We're kicking off by saying loud and proud: the ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL is coming and UNCLE SHOEHORNS BIG EASY is playing — catch them Sept 19 at 9:30pm and 11:00pm and Sept 20 at 11:00am at the BILTMORE BAR AND LOUNGE in downtown Rochester. I sat down with Tony V. and we gabbed about how this 24-year-old outfit pivoted from classic rock roots into a nine-piece, horn-fueled love letter to New Orleans — think brass, soul, funk, and a whole lot of gumbo of musical influences. We talk about why they added horns a dozen years ago, how they balance covers and originals (yes, they write stuff that sounds familiar but is theirs), and why the band calls itself the “groove boosters” — they steal grooves with love, promise. I also tease some real-world nerdery about New Orleans — the food, the streetcars, hat shops — because music comes from places and places feed the music, ya know? Tickets are $15 and you can grab them at rochesterfringe.com — come see them, dance a little, and maybe fall in love with the big brass sound the way we did. If you want to stalk themonline first, hit uncleshoehorn.com or find Uncle Shoehorn on Spotify/Apple/YouTube and let us know what you think.. See you at the Fringe — they’ll bring the horns, you bring the moves (and maybe some jambalaya).

Mentioned in this episode:

Joe Bean Roasters

Visit joebeanroasters.com to get fresh roasted specialty coffee either by the bag or with a Perpetual Joy subscription!

Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just Can't Not.

This is part of our preview for the Rochester Fringe Festival, happening September 15th to the 26th in season in downtown Rochester, New York.

Go to rochesterfringe.com to get your tickets for as many events as you can possibly go to, because you definitely want to do that.

And I'm here with a guest.

Guest.

Why don't you introduce yourself?

How you doing, everybody?

My name is Tony V. From an outfit called Uncle Shoehorns, Big Easy and the New Orleans Horns.

Right in the heart of Rochester.

Great venue to go see a show like this.

So Tony, why don't you tell me a little bit about Uncle Shoehorn's Big Easy as a concept and what people should expect.

All right, well, happy to do that.

Uncle Shoehorn's Big Easy is about 24 years old and we hail out of Orange County.

It's Orange County, New York town about an hour and ten minutes outside of Manhattan.

We started life as, you know, an outfit that just five piece classic rock, blues, soul, that sort of stuff.

But about 12 or 14 years ago now we added a brass section and because we all really dug the sounds of New Orleans and we've all traveled down there, you know, extensively.

And it became sort of a.

A tribute to the best of New Orleans music.

And then anything else that has a good rock and motor on it, you know, anything with soul, we're all about it.

I mean, yeah, that's, that's such a.

It's such an interesting pivot because I'd say, you know, the style of that music one is kind of.

It kind of mimics the vibe of the whole city as well, which is this diverse melting pot of history and culture.

And you know, and then also like, you know, indigenous peoples and the people who are brought in, you know, brings in colonization, brings in the West African diaspora.

It's so it, it's impossible to separate New Orleans from the history, but it's also like what a celebration of the diversity of this kind of music.

When you were diving into this and starting to play this kind of music, how was that process of pivoting from that, you know, classic rock to this, you know, specific genre of, you know, jazz and all these kind of things?

Well, you know, it was kind of A natural progression, you know, if we're being, you know, sort of honest about things.

We used to do a lot of Grateful Dead music, and the Grateful Dead, you know, to a large extent is sort of a. Reflective of the same musical ethos.

It's an amalgamation of all of the American, know, the truly American forms, you know, the Appalachian music, the, the Chicago blues, the Delta blues, you know, the, the, the, the Southern soul and gospel, bluegrass, you know, old timey music, Old timey music, Americana, you know, all the wonderful lyrics and, and all the characters and the folklore of that music.

And so that was our, initially our conduit into say.

Well, you know, Jerry used to cover hey Pocky Way.

Well, where did that song come from?

You know, or IO IO or you know, any of, you know, Little feet.

You know, Lowell George would cover, you know, Alan Toussaint songs on your way down.

Right.

Like, so this was our sort of doorway into it.

And the more we dug into the underpinnings of that music, we realized, well, this is the source material.

This is where the, you know, the roots of that soul comes from.

And so the, you know, it became a passion, you know, labor of love, if you will, to deconstruct some of these songs and learn about that, you know, you know, the roots of some of this music from, you know, composers like Alan, Alan Toussaint and, you know, Coco Roby showed, who was a huge influence on Dr. John.

You know, all of these threads, uh, you know, your, your uh, uh, uh, Fats Domino for that, you know, then, and Professor Long Hair for the piano guys and then all the brass, uh, you know, Dirty Dozen and, and Rebirth and all these groups that, you know, the meters.

George Porter Jr. Yours truly had, you know, us on several occasions as a younger man living out west across paths with Zigaboo Model east.

Got to play, you know, a wedding with him one time and it was just an amazing thing.

Yeah, but, yeah, that's, that's, that's how we came to it.

And, and uh, you know, once we added the brass, there was no looking back.

Of course, you know, we sort of went back and reverse engineered some charts for Funky Dead songs with the horn section.

So we'll still hit that stuff here.

Oh, absolutely.

Because you don't want to lose some of that stuff too.

Because it's.

In the end, if you're going to spend all this time with, you know, a nine piece band, right?

Like, if you spend all this time with this many people, you have to have that flexibility.

You have to be able to work with a diverse group of, you know, a whole wide group of people that have different experiences and different personalities.

How's that process gone with?

You know, obviously you have to have a bigger piece band to do this kind of music in its full form.

How has that been over the course of time?

So for the majority of the 24 years that we've been together as an outfit, the Big Easy rhythm section, you know, the, the five piece, two guitars, bass, keys and drums have been the same core of guys.

And so we've really come up together that way.

And like I said, we added the horns about 12, 13 years ago.

And we've had, over the years, you know, like any decent, you know, we, we've got, we've got a bench of horn players, we've got three or four trumpet players, two or three bone players.

The cats that were settled in with, you know, for the last two, three years, you know, are the ones I think that really get our ethos the best as a band.

But we've had, you know, horn players, some, some really exceptional players that, you know, will still come if we call them out to play.

Guys that played for, you know, we had Ken Smith who toured with the Rolling Stones three or four times.

We had uh, uh, uh, Rick Savage who was with the ojs and you know, an Earth, Wind and Fire.

You know, there's a real heavy cat, real professional like.

And that's.

Yeah, I also love that, like you can bring that in too, is like, hey, this is, we love doing this.

This is our passion.

And then, you know, there's always that opportunity to be with somebody who's done it at that and has been around people who have lived that version of it.

It has to be like really nice to have that little influx, that little pop too.

It is.

And you know, you always say, you know, people complain about getting old and I say, listen, man, it beats the alternative.

And one of the, one of the upsides, you know, of growing, you know, to a more advanced, you know, a more advanced age is that, you know, if you stick around long enough and you keep honing the craft long enough, you get to meet the real, the real serious players over the, over time and you know, you, you get polished enough to be able to hold your own with that kind of thing.

So, so it's been a net positive and I think, you know, for the, some of these players that have been around the world and everything, it's, it's, it's fun just to not have to.

It's not as much Work, you know, it's more just letting the gas out.

And, you know, I'm not James Brown.

I'm not docking anybody for wrong notes, you know what I mean?

Like, as the band leader, you know?

But, yeah, it's, it's, it's.

It's been very gratifying for everybody involved, you know?

Yeah.

So I.

Let's.

Let's dive in a little bit.

So I'm intrigued.

I was thinking of the best way to do this because, like I said, the genre is so wide and so diverse.

I kind of want to, like, let's focus on a, you know, a song or a creator, and let's talk about it for a second.

One that I know is grabbing you right now, whether it be a specific performer or a specific song of somebody's that you want to talk about.

Let's, let's.

Let's live in it for a second.

Sure, sure.

Let's do that.

So, look, I mean, you know, it's like going to Baskin Robbins and trying to pick your favorite of the 31 flair.

There's just.

There's so many great.

And I mean, we name checked some of them, but if I had to come up with one right now, you said, well, what's something that's really cranking your propeller right now?

Yeah.

And for all of us in the rhythm section, there's a fella that's been living in New Orleans, got to be 25, 30 years now, but he's not a native New Orleanian.

He's.

He's from Great Britain.

His name is John Cleary.

John plays with.

It's Jo N. Like.

Like Jonathan, like John Cleary.

And the Absolute Monster gentleman is his band.

And he's.

I love that name, by the way.

The absolute.

That's a. I mean, these guys, you know, he moved to New Orleans, you know, like I said, 25, 25 plus years ago, and really immersed himself in it and really has taken on the mantle of like a Dr. John, who we lost a few years back.

I mean, he's.

He's encyclopedic about the catalog of New Orleans music from its earliest origins all the way through.

The man plays a piano that'll make you weak and you.

He's like.

He's just a virtuosity.

The songwriting is so funky and so tasty, and, you know, when they.

You know, when they go in the studio and they'll have brass and it'll be all these arrangements, and it's killer.

But when you go see him, you know, with the.

With the absolute must and gentlemen.

Most of the time it's just a three piece or a four piece and these guys kill it.

And to make it make things worse, you think, how, how could this guy get better?

Like, you know, he gets out, he plays, you know, most of the show on the piano and then he picks up this little weird little guitar.

He tells a story of how he came into this strange Mal shapen guitar.

And you think, okay, this will be all right.

He's not going to be as good as he is on the piano, but forget about it.

He just like tears the guitar up with equal, with equal ferocity.

And the tunes are just so great.

We, we.

We try and do to, you know, justice to, you know, the tribute aspect of it.

To play, you know, it's one thing to play the music in tribute of someone who's already passed, right.

It's another thing to be coping somebody's deal when they're still out there touring with it and earning with it.

But you know, we do it out of a deep and abiding love.

We call ourselves the groove boosters because we'll steal just about any groove that ain't nailed down, but we steal it with kindness and love and, and really only to reflect back our.

Our deep admiration of it.

But check him out.

John Cleary, the absolute must.

And gentlemen, you will not be sorry if you haven't heard them.

Yeah, I love that.

And it's.

I think having those inspirations, right, for whatever your passion is or whatever your nerdery is and I.

That's the way I describe it is like, you know, for me, I'm.

I have no governor on my nerdery.

I just love diving deep into things.

And when you have that one thing though that you focus on, it's, you know, being able to describe those influences and the, you know, the way that it grabs you.

It's so singular for those that have that.

That's your special interest, it's your focus.

What I'm kind of wondering is for music that is so specifically culturally diverse, how is that, how's that process?

Because you're representing so many different.

So many different people from so many different ages and have gone through so many different life experiences, how's that process of representing that to audiences that might be dominantly white in many ways?

That's an exceptional point.

I mean, you know, we're living, you know, not in.

In the downtown area of a big city.

We're out in a really exurban area.

And of course we, we move in closer for performances to where there will be more ethnically diverse populations.

But to a large extent, we're a group of white guys, you know, playing the music that came, you know, in part.

You know, we have.

One of our original songs is called Gotta Get Back to New Orleans, and it's a love song about how much we want to get back there and.

And be there.

But the very last line of the song is talking about, you know, New Orleans is.

It's a.

It's a.

It's a gumbo yaya melting pot full of rhythm and booze, voodoo and cuisines where it takes Afro, Asian, Creole, Cajun, Euro Caribbean, and everybody in between, you know, and that's really the thing.

And.

Because, you know, it's interesting, you know, in a world of.

Of.

Of.

Of tribute bands where this is going to be, you know, a Grateful Dead tribute band or an Allman Brothers tribute band or a Bon Jovi tribute or a Skynyrd or any of these bands where guys go out and they play that same catalog night after night.

All the guys in my band were.

Were.

Listen, I'm not casting aspersions on that.

You can make a great living doing that.

Absolutely.

But a lot of our.

A lot of our guys expressed, you know, a desire for, you know, diversity in the material.

You know, like, we just.

We just.

A few.

A few.

About a month ago, not even a month ago, three weeks ago, we had our first annual Reggae Clam Bake where the band got together and we put together two sets of, like, classic Bob Marley and.

And.

And Twits in the May Talls and Jimmy Cliff and, you know, and Burning Spear.

And we did a whole show of reggae music just because we love to play it.

And so on one hand, this sort of limits your commercial viability because most audiences, you got to be straight down the middle and play to what, you know.

You know, people are going to dig as opposed to.

For us, we like to play what.

What we dig.

And I think the authenticity of our joy for it is what comes through, and that's what draws people to come and see us.

It's how we've developed a pretty solid following over the years, you know, and I think that's.

That's what we have to offer if you want to go out and have a great night of music.

We.

Where you might hear, you know, like, you know, tuba Skinny, where it's like that, you know, almost.

Almost bluegrassy kind of with the clarinet and the.

And the trumpet and the banjo and all that, but you also might hear Some jazz from Preservation Hall Jazz Band, you know, and you might hear a Dr. John classic, and you might hear a little feet song or.

Or a Commodore's tune or, you know, a van More, you know, even the Blue Eyed Soul.

We dig, you know, anything that's got the horns that.

That, you know, just where we can express that, you know, the soul of the music.

That's what we're all about.

And yeah, and so I saw that you do some originals as well.

How's that process of fitting those into?

You know, for the people that are super passionate about this kind of music, they know it deeply, right?

They know it intensely.

They're probably collectors.

They probably have great sound systems and all those things.

And then you're mixing in.

Your.

Mixing in originals as well.

1.

It has to be creatively satisfying to do that with a whole.

Whole group of guys you like working with.

But how is that mixing those into the set?

You know, so for.

For the preponderance of the time that we played together, like I said, one of the benefits of aging is that one by one, we've gotten to the point of retirement or near retirement.

The kids are a little bit older, we can get out on the road again like we did when we were younger, you know, so for a long time, I. I wasn't writing a lot of music.

We were just covering other people's music just to get out there and do it.

But in the last, you know, two.

Two years or so, I've just been cranking out a bunch of new original material.

It's been super therapeutic and it's been gratifying.

But to answer your question, how we integrate that into the set.

So, you know, as a young man, you want to write something that peels, you know, I want to show everybody how much you can shred and what a badass you are, you know, when you get older, you know, at least for me, I feel like I want to write songs that are relatable to people.

Not just the.

The lyrics, but also the melodies.

And given that we all stand on the shoulders of giants, you know, that there's no new musical.

You know, I mean, I'm not biting off somebody's.

I'm not doing a Vanilla Ice on things, you know what I mean?

But, but, but, but, you know, I try to write songs that.

That fulfill three characteristics that I think make them accessible to an audience who's never heard it before and isn't necessarily there to hear original music.

You can always tell, you know, when you go and play original music, you know, if the crowd is there to see what they're there to see, they'll tune you to kind of tune out.

That's where people go get the bar, they get a drink.

But I notice, so.

So I tried the three things, right?

One is the lyrics have to be meaningful in a way, whether it's comedic or, or heartfelt or something that people can, you know, relate to.

Secondly, the music has to be familiar but not cliched.

We're not going to play a simple 145 blues thing and call it a song and say, oh, that's our new song.

It's got to have little tasty, little quirks that, that keep it interesting, but that don't diverge too far away from what people can, you know, relate to.

And the third thing is it has to be energetic, has to make people want to move around.

And we can tell that we are successful in this endeavor when we perform a song for the first time, live somewhere, a new, a new original song, and you can see people are like bouncing their head.

The biggest compliment I get at the end is when somebody comes and said, hey, that song you played in the beginning of the second set, I know I've heard that before.

Whose song is that?

And I say, hey, it's mine.

And you haven't heard it before.

But I'm glad if, if you feel like you heard it before, we're doing it right.

And so that's always been the goal for the last couple years that we've been recording new music, and I think we're doing a good job.

I love that mentality too, because it's, you still want to deliver, right?

You're delivering on expectations, but you get that opportunity to bring, you know, bring life into it, bring your history and bring those other things into it.

And what, what a joy to be able to add that richness into the experience that everybody's going to see on September 19th at 9:30 and 11 o' clock and Sunday the 20th at 11 o' clock at the Biltmore Bar and Lounge.

$15 [email protected] what I wanted to end with in our last five minutes is I just got to visit New Orleans for the first time this year.

I have a great friend who's been down probably most every year for Tales of the Cocktail.

I'm a spirits nerd.

I do judging competitions.

We could be friends.

And I've done a food and drink show for a long time and I man, you know, New Orleans is such a specific place and you learn so much visiting there because you have these ideas of what a city is until you visit and spend time in it.

And not just in the tourist areas.

By going around the city, taking transport, doing the other things.

Like, I learned that the streetcars are infrastructure and not just a tourist thing that you see people going to work, like, oh, got it.

I.

That little thing changes the way you think about a city, right?

You think, oh, this is just a tourist trap.

Like, no, no, this is infrastructure.

This is how people are getting to work.

This is how people get from that.

Are the people that are serving people in the tourist areas.

They're taking the trolley in because that's the cheapest way to get into the area.

So it's those little things you learn.

And the other thing I learned is, man, turns out the food in New Orleans is fucking awesome.

Oh, my God, who knew?

So I did.

The fat guy did, right?

Yeah, right.

Right with you, bud.

And also, there's some amazing historical places.

I see you're wearing a specific kind of hat.

And I got to go to a real hat store in New Orleans, Meyer.

On Meijer, the Hatter on Canal Street.

And man, that place is so cool because it is multi generational.

I think it's three generations currently working at a time.

And, man, the experience of going in, I've started wearing like, you know, the straw style fedora hats.

That's what suits me and my frame and everything else.

And I walked in, I was like, I was thinking about going a step up, and boy, I hated every second of this and absolutely loved every second.

The guy looked at me, he looked at my head and he's like, I'm gonna pull one out for you.

Damn, if it wasn't exactly the right size and exactly the hat I wanted.

I walked around the store for another half an hour because I refused to assume that he got me red to a T the second I walked in the damn door.

And then I walked.

That's what you get after three generations of hat selling, man.

You know, man, I walked out of that with that hat.

That's.

That's the kind of experience.

I mean, you know, the argument could be made that that should be writ large, like that's what we're losing in society.

In a city like New Orleans still retains a lot of that, where it's that old school charm, you know, and you can go into a place.

I had a similar experience at Myers.

Got that whole wall of oak drawers full of hats.

And I got ahead like a basketball.

I got a big noggin Man.

So most hats don't fit me, you know, and everywhere I go, I do you have it in 2x or 3x?

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

It stops an extra large.

So I went in there and I said, I'm looking for a kangal wool flat cap.

But I checked all the ones that, you know, available on the thing, and they.

You don't have them in my size.

I'm sure you don't have them in my size.

He look at my head.

He said, you need a double X. I said, yes, I do.

So wait right here.

He came back with one in every color.

I bought like four of these hats at the same time, you know, but.

But this is the beauty of New Orleans.

Like, you know, you know, it's not like I've spent years and years there.

I've been there maybe half a dozen times for a week or two here and there.

But these are the experiences that, you know, that, that I love so much about it.

And, you know, you can romanticize a place.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's a.

It's a city like any other.

It has its.

Its.

Its, you know, challenges, you know, economically and culturally and all these different ways.

But out of all the cities in the world, if you love food as you.

I see.

That's why I think you and me could be friends.

Because if you like food and you like booze and you like the best music, you'd be hard pressed to find, you know, you'd be hard pressed.

Like maybe Nashville, you know, gets up onto that list, you know, but it really is, man.

And, you know, and, and like you said, you got to get out of the.

You got to leave the French Quarter for sure.

You know, you get out to the Garden District, get out to the Marine.

You get into these different places.

So beautiful.

My favorite thing to do is Jazz Fest, man.

It's just the best every year, you know, Every year.

Oh, man.

So I think we're going to close out.

So, Tony, get the plugs out.

So the shows again, September 19th and 20th, go to Rochester Fringe.com to get your tickets.

Put the plugs out for where people can find you online.

Otherwise.

Yeah.

So, you know, you can go to uncle shoehorn.com.

That's pretty extensive site full of audio and video and still photos and dates and, you know, our typical shenanigans.

We're on Facebook.

Uncle Shoehorn on Facebook.

We're on Instagram, we're on TikTok, so you can get us at all those places.

And, you know, if you Want to go and listen to our original stuff?

We've.

We've released.

The first EP was three songs earlier this.

In the.

In this early spring.

The next three will be released here.

They're.

They're all done.

They're be.

They're done being mastered and they're all just about ready for release.

But you can go anywhere where you go stream music.

Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube, whatever you like and just search Uncle Shoehorn and go check us out and let us.

Let me know what you think.

I mean, I really mean it.

You know, it's the best thing you could do is provide feedback for an original artist.

You know, what you think about.

It helps us make sure we have a good product.

Yeah.

And do you have a place where you want people to consume it, like band camp or somewhere else?

No, I.

Listen, it's a brave new world.

We don't sell, you know, we don't sell records anymore.

Ain't gonna make any money doing that anyway.

So we want you to come out and see us.

That's how we make our.

Our money, playing the music.

But we, you know, anywhere you go and get it, you know, I think if you go to YouTube, it's probably still.

I think it's free there.

Nice.

You know, but, you know, I mean, if you want to buy it and, you know, stream it in your Spotify, go ahead and do it, man.

You know, I probably won't see any of it, but, you know, it's all good.

Just gratifying knowing folks are digging it.

Yeah.

Well, Tony, thank you so much for joining.

Make sure to check out, you know, all the other shows on the lunch at our podcast network.

Go to lunchdoor.org, check out some of the new shows, check out some of the old shows.

You know, visit Food About Town, check those out.

Check out the Polygoogly Ammo show.

But otherwise we'll.

We'll see you out here in Rochester and we'll see you out.

Can't wait.

The Fringe.

Thanks for having us.

We'll see.

This has been a presentation of the Lunch Podcast Network.

The quick new orleans minute.

Go to classy's.

Go to killer po boys.

Go to revel cafe.

Go to porgy seafood market.

Go to the munch factory.

Get some amazing food when you visit the big easy.