Photos by Kelsey Winterkorn

Moon Taxi is one of newest and hottest bands to come upon the jamband scene. Coming from the Country Music Capital of Nashville, TN, this quintet can’t be compared to any one band but they have a flavor of a lot of their contemporarys.

The first thing you notice at a Moon Taxi show is the way they play as a unit and a tight one at that and that’s exactly what they did Thursday, July 15th at The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco. The first 3 songs started off with a burst of energy, each song moving from sultry to adventurous, but all high speed, very reminescent of Umphrey’s Mcgee, then they went heavy, with some Southern Rock influences in there music. Could we call it Southern-Rock-Jamtronica?

Tyler Ritter the drummer is constantly rolling breaks, refreshingly avoiding monotonomy and even getting very hard and metal at times, think Megadeth, without the death….The double guitars were often in harmony, with very melodic and fast licks adding emotion to the soulful singing of Terndrup. He has a prescence in this band and a voice that has so much potential, a lot of which has already been reached. His singing sometimes got poppy, but it is carried through with good taste and at times in the night one could pick up a little hint of James Brown Soul in his singing.

As the night progressed there were a lot of song changes all of which were excellently abrupt, flying through a jam they would stop on a dime and a guitar rift, followed by the melodic keys of Wes Bailey would take the song into a totally different direction. It gave the first set the feel of an orchestra, or a movie soundtrack.

During the second set Bailey on keyboards was ablaze, going from country and blues to electric organ very reminiscint of Medeski Martin and Wood. Although it wouldn’t have hurt if they had turned him up, he got a bit lost behind the smashing drums and wailing guitairs. They came out sounding a little more country and at times a little less organized, putting in a lot of guitar solos. With Terndrup noodling over the steady rhythm of Spencer Thomson who held down his role near perfectly. During the 3rd song of the second set they went completely psychedelic and with Terndrup on the wah wah pedal the sound was pure funk-jam….sounding at this point a little Phishy, with the band especially Terndrup and Thompson being theatrical on stage. There were so many changes yet a strong base that held it all together, at times it was heavy metal and then they would drop down with the solid foundation of bassist Tommy Putnam keeping it steady for the jams that manifested out of each song. Then as if the emergency breaks were pulled they came to skidding halt and played a song that was very 50’s jazz or swing style. Ending the show on a nice hard finish.