With a severe ice storm looming, Sean and Ryan drove to Des Moines from Ames armed with a guitar, a bongo and couple of cars full of fans of their newly formed Sean St. John Band. Every single one of them was ready to take advantage of the Mars drink specials and warm up with some good music.
I felt like this night was a special night for music as almost half a world away, Led Zeppelin was finishing up their first live set of music in over 20 years. So I started the night off with a number of Zeppelin songs to pay homage to the greatest rock band, ever.
The night of music was kind of all over the place from there, neither one of the guys had a record collection to bring down so I was happy to have the opportunity to show off some my own. Plus I had the added bonus of introducing them to some artists that they had never heard of such as The Mountain Goats, and I was surprised to hear that they had never heard Morrison Hotel before, so I had to crank up some “Peace Frog”.
Here is some of the rest of what we played…
Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti The White Stripes – Icky Thump The Mountain Goats – Get Lonely Decemberists – Castaways & Cutouts Weezer – Blue Album The National – Alligator The Doors – Morrison Hotel
The Sean St. John band is pretty new to the music scene; with a sound heavily influenced by the Dave Matthews Band, their blend of acoustic pop/rock probably fits in perfectly with the college atmosphere of Ames and it worked well in a similar setting near Drake.
These guys have as much to learn about the music scene as we do about them, although they've found a friend in Parker Griggs of Radio Moscow, who plays on their demo. I found out a little bit more during the interview, but I’ m anxious to see how they will develop as they move forward in Iowa’s growing scene. You can find out for yourself by downloading the interview and performance right now.
