Mingo News / Blog

Delbert McClinton's SBC18

2012-01-21T18:42:00.015-06:00

It’s always hard to explain Delbert McClinton’s SBC to someone who hasn’t gone. Basically, it’s a 7 day, floating festival with a couple thousand of your best friends. It’s grabbing some freshly tossed fettuccini (or more likely a bowl of ice cream) with Spooner Oldham, who, amongst many other classic soul recordings, played Wurli on Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man” and then went on to write “Sweet Inspiration” with Dan Penn. Good Lord.

Spooner Oldham, Donnie Fritz, Rog

It’s sitting like a kindergartener while some of the most revered and respected songwriters in the business share war stories. It’s finding salvation on the Lido Deck while the McCrary Sisters blend gospel, funk, soul and rock into a concoction too hot for the Devil his own damned self. It is one of the coolest things Mingo gets to do. And we’ve been lucky enough to do it 8 times. Starting with the pre-cruise party in Ft. Lauderdale it’s like we never left the dock the year before; right back into the swing of it. The parameters of excess get stretched past their theoretical limits and the party, literally, never stops.

And so it was again this year. An amazing week of music with the likes of Delbert McClinton, Marcia Ball, Paul Thorn, Seth Walker, Eric Lindell, Clay McClinton, the McCrary Sisters, Raul Malo, Teresa James, Fred Eaglesmith, Gary Nicholson, Lee Roy Parnell, Spooner Oldham, Donnie Fritts, Al Anderson, Chuck Cannon, Lari White, Jill Sobule, Danny Flowers, Jimmy Hall, Tom Hambridge, Bob DiPiero, Matraca Berg, Herman Matthews, Mike Zito, Debra Donkin and another couple dozen fantastic musicians, singers and songwriters. Don’t know a name? Start Googling.
It’s freakin’ impressive.

This year we left Fort Lauderdale on the MS Westerdam with her amazing crew (seriously, these folks are the business) and made port in St. Barts and St. Kitts. And while they were both gorgeous, honestly I’m always just anxious to get back on the ship so we can crank up the music again. For Mingo’s first show this year we were actually still anchored in St. Barts, which was a first. We did our thing with paradise as our backdrop while the sun set. It just doesn’t get better than that.

McCrary Sisters, Rog

The shows start at noon and go until…well, until whenever. The two main stages close down around 12:30am or so and then the jam sessions kick up. And there were probably at least three simultaneous jams going on every night this year! A couple years ago with the help of the unbelievable Foy Vance from Belfast, the Piano Bar became an after hours venue (“Come on. We’re having a sing-song.”) This year, a couple singer songwriter friends of the band, Brian Dunne and Dave Sher, brought their talents to that sacred forum and KILLED! Dave was kind enough to join Mingo on a couple of our shows as well, playing some of the most brilliant guitar ever.

McCrary Sisters, Rog, Dave Scher - Yes We Can!

It’s this crazy situation where we watch these great artists & incredible shows and we get psyched up to do our set and push the bar and on and on it goes…’til we had Mingo Augmented: five horns, two percussionists, the McCrary sisters, and Dave Sher on guitar – pumping out Allen Toussaint’s “Yes We Can Can,” which we had never played ‘til that moment. That’s pretty cool, y’all.

The weather was order made, the music was great, the people were kind and amazing. We are honored to have been a part of it once again. Thanks to Delbert and Wendy and our SBC family.

You have to do this. Don’t wait. Trust me.

See more pictures from SBC18 - Click Here

NEW YEARS EVE SHOW 2011!

2011-12-23T00:45:00.000-06:00

"Mingo will be ringing in 2012 once again at San Antonio's premier live music venue, Sam's Burger Joint. We welcomed 2011 at Sam's and had such a blast we're headed back for a funky, soulful New Year's Eve throwdown. Tickets are only $15 in advance, $20 at the door! Let's do it up right, y'all!

BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE HERE!

Aug./Sept. Shows, Studio and Earth, Wind & Fire

2011-09-30T13:11:00.055-05:00

@ Memphis Shell - photo by Don May

It's been a busy couple months here in Mingotownfieldville... A few thousand miles worth of shows in August led us to TN, PA, NY, VA, NC, NJ, ME and back to Tejas. Awesome to see old friends and so many new faces joining the party! September has seen some fantastic shows: here in Austin, the legendary Levitt Shell in Memphis, another show in Nashvegas and topping it off with our first show ever for the Big Spring Jam in Alabama...opening for EARTH WIND & FIRE!

Warming up the crowd for EWF!

In between shows we spent a few days at The Lodge recording studio in northern Mississippi. Did we mention the studio is located inside of TishoMINGO County? Hmm..

click for more pics

We recorded half a dozen tunes in 3 days and shot the whole session in gorgeous high definition video courtesy of our good friends at Palmtree Productions. We can't thank Anne and Jason Palmer and the crazy talented crew from Palmtree enough for helping us to capture our time in my home state. Thanks to David Duncan and William Coats at The Lodge for letting us camp out and have a blast! And very special thanks to our friend Michael Graham of the Paul Thorn Band (and a top notch engineer in his own right) for the tasty gear and for lending us his golden ears for a couple days!

click for more pics

Anne & Jason also made it out to Big Spring Jam in Huntsville last week to shoot some of our opening set for EWF. It was truly an honor to warm up the crowd for such a legendary group...and their show was NUTS!

click for more pics

We're sorting through hours and hours of footage and hope to have a little taste of things to come before too long.

As always, thanks so much for your support, sincerely - you guys rock!

Stay tuned to www.mingofishtrap.com and www.facebook.com/mingofishtrap
in the weeks ahead for some goodies...

~ Rog & Mingo Fishtrap
Again, our heartfelt thanks go out to the entire Palmtree Production Crew for doing such an excellent job in such a short time! Thank you Thank you THANK you Anne Palmer, Jason Palmer, Derek Courtright, Ken Calloway, Wes Wages & Laurie White.

The Palmtree Production Crew, William Coats and Mingo Fishtrap.
Click pic for full photo album

TN shows and Musikfest 2011 and more..

2011-08-12T22:33:00.022-05:00

Dane in Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel Lobby

We've had an incredible run so far this August with incredible turn-outs!
Starting off this half of the summer touring schedule in Chattanooga, TN we have to give many thanks to all the crew at Nightfall and the 3000+ folks that came out to that show!

Read a couple interviews about the show online at
TIMESFREEPRESS.COM and at NOOGA.COM.

The Van, Moby IV, backstage Steelstax.

We back-tracked to Nashville for another performance at Bourbon Street Boogie & Blues before heading on up to Bethlehem, PA for Musikfest to play 2 shows, the first of which was at the brand new Steelstax Levitt Pavilion! (8/10/2011)
Folks, this is one of the coolest stages and settings we have ever played.

Steelstax, Bethlehem, PA

Check out some of these photos below and read more about
Steelstax in Bethlehem, PA HERE.

Chip, Pops, Dane & crew at Steelstax Levitt Pavilion

Our second show, the next night (8/11/2011) was a traditional Musikfest, in-yo-face sweaty good time in one of the Musikfest tents.

Read an interview on The Morning Call, HERE.

Coming up tomorrow (Sat. 8/13/2011) we are headed to Charlottesville, VA for our 2nd time performing at the fabulous Jefferson Theater and then our first time ever at Papa Mojoe's in Durham, NC.

As always, endless thanks to all of you who came out and supported the band on our tour so far! Tell all your friends that are in our tour path to come on out and shake it with us!

Go check out our Tour schedule HERE.

New photo gallery

2011-07-14T00:39:00.000-05:00

We just posted a new photo gallery from our show at
The Levitt Pavilion, Arlington, TX on July 2, 2011.

Many thanks to our good friend, Robert Rozell, for taking these photos for us!
www.robertwrozell.com

Take a look for yourself here!

june leg: music, viddles and pavement

2011-06-27T22:02:00.013-05:00

Well, the mercury is edging its way towards new heights once again, which means Mingo straps in for 5 or 6 or 7 thousand miles around these United States…

The first leg of Summer touring for 2011 kicked off in what, technically, was still Spring. A return to the Olathe Summer Concert Series outside Kansas City got us off and running. Lovely to see old friends from KC and meet so many new folks from all around the Great Plains! The weather was much kinder than the last stop at the series, when it was topping out at 105º! Beautiful night and good peeps!

We made sure to hit Gates BBQ before the state line for some burnt ends bandwiches. A little fatty this time around, but we’ll let it slide… “HI. MAY I HELP YOU?”

We made our way to Des Moines, IA for the first ever Mingo show there. Many thanks to Big Red Dog Music and Brian Holtz & Ron Sorenson at 99.1 KFMG! Dane’s Leslie stopped wanting to switch to “slow” in Des Moines, and I’m pretty sure Hotel Fort Des Moines was haunted – but in a good way.

From Iowa, it was off to Chicago. Holy pizza coma, Batman. Got asked to come down to Buddy Guy’s Legends Monday night jam session with Jimmy Burns. Not usual for a whole band to come do their thing, so a thousand thanks to Jimmy and the standing-room only crowd. Oh, and of course the Real Deal himself, the fantastic Mr. Buddy Guy, was in the house! How cool is that?!? It’s pretty cool, that’s how… We had a day off for some train riding and sight seeing, pizza eating and beer drinking. Can’t wait to get back to Chi-town!

Bill Straub, Chip, Kevin Eubanks, Steve, Dan, Roger

After a visit to Niagara Falls, we made a beeline for The Rochester International Jazz Festival in beautiful downtown Rochester, NY. Beautiful architecture and a killer diner just a couple blocks from the hotel! Yeah! Home to the prestigious Eastman School of Music, Rochester has itself a HUGE festival in RIJF. The talent was impressive, and it’s worth noting that while there are a lot of “jazz festivals” out there, this one actually had a healthy dose of its namesake. Every night, jam sessions broke out in the hotel lobby with some very serious cats doing their thing. We got to make the acquaintance of Kevin Eubanks (formerly of Jay Leno) and his amazing band, as well as Will Lee (of the CBS Orchestra), acclaimed bassist and all around badass musician.

Mingo’s first show at the festival was nothing short of crazy. The band was pumped and it was rocking set. Rumor has it that the crowd set some records, and I can believe it – deafening!

International Jazz Festival, Rochester, NY

The second night, we moved into the Verizon Big Tent and delivered two shows to capacity crowds. Our Eastman-grad friend Bill Straub joined us on stage for a killer solo on "Jangle When I Walk". We can’t thank the festival and John Nugent enough for having us!

Back in the van and a detour to DE. One of the cool things about touring out east is getting to visit with the V’s, Chip’s family. Mama V & Wrangler Pete have graciously taken us in time after time. After thousand of miles in a van with eight guys and mostly truck stop fare, a couple days at the V’s is always greatly anticipated. Some home cooked deliciousness and spirit-fueled, Extreme Croquet were a welcome respite from travel days. Thanks as always to our Delawarian family!

Leaving the home of tax-free shopping behind, we made our way down through VA and towards our next show in Nashville; a return to Bourbon Street Blues & Boogie. We hit some nasty weather in TN, had to pull the rig over several times due to hurricane force winds and machine gun-like hail. A side note: when truckers are pulling off, get your butt off the highway! The nasty stuff stuck around a good part of the day and finally cleared out a bit as we made it into the city that night. This was our second time in Nashville and I gotta say, I think we like it! Hehe…We’ve got so many good friends there nowadays, the vibe is cool and laid back. Many of our musician friends were in the house, which always ups the ante! We played an early show and had time for a quick cocktail and a few songs from Stacy Mitchhart before we had to skeedaddle and get a bit of rest before the haul to St. Louis.

The Gramophone, St. Louis, MO

We hadn’t been to The Lou in a couple years, so it was great to add The Gramophone date to the schedule. Very cool place and a happening roster. The Gramophone has a bit of a juke joint vibe and apparently some serious soul food at Sweetie Pie’s across the street, which we will most definitely be partaking of next time. We slipped onto the bill with Eric Lindell, who we’ll be seeing again on Delbert McClinton’s Sandy Beaches Cruise in January. Eric and the band were great guys and took the stage to an adoring crowd. We will definitely be back at The Gramophone, so all you folks in the shadow of the Arch, keep checking the Mingo site for a return! A big shout out to John and Eli!

The next day brought a fairly sketchy drive on I-70 back to KS for a show at Uncle Bo’s in Topeka. We skirted the darkest clouds by the hair on our collective chins and called it “safe” as we slid into town. A full house for the show and a good night’s sleep led to breakfast in the atrium. Apparently, there was a junior high girl’s volleyball tournament or something – and they were all staying at our hotel. That’s a lot of high-pitched school spirit. It was every man for himself at the buffet, and though they were a formidable opponent, never get between a band and the bacon. With the day’s swine quota met, we aimed the old grey mare towards home.

Dan Mochica has been a part of the Denton music scene for decades and a part of the Mingo story for many years now. First, at Dan’s Bar and these days at Dan’s Silverleaf. A touch of nostalgia and far too many Fuzzy’s Tacos are part of the equation when we’re back in Denton, TX, where the band was formed originally. Thanks to all the folks who came out and to Dan for continuing to give us a home in Little D!

After the Denton show, we hightailed it back home to Austin for the sleep of the dead.

July sees the band mostly in TX, with shows at the Levitt Pavilion in Arlington and 4^th of July at The Woodlands. The 8^th we return to the Bass Hall’s McDavid Studio in Fort Worth & on the 16th one of our favorite TX joints, Sam’s in San Antonio. The 22nd we'll be at Threadill's in Austin.

We’ll be back on the road in August, so click the tour schedule and keep checking in, as we’re adding dates weekly to that run!

Lunch.

Endless thanks to all of you who came out and supported the band, we hope to see you again soon!

~ rog

FREE MP3s!!!

2011-05-31T07:36:00.011-05:00

Welcome to the new Mingo site! We're stoked about the new web digs and being better able to keep y'all up-to-date with what's happening in Mingo-land. The reworked & revamped site makes our online world much more of a two-way conversation, making it easy to "like" and "share" elements of the site directly to Facebook, Twitter or whatever social media you call home these days. So spread the love and the word and get involved! If you haven't signed up on the mailing list, click the link over on the left there and keep in touch with new releases, tour dates and all things...Mingoish.

To commemorate the new site and kick off the summer touring, we're offering up two free downloads from our limited release CD, "In the Meantime":

"Reverend McCarty's BBQ Shack" - DOWNLOAD MP3 HERE!

"Without Question LIVE" - DOWNLOAD MP3 HERE!

Thanks for the continued support; you guys are amazing! We'll be sure to bring you news and pics from the road and hope to see y'all out there!

Mingo in Relix Magazine!

2011-05-28T14:30:00.009-05:00

Mingo is happy to announce a couple mentions in the latest Relix Magazine issue. We've also been included on the issue's sampler CD with an exclusive track, "Born Without a Heart" off the upcoming Mingo CD. On stands now, or visit relix.com!

www.relix.com

DOWN TO THE WIRE

2011-05-27T21:45:00.005-05:00

Hey gang! Welcome to the new site. Take a minute to click around and check out our new official home on the web. Lots of stuff has been going on in Mingo-land, including a couple days in the studio at Stuart Sullivan's Wire Recording in Austin, TX.

Stuart is a renowned engineer and producer with too many credits to list, but you've very likely heard his handiwork - Sublime, The Refreshments, Jimmie Vaughan, The Reverend Horton Heat & Little Joe y La Familia to name just a few. Stuart opened the doors to Wire in 2001 and the studio and the man have remained in demand ever since.

Mingo has had the luxury of owning and operating a modest studio for many years, but last fall for the first time in a long while we found ourselves without a dedicated space for making our noise travel-sized. We had a handful of new tunes to get down so before we thumbed a ride on the SBC17, so we booked a couple days with the esteemed Mr. Sullivan. The first day we had actually set aside for getting sounds and all that fairly mundane stuff. As it turns out, Stuart and his team work fast and we were up and tracking in a matter of a few hours. Vintage API console, mountains of amazing outboard gear, not to mention a select collection of guitars, one of the best sounding pianos you've ever heard, and plenty of other musical distractions to keep us occupied.

Stuart was great to work with; a funny, down to earth, audiophile freak. He doesn't BS and that's worth the price of admission alone. He actually listens carefully to what you have to say and, when appropriate, let's you know you're full of s*&t! I like that. He's knows his gear and

he hears ALL. Mingo is eight pieces and we like to record together. That's a tall order. Physically a lot of mics and whatnot, and getting everyone to the point where they can comfortably make music isn't easy. To get that done at all is a feat. To get that done AND have everyone be happy with playback is just shy of a miracle.

A big thanks to Stuart and his staff. We're looking forward to doing it again soon. You'll hear some of the fruits of that particular labor of love on the new Mingo album.

Peace & Chicken Grease,

rog