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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Thursday, 01 February 2007 |
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Eric Luse | for NEXTnc
Tea Leaf Green is, from left, Scott Rager, drums,; Trevor Garrod, keyboards/vocals; Ben Chambers , bass/vocals; and Josh Clark, guitar/vocals.
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A warning to new bands: Don’t discuss your potential name over 7-11 chilidogs. It just might short-circuit any measure of common sense.
Such was the chain of events that landed Tea Leaf Green their unlikely nom-de-plume.
“We were just hanging around, eating chili dogs at 7-11 and someone said, ‘Hey, let’s get a gig; we need a name’,” recalled Tea Leaf Green keyboardist Trevor Garrod during a recent phone call to his San Francisco home. “Tea Leaf Green wasn’t the worst idea we came up with — it was probably the least dirty. We’ve been trying to explain it ever since.”
The name not withstanding, what really counts is the music. If your music sucks, no one will really care what you’re called anyway. But Tea Leaf Green have that end covered with a mixture of classic San Francisco rock and blues vibes, and an ability to power jam at just the right moments.
For a sampling, there is “Rock ‘n’ Roll Band,” TLG’s live album (and companion DVD) recorded at Boulder’s Fox Theatre last May. The title is a play on the band’s unwillingness to genre-fy themselves for the sake of others but aptly fits their current approach of more rock: less filler (jamming, that is). Songs are closer to Grand Funk than Grateful Dead; Peter Frampton than Phish.
Josh Clark’s blazing guitar solos come out of nowhere in aural overload, complimenting Garrod’s rollicking keyboard send-ups and the solid-rock backbeat of bassist Ben Chambers and drummer Scott Rager. When the jams do kick in, they scorch rather than simply burn and certainly never meander.
“There is a lot of coiled up energy in the songs, especially in Josh’s guitar playing. He is very unconventional and searing. He’s full of these hot licks that seem like they might jump out and start breaking furniture. That’s what sold me on these guys in the first place,” Garrod explained.
Garrod admitted TLG was a heavy jamming band in their early days, part of the instant attraction that connected these California natives. Yet, what has allowed TLG to escape a jamband tag is the recent focus on song structure and cohesiveness rather than being noodle-y.
“The best way that we have developed is the way that we are able to not jam,” Garrod said with a laugh. “Until a couple years ago I couldn’t play a song the same way twice. I don’t know if it was laziness on my part or that I just wanted to figure out the one part that I liked. But now, just being more locked into each other we get better ideas. Cut out all the garbage and just really focus on the songs and rock harder. …
“It has been a challenge for us to pull off ‘songs’ in the live concert scenario, but we’re getting better at it.”
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TO GO
Tea Leaf Green with Storytyme
Doors 8 p.m.; Show 9 p.m.
Thursday, Feb. 8
Aggie Theatre
204 S. College Ave., Fort Collins
482.8300
$10
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ID PLEASE
When Trevor Garrod first moved to San Francisco from his family home in the Santa Cruz hills, he wasn’t even old enough to buy a drink, let alone get into a club.
This posed a few initial problems after Tea Leaf Green decided to begin gigging beyond the living room. “Our first gig was nine or 10 years ago,” Garrod recalled with a laugh. “I remember I needed a fake ID to get in some places. We were just college kids you know.”
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