(Above)
Rocking the Toyota lot! (July 30, 2005)
THE MODERN
RHYTHM
BAND
High energy
blues-swing-rock party music since 1982!
The
band
started
as The Modern Rhythm and Blues Quartet. Then it became The Modern
Rhythm
and Blues Quintet. Two guys left and it was The Modern Rhythm and Blues
Trio. So many players came and went that it was simply easier to call
the
band Modern Rhythm!
Sign the band's guestbook by
clicking on the hard-to-see link below:
View/Sign
Guestbook
Free
Guestbook
Clockwise from top left
(Click images for links) :
Don
Story
:
Lead guitar and lead vocals. During 2000 and
2001, Don toured the world
with Johnny Winter.
Dave
Stanger : Lead vocals/Garth Brooks impersonator. Dave also sings
with The Greasy Petes.
Jack
Pinney : Drums. Jack played drums
in the original Iron Butterfly, Glory, The Shames, and The Jacks.
Paul Kater, M.D. : Conga, Cowbell, Maracas,
Tambourine, Shaker and Whistle.
He's
a physician.
Jim
McInnes :
Rhythm
guitar. He's a radio
newsman on 760KFMB in San Diego.
John Gunderson : Bass guitar
and lead vocals; With Don Story,
John co-founded the band in 1982.
Andy
Vereen :
Rhythm guitar and lead vocals; Songwriter
extraordinaire...Andy fronted Burning Bridges.
Associates
: Jerry Raney (Guitar); Joey Harris (Guitar); Steve Wilcox (Guitar);
Andy LeBarron (Harmonica.)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Modern
Rhythm have played well over 450 gigs, including:
The Balboa Park Millennium Bash (New Year's Eve 1999);
Sea World (2002);
Skyshow (1999-2002);
Street
Scene (2001, 2002);
Adams Avenue
Street Fair (2003-04);
The OMBAC Beach Party (2000-2005);
San Diego Festival of Beers (2000);
Oktoberfest in The Gaslamp (1999);
Blues Bash (2000, 2001, 2004);
Earth Fair (2000-2001);
and Toyota of Escondido's First Annual Luau (2005).
The guys have played many San Diego nightspots, including:
Humphrey's Backstage; Blind
Melon's; Dick's Last Resort; 4th and B; The Cannibal
Bar;
The Ould Sod; Etta's Place; The Belly Up Tavern; Rosie O'Grady's; The
Tiki; and a few sh*tholes whose names they can't recall.
They have appeared with Paul Revere
and
the Raiders, The Platters,
Flogging Molly,
The Beat Farmers, The Paladins, Earl Thomas, Tim
Flannery, Buddy Blue, The Soul Persuaders, Rockola, Four Eyes and The
Classic Rock
All-Stars,
to name just a few.
Modern
Rhythm's
eclectic playlist includes more than 100 songs, including:
The Thrill is Gone (B.B. King)
Shake For Me (Howlin' Wolf)
Runaway (Modern
Rhythm)
Have
You Ever Loved a Woman (Billy Myles)
T-Bone
Boogie (T-Bone Walker)
Vasco
(Modern Rhythm)
I'm
Cryin' (Price/Burdon)
Pride and Joy (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
I
Want My Mommy (Modern Rhythm)
Cold
Sweat (James Brown)
Livin' it Down (Delbert McClinton)
Trouble (Modern Rhythm)
Uranium
Rock (Warren Smith)
Just
Like a Woman (B. B. King)
Tears Fall (Modern Rhythm)
Riding
With the King (John Hiatt)
(I Know) I'm Losing You
(Whitfield/Holland/Grant)
...and 85 others!
*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
We currently have two tunes
that you can listen to/download (click on
each
title and be prepared to wait for up to a minute or so for the player
to
arrive...at least it takes that long on Jim's 6-year old Pentium III
computer.)
1.) Vasco
This is our big "hit" in Italy, due to hundreds of downloads.
2.) Fried
Chicken
This song appeared on "Homegrown
'84," the last of KGB's
"Homegrown" album series.
******************************************************************************************************************************************
THE PRESS RAVES!
In the April
22,
2004 edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune, the late Buddy Blue wrote...
Modern
Rhythm: Rhythm aces, and more.
You also
might wanna hit up Hump's the night before Roy Gaines grazin' to check
out one of San Diego's most underrated and long-running local acts,
Modern Rhythm. Since adding veteran local DJ Jim McInnes to the fold
several years back, the band has perhaps become best known as JM's
musical muse. This is unfortunate, as there's deep history and talent
in this lineup that deserves wider props (hey Jimbo, forgive me but you
know it's time yer boys got some love).
Frontman
and Garth Brooks look-alike Dave Stanger is a powerhouse, world-class
blue-eyed soul belter. Guitarist-vocalist Andy Vereen was braintrust of
San Diego's wonderful world-beat mainstay, Burning Bridges. Guitarist
extraordinaire – among San Diego's all-time best, I daresay – Don Story
was also with Burning Bridges, as well as local punk pioneers Claude
Coma & the I.V.s, a group that also featured chooglin' Modern
Rhythm bassist-vocalist John Gunderson. Finally, drummer Jack Pinney
was a founding member of Iron Butterfly as well as such local acts as
Glory, Jerry Raney & the Shames and the Jacks (which, in the
interest of full disclosure, I need to mention that I was also a member
of, back in the 1980s).
Oh yeah,
McInnes picks some guitar in MR, too, which he's more than happy to
talk up on his radio gig. In short, this is some kinda San Diego
supergroup.
Modern Rhythm's sound is classic,
heavy blues and R&B-based rock 'n' roll, danceable as all getout
and performed with oodles o' enthusiasm. Don't let the fact that
they're funny-lookin' old guys (well, except studly Stanger) deter you
from their myriad musical merits.
*************************************************************************************************************
(Above) This shot of
the naked brothers
in the band is really a doctored photo of the inside cover of the
Allman Brothers Band's 1969 debut album!
(Photo
mods done with primitive technology by Jim McInnes in 1999)
**************************************************************************************************************
Modern
Rhythm's next gig will be:
Sometime in the
future!
