The Workshy

Jam band albums can be a tricky thing – live performance rewards inspired explorations of the music, and sometimes a band can capture that magic in the studio. But even jam stalwarts such as Phish have a hard time pulling it off. And though The Workshy are gifted improvisers, they’ve chosen to focus on songwriting and structure, and, well, make an album of songs.

Recorded at The ARK in Ames, “You Are Here” sounds professional, while capturing inspired performances. The songs show off the band’s diversity, too, which is nice because they have an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz and many other music genres.

The Hunter Thompson tribute “Stockton” sounds like a chase scene in a Western, and “Sol” is a tribal, Afrobeat influenced tune that wouldn’t be out of place on a Euforquestra album (and may actually be a nod to them, as The Workshy have played a number of shows with them). “100th Green Butterfly” is a tour de force of musical styles, a lush instrumental that jumps from Eastern guitar melodies to a Russian-sounding bridge, while employing a funky organ sound and phased guitars. On “Sideways,” singer Brant Williams sounds like Donald Fagen at times, and there are great time signature jumping guitar riffs, along with a Zappa-esque bridge section.

There are a lot of pieces at work here, but they’re all used to create something larger that really is cohesive, all those hours spent creating things spontaneously on stages being distilled down into great arrangements that surprise at times in just the right ways (like the sound of waves crashing in “Jetavana Grove”), but always fit just right in the arrangements of the songs. The band are also highly underrated when it comes to vocal harmonies – they’re subtle but gorgeous in spots.

“You Are Here” was released digitally awhile back, and the band has just recently released the physical CD copy. You can get a copy at Where It’s At or The Vinyl Café at Ames, or from the band’s show with Mountain Sprout at DG’s Taphouse this Sunday, April 8th. - Des Moines Music Coalition

It may be relatively unusual for a band to go with a “Live at” album as their debut effort, but this was clearly a wise decision for The Workshy. They thrive as the kind of jamband that should first be appreciated live. It’s a familiar format: Live at Fillmore East, the Whiskey, Max’s Kansas City…But who needs those overblown, clichéd venues? In Des Moines we have the Vaudeville Mews, and The Workshy uses that to their advantage.

Ok, maybe overstating just a bit, but going back to the Fillmore East - or West for that matter - nearly every band that made those venues famous can be heard in The Workshy's "Live at Vaudeville Mews," and in fact are listed as influences on the band’s Myspace page. As should be expected of any good jam band, The Dead are alive and well, definitely some Phish, The Band, etc. But there are also some unexpected influences thrown in. This more than likely stems from the fact that each member of the group has their own distinct musical tastes, ranging from blues and bluegrass to Zappa, and each brings that to the table, er, stage.

Everything about this album - if it weren’t so well produced that is - seems like it could be an obscure bootleg from an equally obscure, early-70's funk/blues/rock band. Beginning with the laughingly sarcastic introduction (“You’re all gonna be on a CD. Yeah.”) delivered in the recognizable "Dazed and Confused" stoner voice, through each of the eight funked-up tracks, don’t be surprised if you find yourself smiling unwittingly. It just sounds fun. Can’t wait to listen to this when it’s 85 degrees outside (it will be 85 again someday, right?). I’ll throw it in a playlist with the aforementioned greats and listen to people try to guess where they’ve heard it before: “Didn’t these guys open for Jimi in’70?” Nope. “Nah, they were on Festival Express with Janis and The Band.” Wrong again. It’s The Workshy, and they were “Live at Vaudeville Mews.” - Des Moines Music Coalition

"The next opening act was a six piece Denver local funk band named the Workshy, who also impressed me. They have recently gone through a major lineup change adding keyboardist Ben Rafferty, drummer David Petry, and tenor saxophonist Armando Lopez, and these guys are better than ever. Early on, they got into a groove with “Jetavana Grove,” which I really started to enjoy their bass player Jiho Han. Han plays very uniquely hard, but clear. It was a sound that I constantly went back to throughout the night. After that song though, I told my friend Allen Galton, mandolin player from the band Wonderlic that one of their guitar player’s style had a little Allman Brother’s sound to him. Right after that, the Workshy covered “Whipping Post.” Their set ended with a couple of songs off of their newest album, you are here. They played “100th Green Butterfly” and “416” before their encore that teased Phish’s “1st Tube.”
-Phil Emma - Grateful Web