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August 21-27, 2008
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Hindsight is 20/20
The Boulder Weekly house band breaks out of the house
by Gene Ira Katz
Welcome to the lab
Unity Bashment, an experiment in evolution
by Christina Eisert
Hindsight is 20/20
The Boulder Weekly house band breaks out of the house
by Gene Ira Katz
Hindsight was born out of Boulder Weekly,” says Stewart Sallo, founder, owner and publisher of Boulder’s alternative weekly newspaper, speaking of the musical project he has been devoting significant energy to over the past several years. “It is the latest evolution of a band that began in 2003 [and] has had several different names.”
The project originally kicked off when Sallo was discussing a mutually shared passion for music with then BW employee Rick Fox, and they decided that they ought to play some music together sometime. “So we put this little band together for the BW 10th anniversary party at the Boulder Theater, which was five years ago,” recalls Sallo. For that show, they called themselves the Weekerly Brothers, an homage to the Everly Brothers whose songs they played during a 45-minute set, along with other rock classics. “We disguised ourselves in tie-dyed T-shirts and headbands — and it worked, ’cause some people didn’t even know it was us playing.” He laughs. “Really, that first year it was just kind of a joke. It was just for fun.”
The following year, for BW’s 11th anniversary, they decided to take it to another level. “We put together a real band, a five piece band, with a drum kit… and we started taking it a little more seriously.” Still called the Weekerly Brothers, the group played at some private parties and other BW staff events.
By the next year, says Sallo, Rick Fox had left BW, and the band. “I wound up teaming up with Liza Oxnard, who is well known around the Boulder area, mostly for the group Zuba, a band she was in for a number of years.” That year, they called themselves just the Weekerly’s. “Up until that point,” he explains, “about three years ago, it was kind of a BW house band that was put together just to play the anniversary parties. But then we started to feel like we had a real band on our hands here.” Sallo says that Oxnard dropped out after that one performance, but they also had Eyal Rivlin on bass guitar, which set the musical outfit up for the next incarnation. “He’s a fabulous musician, and it turned out that he was a phenomenal guitarist, so we moved him to lead guitar. We got a new bass player and we kept the rest of the band intact. That’s when we started moving forward as a band.” That’s also when they decided to change the name to Hindsight.
“Since then,” says Sallo, “we’ve been getting real serious about expanding our repertoire and establishing ourselves here in Boulder as a high-energy dance band, playing the greatest classic rock songs of all time.” That slogan, by the way, was inspired by Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest rock ’n’ roll songs of all time “…and, of course, most of those songs came from the ’60s and ’70s,” Sallo points out. “It’s not called the classic rock period for nothing.” He reflects on the lasting recognition of classical music like symphonies by Beethoven and Mozart. “It’s my opinion that the music of the classic rock period will also endure for hundreds of years in the same way. There was something very special that happened in the music of those times; that’s why you continue to hear The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead and The Doors and Creedence Clearwater…” Over the past several years, Hindsight has built up a song list of about 60 of those classic tunes.
“During the past year, we’ve really begun to make a name for ourselves, and we’re becoming recognized in the Boulder community as a legitimate band that can play alongside many of the other bands that perform around town at clubs and in the festivals and outdoor events.” Sallo recollects that they’ve probably played seven or eight gigs in the past year. And he also points out that some of the band members also pursue other musical interests.
The aforementioned guitarist, Rivlin, plays in an acclaimed duo with his wife, Danya, called Temple. The couple focuses on devotional music based in the Hebrew tradition. Their debut CD, Coming Home, is a heavenly collection of harmonious chanting, like ancient songs from the clouds.
Hindsight’s keyboardist, Dave Grimsland, who plays keyboards in Hindsight and serves as BW’s associate director of sales by day, notes, “I started playing when I was 5 or 6 years old, studied music as a kid, and then started playing rock ’n’ roll when I was about 13.” He played in bands throughout junior high and high school. “I’ve been playing a long time.’’ Grimsland shares the same basic musical roots as Sallo’s. “I grew up with the music of the ’60s and ’70s, so for me that’s music I’m real familiar with.”
“What’s most fun for me is seeing people have a really good time,” says Grimsland, “and reflecting back on a lot of music that they liked when they were younger. When I see people having a good time, I know I’m doing my job.” Beyond his extensive experience in graphic arts and sales for other publications, Grimsland also plays as a solo artist, with weekly gigs singing and playing piano at the Scotch Corner Pub in Boulder and Encore on Colfax in Denver.
In addition, Grimsland continues with formal lessons in music. “I still study with Art Lande here in town. What I personally enjoy playing the most is jazz music, and he’s my mentor. He’s an incredible jazz pianist who happens to live here in Boulder, a legend, and he’s played with many of the legends of jazz, so I feel very fortunate to be able to study with him.” Whether it’s rockin’ classics, or big band standards, Grimsland states, “Entertainment is the business I’m in when it comes to playing music.”
The rest of the dynamic quintet is rounded out with Brian Otenberger on bass guitar and Bob German on drums. This is the strongest lineup Hindsight has ever had, and Sallo is enthusiastic about the future. “We’re on the move. We’re building our brand right now, and we seem to be getting recognition and playing more and more as we go along.” He expects the band to be playing at the new Waterloo Icehouse this coming fall and on the newly built stage of The Foundry. There are also plans to develop this year’s BW anniversary show into a DVD package.
Summing up his thoughts about the group, Sallo says, “Two members of the BW staff decided to put a little band together for the anniversary party, and five years later there’s a band called Hindsight… and now it exists on its own, independent of the BW. In one way, I see it as the story of how a kind of a joke turned into a legitimate band over the course of five years, and in another way, it’s about the enduring quality of the music that came out of that classic rock period.”
On the Bill
Hindsight will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, at the Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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Welcome to the lab
Unity Bashment, an experiment in evolution
by Christina Eisert
All things evolve, if they wish to survive the torrent of time. That which does not evolve will dissolve. Biology is a loud voice, regardless of the god that does or does not dictate the phrases, and music is how we humans dance to these divine lyrics.
But music does not evolve spontaneously on twelve hundred Clear Channel radio stations across the nation, no matter how powerful the media conglomerate might be. Evolution is a fickle force, and tends to favor the freaks. So it’s no surprise that Boulder is one of the Petri dishes in which these artistic experiments occur, with mad scientists endlessly seeking the next evolutionary stage.
Welcome to the lab, the underground test tube where new technique is forged on late-night cement dance floors, rickety after-hours side stages and homemade MySpace pages, where music meets boil and bubble in a seething medicinal concoction of mutations, glitches and genetically engineered hybrid sounds.
After all, evolution is all about mutation. In the digital music world, a mutation is considered a “glitch,” and the most dope musicians are now intelligently designing sound around bleeps and blips that their predecessors considered to be mistakes.
Another strange fact — evolution happens faster in small populations. It’s called genetic drift. Evolution depends on it, and it explains why an underground dance party is more likely to produce never-before-heard sounds than a big stadium concert.
And, yes, oh yes, evolution depends on sex. The sexier the better — so go ahead, get your groove on; the planet is depending on you.
With this in mind, ZionWay presents Unity Bashment, a virtual love fest of dub DJs, LivePAs (Live Performance Artists) and conscious dancehall riddims. The b.side Lounge keeps up the tradition Trilogy’s back room instigated — the hottest local crews blowing up the most innovative sounds in an intimate setting where the audience is all but part of the show.
First up is DJ Prophecy, fresh off the summer festival circuit, where he is front-of-house sound engineer for Zilla and Bassnectar. Boulder-based, Prophecy is immersed in new sound technique and will show that off with his loosely knit Evolution Projekt, a reggae-infused collective of Boulder’s dub innovators — folks from Freedom Movement, O.G. Redda (of Forward), Jus Goodie, A.Wise of Ill Logic and Tribe Zion, to name a few.
In the spirit of evolution, the Projekt will be LivePA style, says Prophecy, “Mainly because it gives us the freedom to be more like a band, but in DJ format.”
Prophecy is well aware that he is a part of music’s evolution when he hooks up his laptop and breaks out the Ableton Live. “It creates a whole new aspect of music, and gives us the opportunity to create music that ’til now hasn’t been done before, all influenced by reggae,” he says.
“We kind of take a part of it and turn it into something new. Bands have always been able to do this. Now we can, without the 40-piece band. The majority of what we’re doing comes from MIDI controllers,” which, he says, are “amazing new toys,” faster than a mouse and keyboard. “We’re not even near the tip of the iceberg. It will be cool. The genre is just developing. The programming is just being made, and I don’t think even the people who created it are fully aware of what it’s capable of, especially when you get a bunch of nut-jobs like us learning it.”
DJ Prophecy is a mainstay of ZionWay, but in the spirit of unity, the Bashment will host a collection of Colorado artists, including DJ Uplifter and Da Teacha of Denver’s Dubwise Collective Sound System.
Reggae, after all, has always been technically forward. Not that Jamaica is a bastion of high-tech research and development — in fact, quite the opposite. With little to work with, innovators found new ways to play music, producing live sound with speakers, turntables and generators. Lyrics were added on the fly, and the sound system was born.
Keeping up tradition, Dubwise Collective brings conscious dub designed to unite, enlighten and inspire some serious skakin’.
Uplifter is happy Colorado’s reggae scene is finally getting organized. “We need more solidarity,” he says. “It’s great to have people like Benji (Ras Marcus Benjamin, ZionWay founder) and ZionWay to do something like the Unity Bash. It’s bringing people together who wouldn’t normally flock together.”
Da Teacha agrees, and is looking forward to a party with a conscience, he says, “as opposed to negativity and hatred.”
“I look at each event as an opportunity to spread the message like a teacher, through the lyrics, while at the same time trying to make it a reggae dance party. I would like to see a world where it’s not so much about competition. Inclusive,” he says, “as opposed to exclusive.”
Finishing out the lineup is Bloodpreshah, with his mind on the future of reggae. “If we’re working on promoting reggae music, I want to support it.”
Evolution, after all, is the promise of the future. Bloodpreshah says this evolution isn’t limited by time and space. Instead, he says, it is only limited by imagination. “Anything can happen anywhere. Boulder, Denver, Longmont — anybody can have an impact on the music scene, and it’s all in how they do it.”
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
DJ Prophecy says fans are often impressed with the new music — like glitch and dubstep — that he and his colleagues bring to the scene, but sometimes have a little trouble figuring out how to dance to it.
“The music has gone back to kind of a primal form, because there is no organized beat,” he says, adding that electronica has removed the element of timing from music as a necessary force.
Boulder Weekly takes pity on those awkward fans who love to boogey, but are slightly confused on the modern dance floor. So, we present to you: Tips and Tricks for Dancing to Glitch, Dubstep and Other New-Fangled, Digital-Based Underground Sound Techniques
1) Forget about math. You are not a square. There is no beat. Except when there is a beat. Timing ceases, and doesn’t cease. Go with it.
2) Anticipate the next totally unpredictable sound. Trust me, this works. You must tap into that ancient center of your soul where music comes from in the first place. Close your eyes if you have to.
3) Let the sound flow through you, like water. Give your body over to the path of least resistance, regardless of how goofy you think you might look.
4) Start to think of the music as a form of energy moving through you, and play with that energy. Feel it coming out of the monitor. Put it in your hands. Throw it up in the air and catch it. Spin it around your body, like a hula-hoop. Swallow it, and feel it squirming around in your stomach.
5) Share this energy with others, in a positive way. Smile, share a dance move, make space for a newcomer on the dance floor.
6) Drink more water and less alcohol. Getting totally shit-faced on the dance floor will take you whirling right past that ancient center and headlong into your own gibberish-laced fantasy, where you actually believe the people around you are enjoying your aggressive elbow jabs and don’t mind the beer you spill on them. By the way, it is never sexy to barf on the dance floor.
In the Box:
Unity Bashment blows up at 8 p.m. on on Friday, Aug. 22, at The b.side Lounge, 2017 13th St., Boulder, 303-473-9463.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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