Press & Reviews

Flipside at the Moonakis Café
Saturday November 6, 2010

Flipside lived up to its motto of “rocking blues to move your shoes” at the Moonakis Café Saturday night.  The only shortfall was that there was not a place to dance.  On the first Saturday night of every month the Moonakis hosts its free monthly coffeehouse concert aptly titled Blues at Moonakis.  Located at 460 Waquoit Highway the Moonakis is known for being packed on the weekends for breakfast and lunch.  Once a month it packs them in for some equally tasty blues from a full blues menu served up fresh and hot.

Flipside is made up of Chris LoCascio on keyboards, Melissa Roberts Weidman on bass, Drew Buckley on drums, Todd Johnson on harmonica and Will Harrigan on saxophone.  Guitarist Jeff Brown was off on an adventure somewhere and did not lend his talents to the show.  Half of the band has played together for close to fifteen years in various incarnations. Hopefully it is not improper to say that these blues musicians really rocked.

The lack of a guitarist, a normal staple to any blues band, made the performance especially interesting and memorable.  As is the case with most boomer blues fans we were brought to this music by the screaming guitarists from our youth who headlined superbands.  Hearing it without the guitar allowed a different and pleasurable experience of this truly American art form.  Hearing so many blues standards artfully played without the guitar let the rhythms, melodies and soul of the music take on their full measure and life. 

It is not groundbreaking to say that the blues is about expressing emotions that are deep inside.  You don’t have to have been raised in the deep south as a sharecropper on cotton farms to experience that life can chew you up and spit you out.  You don’t have to work under an overseer to know what is like to put in eight and hit the gate and know there is more to life.  Any number of movies in the recent past depict people letting loose on a Saturday night in a juke joint far off the beaten path with couples dancing and sweating to some local or traveling blues band.  As a rock band of my youth used to sing for suburban kids, we’re working for the weekend.  The blues give expression to something deep down and covered up in us.

Flipside offered the transcendent musical experience that has been drawing people to the blues since this music migrated north.  The rhythms just suck you in.  You can’t help yourself.  Once you’re tapping your feet to Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson you turn your attention to the musicians.  This music is live.  Right on the spot they discuss what they feel like playing.  While they are deciding the saxophonist and keyboard player start to discuss which blues artist gets credit for writing or first playing the song.  I am not sure who was right, but it starts to set the tone. 

It is extremely difficult to play music with people you do not like.  There is a bond and trust among musicians.  It was crystal clear that these people enjoyed playing together.  They constantly communicated amongst themselves while they played.  It was just fun to watch.  In such a small venue, as the audience you were a part of everything.  If you are a fan of the blues or just enjoy live music in an intimate setting, you could not go wrong.  There are things we cannot or almost never express in words.  It just comes out in music.  At one point the keyboardist and harmonica player were exchanging riffs.  The bassist chimed in that it sounded like an argument and she was not sure who won.  It was fun to be a part of it.  It is what live music in a small setting is all about.