Peter Stampfel, Jeffrey Lewis, and Dust Busters with Kristin Andreassen at the Vera Project

Jaime tipped us off about the show Friday night in January at the Vera. We filed into the Vera Project out of the night and set our equipment up, saying "hi" to Starr as we came in. The cat walk visuals and sound work well, the acoustic bluegrass/new grass with mild amplification gives a clean accurate sound that is easy to capture.


My pictures were shakier, though.

Dust Busters kicked things off with Kristin Andreassen dancing and playing harmonica, singing and playing guitar too I think.

The dancing added quite a bit, it worked as a beat/rhythm part as she tapped away on some of the songs. A variety of guitars, fiddles, banjos, and harmonicas were employed by various band members, usually without drums or a rhythm section.

Jeffrey Lewis was selling comic books, and he used his drawings in his performance too. He started out doing some witty acoustic guitar singer songwriter material

Comics (he sells Fuff comics, which he also writes) informed his musical material, so does his sardonic sense of humor. He did some drawings inspired by an assortment of obscure psychedelic songs and showed them to us on the projector screen behind the stage while he played short samples of the odd songs with each image. He also couched down and sang an a capella bit to some comic material, you can find that on my youtube channel somewhere.

Lewis brought Stampfel and a fiddler from the Dust Busters on for several songs and also charmed me with a song about his band ambitions in the final 4 or so minutes. Fuck that man! 'cause we're a rock and roll band! In spite of the heroin addiction, you kind of do want to be in his band.


Peter Stampfel came on and played his unique brand of bluegrass/rock music. The sax is cool, and the layering of instruments and Stampfel's unique vocal approach, wailing and nearly yodeling wordlessly.

The energy and power is wonderful. Happy rolling cowboy brings that kind of yodeling yipping out to full effect.


Douchebag is probably my favorite:

Wonderful chorus, yes sir! When he gets to wailing about hackers stealing all the e-mails it takes on a wonderful nearly demented quality, and now they're frying 'em. Wonderful, powerfully odd. Not much like anything else I've listened to recently, the Maltby bluegrass pot-luck monthly show is traditional bluegrass and otherwise I really just don't listen to that much bluegrass.

To me, "sounds like nothing I've heard recently" is praise. They've managed to stake some new territory, taking me to a different style that's new to me. I like that!

Knowmads, Chev, Ilumminatrz, Jamil Suleiman, John Eklof, Fre$h and DJ Same at the Vera Project

Knowmads capped off a fun night of hip hop at the Vera Project. DJ Same kicked things off, spinning some interesting music.

I was working green room security so I made sure nobody was smoking or drinking; I only had to confiscate one joint. With the reentry policy it's nice to see the audience is smart enough to keep the smoking out of the venue.
Tom Pepe and Jamil Suleman made a bief early appearance.

They had a spittin' contest, I enjoy those!

Fre$h put on a good crisp show, fast cadence with frequent rests.



Jamil Suleiman put on a solid show, I like the sound and the flow.

Jamil raps over Tom Wilson beat boxing on the first 1:20 of this, then some party life music that gets the crowd going
Illuminatrz are next on the set list so this should be them (I could be wrong):
Props for using live keyboards, nice!


Chevy was the final act on the set list before Knowmads, so this is Chevy (again, I could be wrong):

Good dense rapping, half sung chorus here and there, reasonably complex songs, nice stuff. I have another Chevy video on my youtube channel. The linked video is hand held, which has good and bad points. Most of the rest are from a tripod on the balcony.


Knowmads tore it up, two or three hundred kids showed up to see them and they came through with classic renditions of favorites like Saturdayzed:

and Wildflower (sorry about the marginal audio), another hand held, this time with the digital SLR with mic that overloads too easily:

They also tried some Knewbook stuff out.

It's nice to see the Knewbook material shaping up, I have some more on youtube. I've been a Knowmads fan since the first time I saw them, these kids bring a crowd and put on a hell of a show! Tom Wilson has one of the best voices in local rap, something that gets overlooked frequently. Pepe and Wilson always freestyle a little, and they can't help turning up in opening act numbers too. Throw in a good crowd sourced spittin' contest and the spontaneity, creativity and crowd involvement and the results are an energetic kick ass show. Excellent stuff, I hope it bodes well for 2012!