New Monsoon guitarist Jeff Miller figures his band is a little more on the rock side of the jam-band spectrum

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAY 12, 2005

By Steve Newton

Local concert-promoter Derek Arrowsmith is a true jam-band fanatic. His company, Upstream Productions, consistently brings to town such improv-loving fusion acts as the String Cheese Incident, Garaj Mahal, Umphrey’s McGee, Sound Tribe Sector 9, and New Monsoon.

When the upbeat entrepreneur with the rockin’ last name put the word out about the latter band’s gig at Richard’s on Richards on Thursday (May 19), he stressed the talents of guitarist Jeff Miller, then backed up his claim by forwarding a copy of the Bay Area septet’s 2003 second CD, Downstream. Indeed, the six-string action was impressive, but I must admit that I wasn’t taken by the overly earnest singing style of Heath Carlisle.

So when I call Miller at his Marin County, California, home and he explains that Carlisle is no longer in the band, few tears are shed. Miller and keyboardist Phil “The Pianimal” Ferlino now share the lead-vocal duties, and they’ll be heard on New Monsoon’s next CD, due out this summer. The disc was coproduced by former Santana drummer Michael Shrieve and Paul Kimble from Grant Lee Buffalo.

“The two of them made a great combination,” Miller asserts. “Michael was the big-picture guy, and Paul was more the nuts-and-bolts guy.”

After its Vancouver date, New Monsoon is slated to perform on the 17-date Big Summer Classic tour alongside String Cheese, Umphrey’s, Keller Williams, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Yonder Mountain String Band.

“We’re pretty lucky to be in this company of musicians,” Miller says. “I’ve seen all those bands a bunch, and I like ’em all, but I particularly like Michael Franti. Spearhead really gets me in my heart, you know.”

Miller’s group was up for the “new groove of the year” prize at the recent Jammy Awards in New York, and though it lost out to the Brooklyn-based organ-drum duo Benevento-Russo, he holds no grudges. He’s just happy that New Monsoon is making its mark on the burgeoning jam-band scene in the States.

“It consists of people who just want to see live music,” he relates, “who are frustrated with what’s been offered by commercial means. If that’s jam band, then I guess it’s jam band, you know?”

On Downstream tracks like “Mountain Air” and “Double Clutch”, Miller pays homage to the guitar-hero stylings of the Allman Brothers and Santana, respectively, but ’70s rock is just one of the genres his band strives to incorporate into its heady musical brew. New Monsoon has performed twice at Colorado’s famed Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and three months ago the band released a live document of its most recent Telluride set on the String Cheese Incident’s SCI Fidelity Records.

“We’re probably a little more on the rock side of that spectrum,” Miller says, “but we have a touch of bluegrass in there somewhere. We have a banjo player, and we do some two-step stuff, so we were embraced by that crowd pretty well. That’s part of why we released the live CD: there was just the vibe, and everything seemed to be kinda there.”