New Monsoon: Five Is A Magic Number

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By: Dennis Cook

New Monsoon

Some bands evolve by cataclysmic leaps, each album and tour reinventing what’s come before. Others gestate in subtler ways, refining their craft through the slow crucible of steady touring, returning to the studio only when they’ve honed new material to their critical standards. It’s harder to see the progress in this second way. Without the bells and whistles of huge change it’s easy to miss the incremental beauty and artistry of this careful, thoughtful methodology. But, the lifers, the ones who make music because the universe put it in them, tend to take the slower road. New Monsoon is this kind of band, and they’ve sculpted their most thoroughly satisfying, juicily representative album to date – an inviting snapshot of a working band in their fighting prime ready for the many miles that lay ahead.

With the help of veteran Grateful Dead engineer/producer John Cutler (In The Dark, Built To Last), the relatively new five-piece incarnation of SF’s heady rock juggernaut took to San Rafael’s Laughing Tiger Studios and laid down ten bedrock examples of what they’re all about. From the sinuous, high head opener “Greenhouse” to the emotive, stirring finish of “White Sky Rain,” the simply titled V (released 8/21/07 on New Monsoon Music) conjures the same warm, wonderful ’70s spirit as The Dead’s From The Mars Hotel and The Band’s Cahoots. It is the sound of the gifted journeymen we first met on 2001’s Hydrophonic becoming the master musicians many of us have long known lay inside them. Without fanfare, V moves with muscular dexterity, avoiding overplaying at every turn, always serving the songs and one another in a way only thousands of shows and countless hours of woodshedding can produce.

“There are people who are good and it takes longer for them to be known but once they are known they’re known for all the years they’ve been good up to that point. That’s something that Greg Ginn of the band Black Flag, a friend of ours, pointed out,” says electric guitarist-singer Jeff Miller. “He is completely the antithesis of what you’d think the guy would be. He’s a Deadhead and shy and quiet. [We met him] when we were at the Evergreen Lodge at a one-off gig. He’s helped us do some things, and he’s such a sweet guy. He loves us because he sees what we are – we’re not a flash-in-the-pan, we’re working really hard and touring. He calls us a ‘legacy band,’ where once we have our first breakthrough there’s the whole catalog for people to get into. I’m waiting for that pebble to fall out of the wall any minute now [laughs].”

And Then There Were Five

Sean Hutchinson

All bands go through lineup shuffles but New Monsoon has seen more than their fair share, with departures often coming at the 11th hour. First, original lead singer and bassist Heath Carlisle jumped ship without warning in December 2003 days before a big tour, and then Carlisle’s eventual replacement Ben Bernstein split suddenly in late 2006. Also moving on this past year are two-thirds of their vaunted percussion foundation, Latin percussionist Brian Carey and tabla player Rajiv Parikh, who left amiably to focus on their families and still sit-in from time to time.

The most recent exit is bedrock trap kit drummer Marty Ylitalo, who achieved a longtime dream of joining the Blue Man Group. New Monsoon’s resilience in the face of these changes speaks to their commitment to their craft. Each upheaval, while challenging, has seen them grow from strength to strength, peeling away the superfluous elements to reveal a taut, flexible rock quintet comprised today of Miller, Bo Carper (acoustic guitar, banjo, vocals), Phil Ferlino (keyboards, vocals), Ron Johnson (bass) and new drummer Sean Hutchinson, who joined immediately after Ylitalo’s final shows at SF’s The Independent in August (read the review here).

“With the drummer chair, we had a lot of amazing auditions. Some of these guys put a lot of work into learning our tunes. Some had elaborate charts for songs we don’t even have charts for. That said something to me about where our band is at, that we attracted these incredible drummers. One guy drove from Denver, another guy came from Portland. It’s amazing,” Miller observes. “The guy we ended up choosing was suggested to us by Michael Shrieve [original Santana percussionist and producer of New Monsoon’s previous album, The Sound]. Shrieve called and said, ‘I’ve got your guy. [Sean] is 22-years-old and just graduated from the New England Conservatory with honors. I can vouch for him personally because he befriended me at an Elvin Jones concert, and approached me in such a mature way for his age.”

“Sean plays drums like a muthafucker but also plays tablas and all Latin and world percussion. So, we have a guy who’s not only a killer, schooled kit drummer that plays all styles but also plays all these other percussion instruments. This sounds almost too good to be true but this kid really wanted the gig,” continues Miller. “We only required him to learn five songs for the audition and he learned 21 songs! He flew on his own dime and we gave him the first audition slot and he set the bar. He played through song after song, six or seven tunes are all we had time for but we didn’t do anything twice and we could have played for an audience right there. It would have been ready to go.”

Miller & Carper by Susan J. Weiand

“You have to be prepared for anyone to jump out of the helicopter at any moment. You can’t expect everybody to be down for this lifestyle infinitely because there’s ‘Life’ outside of this lifestyle. And if you don’t strike the right balance it can eat you alive,” Miller comments. “As Scott Law put it so eloquently to me at Wakarusa, ‘Rock & roll eats its young.’ To get into your mature years, say 35 and beyond, doing this I think by that point it definitely weeds out anybody who’s not down for what it really is. Once you realize what it really is then you have to decide if you love the good things about it enough to continue doing it on the level of sacrifice you need to in order to get to the next point.”

“The whole progression of New Monsoon has gone from first establishing ourselves as a band, then as players integrating everybody’s musical style and opinions, whatever certain things had to happen just to function. We’ve gone through different phases of that,” says Miller. “Raj and Brian are entities unto themselves – musically, mentally and creatively. Balancing out seven guys results in a certain thing. Now, it’s a little more focused because frankly it’s focused on what me and Bo and Phil are bringing to the table. The three of us have been unlocking doors. We get to a certain point and then things unlock some more where suddenly we can now sing three-part harmonies. We’ve discovered we can do different grooves, create space and have a little more insight into the arrangements of the songs now as opposed to just making room for everybody.”

Continue reading for more on New Monsoon…

He loves us because he sees what we are – we’re not a flash-in-the-pan, we’re working really hard and touring. He calls us a ‘legacy band,’ where once we have our first breakthrough there’s the whole catalog for people to get into. I’m waiting for that pebble to fall out of the wall any minute now. -Jeff Miller on the band’s relationship with Greg Ginn

Photo by Susan J. Weiand

Got Five On It

This band is a lot more eloquent and philosophical than they often give themselves credit for, though there’s signs of growing comfort with their vagabond-thinker natures surfacing in their work. V is their most baldly enjoyable release. Sure, fun to listen to but spend time with it and you’ll find yourself pondering bigger things. It is the perfect spoonful of sugar to help the medicine down. Where The Sound was sometimes a bit heavy if you weren’t in the mood to face the darkness and truth telling, V beckons us with more intrinsic joy but doesn’t sacrifice their thoughtful character. And while one can easily imagine an Allman Brothers fan falling for “Song For Marie” or Jerry’s kids flipping for “Greenhouse,” this album, like all their releases, sounds like no one but New Monsoon.

Jeff Miller by Susan J. Weiand

“Jeff Miller is my neighbor. He moved in a few years ago and my wife got to know him because he gives her guitar lessons. That’s how I got involved,” explains John Cutler. “Jeff asked me to help them. The last thing I did in the music business was some [live] sound for Phil Lesh, and I left that around 2001. I hadn’t been in the studio or turned a knob since then. So, it was really very cathartic for me. A lot has changed in the last few years. When I made records we would go to analog tape and Pro-Tools was just coming in. All of us purists were against it. I come into this world and we did go to analog – I sort of insisted on it – and we did live basics. They were all playing at the same time. That’s always been what I like to do, to capture real music. Coming from the Alembic school of pure sound and the psychedelic world of wanting things as clear as possible, well, that’s always been my goal – to try and reproduce things accurately and not color them too much. My basic philosophy is to capture what was going on [at the moment].”

More than any previous release, V reflects their cracklingly holistic sound and the way they interact so fabulously in real time. With few overdubs, we get the natural sound of the band with a few choice embellishments.

“We worked really hard on it – long days and constantly for like three or four weeks. I didn’t listen to their last record or the one before it. I didn’t want to prejudice myself. I like to come into the situation like a virgin with no preconceived notions. I’d seen the band perform a couple times but that was it,” says Cutler. “After all the years of the Grateful Dead and the chemical scenes, I was enjoying very much living a musician free life. Don’t get me wrong, I was blessed that I got to work with the Dead. I was treading lightly here but I made a bunch of friends making this record. They went on the road when we finished and I found myself missing these guys. They’re really a good bunch of guys.”

On the new album, Carper really stepped up. While a regular contributor to their lead vocals in concert, this is the first time he has stepped into the spotlight in the studio.

“It’s been a long time coming [laughs]. It turned out about as well as I’d hoped it would. I definitely felt some nervousness going in. It takes some getting used to, hearing my voice coming back out of speakers,” observes Carper. “I learned a lot more than I thought I would during the process of laying down tracks, listening to playback, etc. I’m learning things about my singing voice, namely that I might have some more control over it than I thought. It came out sounding natural. My biggest concern was it would sound overproduced. That’s one of the things Cutler was really good at – keeping everything very organic sounding.”

Carper is front and center on “Greenhouse,” a pretty perfect album opener. “It was cool to have my vocals recorded for a studio release but the other part that was really satisfying was the song itself, which is not only a real debut for me as a singer but just as much, or more so, as a songwriter doing lyrics,” says Carper. “I’ve always had a pretty big hand in writing the instrumental stuff but I’ve had very little to do with the lyrical content in the past. So, ‘Alaska,’ ‘Neon Block’ and ‘Greenhouse’ are my thing lyrically and melodically. It was great to get some of those lyrical ideas out there and see that they landed.”

The cover of V is instantly striking in its well framed simplicity. There’s something sturdy and matter-of-fact about this massive rock set against a cloudy sky. Like the band, it says, “Here I am” with resounding strength.

“The cover is by Annie Cutler [John’s wife, who also did the album’s cool digital booklet]. It was one of those cosmic things that happen. She’d gone out to Drakes Beach to take this photo and then texted it to me. When I looked at it I thought, ‘This would make a great album cover.’ And it stuck,” Miller tells us. “I liked the photo because it spoke to me on some base level. It feels solid, something that’s powerful yet it’s a gentle day in Marin where the wind is gently sweeping across this rock. I’ve since been to that rock several times and it’s kinda like the mashed potatoes in Close Encounters. It’s a really powerful rock – the size of a ship and you can walk out to it. We’re a Bay Area band. This is where this originated, out near Bolinas [a secluded, hyper independent nook in Marin]. I thought it was appropriate to identify ourselves as such on this album.”

Continue reading for more on New Monsoon…

We only required him to learn five songs for the audition and he learned 21 songs! He flew on his own dime and we gave him the first audition slot and he set the bar. He played through song after song, six or seven tunes are all we had time for but we didn’t do anything twice and we could have played for an audience right there. It would have been ready to go. -Jeff Miller on New Monsoon’s new drummer Sean Hutchinson

Photo of Sean Hutchinson

Growing By And By

New Monsoon has always been an evolutionary process, where each year brings them closer to some larger – though unstated – goal that may never be reached. They recognize the value of unattainable things, and it’s that yearning that infuses their music with a sense of something deep and sincere reaching out from the inside. As Paul Weller once put it, “At the foot of the mountain/Such a long way to climb. How will I ever get up there/But I know I must try.”

Bo Carper by Susan J. Weiand

“I hope it’s never reached because then I’ll be through [laughs]. What I know from my own music listening is if you can write something that really moves someone then you’re halfway there,” offers Carper.

With a band like New Monsoon, one of the keys is material that’s elastic enough to be played night after night but can also stand up on sturdy bones from the get-go.

“For example, ‘Alaska’ [from V] concentrates completely on the story. In the studio, the solos are short, it’s very concise and it’s all about the words and the harmonies. Live, that song turned into a really big jam. We got to do it at The Fillmore last year with Dan Lebowitz [ALO] and it turned into this huge thing. ‘Alaska,’ and the ‘The Other Side’ are about moving around the country, that sort of metaphysical thing of trying to connect meaningfully with the people in our lives,” Carper says. “There’s this sort of traveling place where sometimes we’re connected because we’re sitting together but sometimes we’re connected because we’re traveling at the same time, even if it’s in different places. Like talking to a friend who’s a musician who tells you they’re in an airport in Pittsburgh while you’re in an airport in Alaska. We’re inhabiting the same plane of existence.”

The group has always maintained a strong bond with their fans but they’ve refined their approach to getting their music across. Increasingly, it flows from them in unhindered torrents that are a goddamn blast to splash around in. Put another way, today’s New Monsoon is a good deal more fun than at any time earlier.

“We want to invite people into our house with a smile. Once we get you in there, maybe down the road, we’ll play something darker,” Miller explains. “The setlist will change on the fly more now. We don’t want to change the energy unnecessarily. If we’re in a good groove and people like what’s going on we’ll go a little longer like that more than we would in the past. We’re trying to gradually get them to the next place. That’s where the really experienced bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish and Widespread Panic excel – reading a crowd. That’s a skill developed through years and years of touring. That way when you play your ballad it’s really going to have impact.”

“We’re playing a wider variety of settings these days, more one-set things, earlier in the night instead of two sets in a club where everyone goes out to smoke at setbreak and then you get psychedelic or whatever. It’s people sitting on a lawn with their families and you have 35 minutes to play between Les Claypool and Spearhead. What five songs are you gonna pick? You have to be starting from the meat. Then, the next day you’re doing a late night from 4-6 a.m. at Wakarusa in a rainstorm. It runs the gamut. It’s really interesting to be going through all these different experiences and seeing what sticks,” comments Miller.

“Instead of having our egos stroked by fans, we want to know that we did our job,” says Miller. “A musician needs a degree of appreciation from fans but it’s equally important that they know we enjoy playing for them just as much. A lot of times when I’m paid a compliment I try to point out how we all had a good time together, as if to say, ‘You’re telling me you enjoyed me and I’m telling you I enjoyed you. You came to the show and if you hadn’t come I would’ve been bummed out.'”

The Other Side

Thus far, New Monsoon has found some success on satellite radio and local-minded stations like the Bay Area’s KFOG but the proverbial “big break” hasn’t surfaced yet. They still spend the better part of the year packed in a van, jumping from outdoor stages to intimate bars and back again. The results of their dedication and undeniable talent might not always be apparent inside this strange world but it’s an incremental process and every stop matters. Day to day, it’s hard to see how one chicken wing joint or county fair factors into the big picture but it does, especially in the case of New Monsoon, who always put the music first. They are dedicated idealists and that spirit endears them to many, including this author, in a huge way.

New Monsoon by Susan J. Weiand

“The term ‘making it’ is interesting,” muses Miller. “If I was 15 looking at where I am now I’d see we’d sold out The Fillmore, played Red Rocks and made two records with producers associated with bands we admire and love a lot. By all accounts, I would think I’d made it. There’s definitely some sort of financial or fame thing that gets associated with ‘making it.’ But look at Britney Spears. Has she ‘made it’? She made it to the loony bin! She made so much money she went insane. I would never want to be so famous you can’t leave your house.”

“Ultimately, my vision is you come into our home. We have the lights, the sound system, whatever you need for people to consider it a good show. All you have to do is show up and you’re gonna ride on our ship,” Miller concludes. “It’d be something different than pulling into some location we’ve never been where nobody knows anything about the sound system or the crowd and what they like. It’s hard to see everything in the middle of doing it. You look back at all of what’s happened before to see how experience has led to this point. I read some article where John Bell [Widespread Panic] said something like ‘We’ve been playing for 20-some-odd years and we’re gonna play for 25 more.’ To get to that point, to be so lucky, that these people that you’ve earned through hard work will stay with you is amazing. The one thing about our scene is people are still going out to support live music. God bless them for it.”

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