Category: Saturday Matinee

Saturday Matinee – Homemade Jamz Blues Band, The Laura Cox Band & The Heavy North

Homemade Jamz Blues Band made music history as the youngest blues band to achieve a record deal. Based in Tupelo, Mississippi, the group features siblings Taya Perry / drums, Kyle Perry / bass, Ryan Perry / guitar & vocals. Their father Reynaud Perry sits in occasionally on harp, while their mother manages the band. The guitars were designed by their father and are made from mufflers and exhaust pipes, with lug nuts for volume and tone controls.

Laura Cox is a French-born multi-instrumentalist who started out playing solos and cover versions of classic rock tunes for her YouTube channel. She built a fan base and formed the Laura Cox Band in 2013.

Based in Liverpool, England, The Heavy North plays what has been described as “dirty scuzzed up dive bar blues”. The band consists of Kenny Stuart / vocals, Jose Ibanez / guitar & producer, Jack Birch / guitar, Andrew Horrocks / bass, Ste Penn / keyboards, Mark Rice / drums.

Only two months into the year and the news cycle is spinning so fast the bearings fused, the wheels are gone and now it’s airborne. WWIII has either been averted or is about to begin, and there ain’t much any of us can do about it except for one thing: Porch Time. It coincides with Show Up Time tomorrow, so see you when you get here.

Saturday Matinee – Krissy Matthews (w/ Big Daddy Wilson & Alice Armstrong), Anna Scionti and Dave Hole

Krissy Matthews (NOR) backs Big Daddy Wilson (US) and Alice Armstrong (UK). Nice soul blues groove.

Anna Scionti won the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society’s (MBAS) Blues Performer of the Year 2023 (Solo/Duo Category) and represented the MBAS at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis Tennessee in January 2024.

Australian guitar slinger slider Dave Hole is living proof that there’s a Mississippi Delta somwhere in Oz.

So many things to pay attention to these days, and watching the fireworks of the internet go off in unpredictably absurd directions makes me grin. Tomorrow is a good day to do the porch thing, see you when the time is right.

Saturday Matinee – Altered Five Blues Band, The Gabe Stillman Band (w/ Anson Funderberg), Vulfpeck, and Andrea De Luca

Award winning group from Milwaukee, Altered Five Blues Band features front man Jeff Taylor with Jeff Schroedl / guitar, Mark Solveson / bass, Alan Arber / drums and Steve Huebler / keyboard.

After graduating from Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Gabe Stillman formed his band  in 2015, and was a Blues Music Award nominee in the Best New Emerging Artist Album category in 2022.

Vulfpeck grooves with some speed bass. Formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2011, the group was founded by multi-instrumentalists Jack Stratton, Theo Katzman, Woody Goss, and bassist Joe Dart.

Johnny Winter once told Andrea De Luca, “Hey, you got it, man. Just keep on bluesin’.” Born in Roma, Italy, De Luca has been playing guitar since he was six years old, began touring at 14, and credits Jimi Hendrix for his inspiration.

Porch. Tomorrow. Sooner or later. Your call. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – Tomislav Goluban w/ Crooked Eye Tommy, Jimmy Vivino & Julian Sas

Croatian harp player Tomislav Goluban teamed up with ocular alignment specialist Crooked Eye Tommy Marsh to promote virtual refreshments with virtual classic cars of questionable makes and models.

“Jimmy Vivino (aka Jimmy V) has always considered himself ‘a blues man with a job’. Although best known for serving 26 years as Conan O’Brien’s musical director, guitarist and bandleader, his experience in the music business predates that by 20 plus years.” – YouTube

Julian Sas : “I was born and raised in the Centre of The Netherlands in 1970 and grew up In a small town and had a normal childhood… The first years I spent my life living on a boat on the river. In fact I was born on that river.”  His website cover photo is quite Kinison-esque.

Super Bowl Licks tomorrow, with chili on the menu and TV on the porch. You know what to do. See you by kickoff time.

Saturday Matinee – Indiara Sfair, Nick Waterhouse & the Carl Verheyen Band

Brazil native and harp virtuoso Indiara Sfair has a tutorial for harmonica beatboxing here.

Nick Waterhouse has an eclectic mix of styles: rockabilly, R&B, jazz and soul, with traces of both old Americana and modern indie rock. He likes vinyl records too.

Besides being guitarist for Supertramp, Carl Verheyen is “one of LA’s elite ‘first call’ session players for the past 40 years, playing on hundreds of records, movie soundtracks and television shows.” Unfortunately Verheyen’s videos don’t credit the band, but that’s Dave Marotta on bass, John Mader / drums, Troy Dexter / keyboards and Hollye Dexter / vocals.

Message to 2025: Please STFD and STFU. We’ve had just about enough of your shit. Take a breather. Message to everyone else: Porch time commences at the crack of noon. See you there.

Saturday Matinee – Clarence Gatemouth Brown w/ Canned Heat, Joe Louis Walker, and Kim Simmonds / Savoy Brown

Clarence Gatemouth Brown, backed by Canned Heat, one of the greatest blues revival bands ever.  Gatemouth Brown was a rare talent, played multiple styles, and if you told him a 10 penny nail was a musical instrument, he could play it.

Joe Louis Walker has recorded with Ike Turner, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, and Steve Cropper. Per Billboard, his style “blows all over the map…gutbucket blues, joyous gospel, Rolling Stones-style rock crunch, and aching R&B. Walker’s guitar playing is fine and fierce.”

Welsh guitarist Kim Simmonds (1947-2022) was the founder, primary songwriter and sole constant member of the British blues rock band Savoy Brown. Very underrated band.

Fires are still burning in the west, Arctic temperatures in the east, and we’ve got a whip-cracker in DC. Very interesting year so far, and if this keeps up 2025 is going to be in rehab by March. Keep your eyes open, your heads down, and we’ll see you tomorrow for porchtime.

Saturday Matinee – HeavyDrunk, Nuno Mindelis & 19-Twenty

HeavyDrunk: “Sippi Dupree was my bus driver when I was a kid. He helped me through an emotional crisis when I was in 3rd grade, and became my friend. He disappeared the next year. This is his story.”

Nuno Mindelis (aka “The Beast from Brazil”) is an Angolan-born Brazilian blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. (His website’s bonky, gotta scroll down.) This song is sung in Kimbundo dialect according to the Utoobage notes, Google Translate says it’s Zaptotec, and it seems to be about bears.

19 Twenty is a roots blues / rock / punk band from Australia with a sizeable fan base who know all the words to Tramp Stamp.

Fires are still burning in California, people are still recovering from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, news of just about everything is breaking hourly, and I hope 2025 stops dicking around and shows at least some respect. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the porch talking to dogs, see you at half past whenever you show up.

Saturday Matinee – Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, Toronzo Cannon & The Chicago Way, and The Scotty Bratcher Band

Rick Estrin and The Nightcats: “Rick Estrin sings and writes songs like the brightest wiseguy in all bluesland and blows harmonica as if he learned at the knee of Little Walter.” – DownBeat magazine

Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 22, but he picked it up fast:
“Gary Clark, Jr. declared, ‘Toronzo is a beast. He lights the room up,’ and Joe Bonamassa rightly pronounced, ‘Toronzo’s a great guitar player, excellent vocalist and an amazing personality.’ ”

Scotty Bratcher covers Albert King’s Feel Like Breakin’ Up Somebody’s Home. Bratcher was introduced to the guitar while still in the single digits of age, and was already making a name for himself before he had a driver’s license. He’s going to be around for a while.

The tragedy of the California fires has been the news of the week, but don’t forget the people who are still recovering from the ravages of hurricane Helene while coping with winter weather. For many, it’s going to be years before things get back to normal.

I’ll be on the porch if you need me.

Saturday Matinee – Justin Johnson, Too Slim & The Taildraggers, and Otis Clay

Master of the 3-string electric shovel, Justin Johnson slides on anything.

Too Slim & The Taildraggers go slidin’ all over the two lane. The award-winning trio has had six albums peak in the top 10 of the Billboard Top Blues Albums. Members currently consist of Tim “Too Slim” Langford (lead vocals, guitar), Robert Kearnes (bass, vocals) and Jeffrey “Shakey” Fowlkes (drums).

Gospel, soul and blues singer Otis Clay (1942-2016):
Gospel would remain Otis’ primary focus. After arriving in Chicago during the mid-1950s, he joined the Golden Jubilaires, then hooked up with Charles Bridges’ Famous Blue Jay Singers in 1960. “Here we are singing acappella, and we’re singing in elementary schools, high schools, hotels and colleges and things like that. We were known as variety singers, or we were billed as (performing) ‘Old Negro Spirituals and Plantation Melodies.’ ”

Nice to have 2024 behind us, but 2025 better settle its ass right down pronto or I’m getting out The Belt. Have a great weekend, we’ll weigh down the porch tomorrow, noonish o’clock.

Saturday Matinee – Snooks Eaglin, Latvian Blues Band & Clutch

Snooks Eaglin took Wilson Pickett’s Memphis classic down to N’awlins.
[h/t hotfox63.com]

In 2008, Latvian Blues Band became the first European-based group invited to perform in the Chicago Blues Festival. From Riga, Latvia, members include Jānis ‘Bux’ Bukovskis (guitar, vocals), Jonatans Rācenājs (guitar), Rolands ‘Rolx’ Saulietis (drums, backing vocals), Reinis Ozoliņš (bass), Nauris Strežs (trombone) and Artis Ločmelis (sax).

Clutch picks it up, throws it to the floor and kicks it square in the crackerbockles. From their 2007 album From Beale Street to Oblivion.

Just got a breather from the Christmas festivities, and here comes the New Year barrelling down the tracks. I’m not ready for it, but I’ve had just about enough of 2024. Porchtime? Whenever o’clock.