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I was lucky enough to catch what appears to be the next phase in the ongoing evolution of sometimes fusion, sometimes funk, and now live house(???) band, Garaj Mahal on Saturday night at Palookaville. Something special went down at the venerable Santa Cruz venue, a fact that was certainly not lost on the 300+ revelers in attendance. As those in the know know, GM has been wowing audiences for the past year with their unique blend of jazz and funk, laid down to the deep grooves of bass master Kai Eckhardt and drummer extraordinaire Alan Hertz, and featuring Middle Eastern overtones which reflect the Pakistani-Chilean heritage of guitar (and electric sitar) wizard Fareed Haque. They have recently replaced keyboardist Kit Walker with Chicagoan Eric Levy, who brings a percussive style reminiscent of John Medeski mixed with the wailing, almost guitar-god-esque keyboard sounds of Jann Hammer, and seems perfectly at home among these monsters of rock. Saturday night also featured the spinning, scratching and ambient sounds of DJ Fly Agaric 23 who seems to have found his rightful place in the groove.
I’ve been seeing Garaj Mahal pretty much since the humble beginnings at Connecticut Yankee, mostly to stare in awe at their amazing musical virtuosity, and speaking as a musician, they have constantly blown my mind. However, there was always a weak link in the groove, in my opinion, and a lot of the time I think the music was too esoteric to really get down to. On Saturday, it was evident that this is changing. Or should I say, has changed. The band I saw on Saturday night, with the exception of the intense musicality and orgasmic peaks I’ve come to expect from these guys, was completely different from the one I have seen before. It was especially noticeable after having seen the Friday night show in San Francisco, which despite being a great show, was much more of the “old” Garaj Mahal sound than the “new”. The Garaj Mahal I saw in Santa Cruz was some of the dirtiest, funkiest, crackling, sizzling, and popping live music I have ever heard. They all sat back a bit and seemed to give the energy of the music space to dictate it’s own path, instead of their usual mastery over the music. This made a huge difference, as they fell into some jams that totally defied gravity and got the entire audience dancing into a frenzy, huge grins pinned ear to ear.
In addition, I get the feeling that these guys are loosening up considerably as their music opens up and they solidify as a band, revealing their true natures, which seem to be... FREAKS!! Hilarious freaks, at that. To open the first set, Alan starts busting out a spacey groove, and then Kai starts with a simple, deep, bass line followed by Fly with some airy, ambient sounds. Fareed then walks out in a shiny plastic orange and pink apron with nothing but combat boots and picks up a giant spatula and a pair of tongs and heads on over to this barbeque they’ve got set up on stage, and starts playing percussion on it, and... it sounds good!! (I found out later that they had installed a microphone inside the ‘que). Eric kicks in on some tranced out keyboards, and Fareed is up there, dead serious, squeezing the coolest sounds out of that barbeque!! They took this into a ripping "Be Dope," a GM tune which apparently was co-written by Alan and Eric. Fareed would return to the ‘que several times throughout the night, each time, the band would take it down a notch, and the groove would tighten up, and the audience would do their part, contributing energy by shaking our collective booty!
To be honest, I’m just starting to learn the names of their tunes, so I can’t give a full set list, but some of the highlights included a super sticky rendition of their soon-to-be classic "Ivory Tower." Kai sounded awesome both on the vocals and doing the beatbox, old-school style, as the tune went off for what seemed to me like half an hour. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a new section in the tune, where they really expand and explore. Maybe my new favorite is a version of the Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” which they did with beautiful layered melodies, dripping with tone, over a tight and funky bottom line. Another GM tune, "Mondo," added an almost indie rock sound to the mix, and displayed their ability to play with rough edges, as Fareed worked incredible, fluid lines from inside of his feedback, giving it a haunting, hypnotic sound. “Poodle Factory” seems to be another example of the band loosening up and starting to explore their own voices: "Have you ever seen a dog bark like this? Bark Bark, Bark Bark Bark," with the three part rhythmical lyrics laid over the super-down-low dirt of Alan and Kai. Also to be mentioned is Eric’s “breath controller” which he blows into to trigger the keyboard, creating a woodwind effect while using fat analog sounds.
So without overdoing it (I honestly don’t know if I could) I have to say that these guys are BLOWING UP, and evolving so quickly that I can’t really see any limits on where they could take this music, or how far this lineup could go as a band. I wouldn’t be surprised if their intricate, powerful groove is a sound we hear a whole lot more of in the future. I, for one, really hope so.
Scott Burg
Bay Area Music Lover
Newly self proclaimed GarajMahalic
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