My favorite yearly musical event is the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, California, held over the 4th of July weekend in the mountains near the Sierras about 100 miles from where I live. I’ve gone the last five years (this was their 20th festival) and enjoy camping out for 4 days with a few thousand other music fanatics at the Plumas County Fairgrounds. Music typically starts before noon and goes all night (although the midnight-to-dawn extra shows will cost you about $20 more each over the 4-day basic price of $175). There’s not a cop in sight, which means drug and alcohol use is pretty open, but without the problems this causes at other venues.
This year the headliners were Railroad Earth, Widespread Panic, The Black Crowes and Ozomatli but as usual some of the most interesting action was away from the main stage.
Zach Deputy, a one-man band from South Carolina, managed to control an impressive mass of machines and instruments, looping himself many times, building up deep grooves. His guitar playing had that Prince-by-way-of-Hendrix feel, he could freestyle or soul shout at will, and he got the crowd dancing wildly at 1pm at the mid-sized, pleasantly breezy Big Meadow Stage.
Boston-based 8-member Rubblebucket also made a joyful noise over in the smaller Vaudeville Tent. Lead by a baritone-sax wielding powerhouse gal named Kalmia, they started off sounding like a Fela Kuti-inspired Afro-funk outfit, but each song revealed new layers of expertise. A reggae tune would be followed by a dissonant electronic early-Pink Floyd-esque excursion, into something not unlike middle-period Bjork, to be countered with a Talking Heads-ish punky dance groove, the horn section wailing and the percussionist playing everything from the kora to woodblocks.
Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue both contributed to the James Brown-is-God vibe on the main stage, and the U.K.’s The New Mastersounds provided their MG’s-like instrumentals, but it was the Pimps of Joytime that astonished me the most. They sound like prime 1969 Sly & The Family Stone. A tight 4-piece, ever member is a star. Guitarist-vocalist Brian J sounds like Sly & Bill Withers combined, Mayteana Morales adds keyboard funk and intriguing samples, Chauncey Yearwood plays percussion and electronics and shares lead vocals and crowd-whipping-up chores, and Clark Dark on bass has an appropriate obsession with Larry Graham and James Jamerson. Yow!
On a totally different trip, The Nels Cline Singers (okay, they are an all-instrumental group so the name’s a joke) played a set at 11a.m. that rivalled all others for sheer volume and intensity. I’ve been seeing Nels play his Mahavishnu-inspired guitar since he was a teenager in Claremont, California, where he used to play spacey duet concerts with his twin brother Alex on percussion that reminded me of Gong, Amon Duul, James ‘Blood’ Ulmer, Albert Ayler and King Crimson melted together. He’s been in lots of bands since, and is currently helping Wilco sound ever more interesting, while still pursuing his own projects. In the Vaudeville Tent, with guest guitarist Eric McFadden and Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda on keyboards, Nels developed passionate, shredding cascades that felt like a huge wind blowing across the audience. Drummer Scott Amendola and bassist Devin Hoff were soloing like mad geniuses the whole time as well. Everything was large & loud except the tender “You Noticed,” during which Nels gave Bill Frisell a run for his money.
I also got to see two strong sets from one of my favorite singer-songwriters Dan Bern, playing with the 4-piece L.A. band Common Rotation as collaborators. He did “God Said No,” “Tiger Woods,” “Chelsea Hotel,” “I’m Not From Around Here,” “Osama in Obamaland,” “Party By Myself,” “Breathe” and other should-be-classics and hits-in-an-alternate-universe. His obsession with baseball was revealed through his tribute to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ announcer in “The Golden Voice of Vin Scully” and a new song about the stolen “perfect game” of recent months “Joyce & Galarraga.” He didn’t neglect tennis either, performing a wonderful tune about Isner and Mahut’s historic longest-game-ever, which took place at Wimbledon on June 22-24. So now we know a week is plenty of time for Dan to crank out another crowd-pleaser based on current events. What a guy!
