The setlist
Twenty-five to thirty-five songs in a night, and you will know most of them. Press one to hear the record we start from, and look at the key and the voice beside it to see the shape it takes when we play it. Blues at the root, R&B in the groove, Southern rock in the amps, smoke in the voices.
The book
Every clip here is the original artist's record, so you can hear where a song starts. None of it is us. The records run three or four minutes; ours run five to ten, because we jam on just about every one.
The deck
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Reference cutThe Meters
The Meters
In the order we play them
The open chair
A show here is a bit of an invitation-only jam, and the chair is never fully spoken for.
Some of the best players in Nashville are on the list we call, and any one of them might walk in and sit in. You never know who is going to be up there.
So the list beside this is what we came to play. What you actually hear depends on who is in the room, how long a song wants to run, and who decides to step out and take one. That is the part you cannot get off a record.
The flavor
Nobody hires a band to hear the record. Six moves turn any of these into ours.
The songs are familiar on purpose. A song a room already loves is the fastest way in, and once we are in, the job is simple: put people straight in front of the music with the personality God gave the five of us. That is the part nobody can copy, and it is the part you came for.
Everybody walks out carrying a piece of it. That is how we know the night worked.
01 · The pocket
The first thing we settle is the tempo, and most nights we let it breathe a little wider than the record. A song sitting in the pocket gives a room somewhere to stand, and it gives the singers room to mean every word.
Al Wooldridge · drums
02 · The Hammond
Horn lines, string pads, synth hooks: David takes them all to the Hammond. He sits under the whole song and gives it a floor, so five people breathe together and the band reads as one instrument.
David Alan · organ, keys
03 · The guitar
A Les Paul through a Soldano and a Vibrolux, blended, and mostly dry. It listens for the gaps the vocal leaves and fills them. When it takes a solo it has something to say, it says it, and it hands the song back.
Matthew Sloan Wallace · guitar, vocals
04 · The voices
Matthew and Amanda trade leads and stack harmony, and Melvin sings from behind the bass. Put the same lyric in a different voice and the song opens up and says something new. A lot of the sauce comes from right here.
Amanda Chun · vocals
05 · The ending
Every one of these gets a real ending, worked out together and landed on the beat. A record fades because the tape ran. A room gets the last chord, and everybody knows exactly when to holler.
The room, at the last chord
06 · The room
A trio carries any of these. Six players open them all the way up. Same songs, same arrangements, a different amount of air in them. Tell us the room and the hour and we will tell you which one it wants.
The Foundation · trio to six-piece
Live music
We carry in deep, soulful meaning and a whole atmosphere, and we set it down in your room. People leave having had something, not just having heard something. Do that a few times and yours becomes the place they check first.
What the room gets
Own PA under 200 people. Trio to six-piece. A set built for your hour, a stage plot with the quote, and an answer inside two days.
What they take home
Songs they already love, played like they have not heard them, and a piece of the night that walks out the door with them.
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