How would you characterize those differences? Is it something you can you articulate?
It’s interesting because it’s a completely different set of musicians even though it’s very similar instrumentation. The keyboard player in Mike’s band is Tom Cleary. He’s teaches jazz at UVM and he’s a very jazz-oriented player. Whereas Mark, he’s like a ragtime piano type of guy. So stylistically, those two guys are playing the instrument that’s in my range and providing the most accompaniment but their styles are different enough that in order for me to feel like I’m fitting in, I have to play slightly differently.
And playing off of Mike is different because he’s such a melodic bass player. [Max Creek’s] John Rider is a melodic bass player too but stylistically he’s different. Mike is so technically proficient and he can hear everything I’m doing and play off everything that I’m doing. With John there’s a conversation that’s going back and forth where we’re speaking two different dialects that blend really well together. Whereas Mike and I are often playing similar dialects.
I play differently with everybody I play with in a jam situation because the most important thing is listening to and playing off the people you’re with and it brings out different things. Mike being from the Phish world has a tendency to bring this geometric element. To a lot of people it sounds discordant but it’s actually mathematical patterns of music and I love that stuff, so I jump right on it. Whereas Creek doesn’t get into that kind of thing as much, so it’s a cool thing to be able to play with all these different musicians and play off of their different styles.
After I play with Mike for a month and then come back with Creek, I’ve learned, absorbed and added to my vocabulary and I bring that vocabulary back into Creek. And vice versa, everything I do with Creek I bring back to Mike’s band and the same thing is true for BK3. Everybody I play with I learn from and I bring it to all the other projects. It’s like this cyclical thing.
Do you think there’s any chance that BK3 will return at some point?
You know, I talk about it with both Bill and Oteil every time we see each other. I think both Bill and Oteil are open to the idea, I just know Bill is really busy doing his 7 Walkers thing and Oteil is very busy doing his stuff but I know that the three of us loved the experience of playing together, and to me, there’s no replacement for those three. You know when we went out with Hutch [James Hutchinson] after that, it was a cool thing but it wasn’t BK3. It was definitely a different experience, the BK4 thing with Hutch and Tara Nevins. It was cool, but there was something about me and Bill and Oteil that when we got into that practice room the first time and really met each other formally for the first time, we just picked up our instruments, started making noises together and 45 minutes later we were still jamming and when it came to a halt, we were like, “Holy shit what was that?” I talked about this with Oteil over the weekend, we were reminiscing about it. It was just unbelievable and every time we get together since that first jam, it’s been the same experience. There’s a very cool chemistry going on there. So I know that I want to, I know that Oteil wants to, I know that Bill wants to, it’s just a matter of getting everybody’s schedules together and figuring out the best way to do it.
One more question about spontaneous performance. Can you talk about your experience at The Mossery event [in which fans were able to perform with Mike Gordon, Murawski and either Joe Russo or Todd Isler]?
It was a blast I’ll tell ya. I ended up finally just drinking beers and playing rhythm guitar all night long because, all the other guitar players were playing leads up there.
It was really cool. The whole thing was that we were playing rhythm tracks from Mike’s Moss album and he’s not a simplistic songwriter. He’ll write songs in strange time signatures and strange keys and we had these kids up there that have been playing guitar for two years and all of a sudden we’re doing something in 7/4 and A flat and these poor kids they have no idea. So I spent the night mostly just guiding people along: “You know, if you just play blues and C sharp you’ll be fine.”
But people were so excited to get on the stage with Mike and be able to play off of him, and off of me, and off of Joe Russo for the first set and Todd for the second set. So many people came up to me and said, “That was the best experience I ever had in my life, being able to do that.” I mean it’s a very cool thing. You don’t see big name artists do that where it’s like, “Yeah come on and jam with the Allman Brothers.” And people still talk about it, “I don’t know if you remember me but I played at The Mossery and I’ve got to say that was the coolest experience I’ve ever had in my life.”
It was a very cool thing and it was hilarious for me. A guitar player would come up and play a solo for a few bars and then take off and then another guitar player would come up in a different style and ability level. It gave people a great experience and promoted the new album. I mean it was just a really cool event.
Moving on to Camp Creek, the festival will return this year and move to Oxford, Maine. Will that be on the Nateva site?
Yes, it’s the place that Nateva was. It’s in exactly the same place that Nateva was supposed to be this year and it’s the same weekend that Nateva was supposed to be this year, so we’ve kind of taken over that slot.
Is that how it all came together in terms of why you guys are in Maine this year for Camp Creek?
Well, you know, the second, third and fourth Camp Creeks were all in Maine so it’s kind of a homecoming for us. We’d been at ILCC [Indian Lookout Country Club] I think for 13 years or something like that. And it was a great site and I have nothing but good things to say about it but the original Camp Creeks moved all over the place. The first one was in Connecticut. The next three were in Maine. And then there were a few years off. And then we played one in Rhode Island and we played one in Connecticut.
It was kind of like a carnival act to some extent for a while until we found ILCC and we stayed there for a while and then a few years ago, the recession hit and we kind of looked at the economy and looked at how much money people actually had to spend on entertainment and we looked up the number of festivals that were out there and we said, “You know what, this is a losing proposition if we do this right now. I think people’s entertainment dollars are stretched too far and they’re going to have to make choices and I don’t think that we would benefit by doing it.” So we decided to take a couple years off with the full intent of riding out the recession and coming back. We’d been bandying about whether to go back to ILCC or whether to find a new location. Then Nateva came along and the guy that runs Nateva, he’s really psyched to have Camp Creek up there. So with his enthusiasm and coming back to Maine, it seemed like a good decision. We realize that all the people in upstate New York that are used to coming to ILCC are going to have to travel the extra distance and that kind of sucks. That’s the downside to the thing but I really think the site is gorgeous and it’s going to be a great weekend to have it. I think we’re going to come back on full thrusters. I think it’s going to be great.
If you were to think back over past Camp Creeks, what particular moment or moments jump out at you?
Oh man, it’s just such a tough question. There’s so many good moments. I think the first year we were there at ILCC Mike came in and sat in and played with us and that was very cool. David Crosby came and played one Camp Creek and that was really cool to have him there.
What are your memories of the very first Camp Creek?
The very first Camp Creek was in Granby, Connecticut in 1982 and it was in somebody’s back yard and I don’t have too many memories of it. I remember that everybody was pretty buzzed on stage and off for a lot of the show. And some pretty crazy jamming went on, I do remember that. If you want to go back, I remember at the second Camp Creek up in Maine we played inside this huge barn. Everybody camped out in the fields but the music actually went on inside this huge barn. I remember playing and there was a guy that was walking the rafters. He was probably, I would say 50 feet in the air with nothing to hang on to or anything. And while we were playing he was like tightrope-walking the rafters. It kind of freaked me out.
Final question: what are you looking forward to this year?
I’m looking forward to some of the stuff that was going to be at Nateva that’s going to be at Camp. We’re going to reap the benefits of Nateva being cancelled by having a lot of the special stuff that was planned for Nateva being moved over into Camp Creek. I don’t know what a lot of it is. I know they had hired carnival rides and stuff like that.
I’m also looking forward to one of the coolest aspects of Camp Creek, which is we have a lot of local bands that are friends of ours and they’re all going to be there. There’s going to be a stage, I think they’re calling it the Family Stage, which is going to have all our friends. So I’m kind of looking forward to that. I get asked to sit with all these different musicians, really good musicians too, and I love that kind of experience. Not that everyone necessarily wants to see my face on every stage but I think people like to see bands mix it up. That makes it different than going to a club and seeing the same musicians all night long. And that also adds to the family vibe of the whole thing.
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