Nothing Says Spring Like Dunedin Brewery Spring Beer Jam!
The official start of spring around here is the Thursday that begins the Dunedin Brewery Spring Beer Jam. This year’s event began March 22nd and rocked, rolled, funked, and souled all the way through Sunday, March 25th, with jazz, hip hop, a two fabulous tributes all in the mix. Mike Bryant continues to curate one of the best little events anywhere, any place, any time.
And I am indebted to Mike of Nymania Productions for the fine photographs. Nymania was a regular at DunBrew and the area before moving to Los Angeles. Faithfully, he returns each year for the Beer Jam and for Oktobeerfest.
THURSDAY
Bryant has a special relationship with a few bands who play at DunBrew often, sometimes a couple nights in a row. At the top of that list would be The Heavy Pets, Florida’s premier jam band. The Pets, touring in celebration of their new album Strawberry Mansion, had Thursday night all by themselves. Their joy at playing in Dunedin is immediately obvious.
They romped through tunes from Strawberry Mansion and others in their vast repertoire, ranging from Dead-like midtempo to rockin’ funk, great harmonies emerging from guitarists Mike Garulli and Jeff Lloyd and keyboard wiz Jim Wuest. Lead vocals bounced among the three.
Guitar solos also switched back and forth from Garulli to LLoyd, both master shredders. Wuest was all over the place: synths, electric piano, organ, and clavinet. They invited artist-at-large Joe Marcinek up to rock a real funky tune. Then they knocked out another new tune that ran through a Zappa-esque “Flower Punk” jam and had a dynamite ending.
The Pets are gearing up for a reprise of their Beatles tribute Walrus (April 7th at Orlove Auditorium at the David Posnack JCC in Davie FL), and so they whipped out “Daytripper,” Garulli on vocals, except somehow the words turned into “Who Knows,” and then it got all jammed out, very Dead-like. Tony D’Amato blew it up on bass while Jamie Newitt shoved the pace into some really trippy shit.
Later (and this was still just the first set!), Wuest sang a tremendous “If You Want Me to Stay,” working out on electric piano, D’Amato deeper than deep, Lloyd abusing his wah-wah pedal. Then out spilled a ridiculous “Help Me Help You” that got really funky.
The second set started out with a new two new tunes including “Higher,” first track on Strawberry Mansion. The third song started slow, Garulli on a brand-new hollow-body guitar that sounded superb. The tune turned into an incredible jam, guitars, bass, clavinet exploding. Jon Ditty joined in for a short and sweet rap vocal. For something completely different, almost thrash metal Garulli first, then Wuest on synths, finally Lloyd with his wah-wah.
I am a lucky man. The last several times I’ve seen the Pets, they have played my favorite of their songs. Would I get it this night? YOU BET! “Dew Point.” This one took a slightly different path, Garulli opening, and it took a while to get to Wuest on lead vocals and the first vamp. This was a glorious 16-minute version. Called back for an encore, they offered a great cover of “Casey Jones.”
Interesting observation, which repeated itself in variations the next two nights. When a song such as “Casey Jones” is playing, you can divide the crowd into three groups. Group One are singing every word. Group Two aren’t singing, but they’re smiling and bobbing heads. Group Three have absolutely NO idea what’s playing, which you can tell by their faces.
FRIDAY
Friday opened the way Friday always opens at DunBrew, with DJ 45Revolver. Once again, we’ll point out that this is truth in advertising — hardest-working DJ you’ll ever see, playing killer 45s from the ’60s, ’70s and more.
Putting together a tribute to a particular iconic band is a huge undertaking. You can either play around the edges and interpret, or you can go for precision. I’d seen several excellent tributes to Talking Heads at festivals, but none was better than what Row Jomah offered to open Friday’s ceremonies.
Joe Roma and band have always kept several Talking Heads tunes in their great repertoire, but this meant taking on more than a dozen of the band’s songs, most well known and a couple of gems included as well. The band was well up to the task. Now to secure the vocals. Roma first recruited Dave Gerulat, an oft-time collaborator who plays with shoeless soul, and his percussion was a nice side benefit.
The icing on the vocal cake came in the form of the lady in black, Miss Robyn Alleman, wonderful singer with Holey Miss Moley, local funk juggernaut. The trio of voices pushed this superb set over the top. Roma commented, “The music is not that difficult; the vocals are very challenging.” Challenge met! Alleman added, “The Talking Heads set was one of the best things I’ve been involved with musically.”
Everyone there would agree. The courtyard was jam-packed with fans dancing, smiling, singing, and loving the set. Of course they began with “Psycho Killer!” When they got to “Slippery People,” they invited Mike Bryant up to do his Bernie Worrell synthesizer thing (Bernie played DunBrew in 2014). Mel Walsh had an excellent guitar solo as well.
And let’s not forget Vinny ‘Tina Weymouth’ Svoboda, replete with blond wig (which did not match the beard). Svoboda has worked often with Row Jomah as recording engineer and bassist; he plays with Displace, who would follow the TH tribute.
“Take Me to the River” had that perfect cadence, and the vocal harmonies from Roma, Alleman, and Gerulat were off the charts (all night). Keyboard master Ike Stubblefield, one of the weekend’s main guests, sat in on “Girlfriend is Better.” We got lots of drummer Dylan Chee-A-Tow in “The Great Curve,” and Walsh had another fine solo on “Once in a Lifetime.” Austin Llewellyn was magic on keyboards all set, especially on “Naive Melody.”
The much-anticipated “Life During Wartime” had an interested cadence, great dancing from the band, and Llewellyn on melodica. Bryant returned for “Making Flippy Floppy.” The great uptempo set closed, as you might anticipate, with “Burning Down the House” (well, in this case, the courtyard tent). Joe Marcinek, another of the weekend’s featured artists, joined in on a fabulous encore of “Crosseyed and Painless.”
SPECTACULAR!
[ROW JOMAH: Psycho Killer, Born Under Punches, Slippery People, Take Me to the River, Girlfriend is Better, The Great Curve, Once in a Lifetime, Naive Melody, Life During Wartime, Making Flippy Floppy, Road to Nowhere, And She Was, Burning Down the House; E: Crosseyed and Painless]
That was a tough act to follow. So naturally Displace crushed their set. They turned the new kid loose first, as George Pennington III, looking every bit the rock star, dove immediately into “L.A. Woman,” singing and wailing on guitar. Displace has always featured excellent guitarists, and Pennington is the perfect fit for the band. Vocal harmonies were great on “Float,” Pennington soloing on guitar again.
Frontman Chris Sgammato is adept on vocals, keyboards, and alto sax (and he is also killer on guitar), and he used the alto to great advantage on “Friction.” Then the band pulled out all the stops on “Generation Sloan,” one of the band’s awesome lengthy jams, and this was every bit of that. This turned out to be an incredible Svoboda showcase, first on walking bass and later, well, it was just stupid, in the vernacular. Drummer Tucker Sody drove the band the entire time with his relentless work on kit.
Pennington unveiled a new tune with more walking bass from Svoboda that segued neatly into “Riders on the Storm,” to everyone’s delight. Then a second massive jam unfolded with “Geonosis Shuffle,” Marcinek joining in. At one point, they slowed the jam down and twisted it into the Duke Ellington-penned “Caravan” before exploding again. Did we mention the fan blowing Pennington’s hair?
A cover of The Zuton’s “Valerie” followed, which turned into a real uptempo romp with alto sax and guitar squaring off before wandering into a “Jingle Bells” jam. Likewise, “Friction” morphed into “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” and then “Voodoo Chile.” And Displace saved their more recent long masterpiece for last: “The Flight of Admiral Archibald.” It is a great tune, superbly told. For the encore, they relaxed with a short “Don’t Let Me Down,” closing out a wonderful night.
[DISPLACE: L.A. Woman, Float, 3, Generation Sloan, new GP3 tune > Riders on the Storm, Geonosis Shuffle, Valerie, Friction, The Flight of Admiral Archibald; E: Don’t Let Me Down]
SATURDAY
The late Col. Bruce Hampton (Ret.) was a regular guest at Dunedin Brewery; Bryant would have him in for two- or three-night residencies. Few passings have affected the jam community as profoundly as the passing of The Col. on stage during the finale of his birthday party at The Fox in Atlanta. For “Time is Free: A Tribute to Col. Bruce Hampton,” Bryant assembled the perfect crew: Svoboda and Sody of Displace as the rock-solid rhythm section, Ike Stubblefield on keyboards, and Joe Marcinek on guitar, with Bryant on guitar and lead vocals.
“Fixin’ to Die” was the perfect opener, followed by a blistering “I’m So Glad.” The operative word here was fun, but this set got deep. It’s also worth noting that many of the songs associated with the Col. are covers but songs which he adopted as his very own. “Fixin’” was by Booker T. Washington White, “I’m So Glad” by Skip James. And, judging by the shirts that Bryant and Marcinek wore, Sun Ra’s “Space is the Place” was next up, and they absolutely knocked this out of the park. Stubblefield had a great keyboard solo, followed by Bryant on guitar with Marcinek on relentless funky rhythm.
“Don’t Go Into That Room” featured a great talky vocal. Next, Fusik keyboard player Charles Gardner and Chris Sgammato on alto sax joined in on “There Was a Time,” twisted from the great James Brown masterpiece. Both had fine solos. Austin Llewellyn took over keyboard duties on a total spaced-out freeform tune by the Col. titled “The Grogans Have Arrived.” Assuming Grogans were in fact Martians, because this was delightfully out there.
One of the Col.’s best-known tunes was “Time is Free,” written by David Earle Johnson. Stubblefield was back, and this was incredible, really, really deep. And it blew up when Alex Sears (former member of S.P.O.R.E., works at DunBrew) played the guitar tattoo on his leg on stage while Marcinek shredded. Svoboda introduced “Basically Frightened” with his tremendous walking bass, and he and Sody both got great solo space, and the tune ended with a “Space is the Place” reprise.
Stubblefield’s electric piano kicked off “Turn On Your Lovelight,” the Bobby “Blue” Bland staple (written by Joe Scott). It was a great ending to the set, but we weren’t about to let them off the hook that easily, demanding an encore. What we got is best described as “Spacey Place.” Bryant said, “The encore was based on Ike knowing we were short on the set and it was time to improvise. That portion was 100% Skallop approach.” (Skallop is the Bryant-led improv band that played Sunday.) Twelve wonderfully spacey minutes indeed!
[COL. BRUCE TRIBUTE: Fixin’ to Die, I’m So Glad, Space is the Place, Don’t Go into That Room?, There Was a Time, The Grogans Have Arrived, Time is Free, Basically Frightened > Space reprise, Turn On Your Lovelight; E: Spacey Place]
South Florida funksters Fusik had the late set inside. These boys are staright-up fusion deliciousness. Charles Gardner was wailing on clarinet, with Quinto Naval leading the percussion parade, pushed by Felix Garcia on drum kit, offering up “classic Miami funk.” “Groove Plate” was a real kick.
There was a great cover of the Lettuce tune “The Dump,” bassist Jason Spencer grinning ear to ear, while Robert Smiley (tenor sax) and Sanchez Rivera (guitar) exchanged nods and solos. They played a nice tribute to the late Charles Bradley and followed that up with a very Santana-like mash-up including elements of “Jingo” and “Soul Sacrifice,” all done up Fusik style.
Rivera then called for Joe Marcinek to join them on stage, reminding everyone that Marcinek would turn 33 at midnight (about 10 minutes away). Marcinek returned the favor with a lovely Wes Montgomery-style solo, and that song funked right into “Right Place, Wrong Time.” This was a fabulous cover, Marcinek soloing again. Then it was a fuzzy version of “Happy Birthday.”
They wouldn’t let Marcinek go, launching immediately into “Them Changes,” which got all “Mountain Jam”-my. Marcinek quoted “Hey Joe” and “Third Stone from the Sun” during his solo.
There was more, but not for me. Put a fork in.
SUNDAY
Relying on reports from correspondents, Sunday shut the Beer Jam with a bang. It began early with the pig roast and music from SNX, a side project of Fusik. It began with Garcia on drums, Spencer on bass and Smiley on tenor, but eventually the rest of the band joined in, plus Juanjamon on tenor as well.
In the evening, Skallop returned for a second show after their excellent December debut. Once again, the “setlist” consisted of names suggested by fans before the show. The band included Mike Bryant, guitar and synths; Trevor McDannel (Future Vintage, The Juanjamon Band), bass; Tucker Sody, drums; Austin Llewellyn, keyboards; Juanjamon, tenor sax; Ike Stubblefield, keyboards; and Dave Gerulat, percussion.
In addition to all of the improvised music, this show highlighted the Dunedin Lyricist Society, with Jon Ditty and compatriots.
The final event was another December reprise: the Ike Stubblefield Trio. The keyboard master was joined again by Jordan Garno (Leisure Chief, Serotonic) on guitar, and this time Dylan Chee-A-Tow was on kit. The set included great jazz standards such as “Cold Duck Time,” “Footprints,” and “Freedom Jazz Dance,” and “Brazil” is an excellent Stubblefield original. Juanjamon played tenor on the first three songs, and Sony sat in on “Brazil.”
[IKE 3: Cold Duck Time (with Juanjamon), Brazil (with Tucker Sody and Juanjamon), Backtrack (with Juanjamon), Footprints, Still Warm, Freedom Jazz Dance]
Mad kudos to Mike Bryant, sound engineer Chris Fama, and the entire Dunedin Brewery crew for another magnificent welcome to spring!
