Rock Around the World

RATW Live At The Mint . Los Angeles, CA, August 17th.
The Mint has been a Blues mainstay at the avant garde of the Genre well before anything was happening on Sunset or Universal City. 3rd Street Promenade is yet to muster anything on the scale of The Mint. Jed Ojeda is one of the hippest bookers in the Country and has an Ear for rising talent as well as overlooked talent. Recently, Ojeda has expanded his booking policy to accomodate R&B and other groovy forms of music. Jed digs the entire Spectrum of music. If the music moves him, chances are the man will book the act.

For the 5th Anniversary, The Mint's House Band, The Carnival Dogs were booked to Rock the House, however, the Dog's lead singer, John Gries, got a role that is shooting up in Vancouver, BC so Jed had to call upon a cadre of friends to front up vocals and/or play along with the Dogs.

The Carnival Dogs are an intensely powerful Unsigned band that was playing with drummer Hugh Mangun for the last time. Hugh got picked up by a signed band and could not resist the plus to his personal career that the new gig presented. So this was Hugh's way of saying goodbye to the Dogs in a fitting manner. Hugh Mangun is another of those young drummers with the Jack Swing that you should look out for in the future. Yes, Hugh plays Gretch's with a custom hoop for a snare. An incredible young guitarist from New Hampshire, Earl Bethel has stumbled upon the Cash McCall style of Blues guitar with a healthy dose of Mick Ronson comping on the side. Jed Ojeda has one of the best rhythm guitar styles I've ever heard...Jed can assimilate Carlos Alomar and Nile Rodgers licks well within the context of a Blues platform.

At first, I thought the Dogs were about an Allman Bros. revivalist thing, but now I think they can do that and play the funky bottom out of some cold blooded blues. Nicky Sample regulates the bottom for the band and can accomplish with four strings what other bassists drop down to 5 strings for. All Nicky needs now is an SWR endorsement to fill out his tone a little better. Blair Aaronson has a new Kurzweil rig that has helped his tone tremendously and has the action to handle his attack. Blair listens well and comes up with nifty segues and musical punctuations as the song is happening. Blair is the musical director.

The Carnival Dogs were basically a back up band for a fleet of talented performers on this particular night. First up was Sherry Clarke to disarm the heavily armed and somewhat listless crowd. Sherry did the job rather quickly and then called upon her new sister to come up and do some fun adlibbing. BJ Sharp reluctantly came on with her new sister and the dynamic duo was off on a raucous patois to Sho' Nuff that tore through the heavily clad scenesters, bringing them down to blues earth. You could not help but laugh at the creative humour these two women managed, only meeting each other minutes before, backstage.

BJ Sharp knows propers and got off stage to let Sherry do her own thing. Sherry stunned the crowd and disarmed them at the same time. Sufficiently stunned, the crowd was now prepared for the Nasty Mama of the Blues herself: BJ Sharp. BJ came on and kicked major funky butt with a blistering rendition of Drivin' Wheel, a song the Dogs play often and commandingly. Rollin' on, the Dogs and BJ launched into Tied Up, Tied Down, and Twisted , launching the spinnerettes in the room and then BJ and the Dogs closed out her set with a pulled back-into-the-woods-where-the-soft-grass-is version of I Thank You that shocked everyone. The Mint regulars don't hear low down blues often the way BJ serves it up, but tonight alot of Mint loyalists had their cherries busted for the first time.

After BJ, the town regular, Lester Butler came up and did his distinctive Red Devil Blues and basically beat up the crowd. A minor Red Devils reunion occurred when Lester was joined onstage by Jimmy Rip and the "Devil Dogs" band was born. Jimmy Rip has a crispy, melodic tone that attenuates the metallic, otherworld tone of Lester Butler. Next up was the Dog's original guitarist, David Kalish, who was happy to play along with Jimmy while Jimmy did his thing, and Jimmy was just as kool when Kalish took his turn at lead guitar. Tonight was not about cutting contests; and there were some axes in the room.

George Carlin once told me that he goes to the courts in Venice to watch basketball and feel the warmth of the players interacting. Well, musically there is not a club in L.A. that has a warmer feeling than the Mint. Congratulations, Jed and Cynthia on Five years of musical warmth.
Performance Rating:

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