(updated on 10/20/11 for Chicago additions)
Longtime readers already know that I’ve got a sweet spot in my heart (er, ears) for Steve Kimock. That’s especially true when Steve — in one of his many and varied musical projects — links up with funky-ass bassman, Bobby Vega. I documented one of my favorite Kimock & Vega projects a while back with a podcast called KVHW ‘Down in the Wetlands’, touting some of my favorite cuts from KVHW (Kimock, Vega, Hurtz, and White) shows from the late 90s (which I highly recommend checking out if you’re at all interested in Kimock’s sound). Unfortunately, after that project disbanded around 2000-2001, catching Steve with Bobby on bass duties became a bit of a rarity…especially out here on the East Coast.
So you can imagine how stoked I was to hear the news that Steve will be reuniting with Bobby and a few other interesting friends for some shows this fall in Denver, Cali, Chicago and Brooklyn. Here are all the deets…
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Last week, I posted about Steve Kimock’s Wednesday-night NYC residency at Sullivan Hall, and as promised, I was able to hit the second show of the residency this week. Steve’s crew for week two featured Marco Benevento on keys and circuit-bending toys, Marc Friedman on bass, and Adam Deitch manning the drum kit, altogether a stunning mix of solid NYC talent for what amounted to be a killer show.
Overall, the tone of the show was loose and fun, with Steve pushing the boundaries of these “NY youngsters” and testing their improvisational chops. Songs were really just used as vehicles for the improvisation, and nearly every “song” they played took on that open-ended jamming approach, moving way beyond the structure of the tune. Of course, with musicians this skilled and adept at improv, that’s definitely where the real magic happens, and that seemed to be the main purpose of the night. Given the looseness of the songs they played, it was clear that these guys had barely rehearsed together and that approach was entirely on purpose; they wanted it to be totally fresh. READ MORE
photo by Scarlet_Fyre
I meet a lot of live music fanatics whose only exposure to Steve Kimock is his occasional affiliations with former members of the Grateful Dead in the late 90’s (Kimock played on the Further Tour with the Other Ones and occasionally with Phil Lesh and Friends). Other folks have seen various reincarnations of the Steve Kimock Band and maybe even seen his recent reunion shows with his old Bay Area band, Zero. But a lot of folks don’t know that Steve Kimock once had a near-perfect band: KVHW. Kimock, Vega, Hurtz, and White, was a two-year Kimock project from 1998 – 1999, involving bassist Bobby Vega, drummer Alan Hertz (now part of Garaj Mahal), and rhythm guitarist and ex-Zappa vocalist, Ray White.
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For my second podcast, I decided to go with a slide guitar theme, piecing together a few live tracks featuring some of my favorite players of fretless slide guitars like the lap steel, Weissenborn, and straight-up 6-string electric guitar. Enjoy!
Total running time: 40:43
Sidenote:
By the way, if you like the theme of this podcast, but are disappointed that your favorite guitarist didn’t make the cut, it is likely that I just don’t have a good quality recording, don’t know about them, or didn’t want it to be too long. If that’s the case, feel free to make a suggestion. Just be sure to send me a link or a copy, and I’ll do my best to include it on a version II of the same theme.
Tracklisting after the jump…
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