Marin band is poised to attain national prominence.
Midnight North, with rock royalty roots, charts own way to success
This is not your parents’ jam band. In fact, Midnight North isn’t a jam band at all. But they’ll be hard pressed to avoid being viewed as one, having emerged from the fertile Marin County scene centered around Terrapin Crossroads, the restaurant, nightclub and concert venue founded by Phil and Jill Lesh of Grateful Dead fame.
The club was originally envisioned as a gift to music fans of central Marin and a place for Phil to perform as he began cutting back on touring after decades on the road. It has since grown into an incubator for up-and-coming North Bay talent. Numerous local acts have benefited from this arrangement, but none more than Midnight North, who play the Great American Music Hall on Friday, Nov. 3.
The San Francisco show is the final stop in a busy summer of touring highlighted by an appearance at this year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. The old hippies have passed the torch to the next generation and Midnight North is poised to attain national prominence.
Guitarist and singer-songwriter — and Phil and Jill’s son — Grahame Lesh and bassist Connor O’Sullivan founded Midnight North in early 2012, enlisting guitarist, pianist and singer-songwriter Elliott Peck to round out the original lineup. Terrapin, having opened a year earlier, became the band’s headquarters.
“We had a weekly residency where we were able to try out new material in front of a live audience, which helped to vastly accelerate the development of our live show,” says Peck.
Then in late 2013, guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist Alex Jordan signed on, bringing the third voice to Midnight North’s signature sound.
“The music that we all came together around initially was artists like Graham Parsons and Emmylou Harris. Material that touches on the jam scene, but only in a sideways
way,” says Grahame, adding that they really drew inspiration from artists like the Band and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. “When Alex joined, it gave us the three-part harmonies, which are something of an underrated aspect of the Grateful Dead . ... It solidified our sound and has become something we focus more and more on.”
While the musicians don’t think of themselves as a jam band, neither do they eschew that or any other label to describe them, preferring rather to embrace their improvisational rock lineage while also drawing from the spectrum of Americana idioms. They also recognize that their tight affiliation with Grateful Dead royalty could be a double-edged sword.
“The opportunities that we’re afforded to jam with people and have mentors that we might not have otherwise had access to is amazing, and we take full advantage of that,” says O’Sullivan. “The only downside, if it is a downside, is that there are some who come to our shows and expect us to be a Grateful Dead cover band or play a lot of that material.”
Midnight North’s 2017 release, “Under the Lights,” emphasizes concise songwriting and arrangements that showcase the band’s vocals and harmonies. But in a live setting, the songs are often expanded to allow for spontaneity and improvisation.
“We put what I call ‘escape valves’ in the songs,” Grahame says, “where we can extend them and jam if we’re playing live and it feels like the right move at the time, but may not be most appropriate for the studio version of the song.”
“We’re not trying to re-create the same 75minute package night after night. We’re trying to create a new show every time,” adds O’Sullivan. “We want to maintain the same energy and level of quality, but no show is identical to another.”
Versatility must be in the job description, with three of the four members credited as multiinstrumentalists and the fourth, O’Sullivan, taking producer credit for the band’s recorded work as well as managing its website. Offstage, Grahame is the band’s baseball aficionado, Peck takes pride in being able to execute “a pretty wicked handstand,” and Jordan “moonlights” as a Hammond organ repairman, often mending the house organ at venues large and small for the band’s gigs.
For Friday’s show, the band plans to focus on material from “Under the Lights,” welcoming back the North Bound Horns who appear on the record. The bandmates also hint at possible guest appearances by members of the Terrapin family — possibly welcoming some with similar last names to artists in the band. And perhaps a few handstands?
Joshua Zucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jzucker@sfchronicle.com