Gig at the blind pig, you dig?

Local band Smokestack jams on Saturday, Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise to groove down on Sunday

By Chris Kula

Daily Arts Editor

College bands are like hangovers: They're raging one minute and they're gone the next. Which means that Ann Arbor's Smokestack, jamming strong after a solid year together, is like a tequila nausea that just keeps getting more intense with time.

"We've gotten so much better playing together in just this last year," said keyboardist and LSA junior James Sibley. "I can't even imagine what it's like when you've been doing it for 17 years like Phish."

The groove-oriented quintet - Sibley, guitarist Chuck Newsome, bassist Thom McNeil, drummer Brian Williams and vocalist Kris Kurzawa - hasn't been booked into Madison Square Garden just yet, but it's doing a whole lot better than Phish was at the same age.

The band spent most of the summer playing all over the state, from Detroit to Kalamazoo to Marquette. Its booking is being handled by the same agent that manages Funktelligence, currently the most successful band in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area. And most notably, the group's been tapped to open for Ekoostik Hookah at the Michigan Theater next weekend.

Basically, this is a good time to be in the Stack.

"We've been trying to expand our horizons, to move beyond the typical jamband thing," Sibley said. "Chuck is in the jazz studies program at Wayne State, and I'm playing in the big band here, so we've been working in a lot more jazz influences."

Indeed, as well as the Grateful Dead-style bluegrass/roots music that is Smokestack's musical foundation, the band's recent live recordings reveal large doses of Latin rhythms and trance-like sections - not to mention a sly tease of the "Super Mario Bros." theme music.

The band's been branching out in terms of cover material, too. For its special Halloween show at T.C.'s Speakeasy, Smokestack's been taking email requests (smokestack@smokestack.org) for any and all covers people desire - no matter how bizarre or obscure.

"We've had some good ones come in, I think everyone's going to have a good time," Sibley said.

The musical evolution of the band, which originated as a straight-ahead blues-rock outfit with a different singer, has been a gradual process, and Sibley believes that the changes have helped Smokestack grow as a group.

"The hardest thing about keeping a band together is making sure that everyone is on the same page," Sibley said. "Now we get to see where everyone wants to take the band."

Courtesy of Smokestack

Smokestack, left to right: Thom McNeil, James Sibley, Chuck Newsome, Brian Williams and Kris Kurzawa.