ARE YOU READY FOR SOME TEA LEAF GREEN?

Tea Leaf Green’s powerful version of jam-rock allows the band to feature their diverse songwriting sensibilities and astounding amounts of raw talent while evoking comparisons to Phish, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Even though Tea Leaf will be sure to stake a claim on the jam scene, their roots are firmly planted in Rock, and you’re certain to be wowed by the sheer power of an instrumental exploration and never bored by any incessant meandering of an extended jam. What makes this band so appealing is their ability to stretch out a concept, trounce around together on a tightly composed interlude, point to any band member to take a lead, or soothe the crowd with a well-composed ballad.

The efforts of four years of songwriting have yielded over 50 originals for the band to choose from. Tea Leaf Green is extremely loyal to this original material, but will occasionally dole out a crowd pleasing cover such as "Crosstown Traffic" by Jimi Hendrix, “Coconuts” by Widespread Panic or "You Don’t Know How it Feels" by Tom Petty.

Hollow-bodied guitarist, Josh Clark, is naturally the band member that fans will first take notice of. His fiery solos are played with a flurry of ferociously animated, yet incredibly precise, left-handed fret work. Soon thereafter, however, attentive listeners recognize the generous contributions of Scott Rager, with his tightly syncopated snare runs and tapered cymbal rides sculpting the intensity of the jams, often propelling and shaping the intensity of the band’s sonic textures with his stickwork. Then there’s Ben Chambers on bass, who locks in with Scott’s beat and keeps his mostly straightforward lines always progressing further, allowing the guitar and keys to lay melodies on top of his rolling groundwork. And finally, you’re sure to be delighted by Trevor Garrod, whose strong but sometimes subtle and malleable fingers shape the Rhodes chords beautifully, and whose voice always provides a soothing and soulful tone.

Tea Leaf’s first set at the Elbo Room in San Francisco featured an excellent version of their standard "Sea Monkeys." During the chorus, Trevor sings about a group of Sea Monkeys who dwell in the pond scum and mire, while Josh squawks out his Trey-like lines, darting in and out of Trevor’s vocal work. Weaving his fingers up the fretboard, Josh seeks out and finds that upper register note that resonates profoundly in the ears of everyone in the room. Not resting there for long, Josh rakes his right hand across his strings producing an intense flurry of notes, then tears through a scaling solo with that full hollow-bodied double-pickup tone, cutting out just in time to allow Trevor to smoothly sculpt his vocal lines off the tapered guitar solo.

Trevor lilts out a verse about his “favorite little creatures in the whole wide world,” before the band embarks on a composed interlude, leading the crowd on a metaphorical journey through the swamp. The ensemble weaves tightly through this musical narrative, with Ben thumping out bass lines, shaking and slamming his head like a madman to couple the intensity of the jam.

Next up is the tune “Ride Together,” with Trevor bouncing at his keyboards, floating at times on his fingertips as the Rhodes solo bounds soulfully along. Trevor’s style proves grounded yet flighty, bouncy and enjoyably free as he pounds out a bluesy jam progression and croons the words, "My friends all laugh at me... They say I’ve got good eyes, but I still don’t see." As Scott notes after the show, "Trevor has a great ear for music, he hears melodies and is a great song writer. He knows the technical side more than the rest of us, but he sure can jam."

While Trevor leads on the keys, Josh incrementally steps up his tone; the guitar work growing, leaning, inching towards the spotlight with some quick right hand work bouncing up and down between the lower register strings. Then after a few bars, Scott kicks in a slightly different tempo on the drums to signal a section change, allowing Josh to step up and wail a lead.

Josh tenses his shoulders up, dons a grimace on his face and stares off at an angle into the crowd, then lets his fingers tear through a solo with pure ferocity and a blazing quickness. Anchoring a riff with his left-hand pointer finger, he feels out a four or five note succession, slightly changing the tempo and syncopation of the notes as he flares out the rest of his digits in a frenzied repetition across the fretboard. Building in scale, volume and tone as he climbs his neck, Josh finally pierces through the atmosphere of the crowd by ringing a high note multiple times, bends it with passion then muffles and drowns the note out expertly, sliding his hand down the length of Washburn neck to taper off the force of the solo and lead back into the group jam. The crowd is noticeably impressed as they clap and cheer to express their appreciation. As Ben told Jambase later, "[Josh] has points of magic on the guitar. He can bring the volume and energy up to reach an apex and make me freak out on stage."

Towards the end of the first set, Trevor stands at his keyboard bench and straps on his 1988 Fender Telecaster for "Freedom," a tune that immediately seems recognizable as a classic rock anthem, even the first time you hear it. The dual-guitar front compliments Josh’s voice on the lead vocals which gain a certain gravelly power when he strains for those forceful notes in the upper register, belting out, "Free-dom, don’t come easy to me! Your su-gar, tastes so sweet cause it’s free!"

All the while, Trevor twangs out the chords on his Fender, producing a guitar tone that lies in due contrast to the full resonance of Josh’s hollow body. After Josh is put on the spot by singing the lead, he turns the tables on Trevor by publicly requesting a guitar solo. Trevor obliges to the best of his ability, meandering through his lines, picking limited series of notes and changing up the tempo of a riff that’s anchored in the main key. Having exhausted the possibilities, Trevor eventually kicks it back to Josh to let loose for yet another scorching, crowd-pleasing lead to round up this endorsing rock anthem, and the set.

II:
Tea Leaf returns to the stage for the second set, opening with the rare cover effort "Kashmir." The band sculpts the mood perfectly with eerie echoes of the original, resurrecting that haunting ambience once constructed by Led Zeppelin. Josh provides a series of eerie emanations creating a haunting sonicscape before Trevor sings the lines, "Whoa, let the sun beat down upon my face, And stars to fill my dream, I am a traveler of both time and space, To be where I have been." The band shapes that cascading wash of sound in an adept re-creation of the original. As fellow concertgoer Frank Speno remarked, "They could be a great Zep cover band if this whole ‘Sea Monkeys’ thing doesn't play out for them."

The most intense display of musicianship from the band that night came on the Tea Leaf favorite “Panspermic De-evolution.” Ben, who is accustomed to holding Tea Leaf’s compositions together with fundamental tempo-driven progressions, seizes a rare opportunity on "De-evolution," and scales the neck of his bass with a complicated fluttering of the fret board. From the audience’s perspective, Ben’s fingers seemingly morph into a wave of caterpillars that lilt down the neck of his bass, resulting sonically in his most intricate and fluid bass line. Josh’s fingers are off in tandem flight, hitting those blazing Jimi-tinged notes as the band adeptly navigates through an extended section that they’ve grown comfortable ripping up time and again.

The encore at the Elbo Room featured a rare lead-vocal appearance by Ben C. on "Planet of Green Love," an ode to, apparently, his most favorite of all the herbs. Ben offers a completely different vocal style than Josh or Trevor, kicking out smooth rhythmic phrasing in hip-hop style. Ben lays down a driving but steadily paced five note bass line, leaving plenty of space to blast the jam wide open. Donning a ‘Snoop Dogg’ persona, he raps, “pick it, pack a bowl and hit it,” which leads directly into a frenzy of instrumental sound, the whole band contributing to a cacophony of controlled madness. Josh razes away on lead guitar, Ben provides a rumbling bass line, and Scott bangs away at his kit; Trevor’s keys are all but drowned out by the wash of sound. Eventually, the band locks in together for an anthemic, coda-like progression led by Ben and Josh, then Ben repeats the theme as Josh tears through a few bars on one last screaming solo and the band rounds up the night on an impressive high note. Those in the crowd who have seen Tea Leaf before hoot and holler, amazed once again at the sheer power of this lineup; those who discovered the band on this amazing night of music immediately decide that they will be back for more.

Tea Leaf Green definitely seems poised to take that energy and enthusiasm to the next level. The band has planned an aggressive West Coast tour in January, stopping in Southern California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and will eventually round up the excursion in the Bay Area for a total of 20 shows in 23 days. Then in June, after Josh graduates from college, they promise to hit the East Coast on a National Tour.

When asked where they visualize themselves one year from now, Ben responded that they’d like to, “Build a countrywide buzz for our live show, and work on a new album with a reputable hard-working producer.” Referring to their live performances, Scott added that they were looking to "recreate the same thing on a grander scale" noting that they believe they need to take to the road in order to reach the next level. In reality, their goal is to be a full-time nationally touring act by this time next year.

Talent wise, that’s definitely a possibility.

As far as the dedication is concerned, well, at this point in their career, the band members can't really imagine playing with anybody else. TLG has always had an unbelievable family feel within the group, and they’re really hoping to extend that sentiment to the endeavors that they’ll undertake in the year to come. As Josh noted, he hopes that by this time next year the band is, “all eating steaks and drinking heartily,” but most importantly that they’re “still together and still rockin’!”

Lee Bouyea
JamBase Bay Area Correspondent
Go See Live Music!
Thanks to KARK for the photos!