All Marbles

If you request "LA Woman" or "Free Bird," All Marbles will play it, but this Redlands band also has a long list of original songs to share.
An improvisational rock band, All Marbles consists of Philip Mielke on bass, Eric Parkes playing rhythm and lead guitar, Raul Salazar on drums and Jayson Schell also playing rhythm and lead guitar.
Parkes and Schell originally got together at the University of Redlands School of Music, later adding Salazar and Mielke to create The Family.
The Family did not last too long, however. No divorces, no torrid love affairs, just a name change.
Apparently the name The Family has been used as a band name for decades and this band needed something all its own.
Because they are an improvisational rock band, every live experience is as original as their current name. Many of the songs are written to allow for jam sessions and solos.
"It makes it a nice organic experience for all of us," said Mielke.
The band has also been said to be "a buffet of songwriters," each musician bringing his own experiences to the table, having been influenced in various ways by various artists.
Parkes finds inspiration in The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Neil Young; Mielke in Medeski, Martin and Wood and David Bowie; Salazar is influenced by classic Jamaican and classic British rock; and Schell by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
According to Salazar, the band's eclectic taste is "good for artistic form." Writing songs is a long, but careful process of collaboration and compromise.
"We take time in the writing, making sure that everyone is satisfied, which usually ends up making a good well-thought-out song," Salazar said.
According to Parkes, each instrument is part of every song and so each artist has a chance to bring his own style to the table. And with their jam style, All Marbles wants to "bring the fun back to local music."
"We want people to dance," Parkes said.
It is not too difficult to understand Parkes' desire. Any true music lover would find themselves moving to All Marbles' jams. It is the kind of music that gets inside you and, if anything else, causes the head to bob or the toe to tap if not the whole body to downright boogie.
Back when Fox Coffee was the Redlands Coffee and Tea Co., the band members had their sights set on playing at Taylor's bar in Redlands. Having played at Taylor's and several other venues in the four and half years that they have been together, including the Knitting Factory in Hollywood and Winston's Beach Club in San Diego, All Marbles continues to grow as a band.
In November 2005 they released their first full-length album. The self-titled release is available at several locations including The Mad Platter and CD World in Riverside, Rhino Records in Claremont and American Beat in Redlands. The album can also be purchased through the band's Web site, www.allmarbles.com & www.myspace.com/allmarbles - San Bernardino Sun DARCIE FLANSBURG , Staff Writer

Yep, another Redlands group. It's practically Seattle circa 1989. Over there, they would be great since they hang out with such noteworthy IE notables as "Bad News for the Toros", "Hobo Jazz" and "Bucksworth" (on whose MySpace friends page we found them). They fashion themselves as an "evolved Moby Grape," but we're not sure about that. Though it's good, they're sonically intelligent enough to know who Moby Grape was. To us their sound is more akin to the wonderfulness of the Drive-By Truckers: hints of Jammy, Psychedelia here and there, but without the nasty patrully afterstink. Terrific character driven tunes (Santa Fe Jack, Bobby Custer) you can dance to and enough southern fried, slightly funky guitar noodling that would please old Skynyrd fans. Thought they would probably be bigger if they hailed from a hippie haven like Arcata, they're good enough to where we could easily see All Marbles landing on the bill of next year's Joshua Tree Music Fest- that crowd would DROOL over them( after they take the spliffs out of their mouths, of course).

- Inland Empire Weekly