BORIS GARCIA: Press

BORIS GARCIA BAND PLAYS AT STRING FLING IN STERLING

You know the old story about the guest who wouldn't leave, right? Well, that's the premise behind the genesis of The Boris Garcia Band. Except for the fact Jeff Otto and Gene Smith didn't want Bob Stirner to leave the party.

The tale goes like this: Otto and Smith called Stirner into the studio to use his Jerry Garcia-worthy guitar licks on one song. Their total ambitions didn't go past that one album. But Stirner liked what he heard on that one track so much, he hung around for way more. And soon enough, Otto, Smith, Stirner, Bud Burroughs and Stephe Ferraro began bringing The Boris Garcia Band to live shows way outside their hometown of Philadelphia.

"It's very interesting," Stirner says of the band's beginnings during a recent phone interview. "I played in jam bands and a Grateful Dead tribute band called Living Earth. So I'm very versed in all that, and it's a humongous influence. But when I joined Boris Garcia, it was all original music. There were no Deadheads in the band. It's all kind of worked out. We have three songwriters, and we all have what I regard to be the right influences, growing up in the'60s and'70s and listening to the radio."

The Boris Garcia Band is one of the headliners at this weekend's String Fling at the Sterling Stage Kampitheatre, 274 Kent Road, Sterling. They play Friday, along with Hot Day at the Zoo, Free Grass Union, Jamie Notarthomas and Jatoba. The music starts today with The Acoustic Assassins (Tim Herron and Charley Orlando). Jazz Mandolin Project, Gordon Stone Band, Dana Monteith & the Flying Jays, Appalachian Still and Cabinet play Saturday. Love Volcanoes play Sunday.

Tickets are $75 at the gate for the whole thing; $40 for individual days.

"I went in there for yucks and beers," Stirner says of that original session in the musicians' hometown of Philadelphia. "I knew these guys from what I call peripheral pursuit. And I was dumb-founded at the songwriting. It was a little a-ha moment. Good God, I thought, this is really great stuff.

"First these guys thought I was a raving lunatic," he says. "I was like, 'Guys, there's really something here.'" He's been proven right three CDs over: That original debut, "Boris Garcia's Family Reunion," The follow-up "Mother's Finest" and this summer's "Once More Into Bliss."

You can call it bluegrass, roots, rock, folk ... and, the old stand-byes Americana and jam. "The whole Americana thing encompasses a lot of things," Stirner says, "as does jam. We certainly embrace a lot of styles."

Besides, labels mean less and less, he says. "You listen to 'contemporary country,' and it sounds like rock 'n' roll to me," Stirner says. "You listen to 'crazy alternative country,' and it sounds like old country."

Their popularity is increasing in the music world. Steel guitar player Buddy Cage of the New Riders of the Purple Sage and former Grateful Dead vocalist Donna-Jean Godchaux-McKay both joined them in the studio for the latest CD, along with producer Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth.

Live, he says, it's an all-ages party. "The crowds we play to go from teen-agers to 40s, 50s and 60s," Stirner says. "We play the hippie fest and the Americana fest and the folk fest. We're lucky we can translate to so many ways."

Boris Garcia aims beyond mere brush with fame

By SANDRA MOYER
The Intelligencer


Who is Boris Garcia?
Think the Panama Red bandito hooks up with the good-guy cowboy in the white hat.

“He's not a bad guy, but he's sort of an outlaw and always seems to tangle himself up with roughneck people.”

That's Gene Smith's description of the fictional character that provides the namesake of a local band, whose loyal fan base has been steadily growing since the group began nearly four years ago.

Boris also is representative of the band's philosophy, according to Smith, one of its members.

“It's about going against the grain a little bit,” says the Doylestown resident. “As songwriters, we just got together and started doing our thing. We didn't really fit in with anybody. We're not mainstream and we're not trying to be. Boris is one of those guys.”

With Smith are Jeff Otto of Glenside, Bud Burroughs of Lansdale, Stephe Ferraro of Melrose Park and Bob Stirner of Riverton, N.J.

Smith points to “serendipity” when explaining how this group of middle-aged musicians, who initially began playing as an after-work escape, has since stumbled onto the path to proverbial fame and fortune.

He and a friend Marcus Niemoller, a percussionist, were both in the folk band Sunhill Down and would gather regularly in Niemoller's living room for impromptu music sessions.

“We would go over Thursday nights, have a couple of beers, a few giggles, lay some tracks and say, "That's cool,' ” Smith recalls.

That's where their first CD, “Family Reunion,” was recorded.

As people drifted in and out of those Thursday night sessions, says Smith, the band eventually ended up with the lineup it has today. Boris Garcia draws on its members' varied musical backgrounds, from drummer Ferraro's jazz and Otto's guitar licks in rock cover bands to Burrough's self-taught musical talents and Stirner's years with Living Earth, a Grateful Dead tribute band. The result — with Smith, Otto and Stirner providing most of the original material — is a blend of folk, bluegrass, country and roots, all with a little electric thrown in at the last minute.

Still, Smith is hard-pressed to categorize the group's music.

“When people ask me, I tell them, "It's Boris Garcia. You tell me.' Every song is a story,” he says. “The highest compliment is if I can evoke an emotion, if I can make them laugh, if I can make them cry, then I've done my job.

“We started out with simple songs that evolved into these multifaceted wonderful things.


“Mother's Finest,” recorded at Studio 4 in Conshohocken, was issued in 2006 to a sold-out release party at World Caf Live in Philadelphia.

Later that year, the group, which performs Saturday at Puck in Doylestown, also hit the main stage at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the “thrill of a lifetime” for Smith, who had volunteered as a stage hand for 18 years prior to that.

In addition to smoke-filled bars, bigger venues, such as the Sellersville and Keswick theaters, are on their schedule, as well as clubs and festivals nationwide. A new recording, “Once More into the Bliss,” is slated for a late spring or early summer release.

Then there's the name, which at first glance, appears as a tribute to Grateful Dead legend Jerry Garcia. But Smith, calling it a “total cosmic fluke,” insists nothing is further from the truth.

Otto, an animator by trade, created the character of Boris Garcia — and by extension the band's name — as a reflection of east-meets-west, which was how their music was seasoned at the time.

“It might have been the Juan Ivanovich Quintet,” Smith says jokingly, but since then, the band has grown in many different ways.

“Boris,” says Smith, “has taken on a much more Americana flavor.”

True, the comparisons to the Dead are there: with heady mandolin sounds expertly crafted by Burroughs and the inclination of its members to spontaneously improvise and weave together their instrumentals onstage, is it any wonder Boris Garcia has garnered the attention of those tenacious fans known as deadheads?

“The deadheads, as a fan base, are very open to new music,” says Smith. “They've embraced us. Once they know who you are, it's almost like being connected to a religion.”

Even Dennis McNally, publicist for The Grateful Dead for 25 years, has taken notice and come on board as the band's media representative.

But the guys are breaking through beyond those ranks as well.

On the Web site jambands.com, Boris Garcia came in at No. 5 in a poll of the top jam bands that left “the most indelible music memory of 2007” — a list that included the soulful Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and the Yonder Mountain String Band, a progressive bluegrass favorite.

“We've been very lucky,” says Smith, “in that everything we've done seems to work our way.”

Sandra Moyer can be reached at (215) 345-3186 or smoyer@phillyBurbs.com.

For the past three years, we have occasionally presented nationally touring artists at our coffee house. Tracy Grammer was the first of these, followed by Garnet Rogers, Ronny Cox, Robert Hazard, and finally Roy Book Binder in June of this year. Of these wonderful shows, only Robert Hazard had a band. But then folk music has traditionally been written and performed by the lonely singer-songwriter, the Woody Guthrie-style troubadour traveling about playing for anyone willing to listen, or no one at all.

While excellent musicianship is certainly common in the folk world, it’s not an absolute requirement, since, like Woody, you may not be bothering anyone but yourself. Agglomerations of excellent musicians are quite common in the old-time and bluegrass genres, but a bit less so in other sorts of acoustic music.

On the other hand, that unique American hybrid of blues, gospel, jazz, country and a back-beat, usually called rock ‘n roll, has really been dominated by bands. Even the so-called “rock stars” have backing musicians. Bill Haley had his Comets, Buddy Holly had his Crickets, Bruce has the E Street Band, and Elvis couldn’t have done it without Scotty Moore, Bill Black, and the Jordanaires.

Then came the bands without a real “star”. The Beach Boys had the US band scene to themselves until Brits like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, and Yardbirds came along. Collectively they were the obvious inspiration for the garage-band phenomenon that began in the mid-60s and continues today in garages and basements all over the world. Out of that beginning 40-plus years ago came bands like the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Santana, and Grateful Dead.

These bands were characterized by a broad background in almost every musical form, from classical to jazz to folk to country. They were also young, adventurous, and committed to their music and each other. So much so that they often lived together. In cases like these, familiarity spawned respect, not contemp, and musical conversations became as important and revealing as the verbal kind.

Being in a band presents its own joys and problems. There are the obvious problems of getting everyone together in someone’s garage for rehearsal. And then you need to learn to listen to each other, sometimes think like each other, and way back when, you actually had to dress like each other. The joy comes when you learn from each other, and actually begin to converse through music. Then listening becomes joy, not a task. And the band becomes an ensemble, thinking with a collective mind and acting as a collective unit. The early jazz greats pioneered this sort of improvisational spirit because they could–they were great musicians because they had to be to play that way, and playing that way made them better musicians.

Beginning in the 1960s, because the stage had been set, rock turned that way too. Grateful Dead are often credited with beginning the “jam band” phenomenon, but they were quick to acknowledge jazz and bluegrass as the inspiration for their seemingly endless exploration of an eight bar musical phrase. By living together for a while and eventually playing together for 30 years, the Dead developed the improvisational rock habit that was soon adopted by the Allman Bros. and eventually grabbed by so many others from Iron Butterfly to Dave Matthews.

This bit of history brings us to our November 10 coffee house and the featured act, Boris Garcia. The five members are all accomplished musicians in their own right, and have a collective fondness for all forms of American traditional music–blues, folk, jazz, bluegrass, pop, rock. They’ve been together for just three years, but in that short time have played some of the biggest festivals (Philly Folk, Bethlehem Musikfest) and opened for some of the biggest names (Little Feat, NRPS, the Rowan Bros., Tony Rice). Because no two concerts are the same, they encourage taping of their shows and sharing the results around the world. And they are developing a loyal following in their home town and outside the Philadelphia region.

They perform almost exclusively original songs with only an occasional cover. With three composers in the group, the songs are well-written accessible melodies and thoughtful, socially conscious lyrics presented with the broad brush of true ensemble playing. At times there is a clear guitar or mandolin solo, but more often the lyric-free spaces are filled with everyone’s solo, and at the same time no one’s solo. They be jammin’.

Bob Stirner (guitar, bass, vocals) writes some of the group’s tunes, is the only admitted Deadhead, and comments on the improvisational aspects: “It just depends on the tune — we write some three- and four-minute songs that are just three- and four-minute songs, and there are other songs that allow us to go out and explore, and do that whole thing.”
Then there’s the mythos of Boris Garcia. Boris Garcia doesn’t really exist or, at least, that’s what Stirner would have you believe. “Boris Garcia is this outlaw figure we created,” he says with a grin. “He is our persona, our Panama Red. He skirts the law and gets in trouble, but not serious trouble. He’s just bad enough to make it interesting.”

Every once in a great while, someone from the “folk” world manages to capture the fancy of everyone. Bob Dylan may have been the prototype, and Jack Johnson is one of the most recent examples. To me, what Delaware Friends of Folk is all about is presenting a variety of the best we can get. Typically there’s little chance of seeing someone about to be “famous”, but a really good chance of seeing excellence in performance. This one might be different. It will be excellent, but the acoustic jam band network is growing quickly and Boris Garcia is right up front. They rarely play venues as small as our coffee house and are in the process of creating their third CD, set for national release in the spring.

Opening the evening will be local musician and singer-songwriter Mike Roots. Mike used to live in Claymont but recently moved south to Kent County. He has been at a couple of our open mics and was a part of Justin McNatt’s January, 2007 coffee house. Mike calls his style “aggressive acoustic”, and that’s about the best description there is. He’s got an emotive style, and there’s a good deal of experience behind his performance. His lyrics show a level of maturity and focus seldom found from someone his age.

It all starts at 7:30, November 10 in the Wesley College Chapel in Dover. Special pricing of $12 for members and $15 for non-members. Plenty of fresh coffee, cold drinks and sweet treats available too. Bring a friend–there’s nothing else like it in Dover.

Boris Garcia
Easy to Like. Hard to Define. Doo-wop, Philly soul. Jamgrass?

Philadelphia has launched more than its fair share of musical movements over the years, so it’s no great surprise that hot new band Boris Garcia — who recently opened for the New Riders of the Purple Sage at a Rex Black Tie-Dye Ball in the Washington, D.C. area — also hails from the home of the Liberty Bell (and cheesesteaks).
Barely three years old, the band has been gathering a growing fan base, not to mention raves from fellow artists. Most recently they’ve been out on the summer jamband festival circuit, but they’re just as much at home in the folk world, the bluegrass world, adult contemporary or Americana radio and beyond. And if no one seems to quite know how to categorize their music — “jamgrass” is the label they came up with themselves — everyone’s pretty clear that it’s struck a nerve. Comparisons abound — Dead historian Dennis McNally, now the band’s media representative, says that some see a resemblance to Tom Petty, others to early Byrds. Some in the music press compare Boris Garcia’s work to the Grateful Dead’s on American Beauty.

And, says bassist/guitarist Bob Stirner, “I don’t think anyone could have paid us a better compliment.” But while he describes himself as a former tour rat and played in a Dead tribute band called Living Earth back in the day, he feels a certain need to set the record straight regarding this band. “I think the jamming is really more by osmosis, and we’re not trying to be derivative,” he says.

With three strong songwriters (Jeff Otto, Eugene Smith, and Stirner) in the band, each with his own distinctive style, Boris Garcia plays no cover tunes (though they did make an exception for a memorable “Candyman” at the Rex benefit, with Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay and the New Riders’ Buddy Cage sitting in). Stirner’s the only self-identified Deadhead in the group.
And Boris Garcia, the band’s eponymous cartoon character, has nothing to do with Jerry; a Panama Red-like desperado, the result of a one-night stand between a Mexican bandit and a Russian émigrée, the fictional Boris is the creation of bandmember Otto, a talented animator. “He’s a bad guy, but only bad enough to be interesting,” says Stirner of Boris. “And all the girls love him.”

The myth and music of Boris Garcia started three years ago when some longtime pals on the Philadelphia music scene, who loved playing traditional music, decided that renting a studio and making a record for their families and friends would be relatively inexpensive fun. Forming a real band wasn’t on the agenda at all. However, the resulting record, Family Reunion, turned out to be a lot more popular than anyone envisioned, and the musicians almost immediately realized they were on to something. Much touring ensued, followed by a second album, Mother’s Finest (2006).

Over the years there’ve been occasional personnel changes; the current lineup is Otto on vocals, bass, guitar, and ukulele; Stirner on vocals, guitar and bass; Smith on vocals, harmonica, recorder and guitar; Bud Burroughs on mandolin, bouzouki, button accordion and Hammond organ; and Stephe Ferraro on drums and percussion. With the summer festival circuit behind them, the band’s now hard at work on a third album, still untitled but due next year.

"We’ve all been in earnest, paying our dues for many, many years," says Stirner, a few days after the Rex show that still has him grinning. "This just kind of happened, and it was a pleasant happening. We’re having a lot of fun."
Rex Foundation: So the original intention was more to do a fun project than have a real band?

Bob Stirner, Boris Garcia: Exactly. It happened very quickly. We started out as a recording entity, and then it became pretty obvious that there was something very compelling and very honest and very serious about the songs that we had amassed. At the very least, we knew we had good songs that we felt in our hearts.

So many good things have happened, so many wonderful opportunities, so many amazing situations. You can’t really stop to look or revel for too long; you kind of giggle and clap your hands and say, OK, well, what’s next? And you keep on keeping on down the path. We have real big blinders on at this point, trying to filter everything out that doesn’t have to do with why we started this thing, which was a belief in the music.

There were people who yelled at us in the beginning and said, you can’t do all these different styles! And we said, well, this is just what we do. And the reality is, now that it seems to be working, it allows for license! (laughs) So I guess it wasn’t that bad of a call. But truly, we all write a little bit differently, even though there’s a great commonality."
Rex: There are three of you who write songs. How does that work — do you all just write individually, or do you collaborate?

Stirner: We mostly write on our own, though we’ve really been collaborating together a lot recently, and that’s kind of cool. It’s not because we force ourselves to do it; most of what happens in this band is sort of by osmosis, or because that’s the way the evolution takes us.

I think the change-of-the-wheel thing is very important here; I don’t want to stand in one place ever. We blend and meld in the sense that it forces the songwriting to a new level.

The next release, which should be around March of ’08, will likely feature a couple of collaborative things. In general, it’s pretty much a democracy with regard to the music; the songwriters will just present a song to the body, and it takes shape. It’s kind of neat. We all get along, and it’s a mutual admiration society of the songwriters, which is very unusual (laughs). Not too much ego, believe it or not. We’re not all 22, and that might help that equation a little.
Rex: Tell us a little bit about the songs and what goes into them. David Gans, who played with you out on the festival circuit, was telling me that there’s one told from the point of view of a cat.

Stirner: That would be one of our new tunes. Eugene Smith wrote that one. It’s a love song, essentially, about Eugene’s wife, but it’s told from the perspective of a cat that she found. It alludes to how much the cat loves the female figure in the song, who happens to be Eugene’s wife, but I think it really speaks of how much Eugene loves his wife. It’s very interesting. It comes from a different slant.

Our songs range from political to metaphorical. There’s a tune on the new record called “Through the Window”; one of the verses goes, “Go through the window or the door, go through and don’t look back no more.” It speaks of rite of passage, or taking risks in life, or drawing big lines in the sand behind you and allowing them to propel you to go forward and walk down the path, if you will. Which is a scary thing, but if you walk down the path, new doors open.

On the political side, we definitely have a soapbox. We are political, and I don’t understand why more artists aren’t political at this point, considering what’s going on in the world and what’s going on with our government, which none of us are really happy about. But in order to change things you have to have awareness.

We tend to dwell on the crap of the moment, if you will, and we do get on the soapbox. Hopefully that’ll change in another year and we’ll be singing happy stuff.
Rex: Why acoustic?

Stirner: I think we’re all old folkies, and that’s just the way it started. We had some violin players and some percussion players, and it was all very earthen and very round-the-coffee-table. That’s just how it started, and one thing led to another.

Then Bud Burroughs came into the band, and Bud is a mandolin player extraordinaire. It lent a certain modality, musically, and texturally it enables a lot more of a dynamic feel. We get very powerful, I think, for a band that plays primarily acoustic instruments.

Having said that, we’ve crept some electric guitar into the mix, and some keyboards. It’s part of the whole evolution thing. It tends to grow and spread out, and different songs call for different things. But predominantly, we are an acoustic band, and it keeps you very honest.

Rex: And it doesn’t seem to prevent you from jamming, either.

Stirner: No. We like to do that. It just depends on the tune — we write some three- and four-minute songs that are just three- and four-minute songs, and there are other songs that allow us to go out and explore, and do that whole thing. Being a Deadhead, and with Jerry Garcia clearly one of my biggest guitar influences, this stuff courses through my veins, and our veins collectively.

Rex: But unlike a lot of jambands, you don’t do Dead cover tunes.

Stirner: We know a lot of that material, and we travel in those circles, and of course we did the Rex benefit. In the first set Dennis McNally suggested that Buddy Cage and Donna sit in, and so we did “Candyman.” We absolutely loved doing that; we loved interpreting it; it was really a wonderful moment.

We have huge reverence for the Grateful Dead, but we don’t feel compelled to cover anything. Been there, done that.
Rex: How did the Rex gig come about?

Stirner: It partially had to do with our friendship with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, and working with Dennis, who’s tied in with Rex. We’ve done a lot with the New Riders, and they’re just wonderful people. They’re on a tear, too. They’re back.

So we’ve been stoked and fortunate and humbled to be asked to do some of these things, and we were really honored to do the Rex thing. Rex is a very noble thing. It was a great honor, and we had a blast. It was very well received.

The whole Rex Foundation is a wonderful group of individuals with a wonderful cause — and they keep on keeping on.

Boris Garcia’s Mythical Creations

Boris Garcia doesn’t really exist or, at least, that’s what songwriter Bob Stirner would have you believe. “Boris Garcia is this outlaw figure we created,” Stirner says with a grin. “He is our persona, our Panama Red. He skirts the law and gets in trouble, but not serious trouble. He’s just bad enough to make it interesting.”
Though the character Boris Garcia is a fictional creation, the band Boris Garcia is a real entity, which has spent the past two years sculpting a distinct persona of its own on the Northeast club circuit. After hooking up in Philadelphia, the quintet—Stirner (vocals, guitar, bass), Jeff Otto (vocals, bass, guitar), Gene Smith (vocals, harmonica, recorder, guitar), Bud Burroughs (mandolin, bouzouki, button accordion, Hammond organ) and Stephe Ferraro (drums, percussion)—quickly entered the studio, turning out its debut album, Family Reunion, before playing its first gig. Drawing from such Americana styles as folk, country-rock and bluegrass, Boris Garcia quickly stumbled upon a sound not unlike American Beauty-era Grateful Dead.

While Boris Garcia flirts with the jamband scene, and its members have clocked in time with the Dead’s extended circle, Stirner insists that the name Garcia is just a coincidence: “I am a proverbial tour rat and have seen hundreds of shows, so our name is a bit ironic. But he is truly a mythical creation.”

In fact, the group nabbed its name from Otto’s civilian life: “Jeff has been an animator for years and years and thinks in those terms. He created the Boris Garcia character and we factor him into our songs from time to time. Sometimes we even use Jeff’s animation as a backdrop at our shows.”

After releasing Family Reunion, which has since gone through two pressings, the group shifted its attention from studio work to its live show, hosting a residency at Philadelphia’s Mermaid Inn. Stretching Family Reunion’s Americana sounds into new directions, Boris Garcia began the jam/rock balancing act. “We were warned early on that we should have a more defined sound, but our styles are all over the map. We’ll play the Philadelphia Folk Festival, one of the oldest festivals in the country, and play these more extended jams and then play at jam festival Dancing Wu Li Festival and offer more concise songs. It’s great that bands like us or Yonder Mountain can be accepted by both camps.”

Part of the reason behind Boris Garcia’s dual identity is its multiple songwriters. “Sometimes you are lucky to get even two songwriters in a room, but we are very fortunate to have three distinct songwriting individuals. Eugene’s songs tend to be a little more political and mine tend to be a bit more melancholy. Jeff is somewhere in between, so we have this almost strange synergy.” Boris Garcia’s dual touring approach has placed the group on stage with such varied acts as Jackson Browne, Hot Tuna, David Bromberg, Amos Lee, The Duhks, James Hunter, Blues Traveler, Railroad Earth, Steve Kimock, Karl Denson and Keller Williams, among others. Another feather in the group’s cap: the quintet sold out the upstairs room at Philadelphia’s prestigious World Café Live.

From its outlaw mystic to its Americana sound, Boris Garcia prides itself on being a decidedly American band. So it also makes sense that many of the group’s more recent compositions tackle the country’s current affairs. “We are all concerned with the environment—everything seems like it is unraveling at the same time, both socially and politically. But chaos seems to create great art and we have a lot of situations to write about on songs like ‘Red, White, and Blue.’”

A number of Otto’s most politically-charged songs found their way onto the group’s second album, Mother’s Finest, which was released in November on Porchwerk Records. Boiling the group’s improvisations down to more manageable radio-friendly chestnuts, the group affectionately describes its current sound as “acoustic jam music.”

“We want to hear our songs on the radio and they don’t play a lot of 12-minute cuts on the radio,” Stirner jokes. “So we try to keep everything below the five-minute mark on the radio. But, on the live stage, all bets are still off.”

...David Gans, who hosts the syndicated radio show Grateful Dead Hour, sat in with several bands the day before. Saturday morning he plays a set of his own, backed by four fifths of Boris Garcia, a local band who aren’t booked until Sunday, but are enjoying their weekend passes. The Gans set is mostly covers, but again, they’re not particularly faithful covers, and only a few are Dead covers. Gans continues to sit in with practically everyone, for at least a song or two, all weekend.
...After that I went down to my campsite to start breaking things down for a hasty exit. As a result, I missed Backwoods Experiment. They did an acoustic set I couldn’t hear from the campsite, so I didn’t know to go back to the stage until I heard Boris Garcia tuning up. They do a sort of bluegrass-influenced Dead-style jam band thing, their skills honed by countless campfire jams at Philadelphia folk Fest. I’ve heard them once before, at last year’s Extreme Folk Fest, and I like them a lot. I especially enjoyed their ode to Schwenksville, PA, home of the Philly folk fest.

BORIS GARCIA
Mother's Finest... (Porchwerk)

Last time around, a writer of note, (sic), described Garcia's music as gypsy country. Dump that label real fast please. These Philadelphia boys have settled into, (for the time being?) a country/folk/rock vein that is evocative of the Byrds' later evolution. There's lots of bluegrass spice in the mix, and there's still some Eastern European influence, via bouzouki, button accordion, and recorder, for those who might favour their first release. Is this one better than the first? Yes, but with reservations, as they're two vastly different recordings, sort of an apples and oranges comparison; it depends upon what is currently turning your crank. The important bit is that the band has been consistently good. Oh, and by the way, the Garcia bit that confounded earlier is, if rumours are to be believed, referencing Jerry Garcia. Can't say that it's painfully obvious, nor necessary; this band can stand on its own two feet.

BORIS GARCIA

Mother's Finest

Is this the resurrection of Leftover Salmon? No? Oh well, oh joy! Right from the beginning this CD says, “Play me, dance with me.” Like the once living salmon, these folks know how to have fun with the music that melodically crosses/combines genres. There’s rootsy rock guitar stuff, bluesy harp, flute, recorder, mandolin and more, here. This is, in their words, “acoustic jam music,” and every bit of it is vintage WYCE. And to think, this is their second CD

This Philadelphia band's name, Boris Garcia, references Jerry Garcia, and while it is not specifically a Grateful Dead tribute project, its music is very much in the style of one of the Dead's manifestations, the bluegrass-leaning folk-rock unveiled on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty that was carried forward by spin-off group the New Riders of the Purple Sage. This was one of the Dead's most popular phases, and it was rooted genuinely in Garcia's early love of bluegrass, which he continued to pursue in such other spin-offs as Old and in the Way. Boris Garcia formed on a whim for the purpose of recording its debut album, Boris Garcia's Family Reunion, but a year later the band has played out quite a lot and become a more cohesive unit as a result. There are three singer-songwriters in the group, Bob Stirner, Jeff Otto, and Gene Smith, and while all of the music, with its acoustic guitar/mandolin interplay and galloping rhythm section, recalls the Workingman's Dead sound, when Otto comes to the microphone for his songs "Other Shoe," "Nine Fine Wines," "Neverland," and "She's No Happier" he sings in a light tenor that unmistakably recalls Jerry Garcia, making the Grateful Dead connection even more explicit. The longest song, "Change of Heart," just touches the five-minute mark, so the jamming is held in check for the most part, the better to emphasize the songs and their lyrics, which concern the ups and downs of love, but also have a distinctly neo-hippie tone. In "She's No Happier" and Stirner's "Higher Love," phonies and social climbers are pilloried, and the album ends on a sober note with Smith's "Radio Song," which takes on media manipulation, pollution, and gun violence. Most of the disc, however, is in a lighter vein, and the playing is always stellar.

Review by William Ruhlmann
If anything, the Philadelphia newgrass quintet Boris Garcia is even more reminiscent of acoustic Grateful Dead on this 25-minute live promotional EP than on its studio albums, if only because, as the name Jam Tracks suggests, they stretch out a bit more on the songs here than they do in the studio. When lead guitarist Bob Stirner takes solos during "Radio Song" and "She's Still Laughing," it's clear that his chief influence is the band's namesake, Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. The songs, with their references to things psychedelic and tie-dyed, make the connection just as clearly. But Boris Garcia is good at evoking the sound of their predecessors' folk-rock phase (think Workingman's Dead), and anyone who misses that late 1960s/early 1970s era will feel right at home at one of their gigs.

Band plays for the love of the music

They put the blues in bluegrass, but don't avoid jazz.

The jams are long, the feel falls somewhere between unplugged versions of the Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull and The Band. There is no one named Boris or Garcia in the Philadelphia-based band Boris Garcia, but there is a certain simplicity that might appeal to fans of acoustic Americana music.

On Thursday, this quintet is set to amble into the Colony Cafe in Woodstock.

"Great musicianship and pretty captivating," said WDST (100.1 FM) on-air personality Rick Schneider. "The songs are witty, funny, pretty upbeat, uplifting American style music."

Bob Stirner, who plays guitar, bass and sings in Boris Garcia, said describing his band is difficult.

Has its own name

"We call it jam-grass-back porch-folk music or something like that," he said. "It's roots music."

Stirner sustains himself by selling antiques, but said his main job has always been making music. Boris Garcia has financed its own records and has been making waves. Last Friday, they played live to a national audience on World Cafe Live, a National Public Radio program based in their hometown.

"We feel that we have something here and it appears to be resonating with people," Stirner said. "We're all broke but we have a belief and conviction in terms of what we have with these songs."

UPPER SALFORD -- It was humans being.

The thousands that came out to the Old Pool Farm on Friday for the 45th Philadelphia Folk Festival left the attitudes at home.

They traded television for folk music, cashed in yard work for dancing, gave up the headaches of hard living for a weekend of good times.

Some crashed out on blankets before the stage and soaked up the sun, while others danced the day away to bands like Boris Garcia and Groovemama.

Yet others came out to camp through the weekend, and there were those that came to volunteer.

"Volunteering is part of the community here," said Michal Waldfogel, of Philadelphia. "It’s the kind of place where you can smile at someone with no questioning."

UPPER SALFORD - The mid-August heat and humidity did not deter thousands of people from soaking in music, crafts, food and dance this weekend at the 45th annual Philadelphia Folk Festival.
The three-day festival was held at Old Pool Farm in Schwenksville and offered campgrounds as well as daily parking, depending on how long people wanted to stay.
Crowds armed with blankets, lawn chairs and umbrellas swelled around the main stage at 4 p.m. Saturday as Jackson Browne and David Lindley began a "two hour, uninterrupted performance."
"It's a pleasure to be here," Browne told the crowd as he began an acoustic rendition of "I'm Alive."
Another group that performed this weekend was Boris Garcia, a local quintet that has been playing together for two years.
"The crowd is fantastic," Gene Smith, who plays guitar, recorder and harmonica in the group, said. "We are so excited to be here. It's packed."
Boris Garcia had three performances scheduled for the weekend, one of which took place on the main stage.
"Playing on the main stage was a huge thrill," Smith said.
The members in his band have been coming to the festival for about 25 years. He said that he was part of the stage crew for 18 years and that several of his friends helped set up the stage for his performance.
"It was funny that the role was reversed for me," Smith said. "I always said when I was younger that I would play in the main stage at this festival one day, so this weekend has really been a dream come true."
Bud Burroughs plays the mandolin and the bouzouki, a larger type of mandolin from Eastern Europe, in Boris Garcia.
"Our sound is very original," Burroughs said. "People classify it as American jam grass."
Smith said that the band participated in a punk/bluegrass workshop during the festival.
"It was sort of a thematic performance where we play with different bands in order to bend genres," he said.
Burroughs said that his band, which plays gigs at some local venues, is excited to start its national tour next month.
As for the folk fest, Burroughs said the heat was not a problem.
"The weather has been great," he said.
Besides live musical performances and workshops, the festival also had campfire music, which started at midnight on Friday and Saturday.
Jason Miller, of Elkins Park, and his two friends, who were newcomers to the festival, participated in the campfire performances.
"It is kind of loose and laid back place where people can listen to music," Miller said. "Some of the acts from the main stage will even show up and play a bit."
Miller, who said he has attended the festival for 20 years, said the campfire is a more intimate setting and the performers play music that will engage the crowd.
"The music usually goes until about 2:30 a.m.," Miller said. "It is a great atmosphere."

Although Boris Garcia started as a few friends pooling cash for studio time, their second CD has grown to so much more. Mother’s Finest surpasses any and all expectations of “the band that wasn’t,” combining the sweet acoustics of folk rock and up-beat bluegrass licks.

KOPN FM 89.5 Columbia Missouri SPECIAL Dead Show/podcast for 07/27/06

Hey Now! Here's a special treat. I had a chance to talk with Bob Stirner of the band Boris Garcia last week, and decided to share that interview with you, along with two tracks from their newly released CD, Mother's Finest.
I'm sure you'll enjoy their music, and hope you enjoy hearing from Bob as well..
Regularly scheduled deadpod will be posted this friday as always, just a bonus to my listeners, I hope you enjoy it!

You can purchase their cd here.
as always you can hear the podcast here:
http://www.missouri.edu/~henriksonj/deadpod072706.mp3

"Mother's Finest," Boris Garcia (Porchwerk)

Sorry. I don't have any idea about the origin of this band's unusual name. The relevant part of that name, however, is Garcia — as in Jerry.

Nope, it's not some lost tape of some Jerry Garcia-led collaboration — although I'm sure some tapes like that are indeed out there. The connection is that this CD was passed on to me by Dennis McNally, who spent years (and many lifetimes) as the publicist for the Grateful Dead.

Dennis, besides being an all-around good guy, is a man who obviously knows a thing or two about jamming. If he says that this "newgrass" acoustic string outfit can jam, I believe him. You should, too.

boris garcia with "mother's finest" - (see bio at right) - pop-inflected, rootsy, americana, backporch, folk music performed with unique instrumentation by the acoustic virtuosos known as boris garcia. "the band that wasn't" - a cute story about how a few friends with a common love of all forms of traditional american music decided that studio time would be no more expensive a hobby than greens fees, so they pooled resources to make their first record "boris garcia's family reunion" (see center column). then they decided playing a few gigs live would be fun, gathered an enthusiastic, tie-dyed fan base, and shared stages with blues traveler, railroad earth, steve kimock, karl denson, keller williams and many others. pick up this week's feature, their second release "mother's finest" this week on their site (tuesday june 27)!

New and noteworthy

Boris Garcia, “Mother’s Finest” (Porchwerk) — It’s a band, not a person, playing jam band mix of folk, bluegrass and rock.

FMQB says this about Boris Garcia...
"It's a happy accident that this band of acoustic virtuosos, who started out adopting its curious name before combining Folk and Bluegrass into short little tunes, has evolved into an acoustic Jam band worthy of the "Garcia" part of its moniker. But the ability to improvise is where those comparisons end, as the addition of succinct, Pop-inflected tunes has made this one of the most refreshing purely acoustic records to hit Triple A this year. FMQB suggests you check out the whole album, but you may want to start spinning "Twinkling Of An Eye," Red, White & Blue" or "All For The Best" to hear your audience's reaction to Boris Garcia."

I had the honor of hosting the Open Mic at Folk Fest again this year. After the Main Stage shows ended, the Food Tent was transformed into the Brigadoon Café as concertgoers found a place to hang and enjoy late night entertainment. The stage was open to budding songwriters, musicians, comedians, storytellers, dancers, and poets. One of the most impressive acts at Open Mic was Boris Garcia’s Family Reunion.from Philadelphia. Engaging the audience with captivating songs and solid musicianship, they continued with impromptu performances in the campgrounds. Guitarist Bob Stirner has been coming to the festival for twenty six years. He reflected, “I’ve worked hard to identify the things in life that make me happy. The Philadelphia Folk Festival is one of my bliss zones.”

Here is an excerpt of Jim Grady's review...

Now, in a small suburb of Philadelphia, a fine quintet of pickers, named Boris Garcia, is peaking its head from behind the music industry’s patrol and is finally seeing the other side of the musical border. Your first thought might be, “Hm, Garcia is in their name, they must play some Dead tunes!,” but these boys specialize in all original compositions. Though they have a great love and respect for the Dead (two of their members played in a NJ-based Dead cover band in the 80’s and 90’s), and do exhibit strains of GD and their penchant for improvisation, BG has not covered one Dead song, or any other band’s song, in the last two years that they have been playing. Most of their venues have been small bars in Philly, NJ, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, but if their most recent shows reveal any prescience, then they will be playing a little further west and south in the near future. The future looks bright for these cats, and it seems like nothing is going to stop them from realizing their collective dream of impacting the lives of their fans.

If bluegrass is gaining popularity, then Boris Garcia is one of the many bands that are helping the cause. With their utterly unique approach to creating genre-bending, mind-expanding, and completely original music, they are paving their own lane in a large live performance highway. Soon, fans of all different types of music will speak of them, but the one thing that their fans will share is a love for a band that has fun on stage, while playing their hearts out and letting the music be a great raconteur of life stories.

After a performance at the tiny Mermaid Inn in Chester Hill, PA, I had the great opportunity to chat with one of BG’s multi-instrumentalists (every member of the band plays at least two instruments), Bog Stirner, about the origins of the band’s name, his and the band’s influences, and how the moral of the film Groundhog Day is about chasing your dreams.

...to read Jim Grady's interview with Boris Garcia's Bob Stirner, follow the link to 4twk.

The Boris Garcia EPK is now available on SonicBids. www.sonicbids.com/borisgarcia