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Boris Garcia/ Cabinet, Saturday, Feb. 27, doors 7:30 p.m., show 8:30 p.m. at Mauch Chunk
Opera House (14 W. Broadway, Jim Thorpe). Tickets: $18 at www.MauchChunkOperaHouse.com or by calling 570.325.0249. Info: www.borisgarcia.com
by Nikki M. MascaliStaff Writer
Listen to Boris Garcia’s 2008 CD “Once More Into the Bliss,” and you’ll hear a m�lange of instruments, from cellos to wooden flutes and steel guitar. The sound of the band — made up of Jeff Otto, Bob Stirner, Bud Burroughs and Stephe Ferraro — spans from bluegrass to Celtic to rock and even ’60s pop, which isn’t odd considering its members’ early influences.
“I just always listened to the radio,” said vocalist/guitarist Stirner from his home in New Jersey last week. “I mean, if you can encapsulate or picture what radio was in the late ’60s-early ’70s, that’ll give you an idea. It was a great time to grow up and a great time to be around commercial radio — it was incredibly influential to me.”
After dabbling in piano and drums as a youngster, Stirner picked up a guitar in his late teens and began “listening to all things San Francisco at that time,” bands like Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead.
It’s a little twist of fate that Boris Garcia — which will play the Mauch Chunk Opera House in Jim Thorpe Saturday, Feb. 27 — uses Dennis McNally as its publicist. McNally was the Grateful Dead’s longtime publicist and biographer.
“We were working with management who was sort of flirting with Dennis, and one thing sort of led to another,” Stirner said. “Dennis has opened unbelievable doors for us and in many respects gave us the opportunity to be on the map at all.”
On that map, Boris Garcia has had sit-ins from former Dead member Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay and Buddy Cage of the New Riders of the Purple Sage and has opened for acts like Railroad Earth, Jackson Browne and Hot Tuna.
“It’s awesome to go from, at one point in your life, listening to these people to finding yourself opening for them and then, in some cases, standing beside them on stage,” Stirner said.
Boris Garcia is in the studio working on its fourth record, which is slated for an early summer release. Like the “180 between each CD,” Stirner said fans can also expect a change in styles on the new disc.
“Things just keep continuing to evolve,” he said. “I also think that if it stopped doing that, some of us might not be as interested anymore.”
Stirner and Otto write all of Boris Garcia’s songs, and sometimes it’s a collaborative effort.
“The two of us in a preliminary sense will sit down at a coffee table — typically with a bottle of whiskey and other things — and just sort of muse over the songs,” Stirner explained.
Other times, they help each other construct and arrange something they came up with individually.
“On the last record, I had music for a song, and I couldn’t put words to it, (so) I gave it to Jeff, and in two days, he had lyrics, and I was like ‘My God, that’s it!’” Stirner shared. “That was like a weird thing, like having a m�nage � trois or something, like ‘My stuff is with somebody else!’”
Saturday’s show at the Opera House is the first of two dates with area bluegrass outfit Cabinet as Boris Garcia’s opener. The two bands share a booking agent.
“We’ve never actually done a show with those guys before, but we’re very familiar with their stuff,” Stirner said. “It’s very hot bluegrass, and just in terms in the fabric of an evening, it’s going to be a great night — they’re really good cats, really good guys. It’s a great room, it’s going to be a cool place to play.”
McNally wrote on Boris Garcia’s Web site that the band’s name is “a little tribute to Jerry Garcia, a little to Bullwinkle, and a lot of serendipity.” The Weekender asked Stirner to clarify that statement.
“There is some Dead influences in what we do, of course, how can you not be influenced by that?” he began. “I think it really smacked at, in terms of traditional musics and genres that East-meets-West at first. Garcia meaning the West, Boris signifying the East. The band in its earlier stages was entirely acoustic, and a little more niched out, is probably the best way to put it.”
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