remember that band you used to see back in the day?
June 18, 2021 6:15 AM   Subscribe

Give me your happy, hippy-dippy, light as air, love-is-all-you-need festy music - but from local/regional bands from the late 80s-early 90s.

I just re-listened to an old DC-area band I saw a lot in my 20s and holy cow did it fill my cup! New Potato Caboose were a sort-of jamband whose originals were as good or better than their Grateful Dead covers, and their songs hold up really well for what they are - happy, hopeful, innocent, a little bit poetic but without taking themselves seriously. Obviously I'm nostalgic and it's subjective but I can't help thinking they would've killed it on the festival circuit today if they hadn't come up in the arena-hairband era.

I have a hugely busy weekend ahead and a few heavy things on my mind to work through, and a chill-positive playlist that evokes simpler days is just what I need to stay energized.

So who was that band in your area? The one that played field parties and clubs and released a CD but they were better on stage than in the studio and they got to mid-sized regional venues before fading away and you're smiling right now thinking about them for the first time in years (I feel like there should be a name for this sub-sub-sub-category of music) ... who's that band for you?

(I already know Franti/Phish and other contemporary festival/jambands, I'm looking for the local bands that were playing when they were in the audience.)

Backstories/memories please, links if possible, and - if it matters - what should I listen to first?
posted by headnsouth to Media & Arts (36 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
I used to go see a local jam band called Jiggle the Handle, which is still one of the best band names I've ever heard. They had some lineup changes over the years but were always pretty impressive musically. Saw them a lot in the early 90s at the Union Street in Newton, MA and sometimes at some Boston bars like Harper's Ferry and the Middle East. Went up to see them once at a festival at Loon Mountain.

I think they had some personnel crossover with Max Creek and they toured a lot but never really broke out.

The first time I saw them the bass player was wearing a Primus t-shirt and I knew they were the band for me, even though they sound nothing like Primus. Big Allman Bros. / Phish / GD vibe.
posted by bondcliff at 6:57 AM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


oar got kind of big for a little while, but they were this band in turn of the century Columbus.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:10 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Agents of Good Roots and Fighting Gravity (that's a Rolling Stone feature) were two Richmond bands I used to go see all the time. AGR is back to playing again after a 20-year hiatus or so. A couple years ago, I sold one of the guys my Wurlitzer electric piano because my band was downsizing.

Agents of Good Roots on MTV back in the day and recently
Fighting Gravity, at a reunion show

I only saw New York's God Street Wine (live in 1992) one time in college, but used to listen to them a lot.

(Edit: swapped out one of the AGR links for a full set)
posted by emelenjr at 7:25 AM on June 18, 2021 [4 favorites]


Checkerboard Lounge Blues Band had a Sunday residency at the Great Britain Hotel in Church St Richmond for much of the late 80s and early 90s. Led by singing drummer Carl Pannuzzo, the most stable lineup of that era featured Ian Collard on harmonica, Dave "Max" Meredith on guitar and Tony Wandella on bass. Checkerboard was all about improvisation and every performance was different. I spent many many hours trying to drive my bare heels straight through the Brit's sticky carpet and increasingly bouncy wooden floor under their influence.

Recordings from that residency are rare, but some have made it to YouTube:

Talking About The Ghetto
Muddy Water
The Messiah Will Come Again (turn this one UP. No, louder than that. Never mind the horrible background noise.)

A couple of the gigs even got videotaped, thanks to the redoubtable Anthony Clarke:

16 Dec 1990
8 July 1991 part 1 and part 2

Checkerboard is still gigging around Melbourne every now and then. Totally different cast apart from Carl, but you will not be sorry if you go see them.
posted by flabdablet at 7:35 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


If you went to three DC-area festivals in a single day, you might find Jah Works playing all of them (and they're still around!)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:42 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Strangefolk was a jam band from Vermont that played all over New England in the 90s. They definitely had that loose and happy summer festival feel.
posted by lunasol at 8:26 AM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


Thanks to place and time (Denton TX, early 1990s), a lot of our bands had a brief moment in the sun, but our go-to great time bands were Tripping Daisy (Tim went on to The Polyphonic Spree), Ten Hands, and several funk bands that seem to be largely lost to time now unfortunately: Whitey, Billy Goat, and Goodfoot.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:40 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Twang Twang Shock A Boom was an Austin band back in 1990.

Fish Sticks
Always Give your Love Away
Big Stick
posted by Tabitha Someday at 8:41 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


The first couple of bands this brought to mind turn out to be still around / reconstituted (or at least with functioning web sites).

In Providence, RI — BOP (harvey). Jam band vibe, funky/quirky style, strong reggae influences.

In Boston — Bim Skala Bim. They came up in the 80s, long long before the whole ska-pop thing of the 90s. Ahead of their time and should have gotten a lot bigger than they got.
posted by sesquipedalia at 8:44 AM on June 18, 2021 [4 favorites]


I totally remember Jiggle the Handle and Bim Skala Bim. My contribution is The Slip, who were in a courtship dance with Rykodisc when I worked there but ultimately only made one album for the label. And in a ska vein, I’d pick Let’s Go Bowling, who I saw around Chicagoland a bunch of times in the early-to-mid-‘90s.
posted by mykescipark at 8:59 AM on June 18, 2021 [4 favorites]


Well, I can't find any of their stuff online but thanks for reminding me of Give Her a Lizard out of St. Louis. They were a little more straightforward pop/rock, but they were definitely a "good vibes" kind of band that was just fun to bounce around to. They made two great records that I was smart enough to buy back then and still love to listen to. (I'm gonna go do that now.)
posted by AgentRocket at 8:59 AM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


I always used to see Dale and the Duds in the early 1990s performing in area parades on a flatbed tow truck or headlining some local fair or town event on the South Shore. I never realized they've been rocking out for fifty years.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:02 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


I grew up in Western New York and was trading jam band tapes in the late 90s, so this question feels pleasantly targeted at information my brain hangs onto unnecessarily.
John Brown's Body, Percy Hill, ekoostik hookah, Ominous Seapods, and Donna the Buffalo all come to mind.
posted by knile at 9:24 AM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


Shockra and Lake Trout are maybe outside what you originally asked but they're definitely part of my general catalog of this genre
posted by knile at 9:26 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Oh, and in the early / mid 90s Guster was definitely omnipresent around Cambridge/Somerville playing fun hippy-dippy fest-style music (sometimes with a bit of a darker undertone) on acoustic guitar and bongos back when they were all undergrads at Tufts. I remember being one of only a few dozen people watching their set at some sort of event on the barren Government Center plaza some bright summer Sunday morning around 1994.

Later in the decade it started feeling like they were the unofficial house band of Harvard Square, either near the Coop or (later on) by the plaza at Au Bon Pain. A regular summer weekend wander around the square would be soundtracked by them more often than not.

On a slightly lower-key note (on the acoustic-folk 60s-ish side of things) a similarly omnipresent performer was Flathead (Ned Landin). Really strong songwriter - his originals felt like standards that were already in my bloodstream.
posted by sesquipedalia at 9:26 AM on June 18, 2021 [2 favorites]


Moonpools and Caterpillars is a delightful 90s pop-rock band from Glendale, CA that makes you feel like the kid in the bumblebee costume in the "No Rain" music video. They are so happy and sunny. One of their songs is about marveling at the beauty of America while driving cross-country. Another is about wanting to be taken seriously as a young person in this world. I wish I'd gotten to see them live back then.

They had a moment of nationwide fame in the early 2000s, when they performed as the prom band in the Disney Channel movie Wish Upon a Star.
posted by aquamvidam at 9:33 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


I remember Guster at a quad party hosted by the one-less-than-quad frats on campus. That one was well attended. A year or so from then in the future or in the past, hard to remember, I saw String Cheese Incident in a nearly empty student center and now they're playing Red Rocks and the like.

This is a fun thread.
posted by emelenjr at 9:46 AM on June 18, 2021 [2 favorites]


Also from Western New York (Buffalo) and my first thought was also Donna The Buffalo. My favorite track of theirs is Funky Side.

Also One World Tribe. Check out this 2017 show.

You probably already know about moe. but if not then Y.O.Y. is a classic.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 9:46 AM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]




God Street Wine, Baba Seth.
posted by Candleman at 9:55 AM on June 18, 2021 [2 favorites]


In the Kansas City area, I remember Go Kart and That Statue Moved. Fond memories of that era in KCMO. Sigh.
posted by Tardis_Spin at 10:05 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Game Theory is about as far from a jam band as you can get but they were wonderful. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss Scott Miller’s presence in the world.

And the Connells! But I thought they were from NC.
posted by sesquipedalia at 10:16 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Someone in a crowd I ran with in the early 90s here in New York was in a band called All God's Children - which might have been named thus because they had a shit-ton of members; I got the sense that when the band leader was putting things together, all of his friends who played random instruments also came out of the woodwork and asked if they could join too and he just didn't have the heart to say "no". They had an entire brass section and an accordionist somewhere in the mix. The one time I went to see them the band leader introduced the band by saying "We are All God's Children....as are all of you."

My favorite song from the one time I saw them was "Say It Like Sugar", which I am frankly stunned to see is on Spotify at all.

My friend broke out on her own a few years later as well, although her own stuff was a little more moody.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:28 AM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


Looks like I'm too late to recommend Widespread Panic and Rusted Root. I see a lot of NC college rock, which I took in a lot of back in the 90s, but not necessarily jam band material.
Big Head Todd and the Monsters (though maybe they got too big?)
Colonel Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit
Leftover Salmon
Kilgore Trout
posted by SoundInhabitant at 10:45 AM on June 18, 2021 [4 favorites]


The Connells are indeed North Carolina-based. For Georgia, you could have the Swimming Pool Q's!
posted by Kitteh at 10:45 AM on June 18, 2021 [2 favorites]


Aware Records put out a bunch of compilations of bands like this in the early '90s -- check out some of the acts on these albums.
posted by Clustercuss at 12:39 PM on June 18, 2021 [2 favorites]


My favorite local San Antonio band, Buttercup, is just the coolest band ever. They are not from the 80s-90s and are still active (thank God!), but meet all your other criteria. Their album Hot Love is a go-to summertime album. I feel like the whole world needs to listen to the title track right now and celebrate a summer of love.
posted by maddieD at 12:58 PM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Oh, hey, those Aware comps included a couple of Push Stars references, which reminded me of a somewhat jam-band-adjacent and very definitely omnipresent performer in Boston in the nineties: Jim’s Big Ego (aka Jim Infantino).

(The reminder is due to a shout-out to the Push Stars that he inserts into the bridge of (I think) the eight-minute song “She Said He Said”, which bridge I think ultimately winds up with a snippet of the Beastie Boys before returning to the song itself. He also inserts most of Doug E. Fresh’s “La Di Da Di” into his cover of “The 59th Street Bridge Song”, which otherwise is played fairly straight aside from the hip-hop-influenced beat.)
posted by sesquipedalia at 2:58 PM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


The Rubinoos, from SF Bay Area.
posted by artdrectr at 4:06 PM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


Rusted Root and Poi Dog Pondering each figured in my 80s–90s in a happy way. Although this is not a genre I seek out, I’m enjoying some happy memories now :)
posted by lasagnaboy at 4:20 PM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


performer in Boston in the nineties: Jim’s Big Ego (aka Jim Infantino).
posted by sesquipedalia at 5:58 PM on June 18

I bet I'm one of two people in this thread who knows why this is eponysterical.

God damn I love Jim's Big Ego.
posted by bondcliff at 5:38 PM on June 18, 2021 [2 favorites]




I signed in to post New Potato Caboose not knowing it was going to be part of your question! Maybe we crossed paths. Here is another - SGGL, or Speidel, Goodrich, Goggin and Lille. I heard them all over VA, DC, and MD.
posted by maxg94 at 11:38 AM on June 19, 2021 [2 favorites]


Coming back in to re-recommend All God's Children, especially after stumbling upon this recording of a live set they played here in New York (different than the one I went to) and after hearing a song my friend sang lead on that they didn't do the night I saw them, and which I now like even better. One reviewer at the time described them as "Sun Ra's Arkestra tour bus crashing into a klezmer band".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:34 PM on June 19, 2021 [1 favorite]


I ALSO popped in to say “New Potato Caboose.”

Would Jackopierce count here? Emmet-Nersi Band!? The Samples?
posted by Miko at 6:59 PM on June 19, 2021 [3 favorites]


Thought of another one: Verve Pipe. Big in the Midwest in the 90s, had 2 breakout hits: "The Freshmen" and "Photograph."
posted by Miko at 8:19 AM on July 3, 2021


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