BORIS GARCIA: Press

If Boris Garcia sounds vaguely familiar when it takes the Sellersville stage on March 26, that’s probably because if you’ve ever turned on a radio any time over the past 50 years, one of its influences was probably on it. With a musical style that incorporates everything from bluegrass to soul, from jazz to Celtic, it would be hard to imagine that you could listen to one of the band’s albums and not be, in the very least, vaguely reminded of a favorite group or a treasured tune from your past.

And all that’s not saying that Boris Garcia isn’t original in its own right. It takes some pretty accomplished musicians to fuse all those influences into an original, yet familiar sound. And the band, which consists of Jeff Otto, Bob Stirner, Bud Burroughs and Stephe Ferraro (along with frequent guests) manages to do exactly that.

A product of the Philly music scene, Boris Garcia has been blending music styles into its very own distinctive sound since releasing its debut album, “Boris Garcia’s Family Reunion,” in 2005.

But just like its music, which has a wayward, impromptu vibe to it, Boris Garcia didn’t really start with a plan. An organized, structured touring band was never exactly the idea. Things just sort of happened that way. A few friends got together to play some music. They liked the sound so they cut an album. Everything more or less took off from there.

“The band really came together gradually, I guess, is the best way to put it,” said Bob Stirner, guitar player and vocalist, from his home in New Jersey. “There was never really any impetus to start a band. Just a couple of friends that got together to make music and it more or less evolved from there.”

Dubbed jam grass (basically, bluegrass with a lot of instrumental jamming — in the same vein as bands like the Dead and Phish) by their fans, contemporaries, and everyone else in search of a label, the band doesn’t really see itself as locked into any specific genre.

“I don’t think we really consider ourselves a particular type of music,” Stirner said. “We don’t focus on that kind of thing while writing at least. We like to get together and play and whatever comes out comes out. You’ll hear a lot of different influences, but it all comes together as a whole one way or another.”

And just because the band’s name includes a tip of the hat to late Grateful Dead icon Jerry Garcia, that doesn’t mean you’ll have to sit through another 25-minute cover of “Sugar Magnolia.” For Stirner, the creation of original music is one of the most important and rewarding aspects of the occupation.

“We’re all songwriters primarily,” said Stirner. “I think if there’s one thing that we pride ourselves on, it would have to be that. Doing this is fun, but it’s a lot of hard work at the same time. It’s the songs that primarily propel us at this point.

“It’s not the fortune, that’s for sure,” he laughs. In the end, though, we all just absolutely love what we’re doing.”

Currently at work on its fourth studio album, the band likes to keep fresh by constantly playing out live in front of audiences.

“To perform the music is really the ultimate kick,” said Stirner. “To somehow get it from your head to your fingers and be able to communicate it to other people. It, I don’t know, resonates with you. It really stays with you until the next gig.”

Playing shows throughout the country, Boris Garcia has built up quite the following over the past few years. With gigs up and down the East Coast, and as far west as northern California, catching the band in its home state may get harder and harder as the months go by.

But on March 26, fans will get a chance to do just that.

And the Sellersville Theater is a place the Boris Garcia’s gotten rather used to over the past few years.

“We’ve headlined Sellersville … I wanna say four times now,” Stirner remarked. “It’s a very nice venue. Great sound, good crowds.”

Joining the band for the evening will be fellow bluegrass outfit Cabinet, also a Pennsylvania product.

“We’re just looking forward to returning to Sellersville,” said Stirner. “Hoping to see a lot of our local fans out there.”

Boris Garcia’s mixed bag of sounds.

Listen to Boris Garcia’s 2008 CD “Once More Into the Bliss,” and you’ll hear a melange of instruments, from cellos to wooden flutes and steel guitar. The sound of the band — made up of Jeff Otto, Bob Stirner, Bud Burroughs and Stephe Ferraro — spans from bluegrass to Celtic to rock and even ’60s pop, which isn’t odd considering its members’ early influences.

“I just always listened to the radio,” said vocalist/guitarist Stirner from his home in New Jersey last week. “I mean, if you can encapsulate or picture what radio was in the late ’60s-early ’70s, that’ll give you an idea. It was a great time to grow up and a great time to be around commercial radio — it was incredibly influential to me.”

After dabbling in piano and drums as a youngster, Stirner picked up a guitar in his late teens and began “listening to all things San Francisco at that time,” bands like Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead.

It’s a little twist of fate that Boris Garcia — which will play the Mauch Chunk Opera House in Jim Thorpe Saturday, Feb. 27 — uses Dennis McNally as its publicist. McNally was the Grateful Dead’s longtime publicist and biographer.

“We were working with management who was sort of flirting with Dennis, and one thing sort of led to another,” Stirner said. “Dennis has opened unbelievable doors for us and in many respects gave us the opportunity to be on the map at all.”

On that map, Boris Garcia has had sit-ins from former Dead member Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay and Buddy Cage of the New Riders of the Purple Sage and has opened for acts like Railroad Earth, Jackson Browne and Hot Tuna.

“It’s awesome to go from, at one point in your life, listening to these people to finding yourself opening for them and then, in some cases, standing beside them on stage,” Stirner said.

Boris Garcia is in the studio working on its fourth record, which is slated for an early summer release. Like the “180 between each CD,” Stirner said fans can also expect a change in styles on the new disc.

“Things just keep continuing to evolve,” he said. “I also think that if it stopped doing that, some of us might not be as interested anymore.”

Stirner and Otto write all of Boris Garcia’s songs, and sometimes it’s a collaborative effort.

“The two of us in a preliminary sense will sit down at a coffee table — typically with a bottle of whiskey and other things — and just sort of muse over the songs,” Stirner explained.

Other times, they help each other construct and arrange something they came up with individually.

“On the last record, I had music for a song, and I couldn’t put words to it, (so) I gave it to Jeff, and in two days, he had lyrics, and I was like ‘My God, that’s it!’” Stirner shared. “That was like a weird thing, like having a menage a trois or something, like ‘My stuff is with somebody else!’”

Saturday’s show at the Opera House is the first of two dates with area bluegrass outfit Cabinet as Boris Garcia’s opener. The two bands share a booking agent.

“We’ve never actually done a show with those guys before, but we’re very familiar with their stuff,” Stirner said. “It’s very hot bluegrass, and just in terms in the fabric of an evening, it’s going to be a great night — they’re really good cats, really good guys. It’s a great room, it’s going to be a cool place to play.”

McNally wrote on Boris Garcia’s Web site that the band’s name is “a little tribute to Jerry Garcia, a little to Bullwinkle, and a lot of serendipity.” The Weekender asked Stirner to clarify that statement.

“There is some Dead influences in what we do, of course, how can you not be influenced by that?” he began. “I think it really smacked at, in terms of traditional musics and genres that East-meets-West at first. Garcia meaning the West, Boris signifying the East. The band in its earlier stages was entirely acoustic, and a little more niched out, is probably the best way to put it.”

Boris Garcia, Puck, Doylestown, PA – 9/26As vocalists, and de facto leaders of Boris Garcia, Bob Stirner and Jeff Otto, regaled Puck’s audience with a warm banter fitting for autumn’s crisp winds, the stage came to life with the kaleidoscopic dance of overhead lights. Opening with the pithy punch of “Other Shoe,” the contrasting vocal textures of Otto and Stirner complemented their bluegrass backing, lending a sense of authenticity to this back-porch, ho-downin’ syndicate from New Jersey. Speedy triplets at the capable hands of mandolin player, Bud Burroughs, gave the song a decided intensity befitting of a jamband rocker, warranting the jamgrass label. Highlights of the first, largely acoustic set came by way of an apt cover of the 18th century folk traditional, “Shady Grove,” with an upbeat tick that harkened to Bill Monroe’s classic version. “Through The Window,” a song off the band’s latest album – produced by Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone – brought Stirner to dawn Bob Weir-like vocals that were apropos for a cut vaguely reminiscent of The Dead’s, “Sugar Magnolia.” Largely abandoning the roots vibe for pop sensibilities, “Good Bye Joe,” “Nine Fine Wines,” and “Holiday,” brought the audience to their feet and dancing with the group’s most radio-friendly cuts off each of their three albums. The second, electrified set highlighted Boris Garcia’s interchangeable skills as keyboardists, mandolin players, bassists, guitarists, and even bouzouki-lute players. Not featured, however, were the vocals of Donna Jean-Godchaux-MacKay and Buddy Cage’s (New Riders) pedal steel, recorded on the album, but noticeably absent here; “Other Side” was conspicuously de-clawed. “Red, White, & Blue,” Jeff Otto’s topical protest piece, met with head nodding en masse, but it was Stirner’s electric leads during the final songs that heightened the overall energy of jams, and punctuated the evening with a memorable exclamation point of outright rawk. Stirner sings, “You need a break from the every day, in so many ways,” and Boris Garcia did a fine job of providing that.

Although technically part of the whole jam-band phenomenon that has come in the wake of the cult of the Grateful Dead, Philadelphia's Boris Garcia is a cut above most. This band learned early on that at its core, the Dead wrote great songs, without which the extended instrumental passages would have been completely superfluous. Similarly, the music of Boris Garcia is a surprisingly able and well-integrated blend of bluegrass, folk, jazz, soul and rock — all musical forms that lend themselves well to inspired improvisation. Having worked with Donna Jean Godchaux on its latest album, produced by Railroad Earth's Tim Carbone, this outfit has gone far beyond being yet another jamgrass cover band. With free-spirited and upbeat songs, Boris Garcia embodies the best aspects of a much-maligned style with skill and grace

Intro: Point of Grace

The snow was just plain nasty: thick and wet and heavy. No doubt, the ride home later on in the evening would be a challenge. But there was no room in our souls for worry at that moment as right now reigned supreme. And right now, we were tucked inside One Longfellow Square, a sweet little venue in downtown Portland, ME enjoying being among the few who had chosen to not think about the weather and experience the band Boris Garcia. And right now, we were deep into the heart of the song "Point Of Grace", comfortably wrapped in the warm folds of a joyous jam. I nudged my wife and pointed toward the band, shaking my head: you had a front line consisting of Bud Burroughs on bouzouki, Gene Smith weaving sweet recorder riffs, and Jeff Otto head down and driving the rhythm with his ukulele – all the while, Bob Stirner rolling a bass line along on top of Stephe Ferarro's jazzbo-flavored drums. I shook my head in wonder and my wife grinned back at me, knowing exactly what I was thinking. "But it works!" she said.

Yes, it did.

Interview: The Winnebago Tape

Composed of five longtime friends, the Pennsylvania-based band had sailed their Winnebago up into the northeast as part of a voyage to promote their latest album, Once More Into The Bliss. Featuring guest appearances by Donna Jean Godchaux, Buddy Cage, and Tim Carbone (who also produced the album), Bliss is the third installment in a series of albums chock full of, well, in the band's own words, "Boris Garcia music.”

Between soundcheck and the gig in Portland, ME, we were invited aboard the Winnebago, where we talked with the Boris boys about their sound, their inspirations, and their friends. (Please note: the finished interview, apart from laughter, only contains one quote from Bud Burroughs, who tends to the quiet side. Not to worry – Bud did his talking later on during the show via mandolin, bouzouki, and keyboards … big time.)

To read the interview follow this link to jambands site

http://www.jambands.com/NewGroove/content_2009_03_26.00.phtml

The name may suggest yet another Grateful Dead cover band, but Boris Garcia’s debut album, Once More Into The Bliss shows the band to be a tight, versatile ensemble with a unique, polished sound. The opening song, “Holiday,” begins with a cheerful mandolin and recorder motif that is soon joined by swelling cello and violin figures straight out of Sgt. Pepper’s. The next track, “She Wasn’t Born To Follow” has eastern modal mandolin lines that, along with guitarist Bob Stirrer’s Roger McGuinn-soundalike lead vocals, makes the song sound like a lost outtake from the Byrd’s Younger Than Yesterday. Guitarist Gene Smith’s songs, including “Everything’s Going To Be Fine,” also have a Nuggets-retro vibe that is enhanced by Railroad Earth violinist Tim Carbone’s sparkling production. The group does manage a deadish shuffle. Multi-instrumentalist Bud Burroughs contributes unorthodox sonic seasoning with things like Mellotron, glockenspiel, and button accordion; percussionist Stephen Ferraro provides the perfect shuffle; and the group is augmented by guests like Buddy Cage, Donna Jean Godchaux, and Carbone. Once More Into The Bliss is an impressive, thoroughly entertaining debut.

March / April 2009

Jamband fans rejoice and head down to Portland's One Longfellow Square for the area debut of Boris Garcia, as it tours Maine in support of its "Once More Into The Bliss" CD release from September 2008.
This quintet is made up of Jeff Otto (bass guitar, acoustic and electric guitar, vocals); Gene Smith (recorder, harmonica, acoustic guitar, vocals); Bob Stirner (acoustic and electric guitar, bass guitar, vocals); Stephe Ferarri (drums and percussion); Bud Burroughs (mandolin, bouzouki, piano, Hammond organ, glockenspiel, guitar, Mellotron, button accordion, Fender Rhodes and RMI electra-piano) and its instrumental prowess has to be heard to be believed.

Its lyrical abilities are just plain enjoyable, as the 11 tracks on this album display. There are several Celtic-flavored tunes on this CD, like "River Man" and "Captain Jack," just to mention two of the five, and the acoustic leanings present make this more of a jam-grass excursion with toe-tapping, close harmonies and a good-time feel that is sure to please anybody who likes good music. My personal favorites are many, but I want to bring special emphasis on "Holiday," the album's lead-off track that sounds like The Beatles-meets-The Grateful Dead, "Scootch" (listen to the words very carefully to get the gist of this story), "Everything is Going to be Fine" (another tune you have to really listen to the lyrics), and the album closer "Beautiful Again," which is a very moving song with a gorgeous string section courtesy of producer Tim Carbone.

All told, this album is a wonderful listening experience -- one that you'll want to have over and over and over again. A sheer delight, for sure.

Lucky Clark is a music journalist living in Sweden, Maine. He can be reached at lucky@megalink.net.

1 line music news and reviews

The purity of the musicianship all-around renders Boris Garcia more than academics and Once More Into the Bliss worth playing repeatedly.

Once More Into Bliss review

Reviewing Once More Into Bliss was the first I heard Boris Garcia. Not being familiar with the voices and their style, it takes a bit to get used the sound before an accurate review can be made. In these cases, sometimes the music isn't to my liking and turns out to be a waste of time, other times some new great sounds are discovered. So which of those camps does the Boris Garcia's third release, Once More Into Bliss, fall into?

Boris Garcia branch into a variety of musical styles and implement a whole host of instruments and sounds throughout the album. This diversity of songwriting and genres displays their vast array of talents without showing off. In fact, they display great confidence playing their music. Boris Garcia does incorporate some instruments that aren't my favorites, but they make them work.

There are a few guests appearances on the album, a few notes on them. Donna Jean Godchaux offers a small role with some background vocals on "River Man." This track has a flute melody with a Jethro Tull like sound to it. The solo instrumental section flows with melody, and unity; cool mandolin riffs over a rock beat, with the flute flying above. The albums producer, Tim Carbone, of Railroad Earth, also adds dazzling violin on a quite a number of tracks. On "Through The Window" Buddy Cage offers his talents. The instrumental section has great pedal steel, mandolin, and fiddle sounds whether playing riffs, exchanging musical ideas, or taking a solo. A great song.

The album has a very acoustic feel, but it also has an electric ambiance to it. The rhythm section is very good, especially noteworthy, the bass playing is quite solid and the tone is rich and warm. One example is the dynamics the band incorporate into the Celtic sounding "Lover Tonight," as they fluidly go from soft to loud.

They don't use electric guitar much but when they do it makes the listener wish they'd play it more often. On "Go" they use it successfully. This track has a hard rock beat, with a turn it up electric guitar solo as its highlight, the guitar hands off to Bud Borroughs, who rips it up on the mandolin. A few tracks later, on "Scootch" they use a similar instrumental approach, but a bit mellower. On "Everything's Going To Be Fine" it's a string bending guitar riff.

Towards the end of the album, they have some longer tracks. One of which is "The Ballad of Captain Jack," another Celtic sounding song. There are a lot of instruments, but I'd say the violin parts really give this song a nice touch.

Not to overlook the album opener, "Holiday" which incorporates string instruments, bringing flashbacks to what the Beatles used on some of their albums.

The last two songs they add some nice piano touches. On "Other Side" Buddy Cage is back adding his pedal steel touches to what is another great song.

After digesting this album, it is hard to not be impressed with the songwriting, orchestration, musicianship, and singing. While the varied instruments is surely impressive. On a personal note, I'd like love to hear a Boris Garcia album with more electric guitar and piano, and less flute, and Celtic sounds. Plus, Buddy Cage and Tim Carbone can play on every song. With that said, I give Once More Into Bliss extremely high marks and strong buy rating. A final note, the sound quality and production is excellent.

By
Barry Small

Cobbling together a colorful variety of musical antecedents, Boris Garcia moves from '60s inflected offerings, such as the upbeat Beatles-esque"Holiday," to the old-time folk-inspired fare of "River Man" and onto the countrified psychedelic rock of "Other Side." Produced by Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth, the well-polished release also takes in the musicianship of vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay and legendary pedal steel master Buddy Cage.

Once More Into The Bliss – Boris Garcia

Dig Music

Dear Mr. B – I don’t usually write to advice columns, but I’m sort of stuck and I need some help. I’m down to the last few names on my Christmas list and don’t have a clue what to get them. Here’s who I have left:
• My Uncle Dave who must be about ready to retire as a college professor. He’s kinda cool (I think he was at Woodstock), but it weirds me out when he asks me if I have any pot up in my room he can buy.
• My grandparents – Total Celtic music freaks.
• My big brother – Mister Jambands himself who thinks I’m a total dork when it comes to music.
• And this real sweet redheaded girl that sits in front of me in English class.
Got any ideas?
Sincerely, Grateful In Grand Forks

Dear Grateful – Don’t fret; help is on the way. It seems your ol’ buddy Mr. B sliced open the shrinkwrap on the answer to your dilemma just moments ago. I’d say four copies of the new Boris Garcia album Once More Into The Bliss ought to clean up that list pretty well. I know, I know – you probably don’t believe that one album is going to tickle the fancy of everyone you mentioned, but trust Mr. B on this one, G-Man: it’s the right thing to do. These five Philly-area buddies take jamgrass instrumentation (you’re going to hear some beautiful mandolin on the album, for instance) on a trip around the world – and it all sounds like, well, Boris Garcia.

When your big bro snorts and says he “never heard of this guy,” tell him Boris is a band – and then say something like, “I suppose you never heard of Railroad Earth, either? Tim Carbone produced the album and plays some mean violin on it, too.” That’ll get him. (And if it doesn’t, watch his ears perk up to the sound of guest Buddy Cage’s pedal steel. Remember to act cool and nonchalant: “Yeah, that’s Buddy … who else would it be?”) The steel master lays down some fine New Riders-style picking on the foot-stomper “Through The Window” and gives you the chills on the haunting “Other Side”.

And, see – that’s the beauty of this album, Grateful: everybody’s going to hear something different. Uncle Dave is going to pop a leather patch right off the elbow of his corduroy jacket when he hears cuts like “Holiday” with its Beatle-like strings or the churning “River Man”. (Wait and see if he doesn’t murmur something like “Oh, wow, man … Fairport Convention.”) And I’m guessing ol’ Uncle Dave has burned one or two while listening to the New Riders … so there’s that connection, too.

The grandparents? Heck, they’ll be openly weeping by the time “The Ballad Of Captain Jack” is over – watch ‘em when Tim Carbone lays into the bow … I guarantee that’ll put them over the edge.

And when it comes to the red head, G-Guy, well, it’s like this: Mr. B doesn’t care what her musical tastes are – you make sure to put a post-it note on the jewel case that directs her to “Scootch”, the tale of a rescued kitten. By the time she gets to that line about rubbing the little fella’s belly, she’ll be putty in your hands.

Tell you what, Grateful – strike a deal with your record shop connection and get a copy of this album for yourself, too. Sounds like Mr. Carbone took a bunch of guys who were really comfortable with each other to begin with and helped make them feel even more locked-in for this session. (“Soup to nuts in 14 days, including string arrangements, basics, overdubs, and mixing,” according to Tim.)

So, what are you waiting for? Go for it. Glad to help.

Your pal,
Mr. B

After a two year hiatus, the consistently entertaining Boris Garcia is back with their third release. It’s another venture into the more eclectic reaches of bluegrass, so eclectic in fact that the bluegrass label is debatable. On a few tracks, such as the melodic “Lover Tonight”, co-penned by Jeff Otto and Bob Stirner, the boys sound more like a gang of olde englishe troubadours than anything even remotely connected to bluegrass. The flute line in “River Man”, the seventh track, sounds like Ian Anderson has come out of retirement off his sheep farm. See what I mean when I say eclectic? There’s really not much use in trying to draw comparisons or find similarities, Boris Garcia is all alone in its self-created own class, and it is indeed a class act.

Consisting of a cast of jamgrass characters, Boris Garcia is more than just your everyday Grateful Dead spin-off. Boris Garcia is even more than the influential minds of its predecessors, The Dead, Railroad Earth, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and The Yonder Mountain String Band. It is a band that has found lineage in the history of Americana. They are a band whose members have helped keep that very tradition alive.

Produced by Tim Carbone, of Railroad Earth, One More Into The Bliss opens with Beatle melodies as part of “Holiday.” The tracks sports symphonic chorus arrangements with a Lennon tongue. The vocal melody line reminds me of Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay.”

As part of the LPs middle section listeners are treated to “Go,” a composition about getting up off the couch and being immersed in adventure. It has almost a new bohemia feel to it, before digging deep into the heart of the blues and grass.
As the record spins towards culmination and finale it falls to the side of desolate country; an echo in the dust bowl of the west. “Other Side,” solidifies this atmospheric thought. With honest vocals, sorrowful harmonica phrases, and that warm comfort of pedal steel confessionals straight from the Ryman, “Other Side” delivers on this recording.

As underground of a release as Boris Garcia is, there is something charming about what is buried beneath its cover.

Boris Garcia - “Once More Into the Bliss” ::
by Tabitha Clancy
A sweet, melodic, processional without a destination, but rather, with stops along the way to suggest there’s something more to be felt, to be heard, or to be appreciated. ‘Once More Into the Bliss’ takes us there, wherever there may be. Multi-instrumentalists Jeff Otto, Bob Stirner, Gene Smith and Bud Burroughs, and drummer/percussionist Stephe Ferraro are the tour guides on this trip. They call themselves Boris Garcia. The name itself indicates a flavor of Grateful Dead and for a touch of innocence, a playful children’s television show. Indeed that’s the point.
An eleven track disc that will wind us on a journey touching the wonderful and not so wonderful facets of life, Boris Garcia invite some friends to relish in the glory of this musical mastery. Guest sit-ins: Buddy Cage of New Riders of the Purple Sage, Donna Jean Godchaux of The Dead and Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth (who also produced the disc) join in with their varied talents like a perfect blend of herbs to the variety that is the spice of life.
The boys of Boris begin the adventure with what seems to be a gleeful end to the hard week. In Holiday, we can kick back and relax. Reclaim our freedom from the bondage of the rat race and, ho-hum, responsibility. We can visit a more carefree, indulgent time in our lives. They give us permission.
After a round of light-hearted tunes, we venture into the darker realm. The world we like to avoid, the one that makes us yearn for the playful cat in Scootch. Here we visit another version of human nature. The lullaby backdrop of the music is a deceitful notion to
staking a claim over a love in some primal game of survival and success in beating another man’s ego. The incantation of Lover Tonight mesmerizes us like a charmer dances his snake. Yes, its ugly, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
To simply say Boris Garcia sounds like, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, and The Grateful Dead would be an understatement. Five musicians molded together with such diverse backgrounds suggest a genetic recombination of that trio of bands, splice in DNA from Jethro Toll and we get the Boris Garcia experience. In Other Side, Boris brings to life the very essence of Jerry Garcia. It’s as though we’re chilling on the brink of hippy heaven looking through the haze, hearing a familiar tune. A farewell song to Jerry, but none too sad, captured like a medium channels the dead.
Coming full circle on this proverbial journey of life, we reach a point where empowerment and strength are sought after. Beautiful Again is exactly that. A life review leading to monumental strides and concluding with a proclamation declared. Yes! Success! A perfect medley of lyrics and instrumentation that when you walk away, hope, or love, or appreciation overflows from within.
The message is simple and Boris Garcia points it out in a collection of tunes that can only mean, in life, the good cannot happen without the bad. Sure, you may walk away with another message, but ‘Once More Into the Bliss’ delivers it with style and sophistication in a masterpiece that exists beyond a painted canvas. Smoke your joints, take your shots, smell the roses, and breathe the air; just be sure you stop along the way. There’s more to life than that wherever.

Boris Garcia has a natural knack for charming its audience on the aptly titled Once More Into the Bliss. The band's last recording, 2006's Mother's Finest, made its way onto adult alternative radio where a solid following was soon built. That energized base is sure to expand with the addictive grooves on Bliss.

One journey aboard the Celtic seafaring tale, "The Ballad of Captain Jack," is enough to produce visions of choppy waters, tough-minded sailors and smoky London pubs. "Everything is Going to be Fine" features the balanced rhythm section of Jeff Otto on bass and the pulsating beat of Stephe Ferraro on drums.

Boris Garcia's uplifting connection to improvisational music comes via the buoyant and sunny track, "Holiday." The Byrds hold a special place inside the hearts and minds of the members of Boris Garcia as evidenced by the lightly riding country number "Through the Window." As "bliss"-ful a disc as one can expect in difficult times, Once More Into the Bliss offers a sustained wealth of catchy fare such as "She Wasn't Born to Follow" that elevates Boris Garcia's sound as they produce a marvel on their third and most intriguing set.

Once More Into the Blissis out now on Dig Music/Ryko.

Boris Garcia

Once More Into the Bliss (Dig Music)

ESSENTIAL "She Wasn't Born to
Follow"

Into The Great Unknown

No, this is not a family relation to the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia. It's the name of a band that has learned from that era and pushed it forward with a graceful, jamgrass touch. The music echoes a cross between the acoustic-sided Dead of "American Beauty" and the hedonistic pleasure cruise of New Riders of the Purple Sage. In fact, former Dead backup singer Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay and New Riders pedal-steel ace Buddy Cage are along for the trip. But the core of the Philly-based Boris Garcia is three singer-songwriters - Jeff Otto, Gene Smith, and Bob Stirner - who each bring striking skills to this project. Stirner's "She Wasn't Born to Follow" (a clever play on a Byrds song) is a great, mandolin-laced tune about a woman who answers to her own muse. Otto's "Riverman" suggests Harry Chapin's "Taxi" with lyrics influenced by Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha." Adding color are uilleann pipes, Mellotron, and bouzouki. It's an album that the real Jerry Garcia might have loved. [Steve Morse]

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

For me, most bands that have found themselves categorized as jamgrass just don’t do it for me. I like my jam music to rock and show some edge. When Boris Garcia came on the scene as the latest jamgrass sensation I was skeptical that we needed another band in that genre. Then I finally heard there music and I’m having a hard time turning it off. These guys combine the bluegrass stylings of Yonder and Railroad Earth with the hearty rock of folks like Tom Petty and David Lowery of Cracker to create a unique urgent sound that stands out from their peers.

Earlier this month Boris Garcia released a terrific collection of tunes entitled Once More into the Bliss produced by Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone and features guest appearances from Donna Jean Godchaux-McKay, Buddy Cage and Carbone. The band celebrates the release of the album on November 28 at the Sellersville Theater in Sellersville, PA. Be sure to catch ‘em while they’re still playing small venues. You won’t be sorry.


- Scott Bernstein

Boris Garcia, Once More Into the Bliss (DigMusic.com). Cobbling together a variety of influences, Boris Garcia moves from the Beatles-esque "Holiday" to the old-time folk of "River Man" and on to the countrified psychedelia of "Other Side." Produced by Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth, this well-polished release also features Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay on vocals and legendary pedal-steel master Buddy Cage.

— Hutchinson

Boris Garcia - Once More Into the Bliss (CD)

Boris Garcia has a few things in common with musical cousins, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd; Like Tull, his music possesses an organic folksiness that provides the framework for well-executed, well-placed “jams.” Like Floyd, Garcia’s original material is culled from the brain trust of several talented principles. And, like both Tull and Floyd, Boris Garcia is not a stage name for any individual performer. Rather, he is the collective alter ego of five Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, musicians who perform an intoxicating blend of Americana jamband bluegrass folk rock. Coined by multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Jeff Otto (ukulele, bass, guitar, vocals), the name refers to the band’s blend of eastern influences, western song structures, and Grateful Dead-styled instrumental breaks. Nowhere is this spirit of diversity more evident than on the band’s third release for Porchwerk Records, Once More Into the Bliss.

Produced by Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone, Once More Into the Bliss features eleven original songs written by Otto and band mates Gene Smith (recorder, harmonica, acoustic guitar, vocals) and Bob Stirner (acoustic and electric guitar, bass, vocals). Executing the new material along with Otto, Smith, and Sterner, are core members Stephen Ferraro (drums and percussion) and Bud Burroughs (mandolin, bouzouki, piano, accordion, glockenspiel, Fender Rhodes, Hammond organ, Melletron, RMI electra-piano). Several prominent guest artists appear on the record; including pedal steel player Buddy Cage of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, who turns in a haunting performance on the Stirner-penned “Other Side,” former Grateful Dead vocalist Donna-Jean Godchaux-McKay, and producer Tim Carbone, who contributes violin, viola, and background vocals.

Jeff Otto’s “Holiday” opens the disc with a Caribbean-flavored riff that compliments the song’s inviting melody. Tracks like “She Wasn’t Born to Follow” and “Through the Window” are propelled by mandolin rhythms and contain countrified elements reminiscent of late ‘60’s Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers cuts. “River Man” sounds like a lost Heavy Horses-era Jethro Tull gem. The Celtic flavored “Ballad of Captain Jack” would be equally at home on an old Clancy Brothers record or John Barleycorn-era Traffic release. The closing track, Gene Smith’s “Beautiful Again,” has a distinct dream-like quality, courtesy of Bud Burroughs’ gorgeous string arrangement.

Boris Garcia’s Once More Into the Bliss is the rare gem of an album that manages to sound cohesive, yet remain singular and refreshing, through its entirety. Ultimately, the band’s main challenges will be to replicate the album’s spontaneity in a live setting and to deconstruct the creative processes undertaken with Carbone for application in future studio ventures. If Gene Smith’s lyrics hold any truth, “Everything is going to be fine in the end,” and, Boris Garcia is “good at starting over.”

BORIS GARCIA

Once More Into the Bliss
October 13, 2008

Not a person, Boris Garcia is a band of five guys who've been on the Philadelphia music scene for some twenty years. They categorize themselves as "jamgrass", a fusion of folk, rock, blues, Celtic, and, of course, bluegrass. This, their third album, was produced by Jim Carbone of Railroad Earth and is chock full of good stuff. The first two songs are almost Beatles-esque in their instrumentation and production. Both "Through the Window" and "Go" (songs #3 and #4) are upbeat and catchy. You just might find yourself humming along the very first time you hear them; and any song about a cat ("Scootch") is okay with me. This is all in all a fine album. Reviewed by Rebecca Ruth.

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