LITTLE ROCK — Lubriphonic has a sound designed to pack a dance floor - so perhaps its name carries the suggestion of a lubricating, even liberating experience. Bandleader and co-founder Giles Corey agrees as to his band’s mission.
“We encourage as much dancing as possible,” Corey, the lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter, says. “We’ve played Little Rock before, a couple of times at Stickyz, plus the Riverfest this year, and then we went on to the Wakarusa festival in the Ozarks. What we do is our own music as the majority, plus some ol’ soul songs and rock stuff, peppered in and out.”
Based in Chicago, Lubriphonic averages some 230 shows a year, with three albums released so far. The latest, The Gig Is On, features a cartoon drawing on the cover of one of the band’s favorite haunts, The Checkerboard Lounge, on the corner of East 43rd Street and Martin Luther King Drive on Chicago’s South Side. Ivan Neville of the New Orleans Neville family of musicians sits in on Hammond organ and clavinet on four of the album’s 14 songs, all but one of which are band compositions.
The one cover tune is Curtis Mayfield’s “If There’s a Hell Below (We’re All Gonna Go).”
Corey started the group with drummer Rick King. Other band members play bass, trombone and saxophone.
“We got started about 10 years ago, but it was more of a side project,” Corey explains. “This group came to the forefront in 2008 and we’ve gradually spread our music from coast to coast. We’re heading to California next month for the Joshua Tree Festival.”
Lubriphonic has opened shows for Bruce Hornsby, Galactic, George Clinton, Dr. John, Karl Denson, Maceo Parker, The Derek Trucks Band and Trombone Shorty. Members of the band have played alongside Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Koko Taylor, Buddy Miles, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush. The band members all come from a blues and jazz tradition they were steeped in while growing up in Chicago.
“We all believe in a lot of improvisation, but we’re not necessarily a jam band,” Corey says. “I just start playing a groove on guitar and the other guys follow wherever they want to go.”Lubriphonic 10 p.m. Saturday, Stickyz Chicken Shack, 107 River Market Ave., Little Rock Tickets: $8 advance; $10 day of show (501) 272-7707
Weekend, Pages 36 on 09/15/2011