Shane Theriot: Dirty Power (Shose Records)

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Shane Theriot returns with another groove heavy collection of 10 original tunes dripping with New Orleans injected-funk and burning guitar.

Joined by a cast of legendary drummers including Zigaboo Modeliste (The Meters), Jim Keltner, Richie Hayward (Little Feat) and New Orleans icon Johnny Vidacovich, Shane masterfully rips over these grooves while still allowing the funky backbeats to take the front seat.

Also featuring slide master Sonny Landreth, and Mark Braud (Preservation Hall Band), Roderick Paulin (Maceo Parker) and Kirk Joseph (Dirty Dozen Brass Band) on horns. Bass virtuoso Adam Nitti and studio ace Hutch Hutchinson (Bonnie Raitt, Brian Wilson) hold down the low end. Johnny Neel (Allman Bros., Govt Mule) shares the keyboard duties along with David Torkanowsky.

Shane has performed and/or recorded with many artists including The Neville Brothers, Jewel, LeAnn Rimes, Boz Scaggs, Madeleine Peyroux and The Syn (featuring Chris Squire and Alan White from YES.)

Dirty Power...

Shane goes through the whole project track by track and gives the inside view on what went into this record...

Track 1 (5:22): Old Men This is a tune that I wrote on acoustic guitar. It was originally entitled "Sonny" just as a work title, the idea being that I would get Sonny Landreth to play on it. After I recorded the basic trax in LA, the tempo was so laid back that I decided to change the title to Old Men!
The main guitar is all one take live and the melody and solo were done at my studio. Neal Cappellino and I recorded the acoustic guitar at about 1 in the morning in the hallway at my house. One of my favorite drum moments on the whole CD.

Track 2 (3:40): Dirty Power  Again, the working titles always suggest players that I have in mind when demoing the tunes, so this one was called "Zig 2" for about a year! I love the trumpet and the way it just evokes New Orleans. Mark plays with Preservation Hall and I love the straight ahead vibe against the nasty wah guitar. I tracked bass on here and planned to re do it, but after Zig locked in against it I knew it wouldn't feel the same if I replaced it, so it stayed.

Track 3 (3:51): Four On The Floor  This was based off of a riff that I used to use in the short lived band "Grease Factor" with Jeff Sipe and Johnny Neel. We did this in one take live, even the solo. The feel on the drums that Jim Keltner played was exactly what I had heard. That feel is what makes him famous. I just added a little baritone though a marshall amp.

Track 4 (3:47): Bring It This tune was written the day before we went into the studio. Doug Belote came over and I showed him the basic idea. We worked out the form at the studio and since Adam Nitti was in New Orleans those guys became the section for this one. Big Sam added a really nice trombone part over at my studio later on. This one was cut at Better Than Ezra's studio in New Orleans called Fudge. It's a cool studio that has a great vibe to it.

Track 5 (3:55): Mr. Ed Again, as with "OLD MEN" this tune was originally written on acoustic. I tuned the low E string down to B and that's was the basic riff is written over. I knew I wanted to get Sonny to add his thing to one of these songs, and this became the one. The melody is really the tricky part on this one. Jim added a great tambourine track on there as well. I had fun driving out to Lafayette and getting Sonny to do this tune.

Track 6 (4:36): Buckshot This one was written specifically with Zig Modeliste in mind. We have been working together in the studio for the past few years on his stuff and I finally was able to nail him down to playing on a few of my tunes! No one plays like Zig - he's a hard hitter and so syncopated and funky. Roderick came over and did a nice 3 part horn line that I wanted, kind of reminiscent of Maceo Parker meets Tower of Power. The trumpet was something that I heard in my head too, I love the mellow vibe of the horn against the raw funk feel.

Track 7 (4:20): Memphis During Katrina and the month and a half that we were away from New Orleans, I was coming up with all kinds of ideas for tunes. This was one of them, it's very simple but it was a crazy tuning that at the time I thought was something new! But really it's just a honky tonk kind of tune, really nothing to do with Memphis, but I thought that it was a good title. Johnny Neel, Richie Hayward and myself cut about 7 tunes a few years back and this was one of them. Johnny did a great truck driver banter over the track - which was not planned at all! 

Track 8 (0:50): Buckshot (Reprise) When we were cutting the tracks with Zig in L.A., we were just goofing off and I had told Johnny Lee (the engineer on the session) to record everything and anything that went down. He did exactly that, and this was a cool moment that I just couldn't leave off the record.

Track 9 (4:21): The Pygmy Love Dance This was another idea that was spawned during the exile after Katrina. A really quirky thing, kind of a Ry Cooder in a weird mood type song. Richie Hayward came up with the title and Johnny Neel came up with the B section riff. I had Kirk Joseph come in later and replace bass with the sousaphone, which really made it ever quirkier!

Track 10 (3:04): Kirk's Little Backpack The tune that is totally different than anything, but had to put it on here. There's really not much guitar on here. This tune started life as a track originally intended for "The Grease Factor". I took Johnny Vidacovich's track and built a whole new tune around it. Kirk put down the funky sousaphone part and I just started layering. I like to think of it as Gil Evans at Maple Leaf Bar on a Tuesday night.