Music. Journalism. Real Life.
As many of you fans know Jefferson and I have an affinity for documenting our lives on the road. While it's seemingly commonplace to us, we realize this isn't exactly the average day to day for most. Through updates on this blog and other social media outlets we try our best to put you in the catbird seat with frequency. And now Jeff is taking that concept and expanding on it in a highly engaging way with his new series Jeff Waful +1.
This new Relix presented web series will feature two different sides of the music industry: a behind-the-scenes look at life on the road and a Charlie Rose-style one-on-one interview program. You'll get a smattering of Umphrey's related tour documentation alongside conversations with a variety of musicians and industry professionals. Prepare yourself for just about anything as his journalism degree & touring lifestyle put him in a unique position to tell stories from the inside out. I will have the honor of associate producing for Jeff Waful +1 and look forward to helping in every way I can.
Pop over to Relix.com and enjoy the trailer for Jeff Waful +1.
Coming this Spring...
-Kevin
Enjoy this (dark) clip from backstage rehearsals at the Best Buy Theater in NYC. This Kris inspired jam later made it's way Into The Kitchen. Live version available here.
"In the end here I must confess, you have yet to ever witness our best"
Umphrey's McGee recognizes that innovation in music combined with innovation in bringing that music to you requires a team effort. We spend countless hours brainstorming ways to bring our fans the best possible music we know how. From every live show (110 last year), special event (UMBowl, Stew Art Series), and music release (onsite & downloads, Mantis pre-order), to our daily interaction with the fan base (social media, the blog), we are constantly trying to raise the bar of what you should expect from a band. We want to continue to enhance your experience as a concert goer, fan, and consumer.
In order to do this, we've decided that starting February 1st I will be transitioning from the road to UM headquarters to help continue to make the band all it can be. Over the years, my role inside Umphrey's McGee has slowly evolved to encompass a wide variety of tasks. What started as predominately a mixing and recording role has grown to include a whole host of Umphrey's related business. As we constantly push the boundaries of what's possible with UM, there is more work to be done in the home office than ever before. My ultimate goal in this new role is to help UM better achieve bigger things.
We are thrilled to announce Chris Mitchell as my replacement at the soundboard. Chris, a former nuclear engineer in the Navy, has over fifteen years experience mixing both front of house & monitors, stage managing, and production managing for a wide variety of acts including The Dead, The Rhythm Devils, Tracy Chapman, G Love, Cyro Baptista, and the Charlotte Bobcats. He has worked most every major festival in the business and he's one hell of a nice guy. I have full faith that Chris will excel in every way as he settles into our organization.
Shown here working on his tan
It has been my honor and privilege to mix Umphrey's McGee for the last dozen plus years. From Brendan giving me my first audio tutorial ("If it feeds back, turn down this one") over a sandwich in the basement of a South Bend "venue" to mixing across the globe from Red Rocks to Fuji Rock, I have enjoyed every moment. Even after 12+ years, these guys still drop my jaw on a regular basis.
I'd be lying if I told you that this isn't bittersweet as I'll miss the day in day out with the best guys in the business. These years have been incredible and I can't imagine having toured with a better group of people.
I truly can't thank you enough for all of the support and encouragement over the years. Your kind words about the shows, the recordings, and blog mean the world to me and have kept me fired up show after show. I am taking that same passion and applying it to my new role and and our new initiatives moving forward. Thank you for being the most loyal and dedicated fans around. Onward and upward in 2011.
Kevin
@soundcaresser
For those of you who have enjoyed life on Jam Cruise, you know how perfect of a way it is to start off the year. Umphrey's McGee played two shows on Jam Cruise for the first four years of it's existence, starting in January of 2004 on an 800 person hulking, gray dinosaur of a boat -- she was barely seaworthy. The event has grown equally in stature and expanded to a sold out 2500 person ship for the past three years, typically welcoming aboard a new orleans-tinged rotating cast of musicians and bands. Renowned musicians from Maceo Parker to Les Claypool to Dweezil Zappa have now all graced the stages of Jam Cruise. It's the best floating 5 day party in January in the world, that's for sure.
This year I was invited to be a special guest, and my main solo piano set in the atrium featured the music of Umphrey's McGee for solo piano. Being there without another bandmate was an interesting experience, but it seems like I know most of the musicians on the boat now, which makes the hang aspect of it that much more fun. While last year's embarkation weather was nasty cold, we arrived to Port Everglades this year to abundant sunshine with temps in the mid 70's. It takes all day to board the ship, so it doesn't pull out of port until around 5:30 or 6 pm. But the party starts right away with lots of action on the pool deck. I take the first day to hang out, talk to friends and make plans for some sit ins. I find myself spending most of my time on the pool deck as we head south into the warm, breezy air of the Caribbean. Many of the outside rooms on the MSC Poesia have balconies as well, and this is another great place to hang and watch the ocean, or sometimes Cuba go by.
When in nice weather, I like to move to "island time," meaning trying to get as much of daylight in as possible, especially in the winter months when the sun goes down around 4 pm for those in the Midwest U.S. When I talked to the Cornmeal cats the night before they were thoroughly surprised that anyone would want to sit in for their 11:30 am set, but I knew it would be a perfect time to be up and out. Indeed it was a glorious day, not a cloud in the sky. Cornmeal played to a great crowd on the deck, and I joined in the fray for the last 30 minutes of their set, alternatingly playing organ and piano. We played two of their originals and worked in Benny & the Jets, the Elton John classic, which I had also played with them at a UstorM benefit at Martyrs a few years ago. It was a blast and the energy those guys bring to the table slams.
One of the fans' favorite parts of Jam Cruise is the autograph signing, where the artists all gather in the swanky R32 Disco on the top deck (15) of the ship. I find myself entertained and often humbled by a lot of the interactions with the people that keep coming back to Jam Cruise or Umphrey's McGee year after year. This year I sat between my buddies the New Mastersounds, and a new friend, David Gans, who many of you might know as the voice of the Grateful Dead hour, but he is also a singer, songwriter and performer. David and I had a blast hangin and later got together for lunch in Honduras, There was more than once when we were hanging out and someone came over asking if he was who he was, then telling him that they thought they'd recognized his voice as they were walking by. I've never seen that happen before, but it was clear that David's audience truly gets and loves him.
Another of my favorite sit ins this year happened on the Solar Stage, a stage on the pool deck powered by solar energy & wind, later that day. I had hooked up with the Moog foundation people on board, and they kindly lent me their Little Phatty Minimoog, a smaller and slightly more user friendly version of my MiniMoog Voyager. Zach Deputy had a sunset performance lined up, and he welcomed me up there for two of his original songs, "Cellphone" and "She Says." The Little Phatty proved to be the perfect instrument for that sit in as I was able to create some cellphone like noises on cue, along with a ton of other melodic ideas over Zach's tasty loops. I could have stayed out there playin with him all day, he's an incredibly talented guy. He'll be playing some shows with us next month, so hopefully I'll get a chance to play with him again.
One of the highlights of the entire trip for me was having the Moog foundation aboard. They brought keyboards for the musicians to use, presented a fantastic workshop and for two nights, set up Moog Lab, an interactive area for fans and musicians to play the various Moog instruments together. Bob Moog's voice even made multiple appearances in the form of audio recordings from his archive, often explaining elements of the instrument and its composition in layman's terms, and calling his first design of the Moog an "abominatron." The workshop featured segments of explanation by Michelle Moog-Koussa, Fred, Wesley, Rich Vogel, Nigel Hall, Chris Tanfield (amazing Theremin player) and myself. At the end of it, we performed Billy Cobham's "Red Baron" with everyone, including Adam Deitch on drums. Finally, the Moog Lab was an amazing interactive experience where passengers on the cruise got to try their hand on Moog instruments. I joined in the fray both nights, playing with friends and fans as we created various soundscapes and moods with our instruments. I felt like a kid in a candy store, so much fun to be had.
There were many, many other highlights on the cruise, far too many to write about here, but when all was said and done, I had performed 10 times on this year's cruise. What a blast. If you haven't done a Jam Cruise yet, there's no better time to hop on board as nearly all of the trickier elements of the production of it have been hammered out--riding the ship is a smooth experience from start to finish. Maybe see you next year on Jam Cruise 10?
Here's a review of my "big adventure" from our friends at Hidden Track. And here's a link to the audio of my solo piano set that you can grab for free.
Joel
What a run, what a run.
As we all settle into some much needed down time, we wanted to share a moment from this year's Riviera Theater shows that you may not have seen (in fact that we know you haven't seen). This year we captured enough video, audio and photography to crash a Google server. You can see a ton of photos on the photo page of our website and find all of the matrix soundboard audio here as well. Shortly we will begin sorting through the mountain of video we captured and set in the motion an official video release to document the run and beyond .
But first we wanted to share a small snippet of rehearsal that you might find entertaining. I have been trying out the new Zoom Q3HD camera as it's reported to have significantly better audio quality than some of the other hand held options. So I wandered the stage while the band was running Radiohead's National Anthem to see what I could capture. The stereo microphones on the camera are fairly directional so will you notice a distinct difference in audio as the video changes, this is not your standard front of house mix. But who doesn't enjoy a quick trip into the depths of the trumpet of 'filthy little secret' lore?
Happy New Year and Mad Love from Umphrey's McGee