The Spam Allstars: Miami's Medley of Musical Culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtIQzea_FBU (In residence at Hoy Como Ayer in Miami)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=473S3hF4WZE ("Ochimi"!!! Awesome song...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1HZprq8d5s (I was at this show in Key West and it was ridiculous -- searing hot musical experience)

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A little known but growing in stature band out of south Florida is The Spam Allstars. I first came to know of this band by getting up early on Sunday morning at the 2006 Langerado Music Festival (http://www.langerado.com/) only to find this funky, live band with a turntablist laying down the foundation with classic latin beats -- on top of the beats were fantastic percussions and ethereal flute notes...it was surreal and I couldn't tear myself away from it.

The Spam Allstars (http://www.spamallstars.com/) Miami Beach's answer to the 70s hybrid funk rock band Tower of Power -- South Beach Grease, if you will, to paraphrase the Oakland band's hit album "East Bay Grease" from back in the day. At the hub of it all is DJ le Spam himself (aka Andrew Yeoman), a turntable DJ well versed in Afro/Latin rhythms as well as hip hop break beats and such. Really, if its got a funky beat, he's all about it. But the band itself is so diverse it is infectious -- 10 members strong laying down a full out horn section and percussions as well as guitar licks and flute. Rich and layered barely begins to describe this sound.

Its place among the jamband genre seems dubious at first until you take in the band a few times and realize the level of improvisation that is occurring amongst this extremely tight ensemble of musicians. To quote DJ Le Spam: "I guess you can say that maybe it’s 40% improvisational. It really depends on the particular show, but at this point we’ve been playing a lot of these tracks for a long time and these guys will have their arrangements worked out. Even transitioning from one song to the next, they’ll be certain transitional beats that go with the tune. So they’ll hear a drum machine sound, or whatever the next drum rhythm pattern is, and they’ll be able to tell from that what the next song is. I guess there’s a lot of intuition at this point since we’ve been doing this for so long." ( http://www.nochelatina.com/Articles/2959/QandA-Sessions-DJ-Le-Spam) And that's what this blog grooves on!! This is a band that lives in the moment of the music that they are creating -- riffing off of each other and the beats laid down by the DJ, this band starts to smoke as they get into the grooves that they are creating and in so doing never gets stale. Evidence of this is found in the number of shows that this band does in the Miami Beach area: a quick check of their websites of their Myspace page (www.myspace.com/spamallstars) will show a steady rotation of clubs, especially Hoy Como Ayer, where they have taken up residence and are well rooted in a very busy Miami club scene. At Hoy Como Ayer they are virtually the Houseband. This is not to say that the Allstars have not taken on a national presence -- although as a band, they are not as fond as touring as they once were, and are quite comfortable in Miami, they have, at different moments over the years hit the road from Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Toronto, and the East Coast of America. Their jamband credentials, though, were validated and solidified most definitely when Phish keyboardist Page McConnell took a shine to their sound and employed the band to help him put out an album called "Vida Blue and the Spam Allstars". Or perhaps it was the Spam Allstarst that solidified Mcconnell's credentials as a funky, beat-based keyboard guy?? I guess that's a matter of opinion. Regardless of opinions, Page sat in with the band a couple of times up in Burlington, Vermont as well in the mid 2000s. These recordings are absolutely excellent examples of jamband collaboration and can be found here: http://www.archive.org/details/spam2005-11-12.dsbd The quality of the recording is excellent and there is a brief review of the show by yours truly, as well!

The Spam Allstars are a fantastic band that have been working extremely hard at creating an original musical experience amid a great deal of generic music that has been clogging up the mainstream music scene for some time. Should you find yourself in sweltering South Florida night wondering what is there to do, or perhaps just cruising the internet dreaming about such a scenario, check out this band and you won't be disappointed!!

Discography:

"Best of the Spam Allstars" (2008), "Electrodomesticos" (2007) fyi: a great review of this album can be found here: http://www.jambands.com/reviews/cds/2007/04/23/electrodomesticos-spam-allstars, "Los Roboticos Matantios" (2004), "Fuacato" (2002), "Pigs In Space" (2000), "Pork Scratchings" (1999)...as well, check out collaborations with Page McConnell's Vida Blue and with Toronto based guitarist Andrew Whiteman's (Broken Social Scene/Bourbon Tabernacle Choir) band Apostles of Hustle.