Tuatara - a band featuring members of R.E.M. and the Screaming Trees - will be playing at the Launchpad on Saturday with three other acts in an uninterrupted four-hour show.
The show is part of the Fast Horse Hootenanny Tour and also will feature world-beat sensations the Wayward Shamans, Minus 5 and Mississippi blues legend Cedell Davis.
Tuatara formed in 1997 when Barrett Martin of the Screaming Trees, Justin Harwood of Luna and Peter Buck of R.E.M. combined to create a band specifically tailored to make soundtracks for movies. Originally only intending to create a soundtrack demo, they eventually found themselves signed and releasing an album under Epic Sony.
Though Tuatara has not done a full soundtrack, the members have all used Tuatara to make appearances on soundtracks. When R.E.M. did the soundtrack for "Man on the Moon," Tuatara provided percussion and horns for the venture. When Justin Harwood and Luna did "I Shot Andy Warhol," Tuatara also was there.
Tuatara, however, will not be performing tracks from its soundtracks at the Launchpad on Saturday. Instead it is playing just one part of a four-part, cross-genre show featuring music from West Africa to the Mississippi Delta.
Opening the show will be Barrett Martin's main project the Wayward Shamans. Featuring members of Minus 5 and Tuatara, the Wayward Shamans play afro-Cuban-soul-trance grooves originally composed using field recordings taken from Senegal, Ghana, Cuba and Brazil.
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Martin and Joe Cripps, the founding members of the Wayward Shamans and the organizers of the tour, met in Cuba during a cultural exchange where they were taking field recordings of Cuban music. They then went to Brazil, where they took more recordings and joined a Brazilian band to hone their South American chops.
After the Wayward Shamans play, there will be no break. Instead, members of Minus 5 will filter onto the stage as members of Wayward Shamans who are not in Minus 5 leave.
"If one isn't watching, you won't notice the change," Martin said.
Minus 5 plays more Caribbean music than Wayward Shamans and will feature whole new sections of musicians.
After Minus 5, Tuatara will filter onto the stage in the same fashion as the previous band. The most noticeable difference will be the genre shift. Tuatara has a definite world-beat influence, but it does not feature indigenous music as much as the other two bands. Buck and Martin will join Peter, and Tuatara will play the more dance-orientated tracks from their latest album.
Finally, joining Tuatara and some members of all the other bands will be blues legend Cedell Davis.
"This will, interestingly enough, be analogous to the birth of the blues. The music will start in Africa, move through the Caribbean, and end up in the South, the birthplace of the Blues," Martin said.
Cedell Davis is known as one of the last true blues musicians, playing music that he was surrounded by since birth. When Davis chose a life of music, blues was what he knew.
"In my career playing and singing music, I have never seen a collection of music and musicians as I have seen on this tour," Martin said.
The show will be at the Launchpad. Tickets are $12 and available at Bow Wow Records. Doors open at 9 p.m. and music begins at 10 p.m.
