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Groove Jones Interview: Time with Rod Goelz: Unmetered Groove (Part 1)

Groove Jones Interview: Time with Rod Goelz: Unmetered Groove

by Red Writing Hood for Scrapplehead, March 2010

Groove Jones: First Time

I remember the first time I saw Groove Jones extremely well. It was a First

Friday, and I had just enjoyed a great early SanSoucie/Carn gig at what is

now Bistro 19 (then, it was MB's). Hmmm...not even midnight...had heard a

lot about some Groove Jones band that does First Fridays. Home or check-out

this Groove Jones thing? Okay, it's ½ block away; if they Likert below a 3,

I leave with very little lost. So, I walked to what was then The Harp and

Fiddle and opened the door to an absolutely PACKED venue with about 1.5

million musicians on-stage. And did I mention it was PACKED? Every single

person was dancing—but the word “dancing” really understates the type of

movement that I saw, and “every person” connotes a sense of separateness.

Gettin' down to da funk as an agglomerated collective is as close as I can

come to verbalizing what I saw. And what I heard? Even given my propensity

to the verbose, there is no way to describe (regardless of the amount of

words used) what I heard that night in York. I can describe the feeling that

I had, however. In the mid-to-late 80's, I saw Fishbone for the first time

in a Harp and Fiddle-sized venue in Philadelphia. There were about the same

number of people there, as well. Music different; aesthesis same.

Both are among the most memorable, “surprise aha” music-moments I've had. I

had no idea what I was walking into on either occasion. But wow. And in my

subsequent interview-interaction-experience with Rod Goelz from Groove Jones

(below), again, I had no idea...

Note: Definitions for “groove” (e.g., Oxford American and OpenOffice.org

Writer) include words like “impression” and “imprint.” Although these are

cited as nouns (referring to physical grooves such as those on a vinyl

record into which a stylus or needle might fit), it occurred to me that when

used as verbs, “impress” and “imprint” are much more akin to my experience

with that night's “groove.”