Rodney Shaw, River Shaw, Matt Friesz, and Joe Friesz of Burnt McMelba Toast
River runs deep with Rodney Shaw, one of the band Burnt McMelba Toast's founding members. He named his son River. He was one of Chad Pregracke's early adopters of the barge lifestyle, cleaning up rivers with Living Lands & Waters. He was one of the River Cities' Reader's newspaper distributors back when we were weekly for 13 years. And he lives on an idyllic Mississippi riverfront property I was fortunate to visit, with him and his band, on Sunday July 19, along with Loren Thacher – a.k.a. Blonde Hugo of WQUD 107.7 FM's Black Light Blues Show fame, and the bass player in Strange News.
Rod had invited us to hang out with his co-founder Matt Friesz and each of their sons who had joined the Toast band this year to hear them rehearse for two gigs in August. He wanted us to learn more about how Toast was not having a reunion. The band was having a revival with second-generation blood and new variations on past themes. This proof of concept was fully realized this past April when the foursome played their first public gig at RIBCO. Go to BurntMcMelbaToast.com and watch the two six-minute videos that showcase their seamless surgical smooth sound along with what might be the best music-video filming and editing for a live show I've ever enjoyed.
These days, Rodney is a pipe fitter by day and a master welder who tries to mentor those who pause long enough to listen to his workplace wisdom. Matt moved his family to Nashville years ago, is a home inspector by day, and claims there's so much musical talent in Nashville that “I'm an impostor.” Both of their sons – River and Joe, respectfully – have helped their fathers re-constitute the band Burnt McMelba Toast. River plays drums, Joe plays keyboards, piano, guitar and bongos, while Rod remains the bass man and Matt the singer/songwriter/guitarist. Matt said they are actually looking to add a fifth band member who plays guitar. I asked Matt if he was trying to make it big in Nashville and his immediate response was, “No, we're gonna make it big in the Quad Cities.”
The visit to Rod's home and the band's rehearsal kitchen/living room on the river was magical and inspiring, to say the least. In addition to some killer loud and live jams, it was a trip down Memory Lane, back to the days of the Slowfish newspaper and the scene in the early 1990s. Gig posters with Uncle Roscoe's Polo Club, Stickmans, Gabes, and Gunnerz adorned the wall with a collage of photos and memorabilia. Old copies of Slowfish, Oil the Music Magazine, and early Readers were strewn on the bookshelf which was full of albums from Jimi Hendrix to the new local phenom Lady Igraine. I noticed music producer Rick Rubin's 2023 The Creative Act book on the shelf and given the hard-to-find riverfront space and sounds, I could not help but be reminded of the Showtime documentary series Rubin produced in 2011, called Shangri-la, named after the Malibu, California recording studio he now owns … which was spec'd out by Bob Dylan, and legend after legend has recorded there since the 1970s. I told Matt, “This your band's Shangri-la,” to which replied, “No, it's Creation Station North and Nashville is Creation Station South.”
Matt and Joe had driven up to join Rod and River in only their sixth time rehearsing in preparation for their two August Quad Cities gigs and what is shaping up to be a mini-tour to the south-east U.S. this fall. This year's plans include recording an album of new material with live takes inside Pat Stolley's recording studio in Rock Island, Illinois. Rod explained that they want to capture the band's live essence for this album, inside Pat's studio, rather than eat up scarce bandwidth to pick apart, edit, and over-produce their new material. Slyly referencing Frank Zappa as if no one would notice, he stated “That's the crux of the biscuit.”
Joe plays music in his church in Nashville, and other than that, has not been in a band, let alone the progressive and technical tight ship that is Burnt McMelba Toast. Rod's son River had never met Joe until he joined the band. River played drums as a young child and then left them alone, and has now come back to them in his early 20s. He's taller than his dad (which is tall) and commands a ton of sound out of such a sparse drum kit. Joe, like his father, was multi-tasking amidst his corner set up by the front door surrounded by a huge house plant. The two young Toasters shared that they are keeping up with Matt's re-writing of old and new Toast tunes via their phones and practice when they can to be prepared for such a focused rehearsal session/trip.
The four-piece rehearsal was super-tight and not sloppy in any way, only having to regroup once while I was there to get down their own twist on Black Sabbath's “The Wizard” song as an outro Easter egg to one of their classics. Their sound, while inspired by, is not derivative of the popular jam bands like Phish, Grateful Dead, or Widespread Panic. New Toast is similar to old Toast, but more concise and to the point. It's jazzy, funky, and bluesy, with piercing and precise math-rock solos and riffs. It's melodic, thrashing, purposeful, clever, and funny all in each song. Matt had his iPad on a stand for his lyrics and was obviously toiling in a good way to elevate the band's cohesiveness, occasionally giving some cues to Joe and River.
I got to hang out on the couch in the living room with a floor-to-ceiling river view, surrounded by the Toast grotto of ticket stubs, photos, posters, and detritus while Loren hung out in the kitchen 30 feet close by. The band's website states its pedigree includes opening for Aquarium Rescue Unit in Iowa City … and there was the very show poster on the wall. (Rod later shared that he got to hang out with and talk performance shop with Jimmy Herring then of ARU and now lead guitarist for Widespread Panic since 2006.)
Toast's well-curated grotto also included a framed one page letter that fascinated me. It looked like the original hand typed letter, with no headline, no flyer styling whatsoever. It opens with “Hello, were (sic) just hangin out here in Dog Patch Iowa getting ready to fire it all up, the boogie that is for u, us, and the road,” and hope you can make it our next closest show. The letter explains that the band's drummer Kevin Moore is stranded in Wyoming as his vehicle's brakes failed and he narrowly escaped death. On July 19 (the same date Loren and I visited Creation Station North!), there is a “Get our drummer back” fundraiser at Stickman's in Davenport. The letter went on to list August and September gigs at the Mississippi Valley Fair, Elbo Room in Chicago, Metro in Iowa City, Steb's in Cedar Falls, RIBCO in Rock Island, and O'Meara's Pub for an outdoor gig in Bettendorf. And oh yeah … all shows start at 10 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
What a relic! Turns out that this was just one of dozens of newsletters Toast photocopied and snail-mailed with stamps, one by one, to their old-fashioned true mailing list. Rod explained that Toast mega-fan Randy Fitzsimmons, a.k.a. “Fitz,” would adorn a cardboard sandwich board in the shape of a piece of toast with a blank sign-up paper across it and fans would literally hand-write in their contact info and address to get Toast updates. Yes, there was a time before Faceborg when artists had tangible, analog connections with their tribes. Here's to Burnt McMelba Toast 2.0 and may their tribe always thrive!
See also “Long Burn the Fire: The Return of Burnt McMelba Toast” by Loren Thacher.
