The String Cheese Incident
Front: Kyle Hollingsworth, Michael Kang
The String Cheese Incident, one of the more popular bands of the jam movement of the mid-to-late 1990s, formed in Crested Butte, Colorado in 1993, originally playing local gigs at ski resorts in exchange for free lift tickets. The band is comprised of Michael Kang (acoustic/electric mandolin and violin), Michael Travis (drums and percussion), Bill Nershi (acoustic guitar, lap steel guitar, and electric slide guitar), Kyle Hollingsworth (piano, organ, Rhodes, and accordion), and Keith Moseley (bass guitar). During a concert on October 31, 2004, the band announced the official inclusion of a sixth member, Jason Hann, an auxiliary percussionist.
Their music is strongly influenced by bluegrass sounds, as well as forays into rock, funk, jazz, Latin, reggae, and occasional psychedelia. The String Cheese Incident (often abbreviated to SCI) has been described as a democratic ensemble rather than a band, since all of the members contribute their own original compositions to the group's burgeoning library and share the vocal burden on a number of cover versions as well as their own songs. If a de facto leader had to be named, such a title would probably fall upon Nershi, who is responsible for the bulk of the group's original song library.
The band's evolution
After a few years of playing local ski resorts and private functions, the band agreed that it was time to get serious with regards to their music, and formed the independent record label SCI Fidelity, on which they released their first album, Born on the Wrong Planet. At this point in their careers, the band displayed the motivation to play strong, melody-driven music that allowed room for live expansion and improvisation. Instrumentals and covers constituted half of the album, allowing much room to display musical virtuosity and even a little in the way of lyrical chops. Many time-tested fan favorites that were spawned from this disc are still in the band's regular live rotation, including "Black Clouds", "Land's End", "Texas", and "Jellyfish".
Less than a year later, SCI released a compilation of ten songs, including "Land's End", on their self-titled live album A String Cheese Incident, which chronicles a single concert from the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado and adds pianist Hollingsworth to the ensemble (he was not in the band during the recording of Born on the Wrong Planet). Despite spanning only one disc and containing only ten tracks, the album clocks in at 72 minutes even (thus, with an average track length of 7:12, displaying their propensity for extended jams), and is widely considered the best CD for new converts to listen to in order to become acquainted to the band's live sound.
Round the Wheel, released in 1998, refined the band's sound and displayed a marked increase in both musical and lyrical maturity, and added Paul McCandless as a guest player on soprano and tenor saxophone, but did not earn them quite the level of notoriety that they would achieve in the next millennium. From 1998 through 2001 SCI toured the country extensively and steadily, playing over 500 "Incidents" in hundreds of cities. In 2001, with the help of guest producer and Los Lobos frontman Steve Berlin, they released their third studio effort, Outside Inside. This album marked a shift from the band's traditional bluegrass leanings to a more standard rock sound, thus making it the most accessible album to a mainstream audience to that point. The band did not completely abandon its bluegrass roots, however, sneaking in the short three-minute track "Up the Canyon" at the end of the disc, which has become one of many live favorites along with "Rollover", "Close Your Eyes", and others.
Peak Experience and On the Road
As String Cheese Incident's popularity grew, so did the spectacle of many of their live shows. A company called Peak Experience was hired to add various eye and mind psychedelia to larger "Incidents" such as New Year's Eve and Halloween (dubbed "Hulaween" due to the band's early connection to hula hooping). Themed events such as Evolution, Dancing Around the Wheel of Time, a subway ride through New York City, and a Time Traveller's Ball are notable examples. During the 2000s the band also established a (nearly) annual special summer event at Horning's Hideout in Oregon, bringing Peak Experience out into the woods to add to the circular energy and rapport between the band and its audience. At the same time, as the band's popularity grew, so did the sizes of the crowds coming to see them; SCI headlined festivals such as Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, and Wakarusa, and began playing in some larger venues to accommodate their growing fanbase.
During the summer of 2002, like Pearl Jam, the band released live three-CD sets of all 19 shows that they played in April of 2002 on their spring tour. In this regard, they are believed to have taken a cue from Phish's Live Phish series and stepped up the formula a notch by releasing every show instead of just select concerts. Not stopping with the spring tour, SCI has released nearly every song from every concert from every tour through the present, barring those where technical difficulties or contractual guest artist complications are involved. Christening the series On the Road, the shows are released on the SCI Fidelity label for fans who do not have the time or means to engage in active tape trading.
2003 and beyond
In October 2003, SCI released their fourth studio album, Untying the Not, to mixed reactions from fans who feel that this album is an even more significant falling out from their bluegrass tradition than was Outside Inside. UtN is indeed a strong deviation from their previous rock and bluegrass sounds and shows heavy influence from guest producer Martin "Youth" Glover, formerly of the band the Killing Joke. Untying the Not is much darker than the band's previous lighthearted studio releases, full of minor keys and introspection on topics such as death, which are most clearly evidenced in the tracks "Elijah" and "Mountain Girl." It also shows significant evidence of the band's recent habit of introducing techno and trance elements into the mix, such as on the track entitled "Valley of the Jig", which is a successful fusion of techno and bluegrass stylings.
In the summer of 2004, the band was invited to tour with the Lollapalooza caravan by Jane's Addiction bandleader Perry Farrell, and would have received the distinction of being the first jam band to travel on the Lollapalooza bill. However, due to poor ticket sales and lack of enthusiasm, the festival was canceled and their summer tour was re-routed.
In June 2005, the band released their fifth studio album, entitled One Step Closer, containing thirteen original tracks with guest songwriting collaborations. The album was produced by Malcom Burn at a studio in Boulder, Colorado, where the band is based. One Step Closer was a return to the more roots-based music of earlier String Cheese Incident fare, while still retaining some of the pop sensibility of previous studio albums.
In the summer of 2005 the band through their label, SCI Fidelity, organized a traveling festival tour across the United States. Billed as the Big Summer Classic, the festival brought on a wide range of acts. New Monsoon, a promising new seven-person ensemble opened the tour, and acts such as Umphrey's McGee, Yonder Mountain String Band, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Keller Williams joined in on the fun. The band avoided big venues, played in medium-size outdoor venues such as minor-league baseball parks.
String Cheese Incident continues to play to both large and small crowds, and in 2005 returned to their roots, playing shows at the base of ski resorts, summer festivals, smaller venues, and touring throughout the United States. However, band members confessed to their fans at their concerts and through interviews that the band would take a break from touring in early 2006, and will pick up where they left off in the summer of 2006.
Discography
Albums
- Born on the Wrong Planet (1996)
- A String Cheese Incident (1997)
- Round the Wheel (1998)
- Carnival '99 (2000)
- Outside Inside (2001)
- Untying the Not (2003)
- One Step Closer (June 28, 2005)
- On the Road live series (2002–present)
Videos
- Pura Vida (2001, VHS)
- Evolution (2001, VHS & DVD)
- Bonnaroo Live (2002, DVD)
- Waiting For the Snow to Fall (2003, DVD)
- Live at the Fillmore Auditorium, Denver: March 23, 2002 (2003, two-disc DVD)
External links
- Official website - contains individual biographies, sample MP3s, tour dates, and details on SCI's various charitable causes (known as Gouda Causes, in keeping with the band's cheese theme).
- Friends of Cheese - the most comprehensive SCI fan site on the Internet, keeping a detailed archive of song lyrics and past set lists as well as keeping up-to-date on SCI touring information and upcoming albums
- SCI On the Road - the direct source of all On the Road live sets available for purchase since the band's spring 2002 tour
- SCI Fidelity - the website for the band's independent record label; in addition to distributing their own albums, many other artists' and bands' albums are distributed on this label, such as Keller Williams, Umphrey's McGee, and the Yonder Mountain String Band.
- Live shows at Archive.org - provides hundreds of free and legal downloads of complete String Cheese Incident concerts from 1995 to the present