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BIRMINGHAM-(June 5,2009)  Balancing evocative songs and expressive improvisation, Gov’t Mule is a band rooted in both the personal and musical chemistry between its members. “It’s not one of those groups that can make a change overnight,” explains founding guitarist/vocalist Warren Haynes. It is only after six months of rehearsing, jamming, and hanging out with bassist Jorgen Carlsson that he has been added to the band as their new permanent bass player, replacing Andy Hess, who joined in 2003.

When founding bassist Allen Woody passed away in 2000, Haynes explains, “We were faced with the daunting task of replacing a one-of-a-kind musician, which I'm sure was intimidating for Andy, who did a wonderful job and brought his own personality into the music.
Jorgen’s style is somewhere between Woody's and Andy's. He brings some of Woody's aggressive spirit back although he is very much his own man.” Carlsson was born in Sweden and has been active as a session musician and studio owner since arriving in the US in 1991.

Founded by Haynes, Woody, and drummer Matt Abts in 1994 as a power-trio, Gov’t Mule has, over the course of eight studio albums, several more live projects, and over 1300 concert performances, built both an extensive, evolving body of work and a devoted fan base. In addition, the band has sold 1.5 million downloads on its website mule.net, sold over one million albums, and received a Grammy nomination. Keyboardist Danny Louis joined as a full-time member in 2003. With Hess leaving to pursue other opportunities, Haynes sees the addition of Jorgen as connecting the past and future of Gov’t Mule:
“Having worked with Jorgen over the last several months, we are very excited to explore some new directions while at the same time going back a little closer to our roots.”

Contact:
www.mule.net

Nashville's Moon Taxi redeem the notion of a "jam band," a descriptor that's grown into an epithet in the larger musical world that implies endless, limp noodling and lack of compositional or vocal substance.
Not so with Moon Taxi, who are a jam band in the same way Little Feat or Bob Marley & The Wailers are jammers. Like these ancestors, Moon Taxi synthesizes divergent elements into a cohesive, concert-ready rush. It's pumping hard onstage where the real animal emerges in such bands, which makes Live Ride (self-released) a prime intro to this vibrant group who incorporate roots rhythms, Latinismo, Phish-y riffs, complex fusion and gutbucket, blue collar rock (a la early Doobie Brothers, actually…) into a pretty enjoyable ball they hurl with serious gusto.

Live Ride follows their studio debut, Melodica, and features eight previously unreleased songs as well as fan favorites. The crowd roar that hits when you press "play" seems indicative of the uplift they generate in concert, and these performances capture some part of that energy, a going-for-the-jugular dedication that looks for the folks in the back of the room not getting off and strives to make them pop.
While I've never seen Moon Taxi with my own eyes, this set makes it easy to imagine the amorphous, joyful roiling in front of the stage.
In their mixture of interesting time signatures, feel good melodies and genre-snubbing diversity, they are kin to archetypal jam bands like God Street Wine, String Cheese and the aforementioned Phish, but, like those bands, possess their own identity, their own way of handling the raw materials. Most aspects of this set are boldly delivered and curved with modern touches that recall Cafe Tacuba's tweaking of dance floor fare and slow burners.

What one finds on Live Ride is well played, well sung music with clever, satisfying touches galore tucked into songs – the smooth boogie piano breakout at the end of "Here To Stay" and the livetronica tail on "Morning Time" being just too highlights. Moon Taxi seems interested in music without borders, and that alone marks them as one to keep an ear bent towards in the future.

Contact:
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