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Pasadena Weekly, Thursday September 20, 2001
By Bliss
Life goes on. Forever, irrevocably alterered, true, but its cycles still roll forward. For that, give a joyful shout.
E-mail boxes have been overflowing with cancellations of theatrical and musical performances out of respect for the victims of the Sept. 11 atrocities in new York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It would have the unseemly appearance of dancing on victim's graves to go to booty shaking the night after their untimely murders.
Yet if music is anything, it's a sign and celebration of life that still pulses through the survivors.
Singer/guitarist Joe Gorman, a native Pasadenan who moved to San Francisco four years ago, has been contemplating these issues. He and his five bandmates from Second Set, a Bay area jam/dance band, were scheduled to play the West End in Santa Monica last Thursday, but those plans were scuttled by world events.
They are however, piling into their completely customized, used sheriff's van (sans bars and shackles) and driving here to move the masses at Old Towne Pub tonight-and, hopefully, a few hearts.
Ordinarily, the dominant theme of Second Set's music is "get up out of your seat and dance," per Gorman. There's a happy, funky vibe bubbling through numbers like Myla and New Orleans that Gorman, the band's chief songwriter, credits to his love affair with the Crescent City's annual Jazz Fest.
"I really enjoy the feel of going to see live music in New Orleans," he says. "There's a town where people always go to see live music. I was trying to channel that feel through a lot of our music and our show, just the energy."
With a dynamic sound strongly reminiscent of early Dave Matthews Band, Second Set appeals to the twentysomething happy-hour crowd that's into Ben Harper, Phish, and Widespread Panic -- all heavy influences, as was avowed hero Matthews, on Gorman. The band's lengthy guitar and keyboard solos and stimulating rather than self-indulgent, the rhythms insistent, and the music just plain fun. But last Friday Gorman experienced a "sudden burst of creativity" and found himself writing songs inspired by Sept 11's losses.
"I'm definitely seeing some themes of love," he says. "I think that the [band's] energy will change; I don't know if we'll be able to do [these] songs as soon as we'll want to, but there's definitely a more passionate element that's going on right now."
Second Set will be at Old Towne Pub, 66 N Fair Oaks Ave, Pasadena, tonight Thursday September 20. For information, call (626) 577-6583, or visit www.2ndset.net.