Official website: www.moe.org
moe. is Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan and Gram Parsons... From hard rock to melodic country, moe can write songs and they can play the bejesus out of them live. They can deliver live energy to a studio recording and are equally comfortable playing textural musical landscapes or balls to the wall guitar solos. By not limiting their songwriting to preconceived genres, moe. are a rarity in today's pop music culture. Their latest studio album, "The Conch", has already received 4 out of 5 stars from Rolling Stone, and 3.5 out of 4 stars from Paste. The Buffalo News calls "The Conch" "A Masterpiece".See them live, Buy their album, or live an unfulfilled life. moe. is a Summer Camp tradition from day one (2001) and we couldn’t imagine the event without them.]]>
Official website: www.umphreys.com
The acension continues for Chicago’s Umphrey’s McGee, not only in terms of their commercial success but in creative accomplishment and instrumental achievement as well. Their performance on Live at the Murat (SCI Fidelity), their first official live release, is as impressive as anything they’ve recorded to date, with the power and finesse, the yin and the yang, that have come to characterize their by-now classic material.Umphrey’s McGee spends half the year on the road habitually flooring audiences. Their anything-goes musicianship, humor, and good-nature all make remarkable entertainment. The band shuttles between styles with precision, from straight-up pop and rock to jazz, prog-metal, and classical. If you can name it, chances are Umphrey’s can play it. Another Summer Camp tradition since 2003, the festival would not be complete with a couple UM sets.]]>Official website: www.kellerwilliams.net
Keller Williams has built a career on his uncanny ability to captivate a packed house—all by himself. He’s been called a “one-man band.” A “solo cult-hero.” “Music’s mad-scientist.” All of which are clever labels for what seems to be an essential truth: On stage, Keller Williams works alone. So why now, after fifteen-years as a solo artist, is he releasing a live album—simply titled, Live—with three other names on the cover? Turns out that since he first picked up a guitar, this troubadour has wanted to front a band. “When I started, I could barely afford to pay myself, let alone three other guys,” Keller says of his dive bar days. “Then later, the solo show was going so well, it was like, if it ain’t broken...”
A Summer Camp tradition for 7 of our previous 8 years, we're really excited to have Keller Williams back at Summer Camp this year. It just wasn't the same without him in 2008.]]>
Official website: www.mmw.net
It's a match made not above nor below, but rather in some altogether hipper, funkier place. We're talking John Medeski, Billy Martin, and Chris Wood, plus guitar guru John Scofield. On their new release OUT LOUDER, they make music not of this world, yet rooted in the earth tones of jazz, funk, and blues. Music from the heart, for the mind, and made to shake the earth, not to mention the body. Medeski Scofield Martin %26 Wood first recorded together on Scofield's A Go Go (Verve 1998), a disc that has become a must-have classic. That project united jazz guitarist Scofield with the improvisational jazz trio Medeski Martin %26 Wood on material composed by Scofield and interpreted by all four musicians.
This will be Medeski Martin %26 Wood's 3rd appearance at the Summer Camp Music Festival (also appeared in 2004 and 2007), but it will be their first with John Scofield. We can hardly contain ourselves...]]>
Official website: www.myspace.com/girltalkmusic
When most people flip on Top 40 radio, they hear universal, catchy songs that are difficult to forget. When 24-four-year-old Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, listens to Top 40 radio, he enjoys them like anybody else at first. And then he filters the best of the bunch through his brain, searching for loops, phrases, and sounds that he can later combine into new sample-based compositions. The third and best Girl Talk album, Night Ripper, is the ecstatic result of this painstaking process-- a genre and decade-spanning marvel of post-modern music making. As anal Wikipedians try to catalogue all of the hundreds of samples that make up his new album, we called Gillis at his Pittsburgh home and chatted about the dubious legalities surrounding his work, his love of Nirvana, and how it feels to be that "overhyped band you read about on the blogs."]]>Official website: www.darkstarorchestra.net
Using entire shows from the Grateful Dead's 30 years of extensive touring as a launching pad, Dark Star Orchestra recreates the original song for song performance set list for an entirely new generation of, as well as old school, Deadheads. Dark Star Orchestra presents its critically acclaimed live show at esteemed venues from coast to coast and internationally.
Dark Star Orchestra performs Grateful Dead classics in the same way that an orchestra interprets music of classical composers. The composer spirit is derived and channeled as the players capture the excitement and innovation of the original performances and compositions. Touring nationwide for nine years to the tune of nearly 1500 shows since forming, the band's determined commitment to "raising the Dead" has drawn national media attention.
This will be Darkstar Orchestra's first appearance at the Summer Camp Music Festival and all we can say is, "It's about time."]]>
Official website: www.cornmealinthekitchen.com
Cornmeal continues to forge a path all their own, pushing the boundaries of bluegrass, Americana and folk for a whole new generation of music lovers. Steeped in the tradition of musical acts such as Old and in the Way, John Hartford, and New Grass Revival, Cornmeal has proven to be an influential presence in the world of roots music. Cornmeal has consistently evolved its sound and stage performance using bluegrass as a springboard for long improvisational work and songs ranging from country, rock and blues to jazz, funk and disco.]]>Official website: www.familygrooveco.com
Family Groove Company is a four piece band from Chicago that has been turning heads and catching ears with a sound that is uncannily fresh, and live performances that simply envelop audiences in the fun, excitement and passion that the band radiates from the stage. With a sound that's defined as "groove informed jazz rock", the Family Groove Company is a band that music fans should not miss!Family Groove Company, referred to by fans as FGC, integrates the groove sensibility developed by funk/jazz crossover artists like Herbie Hancock and Medeski Martin and Wood with the thoughtful songwriting that takes cues from classics like Steely Dan and the Beatles. This combination results in a fresh sound that has been pleasing audiences in venues and cities all over the country.]]>
Official website: www.56hoperd.com
56 Hope Road is a band bonded like a family, and as a result, their music has an unmistakable honesty and openness. Uncanny, intuitive communication creates an easy interplay on stage, making even the most layered tunes sound effortless. They allow the joy of spontaneous creativity to color their song-based arrangements - neither losing their musical center, nor restricting its growth. The music is acoustic funk at its finest with sounds reminiscent of G-Love and Special Sauce, Richie Havens, MMW, Grateful Dead, Paul Simon and Gomez. This Chicago-based “acoustic funk explosion” is known for clever songwriting, lush vocal harmonies and one of the tightest rhythm sections on the scene.]]>