Tea Leaf Green
Encyclopedia
Tea Leaf Green is a five-piece jam band
from San Francisco Bay Area
, comprising Josh Clark (guitar and vocals), Trevor Garrod (keyboards, vocals, guitar, and harmonica), Reed Mathis
(bass guitar and vocals), Scott Rager (drums and percussion), and Cochrane McMillan (percussion).
(SFSU). Chambers was the group's original bass player but left in 2007; he is featured on the band's first four albums. Rager and Chambers began playing together, practicing in Chambers's bedroom in a back house off Church Street in San Francisco's Castro District. In early 1997, Clark, a childhood friend of Rager, moved from the Los Angeles area to San Francisco and became the third member of the band. Garrod, also a SFSU student, joined soon after.
In the late 1990s, Tea Leaf Green began gigging throughout San Francisco, becoming the de facto house band at the Elbo Room for a period in 1999. The band's first album, eponymously titled, was released that same year and featured twelve original compositions, included songs such as "Professor's Blues," "Asphalt Funk," and "California," all of which remained part of the band's live repertoire for years. Over time, the band pared down the all-inclusive sound featured on the first release and formed a more focused style of songwriting inspired by Garrod's Dylanesque musings and Clark's unabashed, frenetic soloing.
In the early part of the 2000s, Tea Leaf Green was an integral member of a burgeoning rock music revitalization in San Francisco that also featured bands such as Animal Liberation Orchestra
and New Monsoon
. As music fans from multiple corners of the country became aware of the resurgence of a brand of music focused on improvisation and experimentation, Tea Leaf Green built momentum and gained support with an ever-widening audience. Within San Francisco, buoyed by a word-of-mouth buzz, the band sold out shows at Slim's and, eventually, at the Great American Music Hall.
In 2001, Tea Leaf Green released its second album, Midnight on the Reservoir, following up with a live release from the Great American Music Hall
, unofficially referred to as the "Green Album" because of its all-green cover. Midnight on the Reservoir highlighted the group’s rapid evolution from its previous release, offering a heightened element of psychedelia, bombastic rock numbers, and a cohesive, thematic lyrical approach. Garrod unearthed childhood memories for the mysterious opening track "Midnight on the Reservoir" and the ebullient sing-along "Papa's in the Backroom," while the band ripped through instrumental jams such as "Panspermic De-evolution" and "Hot Dog." Clark referred to this effort as the band's "party album."
In 2002, the band embarked on its first national tour, using the High Sierra Music Festival
as a springboard to a more substantial audience, and was featured in the December, 2002 issue of Relix
magazine. Soon, Tea Leaf Green utilized the festival circuit as a platform of introduction, playing to larger and larger audiences as it built a reputation for galvanizing live performances. Appropriately, the band's third studio album, Living in Between, was bookended by two live releases recorded in San Francisco, Slim's (2003) and Live at the Independent (2004). Living in Between again featured Clark's cover art (as had the first two albums) and demonstrated the maturation of each member's technical proficiency and a collective effort toward self-definition. The album is framed by "The Garden (Parts I and II)," components of an evolving song cycle spread over multiple albums, and finds Garrod entrenched in a lyrical romanticism touching on the folk spirit of Woody Guthrie
and an American, specifically Californian, mythology charted by authors such as John Steinbeck
. The heavy, Southern-rock interpretation of the traditional "Been So Long" is echoed in the politically minded "Vote on Tuesday." "Bootlegger," "Beehive," and "Earth and Sky" utilize specific American sensibilities, ruminating, respectively, on the quest for spirituality, the lessons of youth, and the processes of maturation. Other songs on the album, such as "Warmup," juxtapose Garrod's introspection with a progressive-rock confidence that abandons mere jam whimsy and illustrates a hammer-and-anvil craftsmanship.
While continuing to tour extensively through the United States, Tea Leaf Green headed to Navarro Ridge Range in Mendocino, California
, forsaking the confines of the city, to record Taught to Be Proud
(2005), the band's fourth and, at the time, most cohesive album. With a focus on songs, as opposed to jams, the four members simplified the recording process, utilizing live takes on many of the tracks. The album is replete with radio-friendly hooks and subtly politically poignant lyricism. The title track earned Tea Leaf Green a Jammy Award for Song of the Year in 2006; classic-rockers like "Morning Sun," and "The Garden (Part III)" became concert staples; and "John Brown" and "5,000 Acres" utilized allegorical technique to highlight Garrod's critique of the trajectory of the American destiny. The album announced TLG as a legitimate force on the American rock 'n' roll scene.
In 2006, caught in the band's rising tide, filmmaker Justin Kreutzmann, son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann
, directed a documentary of the band, entitled "Rock 'n' Roll Band," that interlaced live footage from a May, 2006 concert at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, with individual and group interviews with each member of the band. The film emphasized the struggle facing a young band, capturing footage of the members at home and in the streets of San Francisco as they discuss hardship and sacrifice inherent in the pursuit of a dream. Kreutzmann utilized the Fox Theatre performance to showcase the band's distinctive musical spirit: organic but ambitious, confident but never cocky, boisterous but thoughtful, soulful and exploratory. The DVD was released in tandem with a live CD also entitled "Rock 'n' Roll Band."
In 2007, Tea Leaf Green began the year playing Jam Cruise
5 and subsequently continued their exhaustive trek around the country, playing more than 130 shows, including numerous summer festivals such as Wakarusa
, Bonnaroo, and High Sierra. Late in the year, original bassist Chambers decided to leave the band, citing exhaustion and a desire to be with family, and retired from active participation in the music profession. Though shaken and somewhat stupefied by Chambers's decision, the remaining members of the band agreed to persist and actively pursued a replacement for the group's departed member. At approximately the same time, the band signed its first significant recording contract, with Surfdog Records. The company subsequently released a three CD boxset, entitled Seeds, that conflated the band's first three releases into a single volume. The timing was appropriate and seemed to seal Chambers' departure with a stamp of finality. The retrospective was the precursor to the band's first new album with Surfdog.
In late 2007, less than two months after Chambers's exit, Tea Leaf Green introduced Reed Mathis
, of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
(JFJO), as its new bass player. Mathis had earned renown for his contribution to the neo-jazz, avant-garde JFJO, which he helped form in 1994. Mathis played his first show with TLG on December 7, 2007, in Santa Cruz, California. In January 2008, Tea Leaf Green entered a Richmond, Virginia recording studio with producer David Lowery
, taking one week to cut a fifth album, Raise Up the Tent
which was released in summer, 2008. The album opens with a Chambers-inspired funk bass on "Let Us Go," features two Clark compositions ("Borrowed Time" and "Stick to the Shallows"), and traces Garrod's musing about life on the stage and on the road. On the final track on the disk, "Keeping the Faith," Rager's drumbeat helps uncoil the ambivalence of the song: a subtle nostalgia in Garrod's voice and in the band's mellowed playing butts against the promise of future dreams fulfilled if one's desire endures.
In 2008, the band played its first show overseas as part of the Jam in the Dam festival held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Garrod, Clark, and Rager also pursued side projects centralized around the San Francisco scene. Because of prior obligations to Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Mathis missed a handful of gigs with TLG in 2008. Steve Adams of Animal Liberation Orchestra substituted on bass for those shows in which Mathis was otherwise obliged. Near the end of the year, Mathis announced publicly that he was departing JFJO to commit more time to Tea Leaf Green. The group reprised its role on Jam Cruise in 2009, playing on the seventh edition of the event.
In the winter of 2011, after playing with Tea Leaf Green to assist with a foot injury to Scott Rager, Cochrane McMillan was added as a permanent member.
Tea Leaf Green continues to maintain a steady, if often arduous, schedule, playing clubs and other assorted venues across the country. Known for extended psychedelic, rowdy, and exploratory live shows, Tea Leaf Green has made numerous performances available through livedownloads.com. Other unofficial, but sanctioned, performances are available through archive.org and nugs.net. The group, independent and often on the periphery of the mainstream music industry, continues to rely on grassroots expansion of its music through the diligence of its fanbase, community forums, and web-based music avenues such as jambase.com.
In a recent interview with TheWaster.com, Trevor Garrod announced the official 5th member addition to the band, drummer Cochrane McMillan, and a Spring 2011 release of a new studio album.
Jam band
-Ambiguity:By the late 1990s use of the term jam band also became ambiguous. An editorial at jamband.com suggested that any band of which a primary band such as Phish has done a cover of be included as jam band. The example was including New York post-punk band Talking Heads after Phish performed...
from San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, comprising Josh Clark (guitar and vocals), Trevor Garrod (keyboards, vocals, guitar, and harmonica), Reed Mathis
Reed Mathis
Reed Mathis is an American composer, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is highly regarded for his innovative use of effected bass as well as his stylistic versatility...
(bass guitar and vocals), Scott Rager (drums and percussion), and Cochrane McMillan (percussion).
History
Tea Leaf Green began in the fall of 1996, when Scott Rager met Ben Chambers on the campus of San Francisco State UniversitySan Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
(SFSU). Chambers was the group's original bass player but left in 2007; he is featured on the band's first four albums. Rager and Chambers began playing together, practicing in Chambers's bedroom in a back house off Church Street in San Francisco's Castro District. In early 1997, Clark, a childhood friend of Rager, moved from the Los Angeles area to San Francisco and became the third member of the band. Garrod, also a SFSU student, joined soon after.
In the late 1990s, Tea Leaf Green began gigging throughout San Francisco, becoming the de facto house band at the Elbo Room for a period in 1999. The band's first album, eponymously titled, was released that same year and featured twelve original compositions, included songs such as "Professor's Blues," "Asphalt Funk," and "California," all of which remained part of the band's live repertoire for years. Over time, the band pared down the all-inclusive sound featured on the first release and formed a more focused style of songwriting inspired by Garrod's Dylanesque musings and Clark's unabashed, frenetic soloing.
In the early part of the 2000s, Tea Leaf Green was an integral member of a burgeoning rock music revitalization in San Francisco that also featured bands such as Animal Liberation Orchestra
Animal Liberation Orchestra
Animal Liberation Orchestra is an American musical group, currently signed on Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records label. They have released three full length albums...
and New Monsoon
New Monsoon
New Monsoon is at its core a rock jam band that is based in the San Francisco, CA area that was founded in 1998 by Penn State classmates Bo Carper and Jeff Miller.-History:...
. As music fans from multiple corners of the country became aware of the resurgence of a brand of music focused on improvisation and experimentation, Tea Leaf Green built momentum and gained support with an ever-widening audience. Within San Francisco, buoyed by a word-of-mouth buzz, the band sold out shows at Slim's and, eventually, at the Great American Music Hall.
In 2001, Tea Leaf Green released its second album, Midnight on the Reservoir, following up with a live release from the Great American Music Hall
Great American Music Hall
The Great American Music Hall is a concert hall in San Francisco, California. It is located on O'Farrell Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood on the same block as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater...
, unofficially referred to as the "Green Album" because of its all-green cover. Midnight on the Reservoir highlighted the group’s rapid evolution from its previous release, offering a heightened element of psychedelia, bombastic rock numbers, and a cohesive, thematic lyrical approach. Garrod unearthed childhood memories for the mysterious opening track "Midnight on the Reservoir" and the ebullient sing-along "Papa's in the Backroom," while the band ripped through instrumental jams such as "Panspermic De-evolution" and "Hot Dog." Clark referred to this effort as the band's "party album."
In 2002, the band embarked on its first national tour, using the High Sierra Music Festival
High Sierra Music Festival
High Sierra Music Festival is a multi-day music festival held in Quincy, California, a mountainous area about 80 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada.The festival is held each year the weekend of July 4...
as a springboard to a more substantial audience, and was featured in the December, 2002 issue of Relix
Relix
Relix magazine was launched in 1974 as newsletter devoted to connecting people who recorded Grateful Dead concerts. It rapidly expanded into a music magazine covering a wide amount of artists...
magazine. Soon, Tea Leaf Green utilized the festival circuit as a platform of introduction, playing to larger and larger audiences as it built a reputation for galvanizing live performances. Appropriately, the band's third studio album, Living in Between, was bookended by two live releases recorded in San Francisco, Slim's (2003) and Live at the Independent (2004). Living in Between again featured Clark's cover art (as had the first two albums) and demonstrated the maturation of each member's technical proficiency and a collective effort toward self-definition. The album is framed by "The Garden (Parts I and II)," components of an evolving song cycle spread over multiple albums, and finds Garrod entrenched in a lyrical romanticism touching on the folk spirit of Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
and an American, specifically Californian, mythology charted by authors such as John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
. The heavy, Southern-rock interpretation of the traditional "Been So Long" is echoed in the politically minded "Vote on Tuesday." "Bootlegger," "Beehive," and "Earth and Sky" utilize specific American sensibilities, ruminating, respectively, on the quest for spirituality, the lessons of youth, and the processes of maturation. Other songs on the album, such as "Warmup," juxtapose Garrod's introspection with a progressive-rock confidence that abandons mere jam whimsy and illustrates a hammer-and-anvil craftsmanship.
While continuing to tour extensively through the United States, Tea Leaf Green headed to Navarro Ridge Range in Mendocino, California
Mendocino, California
Mendocino is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California, United States. Mendocino is located south of Fort Bragg, at an elevation of 154 feet...
, forsaking the confines of the city, to record Taught to Be Proud
Taught to Be Proud
Taught to be Proud is the fourth studio album by Tea Leaf Green. It was originally released on November 15, 2005 through Reincarnate Music.- Track listing :#"The Garden, Pt...
(2005), the band's fourth and, at the time, most cohesive album. With a focus on songs, as opposed to jams, the four members simplified the recording process, utilizing live takes on many of the tracks. The album is replete with radio-friendly hooks and subtly politically poignant lyricism. The title track earned Tea Leaf Green a Jammy Award for Song of the Year in 2006; classic-rockers like "Morning Sun," and "The Garden (Part III)" became concert staples; and "John Brown" and "5,000 Acres" utilized allegorical technique to highlight Garrod's critique of the trajectory of the American destiny. The album announced TLG as a legitimate force on the American rock 'n' roll scene.
In 2006, caught in the band's rising tide, filmmaker Justin Kreutzmann, son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann
Bill Kreutzmann
Bill Kreutzmann is an American drummer who played with the rock band the Grateful Dead for their entire thirty-year career...
, directed a documentary of the band, entitled "Rock 'n' Roll Band," that interlaced live footage from a May, 2006 concert at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, with individual and group interviews with each member of the band. The film emphasized the struggle facing a young band, capturing footage of the members at home and in the streets of San Francisco as they discuss hardship and sacrifice inherent in the pursuit of a dream. Kreutzmann utilized the Fox Theatre performance to showcase the band's distinctive musical spirit: organic but ambitious, confident but never cocky, boisterous but thoughtful, soulful and exploratory. The DVD was released in tandem with a live CD also entitled "Rock 'n' Roll Band."
In 2007, Tea Leaf Green began the year playing Jam Cruise
Jam Cruise
Held annually in January, Jam Cruise is a music festival on a cruise ship. It features artists of the jam band genre playing at multiple venues aboard the vessel...
5 and subsequently continued their exhaustive trek around the country, playing more than 130 shows, including numerous summer festivals such as Wakarusa
Wakarusa
Wakarusa can refer to several things in the United States:* Wakarusa, Indiana* Wakarusa, Kansas* The Wakarusa River, a tributary of the Kansas River* The Wakarusa War, part of the Bleeding Kansas violence before the American Civil War...
, Bonnaroo, and High Sierra. Late in the year, original bassist Chambers decided to leave the band, citing exhaustion and a desire to be with family, and retired from active participation in the music profession. Though shaken and somewhat stupefied by Chambers's decision, the remaining members of the band agreed to persist and actively pursued a replacement for the group's departed member. At approximately the same time, the band signed its first significant recording contract, with Surfdog Records. The company subsequently released a three CD boxset, entitled Seeds, that conflated the band's first three releases into a single volume. The timing was appropriate and seemed to seal Chambers' departure with a stamp of finality. The retrospective was the precursor to the band's first new album with Surfdog.
In late 2007, less than two months after Chambers's exit, Tea Leaf Green introduced Reed Mathis
Reed Mathis
Reed Mathis is an American composer, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is highly regarded for his innovative use of effected bass as well as his stylistic versatility...
, of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey is a USA jazz group started in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1994. The band's lineup has changed multiple times over the years. The group first formed under the moniker "Pimp Cocktail" with founding member Brian Haas as well as Sean Layton, Dove McHargue, Matt Leland, & Kyle Wright...
(JFJO), as its new bass player. Mathis had earned renown for his contribution to the neo-jazz, avant-garde JFJO, which he helped form in 1994. Mathis played his first show with TLG on December 7, 2007, in Santa Cruz, California. In January 2008, Tea Leaf Green entered a Richmond, Virginia recording studio with producer David Lowery
David Lowery
David Lowery is an American guitarist, vocalist and songwriter; he is the founder of alternative rock band, Camper Van Beethoven, and co-founder of the more traditional rock band, Cracker...
, taking one week to cut a fifth album, Raise Up the Tent
Raise Up the Tent
Raise Up the Tent is the fifth studio album by Tea Leaf Green. It was released on July 22, 2008 by Surfdog Records. It was produced by Camper Van Beethoven founder and Cracker cofounder, David Lowery.-Track listing:# "Let Us Go" - 3:31...
which was released in summer, 2008. The album opens with a Chambers-inspired funk bass on "Let Us Go," features two Clark compositions ("Borrowed Time" and "Stick to the Shallows"), and traces Garrod's musing about life on the stage and on the road. On the final track on the disk, "Keeping the Faith," Rager's drumbeat helps uncoil the ambivalence of the song: a subtle nostalgia in Garrod's voice and in the band's mellowed playing butts against the promise of future dreams fulfilled if one's desire endures.
In 2008, the band played its first show overseas as part of the Jam in the Dam festival held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Garrod, Clark, and Rager also pursued side projects centralized around the San Francisco scene. Because of prior obligations to Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Mathis missed a handful of gigs with TLG in 2008. Steve Adams of Animal Liberation Orchestra substituted on bass for those shows in which Mathis was otherwise obliged. Near the end of the year, Mathis announced publicly that he was departing JFJO to commit more time to Tea Leaf Green. The group reprised its role on Jam Cruise in 2009, playing on the seventh edition of the event.
In the winter of 2011, after playing with Tea Leaf Green to assist with a foot injury to Scott Rager, Cochrane McMillan was added as a permanent member.
Tea Leaf Green continues to maintain a steady, if often arduous, schedule, playing clubs and other assorted venues across the country. Known for extended psychedelic, rowdy, and exploratory live shows, Tea Leaf Green has made numerous performances available through livedownloads.com. Other unofficial, but sanctioned, performances are available through archive.org and nugs.net. The group, independent and often on the periphery of the mainstream music industry, continues to rely on grassroots expansion of its music through the diligence of its fanbase, community forums, and web-based music avenues such as jambase.com.
In a recent interview with TheWaster.com, Trevor Garrod announced the official 5th member addition to the band, drummer Cochrane McMillan, and a Spring 2011 release of a new studio album.
Studio Albums
- Tea Leaf GreenTea Leaf Green (album)Tea Leaf Green is the debut studio album by Tea Leaf Green. It was released on November 27, 1999 by Bongo Boy.-Track listing:# "Steal Your Imagination" - 3:52# "Cherry Red Guitar" - 4:23# "Apocalyptic Cowboy" - 5:24# "California" - 4:31...
(1999) - Midnight On the Reservoir (2001)
- Living In Between (2003)
- Taught To Be ProudTaught to Be ProudTaught to be Proud is the fourth studio album by Tea Leaf Green. It was originally released on November 15, 2005 through Reincarnate Music.- Track listing :#"The Garden, Pt...
(2005) - Raise Up the TentRaise Up the TentRaise Up the Tent is the fifth studio album by Tea Leaf Green. It was released on July 22, 2008 by Surfdog Records. It was produced by Camper Van Beethoven founder and Cracker cofounder, David Lowery.-Track listing:# "Let Us Go" - 3:31...
(2008) - Looking West (2010)
- Radio Tragedy (2011)
Live albums
- 5/3/02 - Great American Music HallGreat American Music HallThe Great American Music Hall is a concert hall in San Francisco, California. It is located on O'Farrell Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood on the same block as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater...
, San Francisco, CA - 6/6/03 - Slim's, San Francisco, CA
- 8/23/03 - Project THERE, San Francisco, CA (double album)
- 3/6/04 - The Independent, San Francisco CA
- 5/19/06 - Rock 'n' Roll BandRock 'n' Roll BandRock 'n' Roll Band is the second concert film released by rock band Tea Leaf Green. Originally recorded live at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, it captures the bands May 19, 2006 performance...
, Boulder, CO (released October 2006) - Live at Twist & Shout (recorded October 2008)
- Coffee Bean Brown Comes Alive (released June 2009)