My beautiful awesome wonderful daughter has brought me to Chicago for Lollapalooza this year. She's always been pretty awesome, but this year she has launched into astronomical awesomeness. There are about 20 bands I'm super psyched to see, and very near the top of the list is JJ Grey and MOFRO. I never thought in a million years I would get a chance to see them. Living on the Big Island of Hawaii, good shows are rare and expensive. In fact in 11 years, I would say the only show really worth mentioning is the Los Lobos concert my husband went to up in Honoka'a. But we're losing track of JJ...back to that.
I was first introduced to JJ Grey and MOFRO about 6 years ago by another super awesome person named Jaybird. At that time, they were just billed as MOFRO. Jaybird is the DJ in charge of Endless Boundaries, a radio show out of Philly that we ran on our short lived internet radio station KGKO Gecko Rock. You can check out his podcasts and other stuff here.
Jay has awesome taste in music, which usually leans toward jam band and dubstep type things, so I was really pleasantly surprised to hear JJ Grey on his show. I was immediately drawn to JJ's gravelly, funky blues infested melodies. The band is top notch, and makes ample use of slow funky organ, slide guitar, and harmonica. Rounding out the sound is a killer horn section. The best part is they sound just as good or better live as they do in the studio. JJ Grey and MOFRO are self-made, recording most of their tracks in JJ's studio at his home in Florida. Here's a pretty good 8 minute documentary about JJ.
Check out their Facebook page for tour info and other updates.
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