seaweed vipers w/jack cimo

The allure of the American West resides largely in the blank canvas it provides to the adventurous and the unafraid. It's a place where people are free to be whatever they're going to be, and the results depend on how individuals contribute to the growing and ever-changing whole. We are a stone soup, and the more hands involved the more dynamic we become. Both the Seaweed Vipers and Jack Cimo offer more than their musical talents. They present pieces of themselves, inspired by the home they've found on this coast, with the hope that their contributions, their work and their dreams, will add color to a landscape that further dazzles the eye with each brushstroke that is added to it.

Melding the incendiary spirit of the roaring twenties with the raw beauty of the coast, the Seaweed Vipers entice their audience to discard their inhibitions and join in on a winding and fantastical journey. The vocals and fiddle prance above the guitar and bass for a sound that reaches up through the floorboards and implores the feet to start directing the brain. Stasis is not an option. The band starts moving, the audience starts moving, and soon the room starts wafting high into the sky. The music demands the attention of all the senses and the audience soon realizes that not only are they tasting and breathing the musicians themselves, but they are giving back, they too are being tasted and breathed. They are contributing. The music grows out of each individual, projects through the instruments and blends together with its accomplices, but once it's out there, it belongs to everyone and takes on a new life with each person that heeds its call.

Jack Cimo focuses that radiance and emotion into a single instrument. His guitar may be likened to an appendage, his intimacy with it as apparent as that of an intertwined couple, and when he performs he does so as with an old friend. One doesn't make sense without the other, and yet when joined together they become purity and beauty personified. Whether he's playing a cello suite from the eighteenth century or a composition of his own creation, a lifetime of practice and study emanates through his work and causes an audience to hold its breath in the presence of a master. Genres and musical preferences disappear when his fingers engage the strings and his attention to each facet of a piece speaks to the pursuit of a goal and a dream that anyone with starry eyes can relate to.

In order for a community to be vibrant, it must grow and adapt and incorporate the new into the fabric of its traditions. It’s a table that always has room for one more, a house with the door forever propped open, or a café that transforms into big pot of happiness that spills out onto the street. We are writing a story that's yet to be written and we are drawing from our very best to do so. On August 26, we again welcome musicians who dare us to redefine how big we will dream, and as we once again jump onboard, we give a nod to the past as we set forth on a train most certainly bound for glory.