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MUSIC From bluegrass to jamgrass Eight Dollar Mountain will play Ashland's Brickroom Saturday, Oct. 3 Comment By Laurie Heuston Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Laurie Heuston Mail Tribune Posted Oct. 2, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Laurie Heuston Mail Tribune Posted Oct. 2, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News During a 1 a.m. set on Ken Kesey's Furthur Bus in July at the Northwest String Summit in North Plains, the members of Ashland bluegrass band Eight Dollar Mountain found themselves emerging onto an entirely different music scene. A lot of big names in bluegrass and Americana were at the summit: Del McCoury with David Grisman, Yonder Mountain String Band, The Infamous Stringdusters, Greensky Bluegrass. "We were invited to play a set on the summit's Cascadia Stage," says Mark Lackey, Dobro player for Eight Dollar Mountain. "Then we got the invite to play the Furthur Bus. That was fun. At 1 a.m., things were getting kind of crazy. The crowd was primed up and having a good time. "Some of the best jamgrass bands in the country were there," he says. "It was as though we were moving into the Northwest family of jamgrass bands. Our sound is starting to change a little bit, too. I think audiences would describe it as traditional bluegrass, but our jams are becoming more extended and improvisational. We still use traditional bluegrass instruments. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that we're plugged in and starting to use more effects, like reverb and pedal effects." The new approach to bluegrass has a broader appeal to audiences, Lackey says. "The traditional bluegrass crowd sits and listens intently, while the jamgrass crowd is up and dancing. We really feed on that reaction. It's a lot more interactive and fun. We've played a lot of traditional bluegrass festivals, and now we're getting more into the jam scene, which is entirely different." Eight Dollar Mountain — Lackey, Darren Campbell on guitar, Stuart Green on banjo, Phil Johnson on mandolin and Joe Porto on bass — will perform at 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, at Brickroom, 35 N. Main St., Ashland. Fiddle and banjo duo Ben Hunter and Joe Seamon will open the show. Hunter and Seamon recently wrapped up a tour through the rural South, where they recorded bluegrass songs with the countryside's denizens. Porto is new to the Eight Dollar Mountain lineup. He replaces Peter Koelsch, who relocated to Wilmington, N.C. "I had played with Joe in 2004 in a short-lived Ashland band called High Strung," Lackey says. "When word got around that we were looking for a bass player, he said he'd be interested. We'd interviewed a couple of others, but the fit wasn't there. Joe rehearsed some standards with us one evening, and it went so well that we immediately jumped into our original material. He sings well, and he can keep up with us. Surprising to us, he turned out to be a strong player. He just jumped right in." Porto turned out to be a good fit for the road as well, Lackey says. He joined the band for some shows in Lake Tahoe, then in May when the band played Terrapin Crossroads, Phil Lesh's farm-to-table restaurant and music venue in San Rafael, Calif. "We were honored to be there," Lackey says. "It's a pretty high-profile place." Eight Dollar Mountain has three albums to its credit: "Wild River Country" (2010), "Riverboat Gambler" (2012) and "Tied to the Tracks," produced by Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon fame in 2014. This year marked the second time that author Kesey's bus was brought to the Northwest String Summit. Further , also known as Furthur , is a 1939 International Harvester school bus purchased by Kesey in 1964 to carry his Merry Band of Pranksters cross-country, filming their counterculture adventures as they went. The goal was to visit the World's Fair in New York and, incidentally, celebrate the publication of Kesey's second novel, "Sometimes a Great Notion." Now, half a century later, the psychedelic bus with its quixotic name is rescued and restored, minus the LSD that fueled its passengers so long ago. By Laurie Heuston Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Laurie Heuston Mail Tribune Posted Oct. 2, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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