:: My Morning Jacket :: Ogden Theatre :: January 12 and 13 :: 

By Timothy Dwenger

What do The Boston Pops, Cameron Crowe, Pink Floyd lighting designer Mark Brickman and Levon Helm of the Band all have in common? The answer is that they have all recently worked with Kentucky rock outfit My Morning Jacket. 

Since the release of their fourth studio effort Z in October of 2005 the band has exploded into the collective consciousness of rock fans across the county.  Their shows have been selling out nearly every night and the palpable energy in the room erupts when they take the stage.

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:: Quietdrive :: Gothic Theatre :: January 16 ::

:: The Black Sheep :: January 17 :: 

By Brian Kenney

The promotional aspect of the music industry is a strange one. Certainly, you have to play your gigs, stop by junkets and do your interviews. But it’s also about merchandising: the discs, posters, stickers, t-shirts. For Minneapolis’ Quietdrive, those t-shirts can end up in some very strange places — such as on both sides of the war in Iraq, where a Quietdrive t-shirt showed up on a captured Iraqi rebel. “We had some friends fighting over in Iraq [and] we wanted to support them,” recalled Quietdrive bassist Droo Hastings during a recent interview with The Marquee. “So we sent them a bunch of Quietdrive t-shirts and discs. But their truck got raided and a bunch of stuff [got] stolen.”

Last he heard, the shirt turned up on an Iraqi rebel who was in bad shape to say the least. “It’s a gruesome story,” Hasting concluded.

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:: Drew Emmitt Band :: Stage Stop Inn :: January 25 ::

:: 8150 :: January 26 ::

By Lisa Oshlo

Long known around these parts as the lead vocalist and dynamic mandolin player for jamgrass mainstays Leftover Salmon, Drew Emmitt has forged his own path since the dissolution of that band in 2004. Now touring regularly with the Drew Emmitt Band, the master of all things strings, has proven he’s got the meddle to go at it on his own.

While Emmitt sticks predominantly with the mandolin and guitar, he is also a competent player of the banjo, fiddle, harmonica, and flute. The Marquee caught up with him high on a mountaintop in his hometown of Crested Butte, Colo., to talk about the mandolin and the music that is so much a part of him.

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:: Jeff Daniels :: Soiled Dove Underground :: January 6 :: 

By Brian F. Johnson

It’s kind of sad, actually. Jeff Daniels is an amazing actor. He’s starred in such legendary films as The Purple Rose of Cairo, Terms of Endearment, Gettysburg and Good Night and Good Luck. But to many people of my generation he’ll be best remembered for his unfortunate bathroom scene in Dumb and Dumber, the comedy film that took all of his serious acting endeavors and tossed them out the window for the sake of hysterical bathroom humor and stupid one-liners.

Now, on top of that, he’s doing something that he says makes him more like William Shatner, of all people — performing songs on stage.

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:: moe. :: Twist and Shout :: January 24 ::

:: Fox Theatre :: January 25 ::

:: Gothic Theatre :: January 26 ::

:: Fillmore Auditorium :: January 27 :: 

By Timothy Dwenger

True to jamband form, upstate New York’s moe. toured incessantly throughout 2006. They bounced across the country, road testing new material and hammering songs into shape for their eighth studio release, The Conch, that will hit shelves on Jan. 23. 

The Conch is a 17-track offering that includes 13 fully-developed songs and four short snippets or interludes. “The process of recording stretched out over the course of a year, as we were extremely busy, recording, working on the DVD, playing live and about 10 other things,” said Chuck Garvey (vocals, guitar, keyboards) in a recent interview with The Marquee. The result is a solid album that subtly discloses the maturity of the band and their rare ability to create intense hook-laden music as effortlessly in the studio as they do on stage.

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::Storytyme :: Fox Theatre :: January 6 :: 

By Tiffany Childs

When a band gets together at the ages of 8, 10 and 12, you’d hardly expect them to last. In the case of Storytyme you’d be wrong.

Pete (guitar/vocals), Phil (bass) and Tony Lewis (drums/vocals) have been playing together since they received their first instruments as childhood Christmas gifts. Although the three still possess a child-like love for music, their sound has grown and matured along with the brothers over the years. 

In those early days, the band wrote lyrics for songs and they would develop the music later. “In a way, we were always just telling a story first — stories that happened in our lives. The music came after the words,” Pete Lewis revealed in a recent interview with The Marquee. That approach to songwriting is what eventually inspired the  band’s name, Storytyme.

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:: Joseph Israel :: Bluebird Theater :: January 15 ::

:: Fox Theatre :: January 18 :: 

By Neil McIntyre

Being a red-haired white man from Tulsa, Oklahoma hasn’t stopped Joseph Israel from performing his own brand of roots reggae. The way he sees it, looks shouldn’t stop people from hearing him out.

Judging this book by its cover could lead people to missing out on one of reggae’s next big acts.

Israel has the tone, musicianship and lyrical quality it takes to be embraced by the world of  the Rasta. His new album Gone are the Days is due out in March on Universal/NewDoor Records and was recorded partially at Bob Marley’s legendary studio in Kingston, Jamaica, Tuff Gong. Additionally, Israel’s new album features a host of Jamaica’s greatest session musicians including saxophonist Dean Fraser, bassist Chris Meredith, lead guitarist Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, rhythm guitarist Ian ‘Breezy’ Coleman, drummer Wilburn ‘Squidley’ Cole, keyboardist Paul ‘Scooby’ Smith, pianists Franklyn ‘Bubbler’ Waul and Paul ‘Wrong Move’ Crossdale, and percussionist Uzziah ‘Sticky’ Thompson. And reggae greats Luciano, his accompanist Rochelle Bradshaw and Mikey General all sit in on a track.

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:: The Tennessee Three :: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom :: January 26 :: 

By Tiffany Childs

Johnny Cash’s music is as easily identifiable as Cash himself is famous, but he didn’t create that unique sound alone. Early in his career Cash made the significant decision that he was only going to work with one band and he stuck to that resolution until his retirement. The band, known as The Tennessee Three, has reinforced Johnny’s music over the past decades.

Although the bassist has changed throughout the years, two members of the band, W.S. Holland (drums) and Bob Wootton (guitar and vocals) were with Cash for most of his professional life.  The two are continuing the Cash legacy by touring and performing the same kind of music Cash loved to play, and it’s a unique situation for the musicians and the fans. This is not a Cash tribute or cover band, this is a band made up by the men who are as integral to the music as Cash was. The Marquee recently had the honor of talking with them about the long road they have traveled and where that road may lead now that Mr. Cash is no longer with us.

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 I’m so friggin’ happy to have My Morning Jacket on the cover of The Marquee again.

I still remember the day a friend handed me a copy of The Jacket’s debut full-length release CD Tennessee Fire. I thought they were great, but a little while later when they followed up with It Still Moves, I was blown away and hooked for good.

The first time I saw them live I was shocked and the second time I saw them live it was an epic experience. I personally think that people kick around the phrases “the next big thing” and “the best band out there” way too much, but when it comes to My Morning Jacket, I don’t think it can be overstated.

Since the last time we had them on the cover (October of 2005), the band’s popularity and exposure have increased 100-fold. Their sets at last summer’s festivals (Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, to name just two) were highlights of the summer concert scene, and their recent contribution to The Band tribute album Endless Highway is superb. (That CD isn’t due out until later this month, but trust me, you’re going to freak when you hear it.)

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By Brian F. Johnson

It felt awfully odd pulling out my old brick of a cassette recorder in a room specially designed for mastering DVDs and Super Audio CDs, where surround sound speakers tower over the corners of the room. I was sitting down to interview one of the best pair of ears in Colorado — David Glasser, the founder and chief engineer at Airshow Mastering — and amidst some of the most technologically advanced audio mastering equipment, that old cassette recorder was like having a dinosaur walk into a modern-day science lab. It was almost comical.

But Glasser, isn’t afraid of dinosaurs. With over 30 years experience in audio engineering, a man who has mastered over 60 Grammy nominated records and is a three-time nominee and two-time Grammy winner himself, his calm and humble nature, not to mention his dry sense of humor, takes over the room.

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Leftover Salmon

Years in Your Ears

Yellow Pine Pictures

OOOO out of OOOOO

It’s only been two years since the members of Leftover Salmon threw in the collective towel and decided, very amicably, to go their separate ways. But even though it’s been a short time, this DVD about the band is long overdue.

Years In Your Ears is a great documentary about the band that takes viewers from the band’s earliest beginnings up to their pinnacle. Chock full of hysterical interviews with  Salmon fambly (sic) members and a who’s who of musicians, the DVD tells the tale as long as the story of the salmon returning to its home waters to spawn.

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