JAMMING IN ATLANTA
Atlanta’s jam music scene twirls to its own drum circle. Happenings and experiences, from retail to edibles to live music, take place with a perpetual lava lamp glow.
Terrapin Station
The collection of colors inside Terrapin Station beams with a chromatic allure of the Deadhead kind. The retailer, christened after a Grateful Dead album and song, puts emphasis on heady stock, not unlike Dead show parking lot vendors. A collection of Dead T-shirts plasters an entire wall. Dancing bears and skeletons with coiffures of red roses account for just a few of the designs. Tapestries, pint glasses, stickers and cloisonne hat pins all sport Grateful Dead iconography. Fans of the Beatles, the Allman Brothers Band, Widespread Panic, Phish, Bob Marley and related acts can spot licensed apparel and goodies. Hippie-friendly jewelry, dresses and a massive display of Wild Berry incense occupy square footage. The store’s separate tobacco room, for those ages 18 and older, offers e-cigarette and vape products, hookahs and other goods that leave flavorful puffs in their wake.
1985 Howell Mill Road N.W., Atlanta. 678-732-9906, terrapinstationatl.com.
Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers
What began in 1974 as a hippie munchie hangout at the corner of 10th and Spring streets continues to blossom, with locations throughout the country. At local Shroom spots, you’ll still often find the crunchy-granola sort slinging pizza dough, and jam band fans frequently scarfing the fruits of the kitchen’s labors. Although Mellow Mushroom’s current design aesthetic has evolved into pop art, the company’s senior art and creative director, Buddy Finethy, said its visual roots were planted in the the psychedelic eye candy of Grateful Dead poster art. In fact, when Finethy first approached the pizza purveyors in 1987, he showed them the work he drew for Relix, a Dead-centric music magazine. The new location (1477 Virginia Ave., College Park), which opens to the public July 4, features an ode to Atlanta popular culture in massive mural form by artist Dirk Hays, who also gives a nod to Mellow’s counterculture lineage with a painted reproduction of a classic Grateful Dead gig advert.
Various metro area locations. mellowmushroom.com.
String Cheese Incident and other shows
Cue the spin dancing. The sounds of several jam bands and neo hippie concerts soon will fill the air of local venues like an overpowering whiff of patchouli. The String Cheese Incident, a Colorado-bred act with traces of bluegrass twang and other jamming influences, will pitch what they call Independence Incidents July 3 and 4 at Chastain Park. After the July 3 show, fans can shimmy their way to Terminal West for Jazz Is Phish, an all-star collective of musicians that will put an instrumental jazz spin on Phish numbers. Fast-forward to July 31 at Terminal West for Jerry Jam ATL, an all-day, multi-act affair honoring the Grateful Dead catalog with Dead tribute band Cosmic Charlie headlining.
String Cheese Incident. 7 p.m. July 3 and 4. $35-$49.95 plus fees. Chastain Park Amphitheatre, 4469 Stella Drive, Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com.
Jazz Is Phish. Midnight. July 3. $15-$20. Jerry Jam ATL. 3 p.m. July 31. $25-$30. Terminal West, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-876-5566, terminalwestatl.com.
Copious Jones
Rising Atlanta jam stars Copious Jones, fresh off an appearance at Mountain Jam in Hunter Mountain, N.Y., currently are touring the country. But, when possible, they make time to perform at MoonShadow Tavern in Tucker every other Monday night. Copious Jones specializes in original music — they just laid down tracks at a studio in Woodstock, N.Y. — but their gratis Mediocre Mondays series allows them to snatch songs by artists they love and give them a free-form and jam-style overhaul. Drop in and you might hear a Ramones tune gone reggae.
8 p.m. July 11 and 18, Aug. 1, 15 and 29. Free. MoonShadow Tavern, 3976 Lawrenceville Highway, Tucker. 770-674-2133, msttucker.com, copiousjones.com.
Music On Main Street
By day, this old house in downtown Lilburn is a music school and recording studio. On Saturday evenings through Oct. 8, it plays host to outdoor, family-friendly concerts starring both local and national acts with jam sensibilities and appeal. Load a picnic basket, grab the lawn chairs and blankets, and stock the cooler with libations. “It’s a great place to groove to some great music and chill with the family,” said Atlanta drummer Richie Jones, who’s taken the stage with Ralph Roddenbery and the Jones, the Donna Hopkins Band and others. Performances typically begin at 7 p.m. and usually cost $15 per person. Kids 12 and younger jam for free. On June 25, the genre’s eccentric elder statesman, Col. Bruce Hampton, will serve his brand of improvisational performance. Other upcoming shows: Georgia Mountain String Band (July 9), Jamie Hood (July 16) and Donna Hopkins Band (July 29).
113 Main St. N.W., Lilburn. 770-609-6393, musiconmainstreetlilburn.com.
Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. 8 p.m. June 24. $39.50-$79.50 plus fees. Chastain Park Amphitheatre, 4469 Stella Drive, Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com.
Call him the hardest working man in jam business.
Devotees of the jam music genre — rock-based acts delving into extended, improvisational live performance — know guitarist-vocalist Warren Haynes for his resume full of gigs to impress. He’s held a spot in the Allman Brothers Band, plugged in with different configurations of members of the Grateful Dead and fronts his own acclaimed outfit, Gov’t Mule.
And that’s just the tip of the guitar pick.
Haynes’ latest endeavor finds him on tour fronting the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration, which honors music penned by the late Grateful Dead co-founder in an orchestral setting. Haynes and a backing band roll into respective towns with sonic support from area symphony orchestras. When he lands at Chastain Park Amphitheatre June 24, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will share the stage.
“It had always been in the back of my mind that someday I would do something in a symphonic environment,” Haynes said recently over the phone, “but I never had the right opportunity.”
That chance came in 2012, when Haynes received a call from the Garcia estate. They wanted to produce symphonic presentations of Garcia’s music featuring guest artists and asked Haynes to step up to the plate. Since then, he’s done two summer tours in 2013 and 2014.
Haynes said the project originally took about a year to coordinate. He scoured the Garcia catalog, selecting songs best suited for orchestral embellishment — “Dark Star,” “Uncle John’s Band” and “Standing on the Moon” among them. The musician presented his own arrangement ideas to a small group of orchestral arrangers, who in turn brought them to symphonious life.
“There’s a depth to Garcia’s compositions that goes deeper than just the past decades of pop and rock music,” Haynes explained. “There’s a lot of American history in the way he put together melodies, chord changes and rhythms. … The symphony elevates them to another place where none of us have heard those songs quite that way before.”
Haynes said he believes that, sometimes, the form of onstage improvisation sparked by the Grateful Dead, as well as the scene and reputation it spawned, overshadows the abundance of great songs in the band’s and Garcia’s collective catalog. Yet, he knew the aspect and spirit of improv needed a strong presence in the symphony show.
So, Haynes and company have three ways to approach it. One has Haynes and the electric band going off-the-cuff for an undetermined amount of time while the symphony sits back. Then, on cue, the orchestra slips back in. Another way allows Haynes to improvise on guitar on top of the score the orchestra plays. Yet, the most special aspect, Haynes said, features the orchestra playing pieces of music directly based on improvisations the Grateful Dead performed in concert.
That way, the audience hears arrangements featuring elements that Garcia, guitarist Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh and other Dead members riffed in the moment.
“In one of the cases, the song ‘Bird Song’ had (saxophonist) Branford Marsalis sitting in with them,” Haynes said. “Even the horn lines he was improvising at the time work themselves into the orchestral arrangement, which is very different, unique and beautiful.”
As Haynes leads the psychedelic symphony, he lets his soul shine through in spirited, bluesy vocals and commendable fret work. Hanging over his shoulder and resting in his hands, Haynes holds a guitar many fans may recognize: one of Garcia’s preferred axes dubbed “the Wolf.”
“I’m very honored to be able to play it,” Haynes said. “It’s a beautiful instrument, and it tends to put me closer to his music. It just automatically has this sound that we’re all accustomed to hearing come from him.”
Once the Garcia summer symphony tour wraps, things predictably will continue at Haynes’ pulse-pounding pace. The guy who once famously performed three shows with three different bands in one day has more projects in the hopper. They include an album of Gov’t Mule’s 1994 demos, “The Tel-Star Sessions,” coming out Aug. 5; a tour with Atlanta’s Blackberry Smoke opening; and select dates with ZZ Top in September. Haynes then will bring the Mule back to town Sept. 23 at the Tabernacle.
“I’m very lucky and grateful to do what I love for a living,” Haynes said. “It’s not like digging a ditch. Someone who enjoys their work is ahead of the game. And I feel like I have the best job in the world.”
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