SPIN DOCTORS

Thirty years. It’s an eternity in rock ‘n’ roll, and a marathon for the bands who fly its tattered flag. Revisit the class of 1988, and the casualties are piled high: a thousand bands that blew up and burnt out. In this chew-and-spit industry, the Spin Doctors are the last men standing, still making music like their lives depend on it, still riding the bus, still shaking the room. They’ve never been a band for backslaps and self-congratulation. Even now, plans are afoot for a seventh studio album and another swashbuckling world tour, adding to their tally of almost two thousand shows. But faced with that milestone, even a band of their velocity takes a breath for reflection. “I’d never have guessed,” admits drummer Aaron Comess, “this would have turned into thirty years of making great music together.”

Like all the best rock ‘n’ roll mythology, the final page of the Spin Doctors’ biography remains forever unwritten. But if the band’s story is to begin anywhere, it should be at New York’s New School university in the fall of ’88, when a fateful door-knock sparked the first meeting of Comess and guitarist Eric Schenkman. Trading as the Trucking Company, Schenkman, local legend John Popper and a charisma-bomb vocalist named Chris Barron had been making a glorious noise in the clubs downtown. But when Popper committed himself to Blues Traveler, the remnants sought new blood. Having assured Schenkman that he’d “check them out,” Comess formed a ferocious rhythm section with Bronx-raised bassist Mark White. “When I first met them,” recalls White, “I thought, ‘These are some funky-assed white boys.’ I’m the black guy in the band, and they had to teach me to play the blues.”

Led by relentless touring, the album sold steadily – but within a year, Epic had declared it “dead” and pushed the band to return to the studio. “But we decided to go back on the road,” says Comess, “as we felt the buzz building and believed in the record. Sure enough, within a few months, Jim McGuinn up in Vermont started playing “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” and it went to #1. He wrote to the head of Epic, telling him they’d be crazy not to push this band. That was the fuel that lit the fire.”

Barron still recalls the circus when Pocket Full Of Kryptonite exploded in 1992 (“When we were selling 50,000 records a week, I’d walk into a mall to buy underwear and 300 kids would surround me”). Pass a record store and you’d hear the tills ring, as that all-conquering debut album marched towards 10 million sales. Pass a news-stand and you’d see the lineup staring back from the cover of Rolling Stone. Flick on MTV and you were serenaded by planet-straddling follow-up hit “Two Princes,” whose irresistible groove and scream-it-back chorus took it to #4 on the Top 100 singles chart and more US radio spins than any other rock ‘n’ roll song in 1993. “When you’re freaking popular,” says White, “and people are throwing themselves at you, if you don’t like that, you’re on the wrong planet.”

Long-term strategy has never been the Spin Doctors’ style. While cultural commentators have long since given up plotting the trajectory of this most unpredictable band, it’s a revelation to learn that the lineup themselves have no road map. “For the next album,” considers Barron, “I kinda want to stay spontaneous. I’d personally like to make a quarter-turn and do a rock record. But I have a feeling it’s gonna get funky. Y’know, there’s that great quote from Keith Richards when he went to meet Mick Jagger at AIR Studios to make Steel Wheels. And he told his wife – ‘I’ll either be back tomorrow or in a month’. I think that’s how it’s gonna go for us, too.”

Thirty years. A thousand twists. But whatever happens down the road, rest assured that the Spin Doctors will always be the last men standing, still making music like their lives depend on it, still riding the bus, still shaking the room. “It’s been a great ride,” considers Comess. Then he adds: “So far…"

DEER TICK

Deer Tick is a band.

They are from Providence.

Deer Tick is made up of John McCauley, Ian O’Neil, Dennis Ryan, and Christopher Ryan.

Deer Tick likes to rock out.

Listen to Deer Tick.

CRASH TEST DUMMIES

It’s been 30 years since the Crash Test Dummies recorded their debut album, "The Ghosts That Haunt Me". Their first album garnered them their first big hit, Superman’s Song, and a Juno Award for Group of the Year.  Over three decades later, their sold out 25th Anniversary Tour for multi-Grammy nominated “God Shuffled His Feet” is proof that audiences still want to hear what they have to say.

“We have been so excited with the response to the 25th anniversary tour that we knew we had to continue the party and celebrate 30 years since we made our first album. We had no idea that fans would be so enthusiastic and we are all a little gob-smacked that we can still play sold out shows to our fans and, awesomely enough, their kids,” says original member Ellen Reid.

Their 2020 tour will start in Canada and will see them tour North America and Europe, where fans have been anxiously waiting. The shows will include hits and fan favourites from the band’s vast catalogue. Original members Brad Roberts, Ellen Reid, Dan Roberts, and Mitch Dorge will be joined onstage by Stuart Cameron and Marc Arnould.

 "After a long absence from the road, Crash Test Dummies have begun to tour again. Not something I'd planned on, but surprisingly, at least to me, there are lots of people who, years later, still want to come and hear us. That people continue to return to see the band all these years later still stuns me. It's very humbling. The folks that come out to these shows tell us their stories and there are many gems: many are very funny, some are very dark, and all are very personal. It's very humbling, being in the confidence of so many people," says lead singer/songwriter Brad Roberts.

SAHARA MOON

Sahara Moon is a singer-songwriter who appears at theaters in the New York and Philadelphia area along with many other music venues throughout the tri-state region. She kicked off 2020 with two single releases, “Everything Will Be Alright” and “Beauty In A Rose,” off of her debut album Worthy. She has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with national acts, including: Blackberry Smoke, Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, Nick Perri & The Underground Thieves, Stephen Kellogg, and Robert Cray Band. Her style of music can be considered a cross between Norah Jones and Brandi Carlile.

DAVE HAUSE AND THE MERMAID

You can hear Hause’s passion and dedication to his craft—as well as his determined approach to it—flowing through the veins of Blood Harmony’s ten stunning, sumptuous songs. Written with his brother over a series of weekly FaceTime sessions, they began crafting songs together in January 2021. They’d been writing remotely together since 2017’s Bury Me In Philly so it wasn’t an entirely new process for them, but they modified their approach slightly by giving themselves rigid deadlines. “We decided to get together on Mondays,” explains Hause, “to figure out what we wanted to work on, and by Friday we had to have something you could sing to someone who wasn’t a songwriter. It could be bad, but I didn’t want to just have vague ideas. We called it ‘Pencils-Down Fridays’. Over the course of three-and-a-half months, we ended up with 26 songs.”

THE SMITHEREENS WITH GUEST VOCALIST MARSHALL CRENSHAW