Stateline, NV…The Fabulous Thunderbirds are rolling into Harrah’s South Shore Room. The show starts at 7:30pm. The band will be featuring their hits and songs from a long history of the band. They released their first album in 1979. Original member Kim Wilson is joined by the current Thunderbirds line-up features Jay Moeller on drums, Johnny Moeller and Mike Keller on guitar, and Randy Bermudes on bass.

For over 30 years, The Fabulous Thunderbirds have been the quintessential American band. The group’s distinctive and powerful sound, influenced by a diversity of musical styles, manifested itself into a unique musical hybrid via such barnburners as “Tuff Enuff” and “Wrap It Up”. Co-founder Kim Wilson, the sole original member, still spearheads the group as it evolves into its newest incarnation.

“We started as a straight blues band”, vocalist and harmonica player Wilson says. “We now incorporate a mixture of a lot of different styles. We’re an American music band and we’re much higher energy than we were before.”

Fabulous Thunderbirds with Stand Up BassIn addition to Wilson, the current Thunderbirds line-up features Jay Moeller on drums, Johnny Moeller and Mike Keller on guitar, and Randy Bermudes on bass.

“To be in the T-Birds, you need to understand the different styles of music and different ways of playing,” Wilson comments. “You have to be willing to adopt a more contemporary style. The guys we have now are able to do that.”

The band continues to tour extensively, in both the U.S. and Europe. Wilson is currently writing songs on his own, with band members and other writers.

“I’ve primarily been a solo songwriter, but I’m looking forward to experimenting with the guys in the band,” Wilson says.

The thread throughout the T-Birds career has been the respect the group commanded for its peerless musicianship and devotion to the sounds of blues, R & B and rock ‘n roll. In fact, Muddy Waters called Wilson his favorite harmonica player and vocalist. “Muddy Waters was very good to me,” Wilson says. “He almost adopted me. I’ll never forget him.”

For Kim Wilson, the musical journey started in Goleta, California. At 17 he began playing the harmonica. His influences included Little Walter, George “Harmonica” Smith, Lazy Lester and James Cotton. At the same time, Wilson began singing and was deeply impacted by Bobby “Blue” Bland, B.B. King, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rodgers and Muddy Waters. In search of other musicians who shared his love of the blues, Wilson headed to Minneapolis. He stayed there for a year and a half, playing locally, before moving to the burgeoning music scene of Austin, Texas. It was there that he met Jimmie Vaughan and they founded the T-Birds in 1974. The band developed a reputation as a compelling live act and subsequently signed a record deal with CBS/Epic Records.

In 1979, The Fabulous Thunderbirds released their first self-titled album. Primarily blues influenced, it became a cult classic. “Things were wide open back then,” Wilson recalls. “There were hundreds of stages where bands could show what they had.”

Fabulous Thunderbirds B&WIn subsequent releases, the band started to incorporate more Cajun, rock ‘n roll and soul influences. The album “T-Bird Rhythm” marked a creative turning point for the group as it collaborated with noted producer Nick Lowe. In 1986, The Fabulous Thunderbirds reached a commercial peak with the album, “Tuff Enuff”. The single of the same title as well as the singles “Wrap It Up” and “Look At That”, all went top 40. The song, “Tuff Enuff” was featured in the film “Gung Ho” starring Michael Keaton.

For the remainder of the ’80s, the band continued to record and tour, and released the album, “Powerful Stuff”. Jimmie Vaughn left in 1989 but Wilson kept the group going, incorporating keyboards into the guitar-driven sound. Kim moved back to California in 1996, continuing to cultivate the T-Birds music.

“The thing about the T-Birds is that we can play both blues festival and rock venues,” Wilson comments. “We’re a diversified band now and everybody’s on the same page.”

As a side project Wilson formed Kim Wilson’s Blues Revue, a traditional blues band. He also owns a blues label, Blue Collar Music, that has released three albums – one by Kim, one by “Big Al” Blake and one by Fred Kaplan. Wilson has also recorded and written with noted session guitarist Danny Kortchmar and drummer Steve Jordan and may tour with them at some point. However his current focus remains The Fabulous Thunderbirds. “This is a great time for this band,” he says. “We’re looking forward to the future.”

A graceful and poetic set of Southern-tinged yet firmly El Lay rock’n'roll, the Jonathan Wilson-produced NORTH HILLS is an electrifying and accomplished freshman effort. From the ruminative opener “That Western Skyline” to the joyous twang of “When You Call My Name” to the harmony-soaked “Take Me Out of the City,” NORTH HILLS makes it easy to hear why Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller has already called it “hands down one of the finest records of 2009… Dawes is a perfect band.”

The Los Angeles quartet—Goldsmith, 23, (vocals, guitar), his brother Griffin Goldsmith, 18, (drums, vocals), Wylie Gelber, 21 (bass) and Alex Casnoff, 22 (piano, vocals) […however, Tay Strathairn plays piano, vocals on the record] —shares DNA with Simon Dawes, Taylor and Wylie’s teenaged band with Blake Mills, but is a vastly different, more creatively audacious beast. “I didn’t have a whole lot of respect for what it really meant to write songs back then,” says Taylor Goldsmith. “They were more a vehicle to get to be a young guy in a band.” As Simon Dawes dissolved, he realized rock’n'roll was more than just a lifestyle choice—that even if he never got to be as brilliant as his favorite artists (a list that ranges from Nabokov, Fitzgerald and Rilke to Will Oldham, John Prine and Townes Van Zandt), that was where he had to aim. “I wanted to write songs that actually meant something to me,” he says. “Those guys helped shape my character, how I look at the world. We started Dawes with that intention.”

They kept the “Dawes” part of the name in tribute to Taylor and Griffin’s country music-loving grandfather, Dawes Lafayette Goldsmith. Their father, former Tower of Power/Sweathog singer Lenny Goldsmith, was more a soul and R&B guy—he could not even abide Bob Dylan. “He told me, ‘you don’t want to listen to that, he can’t sing very well,’” Goldsmith remembers. He listened anyway—Lenny later came around—and also grew to love such classic L.A.-nurtured artists as Gram Parsons, Crosby Stills & Nash and Jackson Browne. It’s a set of influences that has also impacted the Delta Spirit, Wilco, Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes, “but where BoH and FF generously borrow from that California sound,” opines the LA Weekly’s Randall Roberts, “Dawes breathes it.”

“We’re very much aware of the fact that we’re from Los Angeles, California, and all of the associations that come with that,” Goldsmith says. “A lot of our favorite records were made in L.A., and while they have this overwhelming American feel to them, they also have this Los Angeles resonance, and Los Angeles cynicism that’s entirely unique. I’m always happy people notice that in us.”

It was probably inevitable, then that they would make NORTH HILLS with Wilson, the musician and producer (Jenny Lewis, Gary Louris, Jonathan Rice, Elvis Costello) known for hosting weekly jam sessions at his Laurel Canyon cottage (which also serves as a recording studio). Back in the day, Laurel Canyon was where Joni Mitchell, CSN, the Mamas and the Papas and the Eagles all spent some of their time. “There’s that romantic aspect of Laurel Canyon, yeah—Jonathan embodied that,” says Goldsmith. But more importantly, “the way he records was very much in line with what we respond to musically. We did it all on two-inch tape, with no computers, which really forced us to step up. It was recorded live, and all the mics were right next to each other, so we couldn’t just keep an acoustic guitar take, or re-do a drum take. It added a spontaneous vibe that hopefully comes off more inspired.”

Mission accomplished on “That Western Skyline,” the last song Goldsmith wrote (“When My Time Comes” being second-to-last), the first song Dawes recorded and a true first take. “Except for some overdubbed tambourine, it’s exactly as it was,” he says. “We recorded that within the first hour we were there.” The song’s admittedly autobiographical story of a guy from L.A. and a girl from Alabama kicks off NORTH HILLS with a searching, lovelorn tone. It’s immediately followed by “Love Is All I Am,” so gentle you can hear the fingers hit guitar strings, an older song that was an attempt by Goldsmith to transform life into insight. “A lot of my early songs were from this place of being a young guy who was unsure why he felt certain things, and what he felt,” he says. “I was just trying to organize those thoughts the best I can with words and music.”

Other highlights include the hymnal/boogie ballad “Bedside Manner,” Straithairn’s Band-like piano/organ on the groovy and melodic “My Girl to Me” and the deceptively world-weary (but guitar-scorched) closer “Peace in the Valley,” in which Goldsmith winks at the old spiritual and manages to find the poetry in something quite mundane—his last house in the San Fernando Valley.

These days, Goldsmith and the rest of Dawes don’t have a home—except maybe onstage, where the music’s louder and a whole lot wilder, Goldsmith putting all of his emotion on the line each a night. “A full-on rock ‘n’ roll juggernaut of classic dimensions and potentially legendary proportions,” the Bluegrass Special’s David McGee says of the live show, which was also good enough to get Dawes signed to ATO after a single live performance in New York during their tour with Other Lives and Delta Spirit. So who needs a place to live? “Homes, money, wonderful relationships with girls—this lifestyle isn’t conducive to any of those things,” says Goldsmith. “But it’s forced us to give Dawes everything we can. We’ve put ourselves in a position where it’s all we have.”

And what they have, in NORTH HILLS and beyond, is quite a lot.
Date: 2011-01-21

Title: Dawes Plays At Harrahs in South Lake
Location: South Lake Tahoe
Link out: Click here
Description:

South Lake Tahoe…Singer Glen Phillips, guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning, and drummer Randy Guss spent time honing their skills in area bars. Then, in 1988, they entered a nearby studio and came out with their debut LP, Bread and Circus.

Recorded in just 8 days and for a cost of $650, this inaugural recording was originally sold in Santa Barbara area record stores as a homemade cassette. While the band was recording their second album, Pale (16 days & $6,000) they caught the attention of the LA offices of Columbia Records.

After agreeing to the band’s request to reissue Bread and Circus only in its original form — without any alterations or remixes – Columbia Records signed Toad the Wet Sprocket. Then in 1991, Toad the Wet Sprocket’s commercial breakthrough came as the single “All I Want” (which had nearly been left off the 1991 album Fear) became a Top 20 hit. Gavin’s airplay reports also listed it as number one. After “Fear” was certified platinum, another single from the LP, “Walk on the Ocean,” also became a successful track for the band. They played over 300 shows on the Fear tour, a two-year marathon ending in throat surgery for Phillips’ overused pipes.

Three years later, Toad returned with Dulcinea, generating yet another Top 40 hit (not to mention a six week run as number one on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks) with the single “Fall Down.” Dulcinea then also sold enough copies to reward Toad with another platinum certification. 1995 brought In Light Syrup, a collection of unreleased material, B-Sides and movie soundtrack songs. Featuring “Good Intentions,” another hit single that’s also been featured on the platinum selling Friends TV show soundtrack, In Light Syrup recently became certified gold.

Coil, Toad the Wet Sprocket’s fifth proper LP, followed in 1997. Then in July, 1998, the group parted ways. Even so, in 1999, PS (A Toad Retrospective) was released. In 2004, Columbia/Legacy released Toad’s live CD Welcome Home, Live from the Arlington Theater.

Since 2006, the band has played to enthusiastic crowds of all ages across the country, proving that great music truly is timeless.

Title: Toad the Wet Sprocket
Location: Harrah’s Lake Tahoe
Link out: Click here
Description:

Information on the series is below…

TOCCATA –The Reno-Tahoe-Truckee community

has 6 opportunities this December to enjoy TOCCATA’s wonderful tradition of

producing selections from HANDEL’S MESSIAH in a Holiday Concert.

MESSIAH was first performed in Dublin, Ireland on March 23, 1742 and

was conducted by its composer. It continues to be a masterpiece that

has left audiences in awe for 269 years. The TOCCATA production is a

celebration of the holidays and includes not only favorite selections

from Messiah Parts One and Three, but also seasonal carols that the

audience will be most welcome to join in singing.

All performances will be directed by Maestro James Rawie. The Messiah

series marks the conclusion of TOCCATA’s fifth season. Joining the

TOCCATA Chamber Orchestra and Chorus for this production are soloists

Katharine DeBoer, Tammy Brock, Joy Strotz, and Anna Helwing, sopranos;

Stephanie Dixon, contralto; and Stuart Duke, baritone.

The performances are Wednesday, December 15 at 7:00 pm at Trinity

Church in Reno, (200 Island Ave., Reno • 775-329-4279); Friday,

December 17 at 7:30pm in St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in South Lake

Tahoe (1041 Lyons Ave./530- 544-3533); Saturday, December 18 at 2:00

pm at St. Francis Church in Incline Village, and Sunday, December 19

at 3 pm at The Resort at Squaw Creek.

This is the third year that TOCCATA performs Messiah at the Resort at

Squaw Creek, and there is special pricing for roomrates and dinner.

The Truckee Tahoe Community Chorus, directed by Susan Horst, will join

TOCCATA for the December 15 and 19 performances. The Sierra Nevada

College Chorus, directed by Donna Axton and Incline Choraleers,

directed by Eunice Marion, will join for the concerts on December 17

and 18.

The final performances will take place on Tuesday, December 21 at 6:30

pm at the Carson City Community Center, and Sunday, December 26 at

Christ the King Lutheran Church in Tahoe City. The Carson City

concert features the 60-voice Carson High School Concert Choir, alumni

and Carson soloists, and will be a benefit for the high school choir’s

future tour presentations.

The TOCCATA Chamber Orchestra features Virginia Bowman as

concertmaster; David Brock, Ben Benson, and Ben Wallek as continuo;

and Mark Lord and William Van Meter on Baroque trumpets.
 General

admission to all concerts is $20 adults, $15 seniors, $5 students 25

and under with valid ID, and preferred/reserved seating is $35.

Children under 12 are admitted free with a paying adult. All

performances are supported by the Kling Family Foundation and Thorney

Point Foundation.

For more information or preferred seating, call 775-313-9697. Visit
TOCCATA at www.ToccataTahoe.com.