Customer Reviews

Jambands: The Complete Guide to the Players, Music, and Scene

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If you're familiar with the first incarnation of a book called *Jambands* by Dean Budnick, this is the very same guy but a completely different book. I was troubled by the first version's compilation of press photos with prose that read like official bios, with few details about actual album releases, and with an unswerving politeness throughout about all of the acts included.

Here, instead, are a nice seletion of live photos, with studied attention to select releases, and even a ratings system which comparatively evaluates those releases, combined with fair and balanced reflections in Dean's inimitable writing style.

You still won't find the level of forthrightness you might want from a music critic. (No one included "sucks" if you accept Dean's spin. Perhaps this is because he's weeded out the carp, but even many of those included wallow in mediocrity.) But the break from a glossy fluff package towards an in-depth and reflective study is a quantum leap above and beyond the earlier book. And the presentation, layout, and overall delivery is a far more engaging and enticing package.

Besides, Dean's not a music critic. He's an historian and a scholar of American culture, and that's what you'll get here: a thorough slice of jambands currency, an historic epoch in American culture.

A highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library American Music History reference collections, Jambands: The Complete Guide To The Players, Music & Scene by Dean Budnick (founder of Jambands.com and creator of the Jammy Awards) is an impressive catalogue of more than 170 musical groups, ranging from Phish and the Allman Brothers, to Ten Ton Chicken and Moon Boot Lover. Summarizing the history and style of each jamband in a single column, along with relevant websites and a one to five star rating, Jambands distills and reviews music groups with the cutting edge keenness and wry insight. An accompanying music CD offers a variety of sample songs, including some rare tracks.

The reviews of this book published in 2004 are well-done and accurate so read those first. After I was absent the rock scene since the 80's, while into creative improvised music and later classical, I needed to catch up on a quarter-century of rock. What had gone one since the Police broke up, the Dead were winding down, and there was this new group spelled Phish? Budnick's book really filled my need and I read it cover to cover twice with dog-eared pages while taking copious notes. One criticism of Budnick that perhaps is easier to see from 2010 is he does not take advantage of the 21st century technology to evaluate jambands. He still gets studio release CD's to review and uses only commercial releases to make recommendations. Of course he wishes to promote his Jammy Awards too. This means he is partly stuck in the 20th century so let's hope he makes a 3rd edition and lands with both feet in this century. He tries to help with the CD, which is quite good but for jambands, how many can you get on one CD with 10 to 20 minutes songs? Instead Budnick should send his readers to places like [...] (Live Music Archives) or [...] so they can legally download public domain concerts as nearly all jambands are "taper-friendly" so upload audience tapes to these archive sources. They may not sound as good as sound board mixes from the bands but you can check out nearly all the bands for free with either streaming video or downloading. Later on you can go to the concerts and buy directly from the bands. The band websites are hit and miss. Phish is the best. But on others you can still download live *.flac recordings unlike Amazon, where you only get *.mp3's. It is impossible to evaluate the musicality of the numerous jambands during the common 30 second snapshots on many sites (like Amazon) so places that allow you to hear a 20 minute song are needed. That way, you can tell what bands you will like by *listening* rather than reading about them in a book. Using the Internet's Live Music Archives with this book is essential because Budnick's evaluations too commonly stick to the commercial releases that jambands hate. Tell a jamband that is used to making 20 minute songs to make songs ready for FM radio is not usually how these bands thrive but Budnick is still promoting the mostly obsolete studio commercial stuff. The future of jambands will partly be based on how successful they are at breaking through today's corporate model of music distribution. For a first-rate example of what I mean - visit the Phish downloads website where you can still download *.flac releases of Soundboard quality shows from 20 years ago. Where else can we do that? If the jambands can break free of the studios and the big corporations and truly make the distribution model as creative as the music, then I see continued success. Get the book on Amazon. Sample at the Live Music Archives. Then go see the music live, as it was meant to be. Then visit the web forums and contribute your thoughts, which are very important in making this music work. The music is for the fans - not the suits. Go Phish.