very likely that there will be a handful of diligent promoters, artists and street teamers at these places handing out samples of their band's music.An encounter with one of these folks at my second 10,000 Lakes Festival in the summer of 2004 facilitated the discovery of a band called New Monsoon. The disc was a recording of their performance earlier that year at Last Concert Cafe in Houston, TX. After plugging it into the CD player right then and there it didn't take long for us to realize that these guys had something special going.
In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a big fan of jam bands and New Monsoon fits that niche extremely well. But that's not all they have going for them. I also really enjoy bluegrass and occasionally play some banjo. My favorite New Monsoon songs are mostly banjo driven and adopt the best elements of bluegrass to create upbeat, extremely danceable music.
A great example of that fusion is the song "Daddy Longlegs", which also happens to be the first New Monsoon song I ever heard. Here is a two part video of them performing it.
Like any good jam band, however, New Monsoon also like to groove. Here is an older performance (2003) of an excellent song "Double Clutch".
My favorite commercial release of theirs is their "Live at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival" recording and is definitely a good introduction to the energy and versatility of the band. The opening track, "Mountain Air" definitely rips and can be heard by clicking below.
Next would have to be their most recent studio album "V" which is their best in studio work to date. One of my favorites from that album is "Romp" another high energy instrumental that you can hear by clicking below.
For more songs these guys, check out the plethora of tracks that are available at lala.com below.
Here are some other good resources:
Official New Monsoon Web page
New Monsoon at the Live Music Archive
New Monsoon on MySpace
New Monsoon's YouTube channel
I downloaded this program and sent a friend request to you guys but no one friended me back :-(
ReplyDeleteKelly, are you talking about lala or simplify media?
ReplyDeleteHmmmm, haven't had any pending requests on simplify recently. Sure you're using the right user names (i.e. mine is "steveklay" NOT Steve K)?
ReplyDeleteAlso, whats your Simplify Media username Kelly B? If all else fails we can all try inviting you and see if that works.
ReplyDelete