Burnt McMelba Toast July 19
The wildfire haze has finally made it to the Midwest, dovetailing perfectly with the baking mid-July heat. There's a pretty ugly mood on the land if the traffic's any indicator (it usually is), reckless citizens on their way to some forced Sunday Funday merriment, squeezing every beer-sodden drop out of the pitiful respite before the inevitable trudge back to the grinder. The air has a curious chlorinated odor and the racket of thousands of motors hums sick and irregular.
At Creation Station North, the vibe is completely different. Tucked away in a string of houses between the highway and the river somewhere north of the Quad Cities is an old river cabin, marvelously redone and modernized into a rock 'n' roll minimalist dream. There's no reason to believe that Burnt McMelba Toast are practicing here until I finally step out of the car, a few wrong turns finally pointing me to the rumble of a bass amp in the riverside seclusion.
Reader publisher Todd McGreevy set up this meeting, him having known Burnt McMelba Toast since their '90s heyday, when they were a group of Quad Cities guys riding the nascent jam band wave across the college-town circuit, firmly dedicated to writing their own music and getting down with it onstage. It's a helluva hookup he's provided, as I spend a wonderful afternoon and evening with the newly reformed band, bonding over music and nature and getting an exclusive listen to their new material.
Not quite exclusive. As the day wears on, old friends and current neighbors of Burnt McMelba Toast drop by to hang, watch, and listen, turning the rehearsal into a private show of sorts. Floor-to-ceiling windows provide natural light and a view of the haze-covered Mississippi – a couple smug pelicans, the occasional pontoon or speedboat plowing against the current, oblivious to the searing air.
Past and present mingle together, friends watching from one side of the room while a tapestry of memories smiles down from the opposite wall, a mosaic of old photos that stirs the recollections of all who were there and now are here.
And that past's future is now the present, in the most literal sense. Burnt McMelba Toast may be the first band in history to include two father-son pairs: founding members Matt Friesz (guitar and vocals) and Rodney Shaw (bass), and sons Joe Friesz (keyboards and guitar) and River Shaw (drums). “We didn't raise them to play in this rock 'n' roll band, it just happened,” says Rodney. “How cool is that – that we get to play in a rock 'n' roll band with these dudes?”
The current resurrection of Burnt McMelba Toast is not a nostalgia trip. It's a fresh recurrence of a lifelong musical friendship, tapping a wellspring of music that had to get out. “We've always stayed really close,” says Rodney. “Matt and I looked at each other and were just like 'What are we doing? Why are we not playing music?' We need to play.”
And play they have. The new lineup's debut at RIBCO in April was wildly successful, with only four rehearsals, as the Frieszes both commute from Nashville to play with McMelba. More shows are planned. The musicians have no intention of slowing down.
The “jam band” tag can be a curse, and while it fits the vibe, it ignores the tightly structured nature of much of McMelba's songs, which I watch them work over in painstaking detail. McGreevy calls them, fittingly, “ethereal funk.” They can rock hard and groove mellifluously, but there's a new focus on brevity. As Matt puts it, “We're trying to be more singer/songwriter focused, not jam band … . We will continue to venture off into the open-air playing, but … just more focused on four-to-five-minute songs, instead of seven-to-nine-minute … .”
“Epics!” chimes Rodney.
“ … monster jams,” finishes Matt.
They're in the midst of a weekend-long rehearsal for a pair of August shows. The first is a noontide Alternating Currents slot at the Bulldog Arms in Bettendorf on August 16. The second is a headlining show at the brand-new downstairs Redstone Room in Davenport with the Nick Moss Band on August 29 (8 p.m. start, mark your calendar). If you never caught them in the olden days, their self-titled album is up on YouTube. And if you're curious about how well past, present, and future can jibe in the same band, catch 'em soon – the flame's been kept, and it's burning brightly.
See also "Creation Station North: Burnt McMelba Toast 2.0 Is Set to Thrive Again" by Todd McGreevy.
