On Jan. 10, something inevitable but nonetheless shattering came to pass: Bobby Weir, tireless troubadour and founding member of the Grateful Dead, had died at 78. His ascension to the next big adventure closed the book on the earthly presence of the Dead’s core frontline. Bobby joined Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh in whatever lies beyond, and the voices at the vanguard of an American institution were now consigned to an archival presence. It hit everyone associated with the idiosyncratic bard – from his intimates to his hordes of fans – hard, including your author. I pumped out two Weir memorials for WAMC the following Monday in an attempt to capture the depth of his impact on an audience of millions, and spoke at great length about the moment with his longtime Dead & Company bandmate Oteil Burbridge just days after the death.
Those contributions were mere drops in the middle of a deep and mighty sea for the torrent of Bobby tributes that soon followed. One that stood out to me and other jam-band-scene followers came from Spafford, an Arizona-based quartet founded back in 2009 well known for their propensity toward longform improvisation. Four days after Weir’s death, the band took the stage at Barley’s in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the first night of their two-month-long winter tour. Drummer Nick Tkachyk clicked the band into a taut, galloping rhythm, and Spafford - guitarist Brian Moss, bassist Shon Gordon, keyboardist Schechtman, and the aforementioned Tkachyk - exploded into one of Bobby’s signature Dead tunes, “The Other One.” Within minutes, the four had dived fully into the kind of thrilling, no-safety-net exploration that had defined Weir’s decades-long career of questing, seeking, and often confusing through music. Over the course of the next hour of playing, Spafford went fractal, spinning effortlessly between drippy psychedelic landscapes, jazzy interludes, trancey, beat-driven halls of mirrors, and a calm oasis of ambient melt before building back to a shuddering finale. “We love you Bobby,” said Moss as the final notes faded out. That was the entirety of their first set back on the road in a post-Weir jam topography. The kind-of-obsessive fan culture around the jam scene – an audience that breathlessly follows tours song by song, night by night, eager to analyze every gesture for some greater meaning or purpose – offers bands a rare opportunity to call their own shots and swing for the fences that invites and rewards audacity. This tribute to Weir was timely and bold, a perfect send off to one of the greatest to ever do it. And it got me on the Spafford bus. When I saw that their tour would put them in striking distance of my Berkshire County headquarters three times in the week of March 8-15, I simply had to send it and hit up three shows in Woodstock, Amherst, and Hartford to see what I made of the band with boots on the ground.
I can’t speak to the many years of relentless touring, playing, and recording that Spafford has done to build their fanbase over the past 17-odd years. I’m a newcomer, which is something of a blessing in a scene where lineup changes and any rejiggering of a band’s makeup and sound can send shockwaves through the fanbase. Spafford has experienced that, and thankfully, I don’t need to attempt to explain any of it. All I can do is reflect on where the band is in 2026, which is a very good place.
My first night of Spafford came on March 8 at Bearsville Theater in Woodstock. I was joined by my old friend Jeff Conklin, who I first met many years ago when we both trained for our WFMU shows at the same time down in Jersey City. You might know him from his excellent radio show The Trailhead or from his Substack, Ambient Audiophile! Jeff’s a longtime jammer, and it’s been wonderful to reconnect with him over our shared love of bands like moe. and Squeaky Feet. It was to be his first Spafford experience as well. Alongside his pal Chris, we enjoyed some chow at the Bear Cantina adjacent to the venue before sliding onto the dance floor for our baptismal Spaffording. With the benefit of hindsight some weeks and shows later, it was something of a best possible introduction. Things got reggae’d out and drippy almost immediately with “Be Strange,” soaked in Moss’s Jerry-evoking Mu-Tron sound and Schechtman’s organ washes over Gordon and Tkachyk’s rock-solid rhythm. Then we got right to the good stuff! Gordon’s excellent “Soggy Froggy” followed, a slinky, bubbling funk number that pushed the band out into some deliciously crunchy places for over 20 minutes. Likely as a result of recreational chemistry at Dead & Co shows past, I often imagine a cartoon loop of R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural high stepping over a band’s playing to see if they’re living up to a certain, undefinable personal standard of American jam bandery. Spafford passed the test! Transmuting first into a trancey wormhole and then into a steady build to a well-earned peak, this tune – a relative newcomer to the band’s songbook – allowed the band to show off its best traits of patient playing, deep listening, and a willingness to follow ideas as far as they can go before harnessing the improvisation’s energy to ride out a swell for an explosive finish. You get it, I like Spafford.
From the space funk of “Soggy Froggy,” an almost-19-minute “Mind’s Unchained” followed with a playful and inviting opening riff reminiscent of a mellow take on jam band anthems like the Dead’s “China Cat Sunflower” or Phish’s “Tweezer.” I loved the playing that followed - the kind of liquid tapestry that unfurls right in front of you like a magic trick, deftly shaped by an egoless collection of musicians that seemed as delighted as the audience by the momentum of the jam. Restraint is one of my favorite tools in art. I’ve been on a big kick with filmmakers like Kiyohi Kurosawa, Michael Haneke, and Claire Denis lately, and in their films, each choice seems all the more breathtaking by the apparent restraint - long, unbroken shots make any eventual movement seem like an explosion. If you have the patience to lean in, you’re richly rewarded.
Set 1 ended with “Duncan’s Uncle,” a darker jazz rock number that reminded my friend Jeff of English weirdo pop heroes Prefab Sprout compositionally. Over a 26-minute expanse, Spafford carefully simmered a richly spiced jam into a muscular ending that delighted the crowd. I’ll be haunted by the positively bone-chilling shrieks of one particularly enthralled fan that are unavoidable on the soundboard recording of the show.
During set break, unofficial fifth member Chuck “Spafford” Johnson – the band’s co-lyricist, original lighting director, and namesake – reads poetry for the recurring “Chuck’s Dream” segment of the Spafford live experience. It’s a welcome bit of artistic variety in a scene with some ironically rigid structures, and I was delighted at how respectful and attentive each audience was across all three nights I caught over the course of the week.
I’ll reign in the exhaustive detail a bit for set 2, but after a high energy rendition of Demi Lovato’s “Anyone,” Spafford sandwiched a Tears For Fears cover (“Mad World”) between the proggy, multi-faceted “Dirtbath”- a song that effectively highlights the band’s willingness to embrace dynamics, taking the room down to complete silence before churning back up into a frenzy. The encore of “Salamander Song” offered a neat nightcap to my maiden Spafford voyage, a breezy tune with singalong opportunities in the classic American jam band vein that ended things on a high note. Recent addition Gordon also delivered a stellar bass solo that gave the talented dude a little spotlight after crushing it all night long.
By the close, Jeff was as chuffed as I was, and offered me this assessment of the night:
"During a lot of the night's jams, I kept thinking, 'THIS IS TRUE SYNTHETIC ROCK!' Whether they know it or not, Spafford are delivering an update on 70s underground German music like Neu! and Ash Ra in their melding of organics and electronics into a beautiful cosmic groove," he said.
I couldn’t agree more, Jeff! Schechtman’s doses of synth madness over the motorik beat provided by Tkachyk, coupled with Gordon’s elastic bass playing and Moss’s tight grooves, give the band’s jams a welcome kosmische quality that separates them from the herd. As a unit, they reject the frenetic maximalism some jam bands embrace for a thoughtfulness that rewards deep listening.
Outside the venue, I attempted to poll what seemed like a dedicated Spafford fan on the show. However, once I realized how large his pupils were, it was clear the results would be unorthodox. My questions about the merits of the performance received a reply of alternately “Spafford!” or “Never miss ‘em!” with a beatific grin. It was in its own way about as strong a review of a jam band as the scene can offer.
Night 2 of my Spafford immersion period took me to the Drake in Amherst, Massachusetts. I love following a band on a run, where they serve as the control subject for the venues of the mighty Northeast. While the Bearsville campus offers a little jam band clubhouse world to itself in the woods of the Catskills just outside of Woodstock proper, the Drake is very much “a room” in the heart of a college town. I hadn’t been since seeing Acid Mothers Temple there back in May 2023, and it was lovely to see it packed with Spafford fans young and old for the Tuesday night show. I was joined by my pal Jon, who I met at a Disco Biscuits show in Albany two years prior. A 20-plus-minute “Hollywood” opened the show with the rollicking, highway current momentum reminiscent of the Dead’s take on “I Know You Rider” before swirling and mutating into the knotty funk of “Spunkadelic.” A 19-minute “Todd’s Tots” closed the first set, a big, bright song, the refrain of which – “I like toys/I don’t like sleeping at night” – has been stuck in my head for weeks now. The second set continued the high-octane nature of the night, and the encore of “The Reprise” was maybe my musical highlight of the week. A gooey, swampy song that quickly melted into pure weirdness, it felt like a reprieve for Spafford after the carefully maintained tension of the preceding two sets, and they mined it for all it was worth, riding a slippery groove all the way down through ethereal vocal samples to a juicy climax. I love a curveball, and this was perfectly deployed. I queried a lovely guy named Tom in a 2018 Spafford shirt about how the band’s current output compared with previous years, and he enthusiastically said they were firing on all cylinders in 2026.
***
At this point, I was hooked and felt the journalistic impulse to sit down with the Spafford lads and try to capture a snapshot of the band during such a densely packed and vibrant chapter of their long career. A few emails with their management later, I was set to chat with the band at Hartford, Connecticut’s own Infinity Music Hall before the final show of the tour. Feeling full of vim and vigor at the opportunity, I decided to attempt a tribute to the interview god Nardwuar and use my pre-interview research to prepare gifts for each band member drawn from my considerable CD collection tailored to bits of trivia I’d dug up on them. Upon arriving at the venue with a stomach full of excellent Turkish food from the nearby City Kebab House, Chuck himself led me upstairs to the green room before the show. I hit record after a round of introductions.
WAMC: All right, so I wanted to ask you guys first, just-
BRIAN MOSS: (bellowing) Who are you? State your name!
[laughter]
Yeah, where do you get your ideas?
[laughter]
I think what got you guys really on my radar was your response to Bobby [Weir]'s passing and the choice to do that remarkable, hour-long “The Other One.” I've interviewed people who knew Bobby, and that kind of adventurousness and hunger for creativity - That was his whole thing, and you managed to capture that spirit with one of his most iconic songs. I think that brought people into the Spafford tent because it was such a cool gesture at such a crucial time.
BM: We call it the spirit of Spafford, and we're not sure how it manifests itself, but it does in various different ways when we play music, and there's always some tie to it somehow that we didn't realize, or something like that. And we heard of Bobby's passing, and we were familiar with the song “The Other One,” we play it in the repertoire. And just right before the set, we were like, hey, what if we just go out there and just jam it? And we all look at each other, yeah, okay, and we just did it. We didn't think too much about it. We just threw it out there, and we just let the song turn into what it wanted to. And it went for an hour. We had backup songs to play if it wasn't going to work, but it was working, so we just kept pushing to the whole set. And so we believe that Bobby was with us in that moment, pushing us and allowing us to get the most out of that set that we could
NICK TKACHYK: Yeah, it wasn't like anything out of the ordinary for us to play an hour-long first set. We've done that many times in our career of playing shows, anywhere from playing an hour-long first set to each set is just a jam. And so it just kind of felt really natural, and it felt really nice to do an ode to Bobby and the Grateful Dead, because we take so much inspiration and respect them so much for what they've done with music.
Well, it sort of leads me to my second question. I'm impressed at how little you put into trying to commercialize what you do. Like, you're not trying to polish off like a three-minute nugget. You're really showing up ready to, as you say, dive head first into really long improvisational music. And that's cool. You've stuck with that for so many years, just being really unafraid to do what you do best. The first time I saw you guys play was in Woodstock, and you dropped a three-song first set. And it was exactly what I wanted - Just like, let's just get to it, and you guys did that.
BM: Believe me, we’re polishing three-minute songs. Like, we definitely focus on three-minute songs. I feel like sometimes that’s harder than going up there and just letting loose and jamming. That part kind of comes easy, at least to me. But working on the songs and the structure - We play them constantly, over and over and over again to really kind of get those versions of those songs down. But yeah, the jamming part, you’ve just got to give it up sometimes and just let the music speak through you and your instrument, just connect with the other players and just the beauty of it. You never know what it's going to turn into.
Corey, you debuted a song recently, right? “Nocturnal Emissions.”
COREY SCHECHTMAN: Yes.
Talk to us about that. What's “Nocturnal Emissions” all about? It's a fascinating title.
BM: Yeah Corey, what's it about?
CS: Yeah, well, I have a 13-year-old stepson, and my fiancé is in healthcare, so we have puberty pamphlets in the back seat. And there you go. But yeah, no, it's, that's one of those instrumental tunes that I've written that I write the song first and then think of a name for it after it's all done. Maybe years after, maybe months, maybe as soon as I'm done, listen to it and just see what kind of I want to say, images - but that one doesn't apply for this one. I just like how “Nocturnal Emissions” sounds. It was almost “Emit Nocturna,” but I just went for it.
So as far as being able to plug in your compositions to these guys who have been together for so long - I mean, that must be pretty cool to bring your stuff to some guys who are so well integrated to begin with.
CS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're all professionals, and we take doing the work leading up to the shows seriously, and, yeah, it's amazing, Everyone in this band is a killer player, and it's really nice to be able to write whatever you want or come up with whatever you want, and everyone's going to make it happen, whoever's coming up with the ideas.
I’m interested in hearing about how you learned these guys' approach to hitting the road and stuff. Can you tell us what sort of hazing rituals or just general prep that goes into getting on the road with Spafford?
BM: Dude, tell him about the peanut butter.
[laughter]
CS: I mean, it was pretty seamless. I'd been on the road a bit in previous bands, and we all have the same kind of sense of humor and same kind of - well, we're not all the same priorities, but we're a healthy enough bunch that it's pretty easy to pretty easy to slide into. And if this is what you want to do, and this is what your dream was always then, yeah, just keep following it, and we're doing it.
So let's turn to this really densely packed Northeastern run. I got to catch a couple shows already, I loved them, it seems there's a lot of really good energy around this. What’s the state of the Spaffordverse right now finishing off this two-week run of shows in the Northeast?
NT: It felt really good. We did 12 shows in 13 days in some of our favorite areas to play, in Brooklyn and Pennsylvania and Connecticut and Vermont. And we love it up here. You can hit so many places in such a small area, but the buzz is definitely growing. And it feels like people are talking a lot about Spafford, and it's really - It feels really nice. We've never really changed what we've done. We've always just kind of done the same thing. I mean, it's changed a little bit here and there, but the principle of Spafford has always kind of been there. We bring really great original songs and really cool, far-out-there jams and experimental music, and we have a lot of fun doing it. So we've been doing that.
Well, I want to turn to you, Shon. You're the composer of “Soggy Froggy,” correct?
SHON GORDON: Indeed.
Tell us about “Soggy Froggy.” The second I heard it, I was taken back to a late 70s or 80s “Dancing in the Street” Grateful Dead kind of energy.
SG: Oh, cool.
I really enjoyed it. Tell us about the song. It's really good.
So I just wanted to write something that had that particular riff in it. There's a riff that's in groupings of five, and in order for me to practice something, I always - You know, why don't I just put it in a song? Now we have to actually learn how to do it. So that's why that little section got put in there. And I was thinking more along the lines of, like, Snarky Puppy, that initial groove - [vocalizes the riff]. When I brought it to this band, it changed a little bit. The groove changed, they added some different things to it. And, like Corey said, these guys are so good that you can bring anything, and everyone's gonna learn it and really give the song justice, do it justice.
As far as pairing that newer song with “Mind’s Unchained,” a song Spafford has been playing for almost a decade - How did that come together? You’ve done that one-two punch a couple times this tour.
It was the day of. When we come up with set lists and stuff, sometimes songs, you know, we go from one song to another - And that was just that day. We were like, okay, we're gonna do “Mind’s Unchained” after it and figure out how to get there, from one thing to the other.
I think they work really well together. Okay, so I promised a bargain basement Nardwuar thing, okay, and I got it going. [rummages through bag] Okay, so first off, we'll start with Corey.
BM: [emphatically] Yes.
Corey, this is a Bill Laswell remix of recordings from electric-era Miles Davis.
[laughter]
I read you're a fan of electric-era Miles Davis.
CS: Yeah!
This is super cool. It’s the great Bill Laswell, he made a very ambient, drone-heavy mix of some classic Miles.
CS: Wow!
If you haven't heard it, it's super good. I got that on the way to the Woodstock show in Hudson, actually.
CS: This looks and sounds amazing.
[laughter]
It is amazing. I listened to it after the Woodstock show, I threw that on.
I can’t wait! I’m going to find a CD player, and then-
[laughter]
You can start there. Okay, and then for Shon, it's Phil Lesh's birthday. So, during the era where [the Grateful Dead] kicked Bobby and Pig Pen out, this is the Mickey and the Hartbeats bootleg. It's wicked good. It's very Jerry and Phil forward, so there's a lot of beautiful, harmonic bass playing.
SG: Cool. Two discs?
Yeah, it's really good.
SG: Well, I’m excited.
BM: Two discs.
Count ‘em.
SG: Multiple.
Yeah.
CS: F---, Shon got two?
SG: Yeah!
Sorry buddy. It’s quantity, not quality. You’re going to hate Nick’s then.
SG: I'm excited to hear it, and hear how experimental it gets.
You’re going to like it, it’s pretty sick. I think also Jack Casady sits in - There’s a lot of bass energy on it. So given the day, I was like, that’s a good Shon one.
SG: I love it, thank you.
I've never done this before, I'm really enjoying how this is going over. Alright, so for Nick, this is a ludicrous one. This is a collection of Steely Dan radio bootlegs.
NT: Wow!
You're a Bernard Purdie fan. Is that right?
NT: Yeah, dude and Keith Carlock! Right there! [points to Keith on the cover of the CD set]
The heartbeat of the band.
NT: Yeah. Are there live cuts on this?
Oh, it's all live cuts. It's all live radio broadcasts.
NT: Look at that!
That's a bootleg I got in Cleveland. It's really delightful. But I know you're Dan Man.
BM: He got four?!
He got six, I think.
SG: He got more than me!
NT: Guys. [posing with the entire set open] Santa Claus, I was a good boy.
BM: Oh man.
CS: You deserve it.
So, tell us a little bit about Steely Dan. I’m a huge Steely Dan fan. Underneath all the jam stuff, I think they’re the best American band. What do you guys get out of Steely Dan? Because I definitely hear it in the jazz-rock core of the compositions. So what do you get out of the Dan?
NT: Brian’s the big Steely Dan fan.
BM: I mean, I grew up with a lot of Steely Dan. I mean, for me, like they were more of the recording monsters. I'd size, like, Radiohead up to what they did in the world of recorded music. Like, they changed it, you know? I just grew up with it, I always felt it as just a sweet groove, I love Donald Fagan's voice, and it always just soothes me.
NT: And being a drummer, Bernard Purdie is one of the most famous drummers ever, and so the Bernard Purdie shuffle is what he played some of their songs - “Babylon Sisters.”
BM: And they have the best recordings ever. The way they make the drum sound - I think they’re the most pleasing records for me to listen to ever.
I think “Two Against Nature”-
BM: The “Two Against Nature” album is what came out when I was in high school - So, I was listening to “Pretzel Logic” and all the other stuff before, but then, when “Two Against Nature” came out, like, that was my album that I got to connect with when I was in high school. And it just floored me.
A weirdly underrated record, despite being a Grammy winner.
BM: Well, it's a little creepy. And yeah, we’ve got to look past some of the weird “Cousin Dupree” sort of stuff, but yeah, other than that, it sounds amazing. And I just love them.
And then for you, Brian, to top things off, my favorite Steve Kimock Band release- “Live in Colorado Vol.2.”
BM: Ooooooh, of course! This is it!
For the shredder-in-charge of the band. That's another super underrated live album that's just unbelievably good. Having listened to you guys for the last week pretty thoroughly, I was like, that seems like up Brian’s alley.
BM: Oh, this is it. And this is with Rodney Holmes-
NT: Yes!
BM: He’s one of my favorite drummers of all time, other than you, Nick.
NT: Oh, thank you.
BM: And yeah, that's incredible. Thank you!
You do the “Ice Cream” cover.
We do “Ice Cream,” we also do "Tongue N’ Groove.”
There's not a lot of bands covering the Steve Kimock Band in 2026- Talk to us about that, why is it important to play that music?
BM: So, I grew up with that. I mean, we're talking about listening to “Two Against Nature,” we're talking about listening to Steve Kimock Band- I was in my ‘97 Jeep Cherokee Sport, white with the red pinstripes on it, the Pioneer deck I had not seated correctly in the car. And that's where I listened to all the shit. But Steve Kimock was the guitar sound of my childhood. We met him.
NT: Yeah.
BM: We were friends with Jerry Joseph out in Arizona, became friends with Jerry, who's co-writer of “Climb To Safety,” a bunch of [Widespread] Panic tunes- And he was playing, we were up in the West Coast. This is, oh my god-
NT: Oh yeah, up in the sticks in Northern California.
BM: Oh my goodness, yeah. We didn't get paid, it was a whole thing, and I fought for Steve Kimock- It was Steve Kimock, it was Wally [Ingram], Jerry Joseph, those guys were in the band, and they didn't pay us. And I was like, Look, honestly, I don't care if you don't pay us, but, like, you’ve got to pay Steve Kimock, and he did. He paid Steve and did not pay us any money to do this festival.
NT: And then we played with him in Denver at Quixote's-
BM: Oh, god, yeah.
NT: And most notably for me, because he had Stephen Perkins play drums with him from Jane's Addiction that night.
BM: That's right.
NT: And it was so cool to sit there and listen to Steve Kimock band with Stephen Perkins on fucking drums It was so tight.
BM: And Steve came up to me and and he sprayed Pledge all over my guitar, because that's how he cleans his guitar. And he was like, check this out, and sprayed Pledge like all over it. And I was like, what the fuck, dude. I do not do that to my guitars.
[laughter]
BM: That's a Steve trick that I did not take on. Yeah, I did not pick that one up.
So I know you guys are heading on stage relatively soon- A question I like to ask people is, if you could play like any venue from a fictional setting – I often go to Quark’s bar from DS9 for the Star Trek fans – is there a fictional place you would like to perform? Because you’ve performed everywhere in the real world it seems at this point, can you think of a fictional location you’d want to play?
CS: The Star Wars Cantina.
SG: Yeah.
[someone hums the Star Wars Cantina theme]
I could envision you guys doing that.
BM: Okay, “The Never Ending Story,” okay? Where the girl – she's like the majestic girl. I forget what her name is – but she's on her, like, crystal stage? I want to be there.
Fabulous.
BM: Yeah.
Nick?
Maybe somewhere in- What's that fucking movie? “Alice in Wonderland?” Not “Alice in Wonderland.” What's the, with the Tin Man and the fucking-
BM: Wizard of Oz?
NT: Somewhere in “Wizard Of Oz,” I feel like would be cool.
Amazing.
NT: On the Yellow Brick Road!
BM: Yes!
***
With that, the band made for the Infinity Music Hall stage to cap off their triumphant winter tour. It was a lovely night. I made some new friends in that delightful pre-show anticipatory space, ran into Tom from the Amherst show again, and danced my a-- off. The second set opening with an almost-half-hour-long “Back In LA” was a highlight of my Spafford week, both the longest song of the three shows and one with a truly captivating build from the abyss of space rock infinity into a trippy, laser-targeted peak that felt monumental after the lengthy gestation period. The jam took me into memories of cruising the highways of the titular city at night, and I could have stayed there for hours.
A beefy rendition of “The Postman” finished the three-song set, and it was also a true journey. The two-song encore saw the debut of “Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots followed by Spafford staple “Ain’t That Wrong,” which the band took for a glorious 18-minute victory lap to celebrate the end of another campaign. Spilling out of the venue into a chilly March night, Tom told me he felt the show had eclipsed Amherst in sheer quality. I felt much the same. I’ll note that across the three shows and 26 songs I caught over a full week, there were no repeats and two Steve Miller Band covers. How about that! For a sign-off to a 26-show, eight-week jaunt, Spafford seemed like they were just getting started. It’s beautiful to me that the band’s love letter to a departed giant back in January proved to be the perfect inspiration to finally go experience them for myself and find something new to be excited about. I can’t wait to see Spafford again. Shall we go, you and I, while we can?
