Summer Blues

You might remember that summer about seven years back when American surfer musos ruled supreme. Those of us who'd normally freak out in pithy whitewash found summer solace in the likes of Donovan Frankreiter, Jack Johnson and G. Love and Special Sauce.

It didn't matter we didn't know shit about surfing or that we'd never even been that into coast culture. We knew about hot summers and these guys seemed to ooze cool. G. Love and Special Sauce, first known in these parts with ‘Rodeo Clown' and their reggae-blended hip hop blues, is bringing it back in '09.

Frontman Garrett Dunton (not quite the same ring to it as G. Love) sounds like Bam Margera on Ritalin. He's cool. He's all 'likes’ and ‘y'knows’ and when you ask him what's kept him in the game for ten LPs and 16 years, he describes ‘that’ moment on stage as only a surfer-stoner can.

"You get these like, chills. You get these kinda like chills up your spine and your hair stands up on your head and you feel it come over you. It's a kinda brief moment, y'know?

"I don't know how long your body can sustain those chills for, but it's that euphoric rush. It's like, a pretty magical feeling and I think that, that's the feeling of why I like to play music for people and why I like to write new songs and stuff like that is to, get that feeling y'know?

“There's really nothing like it in the world."

G. Love comes and goes for Byron’s Blues Fest but is hoping his Australia-only LP release, 'Long Way Down', will re-awaken his grassroots following from its flashpan summer back in ‘02.

"It's that fine line between having (someone say) 'oh yeah, I’ve heard of 'em’ and 'oh yeah, I love them and I'm gonna buy all their records'," he laughs, again, like a stoned Bam Margera.

"You wanna have more people saying the second, you know?"

G. Love and Special Sauce have hand-picked tracks for our ears only on ‘Long Way Down’. From the bongos and harmonica of 'Peace, Love and Happiness’, penned in Rio de Janeiro after a brief stint with local kids in a favela, to the laidback but driving blues-rap of ‘Crumble’ , 'Long Way Down' is soaked in summer.

"I think the most important thing you can do as a musician is to find your own thing and find something that's original,” G. Love offers. “I don't feel like I had too many God-given music abilities but I have a lot of passion and love and dedication to music that, over the years, I cultivated into a lot of musical ability and did become a real musician."

He's been travelling alongside John Butler, Xavier Rudd, Jack and Donovan (as he calls them), so G. Love's November tour is all about that chillin, summer, funk goodness.

"Along the way I was able to create my own style, which is the hip hop blues, and that's kinda the heart of what we do.

"It's definitely not middle of the road. It's its own kinda thing and for that I'm proud."

Housed in the US by Jack Johnson's indie label, Brushfire Records, G. Love says he jumped at the chance to go it alone with his own Philadelphonic label for ‘Long Way Down’.

"It's pretty exciting. Like, it's actually our first true, independent release. This time we wanna do something different in Australia and just try to slowly build up our grassroots following down there.

"We've always been well received especially like at the Byron Bay Blues Festival, which we've played a number of times.”

So when he returns in November, G. Love and the gang are promising to chase ‘that’ feeling.

"People work hard to make their money and they work hard to keep their family and everyone's always working hard," G. Love says. "So if they do take time to come to our show, I want really give 'em some good feelings to take home with them ... back to their daily grind."

‘Long Way Down’ is out now on Philadelphonic through Shock. G. Love and Special Sauce play the Great Northern November 20 and The Zoo November 21.