Santa Cruz Jug Band Festival_Greg Meyer_2026-08-07_interview on KZSC's 'Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club'

Greg has been in Santa Cruz based jug bands for 10 years, playing the 1st Thursday of every month at Pono, and monthly wiht the Trolly Brass band at Abbott Square; there are Jug Bands, & Jug Band-adjacent bands; this weekend is the 2nd Annual Santa Cruz Jug Band Festival. What's a jug band? A: around the turn of the 1900s, musicians would use a jug for the bass line (it was portable), & the style got picked up by well-known musicians (Jimmy Rogers, Sarah Martin)...in the 20s & 30s musicians in Louisville, KY & Memphis, TN, laid the foundation, later picked up in the 1960s by Dan Hicks during the Folk Scare / Jug Band Revival, where David Grisman, Jim Kweskin, & Jerry Garcia's first band played Jug Band music; Greg is curating a slide show tonight about the "Wild & Wacky History of Jug Band Music", showcasing an unheralded history where a lot of very talented professional musicans have left their mark on a uniquely American music style in origin, but now with a worldwide following (the biggest jug band festival in the world is in Yokohama, Japan, over 4 days with 60 bands!); Jug Band songs can be Hoakum style, with single entendre (no disguise), popularized by the Hoosier Hotshots in the 1940s; Greg came to Santa Cruzin the early 80s to attend UCSC, spending the last 40 years in and out of town - at UCSC he played bluegrass, Appalachian mountain music, playing guitar & mandolin - he got into the history of the music early on; Jug Band music is an American Amalgam, bringing together New Orleans, riverboat, & early rag time; the "Money Question"? "We're all gigging invarious eays!" Greg was a Cal State Monterey Bay Environmental Studies & Outdoor Education teacher, & now retired - most of the people in the band are retired; Deep Dive into instruments played in Jug Bands, including kazoo, canzoo, and canjoe (which is a blend of Europe & Africa, starting with a gourd instead of a can). An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening! To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!