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| Review: Phil Brown's Jimi Hendrix tribute |
| Written by Fred Mitchim | |
 Saturday Jan.13th at the St. David Episcopal Church I was lucky enough to catch the 10:00 show of Phil Brown's Jimi Hendrix tribute. Last year I was in the right place at the right time and was given a copy of THE JIMI PROJECT! and I've been very curious about seeing this done live. As far as I know this is the first local performance.
On a regular basis Will Taylor and his very talented friends team up with various other musicians to present theme shows. Various singer song writers are lined up and fired at you like a machine gun during these high powered performances....at least thats what it was like for me during my first experience. Phil Brown recently moved to Austin after having recorded his most recent effort called THE JIMI PROJECT. What Phil has done is is he has taken the songs from the first two Hendrix albums and plays them how Jimi himself might have played them if he were alive today. Mr. Brown slows the songs down a little and makes them more soulful....when you here this guys voice you will hear why this works so well. Plus...Phil's guitar playing is nothing short of spectacular! With a Jeff Beck like flare he effortlessly shreds quite beautifully through every passage. In 1968 I saw Hendrix play and over the decades I've seen almost all the imitators and disciples. Mr. Brown is neither...he has an original approach that is not only unique its powerful and inspiring. All of this comes through on his C.D. so I had no idea how you could cram even more stuff into the tight arrangements and went to my first Strings Attached show not knowing what to expect. I love violin and was elated to discover my new favorite violinist! Can you say Jean Luc Ponty...well if you can't and you haven't heard Will play then go expecting way to much and you will still find your self with your mouth hanging open. Not only can Will solo like a mother he understands the nuances of electric violin which makes the whole live rock band experience have a deeper more ancient feeling. Will has Extra talent all over the stage.. upcoming super soulful Nakai, multi talented John Pointer, and the beautiful Natile Zoe are all singing back up and lead at special moments. World class drums and percussion from Pat Mastelotto and Jason Mckenzie. Shawn Sanders on cello with Steve Zirkle on trumpet and Glen Roach on Bass round out Will's highly ambitious quartet and these guys pack a huge punch so wear proper head gear! Overall the collage mixed with live cameras light show and the church itself mixed in with the performance to give me a feeling I remembered having in the late sixties when the underground all age psychedelic dungeons of Houston Texas forever shaped my mind. And when Phil and the crew did their encore..ARE YOU EXPERIENCED...it was truly one of the best things I have heard in this century. One of the most amazing things happening in this was John pointers unbelievably cool microphone hip hop mouth orchestration..he was doing backwards drums and vocals that sounded like five thousand dollars worth of rack mount gear...keep it up John!!! So do yourself a favor and visit myspace.com/stringsattached or philbrownguitar.com and maybe you can obtain the live recording from this performance...or anything else you can get your hands on! - Fred Mitchim |
