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Umphrey’s McGee: Ordinary Kids Doing Extraordinary Things (Relix Revisited)

With songs stitched together like patchwork quilts from countless Cinninger and Bayliss fragments, or from spontaneously concocted “Jimmy Stewart” and “Jazz Odyssey” creations, the Umphrey oeuvre presents listeners with a steep learning curve the band sweetens with Beatles, Zeppelin, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, and, uh, Stormtroopers of Death covers. Complexity is their musical signature, so while some groups would ask, “Why insert a rhythmically challenging measure of 10/8 into an otherwise perfectly normal 4/4 passage?,” Umphrey’s asks, “Why not?” The band’s current challenge, however, is to instill more “space,” “breath,” and “patience” into their sound.

Umphrey’s McGee are musical maximalists in a scene that pays much lip service to the ideals of eclecticism and experimentation while usually delivering little of either. So how eagerly does Umphrey’s McGee welcome the “jamband” tag they somewhat reluctantly sport. “We want to be welcomed by the loveydovey scene,” Cinninger admits. “But I’d also like Genesis and Yes fans to listen to our album.” Cummins considers the post-Phish-jamband-kings thing a “double-edged sword,” and explains why: “I embrace the cool part about going out and improvising as a group. But the negative side are bands who just get wasted and riff on E-minor.” Any Phish comparisons you’d care to lob he deflects by observing, “It’s probably more we rip off the same guys they did: Zappa, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Miles, and so forth.”

The group looks forward to playing fewer gigs in bigger venues in upcoming months. Strategically located a day’s drive from a healthy slew of East Coast and Midwestern markets, they’d like to drop from 130-140 shows per year to less than 100. A week or two of private life each month has become a priority as the band prepares to reenter the studio early next year for its next album. It’s all about maintaining a healthy balance because a tightly meshed machine like Umphrey’s McGee can’t afford to come unhinged. “The whole rock thing was about excess,” says Bayliss. “But now we have VH1’s Behind the Music to teach us what that did to musicians. We can’t live the same lifestyle they did. It was obviously so stupid. Behind the Music has been a blessing to us all.”

Blisteringly precise and gloriously soaring avatars of a new virtuosity, Umphrey’s McGee offsets Zappa-esque low humor like Cinninger’s “40s Theme,” a greasy ode to malt liquor and “hot as balls” home cookin’, with Bayliss’ koanic ruminations on the vagaries of relationships, with occasional highbrow allusions to the likes of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe. But in the end they’re just a rock and roll band, albeit one that can extend a collective pod in whatever other direction they desire. As far as being slightly absurd sons of the Tap, that will always be there Stasik promises over beer and deep-dish pizza. “ ‘Cause we’re just Midwestern, Budweiser-drinking jackasses.”