The Village Idiot
309 Conant Street
Maumee, Ohio
(419)893-7281

Now, over a decade into a career with Rusted Root, Michael is ready to explore roads less traveled. What began as an opening act for Rusted Root shows, Michaels solo tunes are beginning a new life completely independent from the successful jam band. Its a little bit more out and in your face, said Michael about his new sound. Its not so jolly and community oriented Its more intimate material. More intimate and appealing to an even larger audience. Michaels writing is evolving like the living project that it is. In order to more clearly identify his solo endeavors, he has separated from his moniker with Rusted Root and taken the name Michael Ki. The name, as well as the sound is a new entity and while it may be rooted in his past endeavors, it is clearly a new musical phenomenon.

Michael sees music as an organism that has a history with different meanings to different people. People attach themselves to this organism and because of that its is ritual; a way to jointly go places. This is one trip that fans (both old and new) will not regret taking.

Zoysia is the latest sample of the Bottle Rockets' tenaciousness, their eighth album and second release on Bloodshot Records. Produced by Jeff Powell at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis and captured largely in two or three takes in a city with its own kind of groove. Coming out on the heels of a litany of knee-jerking changes measuring 4-years deep, this album finds the band (Brian Henneman - guitar/ vocals, Mark Ortmann - drums, John Horton - guitar, and Keith Voegele - bass/vocals) the proudest they've ever been of any other recorded works.

The Bottle Rockets channel some serious cascading Crazy Horse squall, they nail the scruffy romantic, dirty fingernail rock of the Midwest and soak up the soulful vibes that ooze from the cement blocks in Memphis studios. Lyrically, the band's underdog outlook finds the optimism and the resignation behind worlds faraway, or just on the other side of the screen door. Add it all up and what you get is something that's all its own, something that is pure Bottle Rockets.

Authenticity and sincerity have been the cornerstones of Hancock's writing and music since the start of his career. His refusal to compromise his vision and sell out his music has earned him a fiercely loyal underground following.

Hancock's vision, as he puts it, is "to bring people together and make them feel good about music. It's a spiritual thing and without spirituality, you've got nothin'. There ain't much on the radio that strikes me as being original or from the heart, most of it's from the pocketbook and it shows."

Wayne is proud of his rural roots and culture and has thoroughly absorbed the spirit of country music's forefathers such as Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. Never a mere imitator, the cutting-edge style that emerges is every bit his own. He breathes youth and driving energy into traditional country forms and adds a dash of big band horns, boogie woogie piano, scorching rockabilly beats, heavenly Hawaiian steel licks and some wigged-out hillbilly jazz guitar.

Hancock figures he started writing songs around the age of twelve, and he did a lot of traveling around Texas, playing juke joints and belting out his originals for anyone who'd listen. At 18, he won the "Wrangler Country Showdown" but couldn't claim the prize because he'd already enrolled in the Marines. After a six-year hitch with Uncle Sam, he moved to Austin, where he reacquainted himself with music and won a role in the 1994 theatrical production of Chippy. He performed alongside Terry Allen, Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Robert Earl Keen and Rolling Stone proclaimed, "The nasal honky-tonk of newcomer Wayne Hancock practically steals the show."

In 1995 Wayne debuted with "Thunderstorms and Neon Signs", a remarkable CD produced by steel guitar legend Lloyd Maines (Joe Ely, Wilco and Richard Buckner). The release was met with critical acclaim. Newsweek called it "the most promising debut of the season." Two-hundred-fifty dates throughout the country, including brilliant performances on Austin City Limits and NPR's Prairie Home Companion, led to well over 22,000 copies sold of his debut release on a tiny independent Texas label. In 1997, Wayne signed with ARK 21, an eclectic and well-anchored label owned by former Police manager Miles Copeland. Miles and his staff were impressed with Wayne's genuine ability for writing and performing and have dubbed him "arguably the hardest-working man in show business" for his willingness to tour solidly and his insistence on efficiency and untainted live energy in the studio. "That's What Daddy Wants", Hancock's sophomore release, was recorded in a startling three days. A brilliant example of his Texas swing and juke joint rockabilly, the album was even a staple on the space shuttle Columbia, the bugle call of its title track used to wake the astronauts. After "That's What Daddy Wants" generated even more critical success than the first release, ARK 21 decided to reissue "Thunderstorms and Neon Signs" on their label.

The past several years have been a time of personal evolution and growth in Wayne's life. He was self-managed since the beginning of 1998 and later that year he lost his father to cancer. He has still been gigging solidly throughout the country and has been doing his own driving, tour managing and taking care of business in exactly his own way.

While various musicians drop in on Wayne's shows from time to time, his core band for touring is comprised of the phenomenal Eddie Biebel on lead guitar and the rhythm slappin' Jake Erwin on Standup Bass. Do yourself a favor - whenever this great trio is in or near your town, go to the show!

“I was born with the umbilical chord wrapped around my neck seven times. The day was Friday August 13, the day of long odds. It means the deck is stacked against you from the start, but you always find a way to win through in the end…”

This is the voice of Johnny Walker - doctor, anarchist and chief spokesman for Detroit’s most radical blues collective, The Soledad Brothers. Flying under the revolutionary Black Panther logo, they’ve already crammed more into an eventful seven year history than most bands manage in a lifetime. The story starts, though, with Walker and the gutted suburbs of Toledo.

“South Toledo is a pretty desolate place. Every other house is burnt down. My Dad was a biker and I was raised in a trailer court. We listened to a lot of music. Ever since I can remember, my Dad listened to old blues, the Stones, John Lee Hooker, the MC5, a whole bunch of different things.”

Walker himself played in a series of punk bands, before hooking up with local blues group Henry And June in 1994. The band released one 7” on Human Fly (featuring ‘Lowdown Streamline’, which reappears on the new Soledad Brothers album, ‘and ‘Goin Back To Memphis’, which The White Stripes now include as part of their live set), but was chiefly notable for introducing Walker to drummer Ben Swank. When Henry and June split a year later, the two of them decided to form the Soledad Brothers.

The name tells you a lot about the band and their outlook. The term generally refers to an African-American doing time in California’s Soledad Prison. Specifically, though, it refers to three convicted felons – John Cluchette, Fleeta Drumgo and George Jackson – who were incarcerated at Soledad when they were charged with killing a guard in retaliation for the murder of three black activists at the prison on January 13, 1970.

They hit the deadlines when George Jackson’s 17 year old brother Jonathan burst into a Marion County courtroom with a machine gun, freed three San Quentin prisoners and took Judge Harold Haley hostage to demand freedom for the Soledad Brothers. Haley and Jackson were killed by police fire as they attempted to drive away from the courtroom. It should also be noted that one of Johnny Walker’s favourite ever albums is ‘John Lee Hooker Live At Soledad’.

Having established their moniker, Swank and Walker began playing around the mid-West. They also made the acquaintance of two people who were to have a profound impact on their development. The first was Jack White.

“We met Jack when he came to one of our shows in Detroit,” explains Walker. “There was about five people there and he freaked out because I knew how to play slide guitar. After the gig, he helped me carry all my equipment downstairs and told me he had a four track in his living room and invited me to come by and do some recording. In return, I showed him how to play slide.”

The nascent Soledad Brothers began to record in Jack’s living room. Jack, in turn, put them in touch with Dave Buick who runs Italy records. In 1998, he agreed to put out the band’s first (Jack White produced) single ‘Sugar And Spice’. From there, a deal with the punk label Estrus followed, and in 2000 they released their debut self-titled album. A raw and vibrant blues record, its cover was a pastiche of Thelonius Monk’s ‘Underground’ LP sleeve, and featured Jack White - tied up, blindfolded and dressed in an Uncle Sam suit - being menaced by Walker and Swank.

The record was also notable for its sleeve notes. Written by John Sinclair – the one time manager of the MC5 – they cemented the Soledads’ revolutionary aesthetic. The band had met him after being asked to open for him at a gig in Cincinnati. They got on just fine (in fact the Soledads are due to record with the surviving members of the MC5 later in the year).

“He saw what we were doing,” says Walker, “and he saw that we were basically some rag-tag kids into playing some rock’n’roll. He knew we had the spirit.”

From here, with Walker finishing off his training at medical school (he started around the time the Soledad Brothers first got together), the band recruited a third member, Oliver Henry, on sax and guitar and they quickly moved to write their second album – 2002’s ‘Steal Your Soul And Dare Your Spirit To Move’.

Recorded during a period of race rioting in Cincinnati, it saw a marked development towards a fuller, more intense sound. The darker feel of the album was also reflected in its artwork - a voodoo re-appropriation of the Virgin Mary.

“In Jamaica and Haiti, people were prosecuted for practising voodoo,” says Walker, “so they adopted Catholic icons and just named them after their own spirits. The Virgin Mary, who’s on the cover, is Mama Ezili – the voodoo spirit for sensuality and fertility.”

Since the release of ‘Steal Your Soul’, things have been gathering pace for the Soledads. A relentless schedule of touring has been allied with the release of an electrifying live album and now the arrival of their third (and greatest) studio record, ‘Voice Of Treason’. Recorded in Cincinnati and Toerag Studios, East London, it’s their strongest, most riotous record to date, stretching from the raging Stones ramalama of ‘Public Feline #9’ to the parched beauty of ‘Lora Li’.

“There’s a lot of political overtones to the record and particularly the title,” concludes Walker. “It’s not overt, but the feeling’s there.

“There’s a bill that’s recently been passed in the United States called the Patriot Act. After 9/11, it was a knee-jerk reaction in Congress. It’s a bill that states if someone feels that something that’s being said or done is un-American then the person who’s being un-American is subject to being questioned. There are incidences of people being arrested for saying something in a diner. They’re taken into custody to see if they’re a threat to anyone.

“Sometimes I feel I have to curb my words in interviews. I have to be really careful what I say, because I don’t want to be hauled in for being un-American. I might be a card-carrying libertarian and the personification of anti-establishment, but when it comes down to it, I’m probably about as American as it’s possible to be.”

Walker laughs. He’s just summed up the twisted spirit of The Soledad Brothers in one short sentence.

The Macpodz self released their debut album, Genius Food for Super Heroes, on January 2, 2007. Described as lush, daring and incredibly solid, the music has been well received by jazz lovers and those who just love to dance.

>>We encourage tapers to come out and tape our shows, and are willing to mail out free live shows to anyone who wants them.<<