Kashmere Stage Band

My wife always mocks me when she finds me watching U-17 US Youth National Team games. She usually says something like, "Do you understand you are sitting there watching players who are about as old as the kids across the street?" Yes. It's true. I will watch teenagers play soccer if they are good.

And now, due to the Kashmere High School Stage Band, I can say that I'll even listen to high school bands if they are good enough. Analog Giant turned me onto these guys last month and I've been quite grateful ever since.

Here's the story...in 1967, the music director of Kashmere High School went to an Otis Redding concert. The guy was so inspired by what he heard, he decided that the school's stage band should no longer be playing old Gershwin standards. They should be playing soul and funk.

Combine that spark of an idea with some incredibly talented kids and you have the best high school band you've ever heard. The band spent 1968-1974 crushing the competition in national school band championships. I can just imagine the scene at those competitions with the other bands ploddingly producing traditional Porgy & Bess crap while Kashmere High cranks some blistering soul. The judges must have spent the first half of their performance just trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Well, 35 years later, Stones Throw has released a two disc set of Kashmere Stage Band called Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974. Disc one is all studio recordings but the magic really shines through on the live second disc. If you like your funk with lots of brass and some nasty guitar and bass, then you've got yourself a nice prize here.

And it doesn't matter that they are only as old as the kids across the street.

Kashmere Stage Band | All Praises / Zero Point Reprise (Live) | Buy
Kashmere Stage Band | Do You Dig It, Man? (Live) | Buy
Kashmere Stage Band | Ain't No Sunshine (Live) | Buy