Music previews: The return of Electric Blue, and a blues apostate
Electric Blue perfroms its annual reunion show Saturday at Saint Rocke
Electric Blue was almost famous.
They were a locally-based band whose humble roots were playing gigs in the back of flatbed trucks at Grateful Dead shows in the 1980s but who later toured with the likes of Jane’s Addiction, the Blue Oyster Cult, and Greg Allman. Electric Blue founder and lead guitarist Dave Rizzo recalls sharing a stage with Allman and realizing the band had reached a pivotal point in its trajectory.
“It’s either up or down,” Rizzo said. “This the height of our career, but it’s swinging point, a crux – it’s either bigtime now, or else we are done. It can’t get any better than this. Unfortunately, it was the latter.”
The band ended its 15-year run in 2002. But like many endings, this was also a beginning. Rizzo has gone on to a successful career as a network engineer. Lead singer Mitch Graves is a successful local Realtor. Both are attentive family men in a way that probably would not have been possible if they joined the decadent firmament of rock stardom. And once a year, Electric Blue reconvenes, bringing together the extended family that was their devoted South Bay fan base.
The band plays Saturday night at Saint Rocke, an occasion that will also mark the return of Electric Blue’s original keyboard player, Ed Lyon. In past years, a close friend of the band and a legend in the local music scene, Steve Aguilar, has played keyboards with the band. But Aguilar graciously stepped aside when Lyon returned to the fold, and the band is exited to welcome back Lyon as well as two of his new songs, “Rat Race Blues” and “Backwards Joe.”
In fact, the fact that they’ll be doing new material says something about Electric Blue – even in “retirement,” this is a rock band that wants to push the edge a little bit. Rizzo said the band’s musical connection has remained startlingly intact.
“We are keeping it real and we are working at it – we are not just falling back on what we know, what is easy,” Rizzo said. “…And you know, I play with other musicians, lots of great, talented musicians, but there is something about this. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It really is kind of magic up there.”
All things considered, almost famous – and definitely locally famous – has worked out just fine for Electric Blue.
“We stuck together through thick and thin, with all of our challenges, not just in music but in our lives,” Rizzo said. “And I’ve got to tell you, we are…smoking. It’s really kind of cool – we can still rock it out.”
Electric Blue plays Saint Rocke Dec. 16 at 9 p.m.
-Mark McDermott
The Blues apostate
For a music that originated with shouts, rambles, heartbreaks, lonesome trains and even a notorious crossroads encounter with the devil himself, the blues of late has developed an unlikely tendency towards stodginess. Truth be told, the blues was rock n’ roll before most people realized rock n’ roll existed. It was rebel music. Yet a certain air of reverence for 12-bars and the iconography of the bygone blues world has emerged – you know, the pickin’ cotton and my-baby-done-gone school of songwriting – thus relegating what was once the most vibrant of musical American art forms into that dustbin of history called a genre.
Rick Holmstrom has been shaking the lethargy out of the blues as much as any guitar player going. Holmstrom is perhaps best known as the lead guitars for the legendary Mavis Staples – there can be no higher honor than that – but he has also quietly been releasing a series of revolutionary solo records that redefine the blues for a new generation. His records include sampling from old blues artists, remixes by the hip-hop star DJ Logic and a couple of cameos from acid-jazz superstar-crazy-genius keyboard player John Medeski.
Blues purists would object. Call it what you will, but this much is certain: Holmstrom rolls on one furious groove, and he’s bringing it to Café Boogaloo on Saturday night.
Rick Holmstrom plays Café Boogaloo Dec. 16 at 9 p.m.
-Mark McDermott