Mickey Hart announced the formation of his new band August, and is making an appearance Tuesday, Dec. 6 at The Compound Grill in downtown Phoenix.
Deadheads in the valley will be pleased to hear that Hart, one of the Grateful Dead’s famous percussionists, will be playing in the area.
Hart played with the Grateful Dead from 1967 to 1971 and hasn’t stopped playing music since. In 1991, he took the Grammy for Best World Music Album for his drum project titled “Planet Drum.”
The album stayed No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 list for 26 weeks. In 2007, he completed his Global Drum Project with Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju and Giovanni Hidalgo. The album that followed suit stole the 2007 Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album.
Hart has since been in the studio recording his next album, which he plans to release in the spring of 2012. Hart has long been fascinated with astronomy and the formation of the universe has apparently been his muse for composing this album.
“For the last two or three years I've been sampling light waves from the cosmos, starting 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang,” he said in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“The signals come from radio telescopes around the world and I work closely with NASA to take the light waves and bring it into our limited spectrum of hearing. Then I add a little spice to them with some reverb and some delay. It makes for a hot little stew,” he said.
The Mickey Hart Band is jam-packed with promising talent. The group features vocalists Crystal Monee Hall and Tim Hockenberry, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Ian “Inx” Herman, guitarist Gawain Matthews, percussionist Adepoju and keyboardist Ben Yonas.
One can hardly expect anything less than groovy from a past Grateful Dead member’s new project — especially one with a discography as sterling as Hart’s.
All of the proceeds from ticket sales on Hart’s website will go to music therapy research. Tickets are priced at $32. The show begins at 8 p.m. at The Compound Grill in Phoenix.
Calling all Deadheads: Mickey Hart is still kicking and still jamming. Expect some Grateful Dead covers and some of Hart’s original, Grammy-winning material.
Reach the reporter at jocelyn.gee@asu.edu
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