Feedback -- Watching the Undergrass Grow

The Big Turning Point, from this fan's experience, was December 1998 at the Chameleon Club. In the five months since I had last seen them word had apparently gotten around, because the club was packed shoulder-to-shoulder! The rest of Blueground Undergrass was already onstage when Jeff Mosier ran into the club, fresh from that night's performance of his musical, the New Old-Time Christmas Gathering at Stone Mountain Park in Georgia. He tuned hurriedly, then effortlessly charmed the audience like a sea of spin-dancing, tie dye-wearing snakes for four hours. An image that still stands out from this show is of a fan who I later came to know as Paul Snyder shouting out, "OH, FUCK YES! OH, FUCK YES!" during a particularly intense "Oh, Death," while making the wildest hip gyrations. Blueground Undergrass had arrived, big time.

Just a couple of weeks later they appeared again at the Brandy House with some other local heroes and favorites of mine, The Urban Shakedancers, providing the lead-off set. By the time Blueground Undergrass took the stage the restaurant's staff were locking the doors because they were already over capacity! I had never, ever seen this happen for a local band. Later a Brandy House greeter told me they had actually caught people who had snuck in the back door and were tip-toeing through the kitchen. Not bad for a band that had made its debut just about eight months earlier!

Since then Blueground Undergrass has moved to conquering the rest of the nation: opening for Leftover Salmon; regular praise in the pages of Relix magazine, including having their CD, Barnyard Gone Wrong, listed among the 10 Best Albums of 1999. Nowadays BGUG only plays Atlanta occassionally, and only at the Variety Playhouse, a 1,200 seat theater. It looks like Atlanta will have to share this musical hot fudge cake with the rest of the world. Don't be strangers, boys!

The road between Dallas, Georgia and Kennesaw, Georgia is dark and long, so I started tuning up and down the dial to see what was on the radio on a late Sunday night to accompany a lone traveller. When the scan stopped on 92.9 FM the car was not filled with the Foghat and Humble Pie normally associated with this dial position in Atlanta. Instead an eerie, ambient steel guitar and fiddle were crying in harmony over some funky banjo and the best drum sounds I had heard since John Bonham. This space-country music made the perfect accompaniment to the stark trees and winding backroad before me.

Once at home I sat in the car, transfixed by the sound. When a commercial break came I rushed inside the house like a madman looking for a tape. Who were these musical magicians? Did they know what they had?

Turned out the radio show was called The Dunhams and the band was Blueground Undergrass, a name I had to practice saying a few times. They were playing a week later at the Virginia Highland Summerfest. I would be there.

The Summerfest was one of the first, if not THE first, public appearance for Blueground Undergrass. They played several of the tunes I recognized from the previous week's radio show. The applause from the assemblage on the lawn was warm but subdued, typical of the reaction at hot outdoor family-oriented shows.

Later that spring they played a birthday party for some teenagers at the Red Light Cafe, and I saw that show, too. The teenagers were appreciative of the live entertainment but seemed to wonder if there were any Stone Temple Pilots covers coming up. This show may have officially been a Good Medicine show, the Mosier brothers' all-acoustic group.