Electronic

The goal of any good music film is to show what it was like to be at the venue when sparks flew from the stage, not necessarily the truth of the moments captured but the essence of the event that transpired. Most celluloid sequences just don’t get the job done—cutaway shots to insignificant visual images, show-offy camera angles that disrupt the flow of the music, short-changed artists with solos edited and brutal slices that choose not to expose the skinned-knee portions of any really good musical set.

Ask anyone who’s seen him live about the experience and you will surely get a response that you’d swear was from a swooning 13 year-old girl. Voted the #1 dj in San Francisco, Lorin aka Bassnectar revolutionizes those two little letters. He is the ambassador for this blossoming new jamtronic music scene. After over ten years playing at Burning Man and other freakalicious gatherings all over the country, he is now popping up all over the jam band scene. He’s had shows at AT40, NYE w/ SCI, 3 amazing sets on Jam Cruise, and soon to be Wakarusa.

Multi-date recordings are all the rage in current live music production; various locations seamlessly mixed together into one organic whole. This production procedure isn’t as easy as it may seem, as the band needs to maintain a united, collective sound while offering fresh audio imagery. Signal Path-Live collects seven teleportational tracks from six different locations from July through October 2004. Steve Beatty and Collin Cargile of Real Image and Phil Lucks did an excellent job of recording, engineering and mastering the CD, which segues from track to track without a hint of a locale switch.

Australian Xavier Rudd is the most popular unknown musician in the United States at the moment. The one-man rhythm and melody machine impressed enough folks at Bonnaroo last year to outsell even the biggest names at the festival, but up until now, his first two records, To Let and Live at the Grid, weren’t available to anyone off the limited course of Rudd’s U.S. tour. Finally picked up for distribution by the Home Grown Music Network, the two albums complete Rudd’s collection for his American fans.

Zilla is the brainchild of four of the most talented musicians on the improvisational scene. On their latest live release, they continue to explore their rhythmic mountain climbing. Instead of slowly building to a peak and then traversing the terrain back down the earth, Zilla hits each ledge as another opportunity to spring forward to another gamble, another opportunity to explore the lanky, dense pulse of their exhilarating compositions.

Sound of cool melting glass…echoes of radiating light…plush corridors of elastically protean Jazz-Funk Afro-Beat mutations…Sketches of Colorado by The Motet…

Who doesn't love a good mix CD? The folks at Pure Hemp and One Love Entertainment certainly must, and they went above and beyond to bring the 2-disc smorgasbord that is One Love Vol. 1 to life.

I had the pleasure of attending All Good Music Festival at Marvin’s Mountaintop in Masontown, West Virginia in July of 2004. It was a weekend I will remember forever. I got the opportunity to watch as Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon jammed backstage to and with anyone that would play or listen. I also sat and enjoyed my coffee the next morning as Jon Fishman of Phish and Jazz Mandolin Project recounted a trip to Hawaii in which he peered through a healing fountain’s waters giving him momentary 20/20 vision. Needless to say, when I found a copy of the All Good DVD in my mailbox this past fall I was more than anxious to relive moments from one of my favorite festivals of the year.