Indigenous
1st Annual Russell Moore Music Fest, Gila River Indian Reservation, Sacaton, AZ
Sept 19, 1998

Lineage: Core Sound Binaural Stealth Mics (battery box w/90Hz bass filter) > Sharp MD-MS702 MiniDisc recorder > Philips CDR 560 standalone CDR burner (optical) > AIFF (Mac ITunes) > +4db (Amadeus Pro) > Wave (Amadeus Pro) > FLAC
Location: About 50' from stage, center
by DOM

01 tuning
02 Russell Moore story
03 Ghost Of Tom Joad tease
04 tuning / intro
05 Got To Tell You
06 What's Goin' On?
07 I Wonder Why
08 Blues From The Sky
09 Tell Me
10 Boom Boom Boom Boom
11 The Sky Is Crying
12 Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Website: http://indigenousmusic.net/

*** Not for sale, for trade only! ***

Taper's notes

"Pretty Little Ditty" is the name I made up for Mato's noodling around while the rest of the group was setting up/tuning up. My friend Chet K (Hey Chet!) has since told me this is a snippet of "The Ghost Of Tom Joad," a Bruce Springsteen tune. The intro includes the mispronunciation of their name ("Indigeous").

Indigenous opened with four original songs, followed by four covers. The first two songs were from their soon-t-be-released album, "Things We Do" (still one of my favorite Indigenous releases). The highlight of this show was the next two songs, both early guitar workouts from their earliest days, I Wonder Why and Blues From The Sky. This rendition of I Wonder Why still gives me goosebumps! 

The covers included three songs Stevie Ray Vaughan covered (Tell Me - Chester Burnett, The Sky Is Crying - Elmore James, and Voodoo Child (slight return) - Jimi Hendrix) plus a John Lee Hooker tune (Boom Boom). VC (sr) includes a "dental" solo (e.g., played with the teeth) at the end. 

I've included a scan of the CD cover I made up for this disk, it was the first one I'd ever tried to do. Wandbi did not play at the Sacaton gig.  She'd been in an auto accident and was home still recovering at the time. I left Wandbi's picture on the CD cover; I don't remember the name of the fill-in drummer.

Indigenous currently is basically down to Mato Nanji and various (and always excellent) back up musicans.  Mato has also toured the last several years with the Experience Hendrix Project, lending his excellent lead and rhythm work to several songs during the show.

If you enjoy this set, buy Indigenous' records and go see them live! They usually have music for sale at their live shows that you cannot get anywhere else (live recordings, EPs, etc.).

* * * * *

This is a "new rip" of my original mindiscs. The previous copy of my recording that circulated had a digital MD generation, since I couldn't burn CDs then. I had sent a digital copy to a friend of mine who burned a CDR with a standalone burner that could ignore SCMS restrictions. I was reluctant to send my master MDs off. I don't think it made much of a difference (digital MD copies are supposed to be "bit perfect"), but this set is a direct digital (TOSlink) copy of my master minidiscs to CDR (instead of MD > MD > CDR, all TOSlink). 

MD5 & FLAC fingerprint files included.

My original notes:

Indigenous is a blues rock band which (at the time of this recording) was made up of 3 siblings and a cousin: Mato Nanji plays guitar and sings and writes most of the songs; brother Pte provides the anchor at bass guitar (with occasional vocals); sister Wandbi plays drums; and cousin Horse adds percussion. Their influences include SRV, Jimi Hendrix, Santana and many more.  They're from South Dakota and they tour extensively. They've been playing together for well over a decade and none of them are out of their 20s yet.

This was my first live recording of Indigenous. I'd discovered them in 1997 at a Jackson Browne show in Sedona, AZ and bought their "Love-In-A-Mist" CD (now out of print). Although LIAM is an excellent recording, the studio CD just didn't do justice to Indigenous' live sound. When I saw they were coming to a venue in the Phoenix area, I was determined to document how good they were live.

The show was one of my all-time best concert bargains. Free admission, free bottled water handed out at the facility and I even got a fry bread with beans and cheese and a coke for $4. The show was billed as a "tobacco and alcohol free" event, so it was healthy as well as priced right! Plus, the music was excellent, although the opening acts and between set stuff meant Indigenous' set was cut a bit short (a little under an hour).

The show was the "1st Annual Russell Moore Music Fest" at the Gila River Indian Reservation, in the original casino building which has been repurposed as a community center. "Big Chief" Russell Moore, a Native American jazz horn player from the Gila River tribe, played with Louis Armstrong, among others.

