Bakerton Group - Knitting Factory (New York) - Thursday, January 18th, 2007

by Ari Abramowitz
4 February 2007

You’ve gotta be kidding me: BAKERTON GROUP was playing in front of maybe 50 people. And this was in the Knitting Factory’s Tap Room—not even the mainstage—for crying out loud. But that’s cool, since it just gave me more room to move to the grooves. Rare treat that it was, it may become less rare in the near future, as Bakerton is finally set to drop their first album after touring for who-knows-how-many years. If the show was any indication, it’s gonna be a hot disc.

The Bakerton Group is the band CLUTCH without the vocalist. And Clutch is a successful hard rock band out of Maryland who has been kicking it for well over a decade. They sort of slip through the cracks, despite selling out places like Irving Plaza, because they’re a bunch of regular looking dudes who look like they all have day jobs that don’t involve conceptual art or alternative lifestyles. Too normal-looking for mega stardom and too hard for the college rock circuit. In the other direction, they’re not “extreme” or weird or performance art-centric enough to strike a major chord with the underground, hard rock or otherwise. But I could see them having a good time hanging out in a tour bus with PANTERA as easily as with PEARL JAM.

Stripping away the vocals, the Bakerton Group puts all of its chips on the funkiest, jammingest aspects of Clutch’s sound. If Clutch could be hanging out with hard rock and grunge rockers, Bakerton should be hanging out with GALACTIC and maybe GOV’T MULE, the funkier and harder ends of the jam band circuit. Bakerton’s music sounds as if the METERS got down to hard jamming after spending a few weeks listening to early GRAND FUNK RAILROAD and a bunch of blaxploitation soundtracks.

Like the Meters, Bakerton’s all about grooves, riffs, and beats. Also like the Meters, Bakerton’s really an ensemble affair, not a solo showcase. Sure, the guitarist and the organist may step out from time to time to solo, but that’s not where the action is. While both musicians have feel and taste and are fantastic riff machines, neither one has a compelling lead voice. But that’s cool, cause we get less noodling and more grooves. And it all works as well as it does for the same reason the Meters (and most great instrumental bands) work: the rhythm section.

In the Bakerton rhythm section, the mighty engine and the closest thing they have to a lead voice is the drumming of Jean-Paul Gaster. There’s not a funkier drummer in rock: complete mastery of the snare/bass drums and ultra-smooth, snappy paradiddles on any part of the kit for ornamentation. On top of that, as with most great musicians, tone is primary and JP gets a sweet, meaty “cut” from his set due to his perfectly balanced rimshots. In a wildly different style, Tatsuya Yoshida of RUINS (and a thousand other bands), shows this same meticulousness in his live snare sound.

And it counts. When you’re grooving, and the guitar’s riffing and the bass is holding things down, it’s the smack of the snare that funk-snaps your body. And when the accent beats change, in order to move your hips round to the other side, the snare’s gotta signal that, too. And it’s gotta do all of that while hitting you in the gut, not just in the ear. So, you need smack and you need meat. JP’s got both.

And all of this was in effect Thursday night. Not much for the stage show, but big time on the non-stop, hard and funky, swinging riffs from the guitar/organ team, snaky-as-balls basslines for everyone to pivot around, and the Bonham-goes-to-New Orleans drums that make it all go. Added bonus: Clutch’s vocalist Neil Fallon made a guest appearance for a three-song set of encores, probably making for one of the smaller shows Clutch has played since 1995. Last note: freshly shaved (a condition in which I had never seen him), Fallon reminded me of David Eigenberg (“Steve”) from Sex and the City. Steve or no Steve, the band is airtight, the album should be killer, and someone out there should get them on the jam circuit this Spring and Summer. Galactic, I know you’re coming around in February…give these dudes a funky listen and you’ll find yourselves some sweet touring partners.

Filed under hard rock concerts