Review of Joshua Tree Music Festival
June Caldwell
May 27, 2006
JOSHUA TREE MUSIC FESTIVAL 2006
JOSHUA TREE, CALFORNIA
MAY 19 - 21, 2006
Reviewed by Rodger and June Caldwell
The atmosphere at the Joshua Tree Music Festival is like stumbling across a campsite of a large family reunion full of cousins whose names you can't remember, but they are still glad to see you. For three short days Joshua Tree Music Festival creates a unique world in the California desert with over 26 bands, food, and various local vendors. The sunset takes your breath away as the sky slowly fills with glittering stars. A few bands stood out as musical highlights.
KINKY
From Monterrey, Mexico come the kings of alternative dance rock, Kinky. With their albums produced by UK?s Chris Allison (who also produced Cold Play), they have enough international appeal to make us want to break through Bush?s border patrol and sneak across the border in the opposite direction to take up residence in Mexico! OK kids, let?s go back?way back! Remember the first time you saw Franz Ferdinand? I do! I thought, hey now we can dance, we can like pop, we can have fun with our rock! Like seeing Franz Ferdinand for the first time, Kinky breaks open your tired clich?ideas of genre or what is important in music, and takes it all several nacho notches further. Dance pop with techno playfulness and the heart and soul of blazing guitar, singing and hip shaking all fit together effortlessly. The all-out highlight was ?Mas?. If you hear it once, anything else you hear just won?t qualify as a dance song. The chorus had us all yelling along ?Mas y mas? at the top of our lungs (and pretending to sing along with the rest of the lyrics although not understanding any Spanish), crackling with the pounding beats, laced with layers of Latin congas. The sound of danger and excitement in the beat, the anthemlike chorus, rocking dance, hip-hop funk forget worrying about what to call it, just get your pear off the wall and start shaking it like your life depends on it! I can forgive the first chords are straight from Ray Charles? ?What?dI Say?. In case anybody there was resisting singing along, they broke into a pumped up version of Oye Como Va by Santana with guitars blazing through the spicy beats. ?Anorexic Freaks? is a witty funkified sweaty dancing swirling party. Your hair will get mussed. ?Field Goal? has mischievous jazzy atmospheres with groovin keyboards you would have to be seriously stoned to be able to stand still through. ?Sol? is rock and roll straight up with a more traditional Latin chorus. Pop officially now has new meaning?instead of dried up all life sucked out of what used to be authentic rock, now pop means we can have glittering Latin pounding fun complete with enough passion and fire to fry huevos rancheros on a rock.
PARTICLE
After hearing some very good jam bands, a great one like Particle stands alone. Robbie Krieger, guitarist from the Doors, was all the buzz joining Particle onstage for a sometimes surreal jam cover of ?Riders on the Storm? and ?LA Woman?. But Particle?s resident guitarist, Scott Metzger was the dominant guitar voice. Starting out with Deadlike jams, then adding a lot more voltage, they merged into a frenzy of techno dance, rock and roll electronica combined with unearthly blazing guitars like an emblazoned Jimmy Page, the keyboardist in an electrified shining ecstatic zone, each band member as if in a trance of dance pedal to the metal intensity. Particle is made of complex elements from each performer who all have chops to spare. This is no pleasantly stoned, noodling about on their instruments jam band. This is Julliard quality musicianship packaged in an intense and intricate wave of sound that demands you pay attention for fear of missing something great. We heard them from near and far as we drifted off to get a cold drink, and then were pulled back in by the searing guitar leads backed by elaborate pulsating rhythm section and keyboard accents riffing trough the dark night like a meteor shower, and found ourselves dancing like we mean it!
GROUNDATION
In a word we?re jammin?! How else to describe seeing, hearing and grooving with Groundation under the desert sun. This jazzy, soulful, roots reggae band of eight musicians from Northern California is keeping the one world message of reggae alive. The lead singer, Harrison Stafford, doesn?t just talk the talk but teaches it too. A professor from Sonoma State, he teaches the school?s first History of Reggae class. When it comes to rubbin? the dub, this band knows their beats too. They are skilled musicians who, for a band of eight, produce a clean jazz-reggae sound. With his powerful, expressive voice I am sure no one sleeps through that class, and just imagine the after school jams! The lyrics remind me that things are far from perfect in this world but each of us has the power to change it for the better in our little part of the planet. These are no Bob Marley imitators. With their own unique sound they continue the thread of hope for a better day that is woven through his music. A few minutes of dancing and partying with Groundation makes you believe it?s real.
JOSHUA TREE, CALFORNIA
MAY 19 - 21, 2006
Reviewed by Rodger and June Caldwell
The atmosphere at the Joshua Tree Music Festival is like stumbling across a campsite of a large family reunion full of cousins whose names you can't remember, but they are still glad to see you. For three short days Joshua Tree Music Festival creates a unique world in the California desert with over 26 bands, food, and various local vendors. The sunset takes your breath away as the sky slowly fills with glittering stars. A few bands stood out as musical highlights.
KINKY
From Monterrey, Mexico come the kings of alternative dance rock, Kinky. With their albums produced by UK?s Chris Allison (who also produced Cold Play), they have enough international appeal to make us want to break through Bush?s border patrol and sneak across the border in the opposite direction to take up residence in Mexico! OK kids, let?s go back?way back! Remember the first time you saw Franz Ferdinand? I do! I thought, hey now we can dance, we can like pop, we can have fun with our rock! Like seeing Franz Ferdinand for the first time, Kinky breaks open your tired clich?ideas of genre or what is important in music, and takes it all several nacho notches further. Dance pop with techno playfulness and the heart and soul of blazing guitar, singing and hip shaking all fit together effortlessly. The all-out highlight was ?Mas?. If you hear it once, anything else you hear just won?t qualify as a dance song. The chorus had us all yelling along ?Mas y mas? at the top of our lungs (and pretending to sing along with the rest of the lyrics although not understanding any Spanish), crackling with the pounding beats, laced with layers of Latin congas. The sound of danger and excitement in the beat, the anthemlike chorus, rocking dance, hip-hop funk forget worrying about what to call it, just get your pear off the wall and start shaking it like your life depends on it! I can forgive the first chords are straight from Ray Charles? ?What?dI Say?. In case anybody there was resisting singing along, they broke into a pumped up version of Oye Como Va by Santana with guitars blazing through the spicy beats. ?Anorexic Freaks? is a witty funkified sweaty dancing swirling party. Your hair will get mussed. ?Field Goal? has mischievous jazzy atmospheres with groovin keyboards you would have to be seriously stoned to be able to stand still through. ?Sol? is rock and roll straight up with a more traditional Latin chorus. Pop officially now has new meaning?instead of dried up all life sucked out of what used to be authentic rock, now pop means we can have glittering Latin pounding fun complete with enough passion and fire to fry huevos rancheros on a rock.
PARTICLE
After hearing some very good jam bands, a great one like Particle stands alone. Robbie Krieger, guitarist from the Doors, was all the buzz joining Particle onstage for a sometimes surreal jam cover of ?Riders on the Storm? and ?LA Woman?. But Particle?s resident guitarist, Scott Metzger was the dominant guitar voice. Starting out with Deadlike jams, then adding a lot more voltage, they merged into a frenzy of techno dance, rock and roll electronica combined with unearthly blazing guitars like an emblazoned Jimmy Page, the keyboardist in an electrified shining ecstatic zone, each band member as if in a trance of dance pedal to the metal intensity. Particle is made of complex elements from each performer who all have chops to spare. This is no pleasantly stoned, noodling about on their instruments jam band. This is Julliard quality musicianship packaged in an intense and intricate wave of sound that demands you pay attention for fear of missing something great. We heard them from near and far as we drifted off to get a cold drink, and then were pulled back in by the searing guitar leads backed by elaborate pulsating rhythm section and keyboard accents riffing trough the dark night like a meteor shower, and found ourselves dancing like we mean it!
GROUNDATION
In a word we?re jammin?! How else to describe seeing, hearing and grooving with Groundation under the desert sun. This jazzy, soulful, roots reggae band of eight musicians from Northern California is keeping the one world message of reggae alive. The lead singer, Harrison Stafford, doesn?t just talk the talk but teaches it too. A professor from Sonoma State, he teaches the school?s first History of Reggae class. When it comes to rubbin? the dub, this band knows their beats too. They are skilled musicians who, for a band of eight, produce a clean jazz-reggae sound. With his powerful, expressive voice I am sure no one sleeps through that class, and just imagine the after school jams! The lyrics remind me that things are far from perfect in this world but each of us has the power to change it for the better in our little part of the planet. These are no Bob Marley imitators. With their own unique sound they continue the thread of hope for a better day that is woven through his music. A few minutes of dancing and partying with Groundation makes you believe it?s real.