Bring the Meters to SNWMF 2006

How about a New Orleans/Gulf Coast spin one day this year? The Meters would be a great early evening attraction either night. Funky enough to appeal to the "hippies"... foundation sounds for the ardent hip-hop fans... yet obscure, with enough street cred, to be tolerated by the most critical SNWMF boardies.

While it's not reggae, it is definitely roots. Keep the world music in the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival.

Peace.

Sounds good ta me

Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeople say............peeeeeeeeeeeeeople say...............


fourtwentyplenty

Inspired suggestion. I just saw the documentary 'Make It Funky' at a fundraiser
where I had the pleasure of DJ-ing a hard N.O. set, and you know I had to lay some Meters on the crowd(by the way, the movie is a great 5-year labor of love by the film maker Michael Murphy, conceived and just finished the month before Katriana hit).

Reggae foot-note: the 68-era Lee Perry-Upsetters often sounded like a clone of the Meters, if not Booker T & the MGs.

Good point about Upsetters Ray. In general, Jamaican music owes a lot to the NO music scene. Some of the early ska male vocalists sounded more like Fats than Fats.

interesting...

the meters would be niiice

hmm ive never heared of the meters ill have to check them so i can know what you guys are talking about. I've learned about so many artists over the years,whom ive never seen or heared about until sierra nevada show brought them to my attention.
whats thier most recent album called?

Irief sis-
you may be familiar with some of the Members of the Meters.
Art And Cyril Neville (Ithink it's Cyril) Brothers to one Arron Neville as wel as members of the neville Bros.

michael

i think that's an absolutely great idea. the single best live musical performance that i've ever been witness to was the meters accompanying the dirty dozen brass band, the rebirth brass band, and galactic - great, great show!

but, sorry to be a pessimist (sp?), i think their time will be consumed on the east coast festival circuit during june. there's bonnaroo (which they are somewhat of a staple act), and then there's wakarusa - both of which would draw the meters before snwmf could/would.



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Its supposed to be a challenge. That's why they call it a shortcut. If it was easy, it would just be the way. -Road Trip

Funky Meters AND Booker T! ...If Booker T and the MGs are still around - I know Al Jackson isn't.

Just saw the Meters last month up north

AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING

People would be blown away if they realized how much the Meters have been sampled

Great suggestion, would love it !!

One love
be well
eric v

i saw booker t and the mgs backing neil young a few years ago and it was great.

i would be all for the meters or neville bros too.

one love
jah bill

Booker T and the MGs would be great, it goes much past "Green Onions" !!

I thought I'd just read recently online that the Booker T and the MGs had thought or attempted to give a go at reggae influenced music. But I could be wrong

One love
eric v

Yes Eric V I was exposed to The Meters after getting heavily into hip-hop and I was blown away by how much of hip-hop is grounded in Meters samples. I think many of us that came up with rap and hip-hop in the eighties eventually wanted to know where these samples were coming from and in pursuing those samples we were exposed to so much good old funky music. In addition to The Meters, The JBs were sampled to no end.

Yes Michael The Meters are Art Neville(Keyboards), Cyrille Neville(Percussion), Joseph "Zig" Modeliste(Drums), George Porter Jr.(Bass) and Leo Nocentelli(Guitar)

Irie Sis I would recommend the double-disc Funkify Your Life:The Meters Anthology(Rhino Records)

Papa Ray can you tell us more about Make It Funky?


fourtwentyplenty



fourtwentyplenty

The Nevilles are Aaron, Art, Cyril and Charles. Art was the main Neville associated with the Meters. Although Art is still playing keyboards, he had back surgery a few years ago that did not go so well and he sadly is mostly wheelchair bound these days. I have known the Nevilles for many years and this makes me very sad, altho, Art has maintained a very good attitude. I am not sure how often he still plays with the Meters. Many of the Neville kids are starting to play in the various bands and may eventually replace their fathers. Cyril played with the Meters for a few years and still does off and on, however. he moved to Austin after Hurricane Katrina and is playing with various local artists here. Some of the Nevilles and Meters were here recently playing for Cyril's birthday. Here are a few shots. Aaron wasn't here that night.

Does anyone know if Brian Stolz still plays with the Meters? He used to play with the Nevilles and after leaving played with the Meters in the early nineties. I wonder if he still does?

Art


Cyril


Charles

Eric V, probably the most obvious example of the Stax riddem section being influenced by Jamaica(shows how feed-back goes---the MGs were Well-WELL
listened to in JA in the 60s)has to be when drummer Al Jackson came back from
vacationing there and upon hearing the 'liquidator' instrumental current @ that time, came home to Memphis, where the bass-line of the latter & Jackson's own take of one-drop resulted in the Staple Singer's 'I'll Take You There'. Another
good example of a very rocksteady-influenced soul song on Stax is Veda Brown's
'Short Stopping', that's got a lead guitar sound that could have been Hux Brown. The New Orleans singer Jean Knight also had that funky-push-pull inna drum&bass
going on w/ 'Mr. Big Stuff', or check King Floyd(who was highly popular in the
Carribean)on 'Groove Me'.

Me, I've seen 45s of the above in Jamaica, as well as Meters 7" also, at a time when the majority of Americans had no clue about the Meters. Life can be funny.

Four Plenty, this documentary is so fine I could not imagine it taking The Oscar
for Best Documentary, until the film-maker said it became ineligable when he made it available for VHI this September as coverage on New Orleans---too bad,
'cause this is far and away the greatest piece of film-work on NO in existence.
Beautifully shot, w/ excellent concert footage as well as telling interviews of
foundation players such as induvidual takes w/ various members of the Neville
family, the incredible drumming perfect-master Earl Palmer, Cosimo Mattassa,
who recorded virtually everyone(and I mean EVERYONE) in NO, Kermit Ruffin,
Allen Toussaint,Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards(who makes the obvious-but-still-needs-to-be-said point that 'New Orleans put the ROLL in to Rock 'n Roll', just
a marvelous film...especially now, when there are weak hearts questioning the need to restore the Crescent City. There's a whole lot of my 'fellow americans'
that the best I can say about them is they suffer from Cultural Amnesia. It is
these people, and the politicians, who need to be strapped into a chair, given a mild hallucinogen that heightens empathetic powers, and then made to watch
MAKE IT FUNKY before they continue going around saying we can't re-build New Orleans.

Yes - and then bring them to Hackney's SNWMF! That, I would love to see.

Respect

Baldy

Forward the Meters, that would be tight.