moon hooch live review

Lost In ‘Cave Music’ | Moon Hooch Live Review | The Social Orlando | April 30, 2015

by • April 10, 2015

So we walked into The Social and immediately were immersed in the experience of the room.  The. Place. Was. BUMPIN!

Moon Hooch is a band that consists of two saxophone players and a drummer/percussionist. They masterfully guided the vibe of the room and subjected it to their whim. Wenzl McGowen used contrabass clarinet and baritone saxophone to create wind-driven dancey bass rhythms reminiscent of house/dub step.  He would also sometimes add an extension of stacked up traffic cones to his piece to create absurdly low, bowel-shaking tones.

Mike Wilbur, on tenor saxophone and vocals (that were sometimes sung or sometimes rapped), created lead melodies that easily filled instrumental positions that would traditionally be held by guitar or synth.  Both had some type of tiny synth trigger in front of them that they would occasionally create additional soundscapes with.  Then, there was James Muschler on percussion.

Now, I was at the show with Mitch Foster, and, both of us being long-time drummers, we agreed that James was simply not human.  His hands and feet seemed to be moving with Flash-like speed, completely independent of the rest of his body.  This guy was clearly on his own level, and that level was not here on Earth.

In 2006 I unwittingly saw Battles on the same stage.  My experience that night was the first time a band caught me this off-guard through the way they hit me musically.  They were doing their own thing, and it was not being done by anyone else. It was mind-blowing.  I had no idea who they were or what they did, and experiencing them live for the first time legitimately changed me as a musician. Moon Hooch is the first band since then to have the same blindsiding, existential impression on me and I go to a lot of shows.  A lot.

Now while the venue wasn’t packed, it was certainly not empty.  The entire pit in front of the stage was flush.  Men and women of all ages and nationalities were front and center, jumping and dancing like no one was watching.  I saw one guy who looked like a 40-something Eastern Indian IT guy, thick-rimmed glasses and all, right in front of the stage and was just bouncing away like he was at a House of Pain show in 1993.  Dudes, chicks, young and old, all of them were gettin’ down.  Their live energy was so infectious that no matter how hard anyone in the room tried, they could not resist dancing.

I’ve since learned that the band met when they were all studying at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City.  They began busking on Subway platforms in New York and “whipped up furious, impromptu raves. This happened with such regularity at the Bedford Ave station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that the band was banned from playing there by the NYPD.”  They were so good live, in fact, that Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty saw them and got them signed and they have since toured with acts like They Might Be Giants, Lotus, and Galactic.

Their unique sound, which they have given the moniker of “Cave Music,” is so organically dance-oriented that no one can really argue with the label.  And why would they? I don’t care what kind of music you normally listen to or what type of artists you tend to see live. If you get a chance to see Moon Hooch, do yourself a favor and go dance your brains out.

Check out the actual set from the show. Recorded by The Sober Goat Productions. 🙂

Moon Hooch Live Review by Josh Jauz.


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