BILLY STRINGS
Drummer Mark Levy, of Circles Around The Sun, sat down with Jam in the Stream before the band’s March 15 show at the Turf Club in St. Paul. He discussed a range topics, including the way the body and mind react to listening to extended instrumentals, the way he has approached the role of beat keeper, and Billy String surprise sit in at a late-nite after party in February.
Though he’s covered the outdoors for many of the last 22 years, the writer hasn’t had a column touching on the topic since 2004. With the launch of this blog in February, the option to write such a piece, however irregularly, opened back up. Here is the first such effort, though, warning, it rambles on and hits on a number of related topics including the northern lights, Lake of the Woods, and John Hartford covering John McLaughlin.
After his Saturday night show (the third and final show of a three-night run at 1st Bank Center), Billy showed up unannounced at Knew Conscious, an intimate 450-person music venue/art gallery/club to sit in with a lineup billed with guitarist Ross James (Terrapin Family Band) and banjoist Andy Thorn of Leftover Salmon and their Electric Dead Grass project featuring bass player Garrett Sayers (The Motet) and drummer Mark Levy (Circles Around the Sun). They jammed until about 4 in the morning — the stuff of my dreams.
Jam in the Stream weighs in not on the Goose show itself, per say, that rolled through Minnesota Sunday but the polarizing aspect that three up-and-coming bands have sparked the past few years. It’s OK to like, or not like, any or all of them. But it would be better if we all just remembered to be kind to one another.