The very idea of Brass Mash seems cockamamie. A nine-piece horn band that mashes songs and genres together? Huh? A jazz arrangement that starts with Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” but suddenly shifts into Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”? Mashing up The Temptation’s “My Girl” with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”? How could this possibly work?
“Ten years ago, when I moved here, I just decided I wanted to start this band, and would just talk with people constantly, and everyone thought I was insane 10 years ago,” recalled bandleader and trombonist Colin Dean. “It didn’t make sense. You know, because it doesn’t make sense on paper. It’s something you have to experience. I would just like run into people, ‘Oh, oh, you play trumpet? Oh, you should be part of my group. Yeah, and we’re going to play mash-ups, and we’re going to mix Van Halen with Nicki Minaj.'”
Somehow, Dean’s crazy idea has soared. The band’s monthly first Fridays gig at Liquid Gravity sells out every month. They now play big festivals and big venues. This Saturday, July 12, they play Castoro Cellars (doors at 6, show at 7 p.m.; all ages; $20 at castorocellars.com).
“Brass Mash is a jazz band,” Dean explained. “It’s a misbehaving jazz band. I just run it how a jazz band should be run. We have proper charts and very few rehearsals. If you want good players, there’re always busy, so booking rehearsals is a nightmare. We do two rehearsals a year, approximately.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Every band member must sight-read music charts onstage. The nine piece has one drummer and one bassist, and the rest are all horn players. Who are these musicians?
“It’s always changing,” Dean explained. “We probably have like 30, 40 people in the corral.”
The one thing they all have in common is solid music training.
“Everyone kind of has their own story,” Dean said. “Sean Sullivan has been drumming with all sorts of groups. He’s the drummer for Damon Castillo, longtime drummer for Zongo All-Stars, and the original drummer for Tipsy Gypsies.
“A lot of us are music educators. Anthony Yi, who’s our lead alto player, teaches band in Santa Maria. One of his coworkers is Stephanie Douglass, who’s now one of our trumpet players. Kai Easley [trombone] was recruited. He was a Cal Poly student. He just graduated.”
Some members have day jobs that are not related to music.
“Our tenor sax player, Tim Crooks, works as Vandenberg Space Force Base. Sam Franklin, our baritone saxophone player, has been in and out of groups for years. I think he’s at Cuesta College doing internet security stuff. But he’s been semi full-time music for a while, a vagabond like the rest of us.”
Dean used to teach high school band. He, Yi, Douglass, and Brett Malta, the band’s original tuba player who’s now their soundman, write the charts.
“Everyone’s sub-able, including me, apparently,” Dean laughed. “There was one month I had COVID. There was no way around it. We had a show and the tickets were sold.”
Like many jazz bands, there is room for improvisation.
“When I write charts, a lot of charts are just top to bottom, everything’s pre-planned,” Dean explained. “But players want to blow. They want to play. They want a solo. Easily half the charts we do have solo sections involved.”
I’ll tell you a little secret for how this band seems to be so impossibly tight. They wear earbuds with a click track. They can hear when each song is supposed to begin and end. It’s like metronome only they can hear.
“It allows us, from the audience’s perspective, to do a magic trick of just starting a song, like pow! Like no one has counted us, there’re no drumstick clicks. We just start the show immediately because in our ears we hear, ‘We’re playing the first song, and one, two, three go.’ It was a COVID project. I had the time to do it. We use a program called Ableton Live, which is the industry standard.”
Because of the wide variety of popular songs from so many genres, Brass Mash is enjoying wide appeal.
“We have incredibly broad demographics,” Dean agreed. “Grandparents bring their grandkids, and they know that everyone’s going to have fun, and parents can bring their kids to show them what these instruments are. And teenagers and college students force their parents to get reservations to have all of their friends come. It’s like kind of that thing. There’s this whole cross-generational thing.”
Swampy good
I think the show I’m most excited about this week is Shinyribs at The Siren presented by Good Medicine, Numbskull, and KCBX on Wednesday, July 16 (7 p.m.; all ages; $30.59 at goodmedicinepresents.com), with Honeyson opening. Fronted by Kevin Russell of the Austin band The Gourds, the swamp funk and Southern soul band was a side project formed in 2007 that became Russell’s main project when The Gourds went on hiatus in 2013. The band’s debut album, Well After Awhile (2020), is one of the best debuts ever, and my wife and I listen to it regularly. The band’s most recent, Transit Damage (2023), is their ninth.
In press materials, Russell called it “the record I’ve been trying to make for most of my career. This is a collection of songs that relate to each other in a myriad of ways: musically, lyrically, emotionally. It’s a real throwback to the era of complete albums and draws from songs I’ve written throughout my life. I hope listeners can take the time to fully immerse themselves in the whole thing.”
The road goes on …
In 2022, when Houston-based Americana singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen played the Live Oak Music Festival, he was billing it as part of his farewell tour, so when I interviewed him, I asked him point-blank if it was true: Was he done touring?
“Yes, I am,” he told me. “On Jan. 14, [2022] I made the announcement that after 41 years of being out on the road, I was going to retire from the road life but continue in the music business and do a whole variety of things.”
Well, that announcement turns out to be the equivalent of the “Going Out of Business” sign in a furniture store, because he’s on the road again, including a stop in SLO when Good Vibez presents Robert Earl Keen at the Fremont Theater on Monday, July 14 (doors at 7, show at 8 p.m.; all ages; $50.96 to $81.86 at prekindle.com).
Hey, I’m not mad about it. He puts on a helluva show, and tickets are going fast for the artist behind classic songs such as “The Road Goes On Forever,” “I Gotta Go,” “Gringo Honeymoon,” and “Merry Christmas from the Family.”
Tribute fest
Rock ‘n’ roll is on the menu at Rod & Hammer Rock this week when the club presents two tribute acts. See Son of a Gun: A Guns N’ Roses Tribute on Friday, July 11 (doors at 7 p.m.; all ages; $27.21 at ticketweb.com). The band’s lead singer is Ari Kamin, who also sings with Guns N’ Roses’ drummer Steven Adler’s band.
(((folkYEAH!))) presents Led Zeppelin tribute act Legend Zeppelin in Rod & Hammer Rock on Saturday, July 12 (doors at 7 p.m.; all ages; $27.21 at ticketweb.com).
“Time travel with us back to the early club days of 1969/1970 for a one-of-a-kind experience of inspired and improvised contemporary blues and psychedelic rock,” the club announced.
Nostalgia fest
The Happy Together tour returns to Vina Robles Amphitheatre on Sunday, July 13 (7:30 p.m.; all ages; $65 to $100 at ticketmaster.com), with an amazing lineup of 1960s and ’70s hitmakers who racked up an impressive 55 Billboard top 40 smashes. The Turtles will serve as the evening’s musical hosts, joined by Jay and the Americans, Little Anthony, The Vogues, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap</b>, and The Cowsills.
So. Many. Shows.
Good Medicine Presents is once again behind a bunch of shows this week, starting with Jeff Livingstone at Club Car Bar on Friday, July 11 (7:30 p.m.; all ages; $12.56 at goodmedicinepresents.com), with Emilee Morrison opening. Livingstone plays nostalgic country, rock, and blues covers as well as his original Americana music.
Good Medicine, Numbskull, and KCBX present The Original Wailers featuring Al Anderson at Santa Maria’s Presqu’ile Winery on Friday, July 11 (doors at 6, show at 7 p.m.; all ages; $41.92 at goodmedicinepresents.com), with Resination opening.
“In 1974 when Bob Marley went solo, on the brink of international stardom, he surprised the music community by choosing an American-born lead guitarist, Al Anderson,” The Wailers’ bio explained. “It was Anderson’s stunning lead work on such classics as ‘No Woman, No Cry,’ and ‘Three O’Clock Roadblock’ that first alerted rock fans to the Wailers’ music.”
Good Medicine and Numbskull present Minneapolis singer-songwriter Mason Jennings at The Siren on Saturday, July 12 (7 p.m.; 21-and-older; $30.08 at goodmedicinepresents.com). He’s touring in support of his newest album, Holy Dive (2024), and he’s also got a side projected called Painted Shield with Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard.
Limp Bizkit tribute act Pimp Bizkit plays Club Car Bar on Saturday, July 12 (8 p.m.; all ages; $19.78 at goodmedicinepresents.com). I expect you’ll hear hits like “Break Stuff,” “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle),” and “My Way.”
LA punk rock heroes Youth Brigade hit Club Car Bar on Sunday, July 13 (7 p.m.; all ages; $24.41 at goodmedicinepresents.com), with Left Alone and Bullshit Detector opening. Brothers Shawn, Mark, and Adam Stern formed Youth Brigade in 1980 and went on to create BYO Records in 1982.
Also in The Siren …
\In addition to the aforementioned shows, Morro Bay’s best night club also hosts Green Day tribute act Not.Greenday on Friday, July 11 (7:30 p.m.; 21-and-older; $18.48 at tixr.com). Expect the hits as well as deep cuts off all the pop punk legends’ catalog.
Jamaican vocal harmony group The Meditations play on Thursday, July 17 (7 p.m.; 21-and-older; $24.30 at tixr.com), currently featuring founding member Ansel Cridland with Danny Clarke and Winston Watson. Formed in 1974, their first hit single, “Woman is Like a Shadow,” was recorded at the famed Channel One Recording Studio. Their most recent album is The Meditations and Friends Smile Again, from 2021.
Mark your calendar
On Sunday, July 20, singer-songwriter Craig Nuttycombe will present a listening party for his new album, Limestone Wizard, at The Bunker (810 Orcutt Road, SLO; doors at 2:30. Listen at 3 p.m.; all ages; $20 presale at my805tix.com includes a complimentary CD). Album producer Damon Castillo will join Nuttycombe as you listen to the music together and hear from Nuttycombe and Castillo about how the album was created. Look for an interview with Nuttycombe in next week’s edition.
Contact Arts Editor Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jul 10-20, 2025.