In March, the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, celebrated its 25th anniversary, inviting an extensive list of big-name acts that have played the venue over the years, including The String Cheese Incident, The Motet, Leftover Salmon, and The Greyboy Allstars, to return to the 600-person venue. The Fox will celebrate its 25th one more time before 2017 ends, as on, Saturday, December 9th, Shockra will bring it back to the earliest days of the jam scene (purchase tickets here).
For those that may be too young to remember, Shockra—who played one of the first shows ever at The Fox—helped forge the earliest beginnings of the jam scene back in the late 80’s. Shockra frequently collaborated with acts like Phish, Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic, and Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, with many of these act sitting in with each other, touring together, and throwing late-night jam-sessions, making for a wildly creative and inspired environment for all the musicians involved.
We got to chat with drummer Dave Watts (who would later go on to found Colorado’s own The Motet), Felix Rentschler (guitar), Edwin Hurwitz (bassist), and Jeff Grove (tenor sax/vocals) about the early beginnings of Shockra, as well as the group’s epic collaborations with members of Phish and Aquarium Rescue Unit and playing old-school venues such as The Wetlands, The Middle East, and more.
Live For Live Music: How did Shockra come together?
Jeff Grove: Around ‘84 or ‘85, I was starting a blues-based band with Fabian Hollander. We had tried a number of people when a bass player we knew turned us on to Edwin. He quickly brought along Felix and Jonathan Abel (who became the first drummer of Shockra). You guys brought the funk, and the jam-band sensibility way back then. We started gigging around the scene, but things got played out after a year, and we all moved on.
Edwin Hurwitz: Shockra came together almost by default. In 1988, I was offered a gig in a blues band called Graffiti. Jeff Grove was the singer/sax player. We needed a drummer, so I called up my friend Jonathan Abel from my days at Berklee. We played a few gigs, and it seemed like we could still use another member, so I called up Felix Rentschler—another partner in crime from Berklee. After a while, Jonathan, Felix, and I were itching to play some more adventurous music, so we moved on from Graffiti and started rehearsing, playing parties, and generally figuring out what kind of fun we could have.
We decided we needed a keyboard player and played with a bunch of them, but nothing really clicked. One day, I went with my roommate to see her brother play a solo piano bar gig in the financial district of Boston. I asked him to play “Falling Grace,” and he went for it. That was Dan Coutu. I knew right away he was up for anything, and he should come jam with us. This version of Shockra played around Boston and up into New Hampshire and Vermont for about year, with some epic gigs, including loft parties in the South End, benefits for various causes (including a marijuana legalization rally that just happened to be scheduled right next to a Boy Scout gathering), colleges, and wherever we could.
Then Jonathan decided to move on, and we cast about for a new drummer. I think we auditioned something like fifty people without finding anyone. We took the last of our cash and went camping in the White Mountains, wondering if we’d ever find someone funky and powerful enough. When we got back, Dave Watts answered our flyer, and it was clear he had what we were looking for. At that moment, Shockra was born.
L4LM: You guys were playing during the early beginnings of what we now know as the jam scene. Could you tell there was something special going on at the time?
Edwin: Absolutely. Even beyond what became the jam scene, there was a ton of great music in Boston, New York, and all around the East Coast. There was lots of cross-pollination between styles and scenes. While the pop music of the 80’s and 90’s was happening, there was a strong underground growing that embraced rock, funk, African music, Indian music, jazz, and anything else that could be brought into the mix.
Clubs like The Middle East, Johnny D’s, the Paradise, etc., had incredibly eclectic mixes of bands. In New York, The Wetlands was taking off and looking at their schedule was a “Who’s Who” of all the bands coming up. The great thing about it was that every band was really different. There was no generic sense of jam band, and every band was there for the community. There was very little sense of competition and a lot of hanging out and sharing of musical influences and jamming strategies. While it was clear that something was beginning to happen, it felt very organic.
L4LM: There was also a lot of cross-pollination with groups like Phish, Aquarium Rescue Unit, Blues Traveler, and Widespread Panic. Shockra even had all members of Phish sit-in for the entire second set of your show at K.D. Churchill’s in Burlington back in ’92. What was that like?
Edwin: While these bands were all on the way up, remember that in the early 90’s, they were still essentially underground bands. Rolling Stone magazine covers and huge venues were still in the future. The whole thing felt very natural—everyone was not just accessible but excited about coming together and collaborating. All the bands you mention and more were exploring a way to have a life in music that wasn’t just playing the game of success—a way to be completely authentic and true to the music first and foremost.
Having sit-ins with bands like Phish and ARU were just opportunities to have fun. It wasn’t exciting because they were “famous” but because it was exciting to play music with like-minded people—with friends—and to see what we could come up with in the moment. All of them were up for everything. We especially took advantage of that with Jon Fishman, who readily agreed to do whatever crazy idea we had—from reading passages from James Joyce or Buckminster Fuller to lurking behind a door with a trombone, ready to come out blasting every time we knocked. It was a lot of fun.
L4LM: The Burlington and greater Northeast music scene really seemed to be, and still even to this day, an extremely creative environment. It certainly sounds like it was a fertile environment for creativity.
Felix Rentschler: I don’t know a lot about the Burlington scene, but I loved getting invited to the Phish house to jam and plan out a sit-in at our show. The next morning I got to sit in with Trey and Matt from the Jazz Mandolin Project at a little brunch spot.
Edwin: Also, hanging out with Phish and discussing rehearsal techniques was pretty cool, too.
L4LM: What are some of your most memorable moments playing with Shockra?
Felix: Memorable highlights include after-hour parties at Neptune, hanging out, and jamming with members of many bands, such as Phish, Widespread Panic, Aquarium Rescue Unit, and local Boston bands. Also, Jon Fishman joining us on vacuum cleaner at the Wetlands, and Jimmy Herring and Oteil Burbridge sitting in with us in Ohio.
Dave Watts: Touring out to Colorado for the first time was an incredible experience for us. Phish gave us their mailing list to promote the tour, so we had great crowds everywhere we went. Because of a snowstorm in Telluride, we stayed longer and played four shows in a row at the Fly Me to the Moon Saloon. That was definitely a mind-expanding experience for us.
L4LM: There is a Shockra flyer hanging up in The Fox, which happens to also be one of the first shows ever put on at the venue. How does it feel to be bringing it back to The Fox twenty-five years later?
Dave: It’s a great feeling to know that this music, which we put our hearts and souls into so many years ago, still lives on. The support that we still get from our fans is the reason we are doing this show. It’s exciting to revisit these songs and envision them with (quite) a few more years of musical maturity and experience under our belts. It’s also exciting to have an opportunity to perform these songs in front of a younger audience, some of whom probably weren’t even alive when this material was written!
Tickets for Shockra at The Fox Theatre on December 9th are on sale now and can be purchase here. For show updates and additional information, join the Facebook Event page.
Check out this full recording from a Shockra show at Burlington’s K.D. Churchill’s back in ’92, which sees the members of Phish sit-in during the entire second set of the show:
[via taper james_dineen]
Setlist: Shockra | K.D. Churchill’s | Burlington, VT | 2/1/92
Set One: Give It Up, Spread The Word->Dimension Extension, Tone Clone*
Set Two: Sippin Pippa*->The Worms Crawl In *, Don’t Let It Stop Ya *
* With all members of Phish
Notes via phish.net: On February 1st, the members of Phish joined Shockra for their show at K.D. Churchill’s in Burlington. Mike was taking lessons in slap bass from Shockra’s bassist Edwin around that time and the two bands were spending some time together with Shockra opening some classic Phish concerts in the Northeast in 1991. On the 1st, Phish took the stage with Shockra for their second set, performing Shockra staples like “Tone Clone,” “Don’t Let it Stop Ya,” and “Underground People” as well as some funky, syncopated jamming. This was the first of a number of live jams the bands played together through the years at Boston’s Neptune House and later at Shockra club performances in 1992 and 1993.
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