What's up cheeseheads, ski bums, and fellow travelers? Welcome back to Shecky's Jam Bands, the podcast where we dig deep into the music that makes you close your eyes, raise your hands, and forget what day it is. I'm your host Shecky, and today, oh today, it's a good day. Today we're talking about a band that started as a bunch of ski bums goofing off in a mountain town in Colorado and turned into one of the most beloved most innovative and most flat out fun jam bands to ever walk
onto the stage. Today we're talking about the string cheese incident. String cheese, CSI, the cheese, whatever you call them. If you know, you know. And if you don't, buckle up. By the end of this episode, you're going to want to clear your calendar, pull up nugs .net and disappear into some live recordings. Don't say I didn't warn you. All right, let's set the scene. It's 1993. The place is Cresta Butte, Colorado, a tiny ski town tucked in the rocky mountains.
Elevation, 8 ,900 feet. Population, not very many. And in this little mountain outpost, four guys kept running into each other on the slopes and around town. You've got Bill Nershy on acoustic guitar. Michael Kang on mandolin and violin, Keith Mosley on bass, and Michael Travis on drums. These dudes were, by their own admission, ski bums. They were not polished musicians looking for a record deal. They just wanted to make enough
money to pay for the next day's ski lift. Travis, the drummer, has been open about the fact that he barely played drums before joining the outfit. He was strictly hand percussion, congas, bongos, but the rawness, that DIY spirit that became part of their identity. Now, here's the origin story moment that I absolutely love, because it involves a food fight at a Mexican restaurant. Yes, you heard me correctly. There was a legendary
powder week at Crested Butte. just epic snow day after epic snow day, and eventually the whole town was, quote, skied out. Everyone was exhausted. And one afternoon, the locals piled into a place called Donitas, which was this Mexican food joint on the main strip. It started as a normal happy hour, then it descended into a full restaurant -wide food fight. Enchiladas, burritos, flying
through the air. Across the entire restaurant nursery himself has said that that was the moment that was the incident That was the energy chaotic joyful completely unplanned the band had already been calling it's themselves the blues string cheese band Because they figured they were a bluegrass group that also played and I love this cheesy covers blue string cheese band, but the
name felt a little too wordy. After the enchilada apocalypse at Donita's, Nershe and crew just started calling it the string cheese incident. They made a t -shirt, Nershe carved a woodblock print logo himself, and once the merch existed, there was no going back. You made the t -shirt, you're the band. Now, interestingly, at some point, the band considered changing the name. Kang has admitted they thought, is this really going to be our name? But then hundreds of people
already knew them by that name. And that's when they made a decision that I think defines everything about this band. They said, if we're going to keep this name, we have to make every show an incident. And from that point forward, they committed to exactly that. So after the first performance, which was literally a 15 -minute slot at a local talent night, SCI started playing wherever they could. Ski resorts, private functions, weddings.
They got paid in lift tickets. No, seriously, free lift tickets were a form of compensation early on. By 1995, they had made it to California. By 1996, all four original members made the big decision, quit their day jobs, moved to Boulder, and go all in on the music. That same year, they performed nearly 170 shows, 170 shows, I'll repeat it, in a year. That's a relentless pace. And it was right around the same time that they decided to expand the lineup. They were a string band.
Mandolin, acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and they started to feel the limitations of that palette. They wanted to sustain. They wanted an organ to fill the spaces between the plunky string sounds. They envisioned a keyboard player before they even knew who they wanted. Enter Kyle Hollingsworth. Kyle was playing in a local Boulder band when SCI found him. Kyle joined in the fall of 1996
and the band was never the same. Then in 2004 and 2005, depending on which source you trust, They brought in Jason Hahn on auxiliary percussion. You've got six people on stage and the rhythmic foundation becomes absolutely monstrous. Hahn brought a whole new dimension of world music and electronic influence percussion to the sound. By late 1990s, SCI was one of the most popular acts on the jam band circuit, right up there with Fish and Widespread Panic, in terms of buzz
and following. and they did it the old -fashioned way, relentless touring, taking care of their fans, building community from the ground up. I have to spend a few minutes on this because it's generally remarkable and it often gets overlooked when people talk about SEI's legacy. These guys were not just great musicians, they were pioneers of an entirely new way of being a band. When the internet was just getting off the ground in the mid to late 1990s, when the major label
model was creaking and groaning. The string cheese incident went independent and built their own ecosystem. They weren't signed to a major label. They found SCI Fidelity Records, their own label, in 1998. They ran their own management company, their own merchandising company, and their own ticketing company, and even had a fan travel agency so that dedicated followers could book trips to follow the the band on tour. Think about
that, a travel agency for fans. In 1998, these guys invented what we now call the 360 degree artist model before it had a name. They were also among the very first artists to put all of their live shows online for free. Every single show they played was made available through their own on -the -road series on Nugs .net. They embraced file sharing and digital distribution when the record industry was fighting a tooth and nail. They understood something profound. Their fans
weren't their enemies. Their fans were their greatest asset. Share the music, build the community, trust the people you love. And in 2002, when Ticketmaster tried to prevent them from selling tickets directly to their fans, SCI didn't back down. They filed a lawsuit against one of the most powerful companies in the entertainment
business. over the right to sell their tickets on their own, that kind of backbone standing up for the independent music community cemented their status as not just a great band, but a great institution. They also walked the walk on environmental sustainability because among the first acts to push for green touring, they helped launch non -profits like Conscious Alliance and Headcount. These were not just musicians,
these were community builders. Okay, let's talk about the music because that's, at the end of the day, that's what we're really here for. The genius of string cheese incident is that you cannot put them in a box. The roots are bluegrass, the campfire jams, the flat picking, the love of new grass revival and bella fleck, but they took that and exploded it into something that incorporates rock, funk, jazz, reggae, calypso,
latin, electronica, psychedelica. and progressive rock, sometimes all within the same song, sometimes within the same jam. Kang said once, improvisation isn't about kicking butt chops. It's about getting into space together where you're creating good cohesive music as a group. And that's exactly what SCI does. The jams don't feel like five guys showing off. They feel like a single organism making decisions in real time. There's a musicality and a care for their improvisation that sets
them apart. Every member writes original compositions. Every member sings. This is not a one person show. This is, as some people describe, a democratic ensemble. And the democracy produces a remarkable breadth of material. So if you're new to string cheese, here's a listening guide. I'm going to walk you through the essential song. that makes them so special and why you need this song in your life. You should start with Land's End.
This is a Bill Nershe composition that dates back to their very first album, Born on the Wrong Planet. It's a sweeping atmospheric piece, starts with a gentle melodic theme, then builds into extended territory that can go anywhere on any given night. It has that quality the best Jim band songs have. where the written parts feel like a launch pad rather than a destination. Live versions can stretch into 15 to 20 minute
range. It's one of the most requested songs that has ever left the rotation after three decades. If you want to understand the core of SCI is about melodically and emotionally, please start here. There's tons of other live jams you should see. One you should definitely check out is the Asheville Rollover Sandwich. November 11th, 2000. Okay, let's get into some wild and wonderful facts about the string cheese incident that you might not know. Sims and Skrillex. You read it
correctly. String Cheese Incident once re -recorded their song Close Your Eyes entirely in Simlish, the fictional language from the video game The Sims, for a Sims soundtrack. Then in 2015, they collaborated with EDM superstar Skrillex, a bluegrass rooted Colorado Jam band, and the king of dubstep. The collaboration happened. They had 220 shows in a year at the height of their powers. SCI was performing upward of 220 shows in a single calendar year. That's almost a show every other
day. No wonder they built a travel agency for their fans. Their fans need one. The acrobats and the light shows. While SCI became known for integrating elaborate stage productions into the live shows, acrobats, circus performers, multi -angle lights rigging with fixtures that created UFO -like visuals, their lighting designer Andy Kass became famous in the industry for the scale and vision of these designs. They were not just a band, they were full of sensory experience.
I mentioned before the lawsuit against Ticketmaster. They were willing to fight a billion dollar corporation to protect their fans. They were a leftover salmon cover band. So Drew Emmett, co -founder of the Colorado Jam Legends Leftover Salmon, has confirmed that string cheese began partly as a band that covered leftover salmon material from cover band to headlining in Bonnaroo. That's a real journey. So what do we say about the string cheese incident?
as we close this out. Here's what I keep coming back to. The name. The incident. They committed early on that every show needed to be an incident. Something worth talking about. Something you didn't expect. Something that made you feel like you were present for something unrepeatable. And for over three decades they have delivered on that promise. Not every night is the Asheville rollover sandwich or the Fillmore with Ricky Skaggs, but every night There is that attempt.
Every night there is that spirit of where are we going to create something tonight that has never existed before and will never exist again. That is what improvised music is for. That is what the string cheese incident is for. They built their own world, their own label, their own ticketing, their own travel agency, their own community, and they did it in service of the music and the fans. In an era when major labels We're failing and artists were being crushed.
SCI looked at the landscape and said, we're doing this ourselves. That take combined with music, that is the legacy that's impossible to overstate. If you've never seen them live and they're still touring, please fix that. Go to a show, get there early, find a spot with a good view of the whole stage. And when they start to jam, Just let go. Let the incident happen to you. Thank you so much for tuning into Shecky's Jam Bands. This
has been a labor of love. Next week, we'll be back with another deep dive into another band that changed the way that we think about live music. Until then, keep jamming, keep traveling, and remember, every night is an incident if you're paying attention.