Minivan Blues Band revs up to roll again

The Minivan Blues Band's new CD captures the group's show last November at the Hi-Tone.

Since 2007, the Minivan Blues Band has been a long-distance affair. That year, Joe Schicke, group co-founder, singer, guitarist, and one of the band's chief co-writers, moved to Fort Collins, Colo., to go to graduate school.

It was a dramatic change for a group that, since its founding in 2001, had honed its freewheeling, improvisation-based roots sound over years of frequent and intense jam sessions.

The Minivan Blues Band's new CD captures the group's show last November at the Hi-Tone.

"For the first five years we were somewhat inseparable, playing three or four shows a week and touring and playing constantly," says bassist J.D. Westmoreland, who like guitarists Jonathan Ciaramitaro and James Ray and new drummer Harry Peel, still lives in Memphis. "It's good that we did that. We got to know each other very well as musicians, so now we don't have to be together all the time for it just to work."

The separation has had its impact on the band's sound, though. Originally conceived as an acoustic project, trading in slightly groovy versions of old folk songs — "bluegrass with a djembe," as Schicke calls it — the Minivan had morphed over the years into a electric roots-rock outfit known for its expansive jams.

Now, however, without the luxury of playing together all the time — and without the demands of keeping themselves entertained playing the same material night after night — the Minivan has tightened its sound, trimmed the musical excess and fastened in on their original songs.

This more tightly focused model Minivan is on display on Dancing With the Devil Once Again, a new live CD that documents the band's concert last November at the Hi-Tone. The band returns to the Hi-Tone tonight for a CD release party.

Dancing is Minivan's second CD following 2003's Lifelong Turbulation. A follow-up disc was begun in 2005 and was literally plucked from the fire that consumed the studio Easley McCain Recording that year. The sessions are done and mixed, but the band has been reluctant to release them as a CD because they are, even by Minivan's genre-bending standards, too eclectic.

Instead, the band's sophomore release is a record that — as opposed to the Easley sessions, which have been labored over for five years now — was barely planned at all.

"I knew we were going to do this show, so I called (audio engineer) Dawn Hopkins to come record just to have a record of it," says Schicke. "She came and set all her stuff up the day of and said, 'Is this going to be a live CD?' And I said, 'OK, I guess so.'"

Like the Easley sessions, however, Dancing was almost derailed by unforeseen circumstance. A few days before the show, the band's longtime drummer Paul Buchignani quit the band. At the last minute, the Minivan pulled in session ace Harry Peel to fill in.

"There are very few drummers around Memphis who have that very rooted Memphis sound. Paul is one, and Harry is another," says Westmoreland. "He was in a session with Teenie Hodges all day the day of the show and was late to the gig. But when he got there, he just got right to it and was phenomenal."

With the release of Dancing, Minivan's members are preparing to see a lot more of one another than they have in recent years. Hyped about their new direction, the band is making plans to get the Minivan back on the road.

"This is the time to hit it," says Schicke. "Everybody's writing songs and playing great. It's crazy, we've been playing together so long and everybody's now getting a second wind."

Minivan Blues Band CD release party

Tonight at the Hi-Tone, 1913 Poplar. Doors open at 9 p.m. Admission: $7 at the door. Advance tickets available on the Web at hitonememphis.com. More information: 278-8663.

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