🎶 2022-03-10 17:54:44 – Paris/France.
The summer of 2019 seems, in retrospect, like a simpler time. Once upon a time in Hollywood was in theaters. Internet users were enthusiastic about Lana Del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell. The Trump era was still in full swing, but the election was only a year away. Covid had yet to take over the world. Hope was in the air. And then there was the sudden emergence of what could be the next great American jam band.
I can't remember the first time I heard of Goose, a Connecticut quintet that was still a quartet at the time. I just know that one day that summer I had never heard of it, and then the next day I heard about it constantly. You may not know what I'm talking about; my social feed leans toward what can only be categorized as "Twitter Jam," where debates about the merits of Phish's latest show and full-fledged arguments about whether Dead & Company is playing too slow are aplenty. In this corner of Twitter, the takes have gotten hot and heavy about a band whose overnight success story – sparked by a video of their star performance in July 2019 at the Peach Music Festival in Scranton, Pennsylvania – denied a slow but steady rise that began in the mid-2010s.
If your social media feed veers away from Jam Twitter, Goose is probably still a mystery. I recommend watching the Peach Fest video for an introduction. When I saw it for the first time, I was immediately struck by its quality from a technical point of view. Images are crisp and sound is dynamic and warm. The world of jam bands isn't exactly full of big name names – we'll get to that in a bit – so I immediately wondered: why haven't I heard of these guys before? They already seemed, if not stars, then certainly newcomers demanding attention.
Then, of course, there was the music. Goose's frontman, guitarist Rick Mitarotonda, has an understated charisma, undeniable chops, and — here's a truly unique attribute in the jam business — a cool, commanding voice. To his left in the video is guitarist/keyboardist Peter Anspach, a bespectacled and perpetually smiling foil to the zen Mitarotonda and stoic bassist on stage right, Trevor Weekz, who locks in effortlessly with the charged, inspired beats. jazz from drummer Ben Atkind. . (In 2020 — in accordance with jam band law — Goose added a second percussionist, Jeff Arevalo, who, like Mitarotonda and Atkind, attended Berklee College Of Music in Boston.) Their “tension and release” style of jamming somewhat reminiscent of Phish, but Goose's songs are also catchy and pop-appropriate. They sound like potential hits that, on stage, include 10-minute guitar solos.
Last (but certainly not least) there are the extra-musical aspects of the video – the sun, the trees, the plumes of pot smoke levitating above the festival audience, the whiskers. A Goose show really looked like a lot of fun. Before long, I was checking tour dates in my area.
The Peach Fest video has since been streamed more than 341 times – barely viral numbers in the pop world, but enough to make a splash on the jam scene. The battle lines were immediately drawn: fans saw it as the next big thing and detractors dismissed it as a Phish rip-off. Over time, however, it seems the first group exploded in numbers.
Last month, Goose played its first arena show, at Connecticut's Mohegan Sun Casino, for its eighth annual Goosemas holiday show (postponed from December). In June, they will give two concerts at Radio City Music Hall in New York, one of which is already sold out. Two months later, they will headline a concert (also sold out) at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, preceded by two other amphitheater concerts in the area.
Goose once held his own music festival in Virginia, featuring indie bands such as Hiss Golden Messenger, Dr. Dog and Dawes. Earlier this year they played their first West Coast tour as headliners. This included the packed and ecstatically received midweek gig I saw in February at First Avenue, their very first show in Minneapolis. All of this was achieved despite a few potentially crippling setbacks, not the least of which was a pandemic stopping them from hitting the road as they gained widespread exposure for the first time. But somehow they managed to grow their audiences during lockdown, through a series of clever live-streamed performances (like the 2020 Bingo Tour, when the band's setlists were determined by drawing bingo balls printed with instructions like "20 minute jam") and a strange talent for self-promotion.
Along the way, they've won high-profile fans such as Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, who tapped Goose last year to create a jam-packed version of the VW song "2021" that lasts (you know). guessed) 20 minutes and 21 seconds. "I saw them at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles a few weeks ago," Koenig told me, "and this time I was really struck by how each member has a strong and unique identity, and yet the whole seems indivisible. There is real joy in their performances.
For Brad Serling, the founder and CEO of Nugs.net – a Spotify for jam bands that posts the latest live recordings from acts like Dead & Company, Widespread Panic and Billy Strings – the excitement around the band was palpable during of a late January run of shows in San Francisco. "I hadn't felt anything like this in years for anything that wasn't Phish or The Dead," said Serling, who likened Goose's rise to current scene kingpins. “I saw Phish play in a bar, and six months later they played in the theatre. Then six months later they sold that theater. Then they played in small arenas, and then they sold out Madison Square Garden. It was the arc of my college career. I could see that happening with Goose, maybe on a faster trajectory.
As for the band members themselves, their skyrocketing fame still seems a bit disconcerting. As Mitarotonda said in a recent interview, “Now I'm just used to things getting weirder and weirder. »
In addition to being a fan of their music – I've seen them three times, qualifying me as a devoted psychic by obsessive listening standards – Goose fascinates me as an observer of both the indie and jam, and the invisible veil that separates these worlds. Goose in many ways signifies that gap, even as they attempt to bridge it.
Their next album scheduled for June, drip field, presents a litmus test of how a band like Goose is perceived by the mainstream media. Recorded in March 2021 in Woodstock, New York, it was produced by D. James Goodwin, whose previous credits include records from Kevin Morby, Craig Finn, Bonny Light Horsemen, Whitney and OG jam scene Bob Weir. And the sonic touchstones fall squarely in this kind of endeavor – Goose's most obvious influences include legacy indie bands such as Bon Iver, Radiohead, Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend.
I don't normally listen to jam bands for their studio work – even the Grateful Dead struggled to capture their magic live on wax. Corn drip field is an always engaging pop-psychedelic record, like a trippier Father of the bride. Although technically Goose's third studio album, it looks like a great start, far surpassing its predecessors in quality and ambition. Some tracks slip into funky instrumental tangents, but the emphasis is on concise, hard-hitting songwriting coming mostly from Mitarotonda, with Anspach in a George Harrison-sized batch of tracks.
Given Goose's growing power of attraction as a live-action actor, who already looks bigger than even many established indie stars - on this year's Bonnaroo poster, they're billed more than Bleachers and Japanese. Breakfast- drip field would seem to warrant a cover as a potential album. But although the announcement of the record last month caught the attention of Rolling stone and Stereogum, it always seemed muted compared to the attention that far less popular (but infinitely more fashionable) indie bands are getting.
When I spoke to Rick, 31, and Peter, 29, a few days before their show on First Avenue in early February, I mentioned Geese, a hot young indie band. I felt that I eu to raise Geese, given how comically similar their name is to Goose. But Geese is also an example of the kind of band that music writers typically gravitate towards – they're from New York, they play danceable post-punk in the vein of LCD Soundsystem, and they project a photogenic hipster vibe. Last October, the New York Times celebrated them as hot young freaks. In January, they were booked on le Late show with Stephen Colbert.
Geese is also – judging by the places they are currently booked in – not as popular as Goose, who nevertheless has a significantly lower media profile at the moment. They haven't got it yet. New York Times/Stephen Colbert treatment. In our interviews, I joked with Rick and Peter about a Goose vs. Geese feud.
“We were just confused as to why they got into late night TV when they play in 200 capsule rooms,” Anspach wondered. “Maybe we could give Stephen Colbert a hard time, because I would ask him that question. »
It's not really about going after Geese or Colbert. This is to highlight how two different scenes work – one is PR-focused and based on traditional album/touring cycles that can involve late-night appearances and magazine covers, and the other is grassroots-oriented and focused on maintaining a close and intense connection with fans through regular touring and streamable live recordings, while remaining mostly underground.
Mitarotonda admits to sometimes feeling like the grass is greener on the independent side. On Goose's website they describe themselves as an 'indie-groove band', although when I asked Rick about it he pointed out that it was just a silly pun for 'in de groove' . But he also wasn't rushing to embrace the "jam band" moniker.
"I mean, it's a demeaning title," he said, "because frankly, there's a lot of corny, not great jam bands that have been around over time. Obviously, we strayed from that for obvious reasons, or at least tried. But I mean, we are a jamming band. We jam and improvise a lot.
Adam Berta
By the way, as Mitarotonda points out: Improvising on stage in front of thousands of people is extremely difficult. But Goose does it incredibly well, and they're getting better all the time. One of my favorite recent performances is of the song “Arcadia,” from last October in Portland, Maine. Over the course of 22 minutes, the song goes through several moves – it swings from pokey funk to a mesmerizing “Sympathy For The Devil” style progression as Anspach cuts to piano at about eight minutes, then downshifts again in an ambient interlude. threatening a few minutes later.
For the non-jam lover, I'm sure listening to a 22-minute song sounds like torture. I admit it took me a while to develop what I call "jam ears", in which even a 22 minute song may not seem long enough. The key to developing jam ears is learning to appreciate the hypnotic quality of long improvisations. When you listen to a normal song, your brain is wired to anticipate the chorus, the instrumental break, and most importantly, the ending. Even great songs follow this…
SOURCE: Reviews News
Do not hesitate to share our article on social networks to give us a solid boost. 🤗