of the congregation, and get them moving
their feet. This isn't a whining, yawning county Western slide guitar -
the House of God sound, often referred to as "Sacred Steel," is more of
a shouting, screaming, wailing manipulation of the instrument that,
when accompanied by a band, is pretty hard not to dance to.