Welcome back to Shecky's Jam Bands. I'm Shecky
and today we've got a story that I love because
it starts in a basement. Not a famous basement,
not a legendary club, just a basement in Wilton,
Connecticut where four high school friends started
playing music together because they had nothing
better to do and everything to prove. In that
basement something started that is still going
and still growing. and still capable of stopping
a room cold. Today, we're talking about Great
Blue, the band that Peter Anspach helped build
before he became one of the half of the Guitar
and Keys partnership at the center of one of
the most talked about jam bands in the last decade.
The band he keeps coming back to, the band that
when you see them live for the first time, makes
you wonder how they aren't in every festival
stage in the country. I personally had a chance
to see them at the CAP in Portchester, New York.
They were playing in the bar area before the
Spafford Pigeons Playing Ping Pong concert last
year. I loved them so much, I decided to include
an episode dedicated to them. And I promise,
this story has a golden retriever in it. Stay
with me. Great Blue was formed in Wilton, Connecticut,
a small town in Fairfield County. The kind of
place where the trees go right to the edge of
the road and nothing happens unless you make
it happen. Peter Anspach, Ethan Michael, Seth
Zucker and Nick Hanna were friends in high school.
And like a lot of bands that last, they didn't
really start as a band. They started as friends
who played music together because the music was
good and the company was better. Anspach on guitar
and vocals, Ethan Michael on guitar and keyboards,
Seth Zucker on bass and vocals, Nick Hanna on
drums and vocals, and as you'll learn, saxophone
on occasion. Because Great Blue is not a band
that limits itself. Together they built the sound
rooted in progressive rock, funk, and psychedelic
improvisation, and they've been doing it together
for well over a decade since those early basement
sessions. Their first album, Great Blue Vol.
1, came out in 2013, produced by Anspach and
Hanna themselves, and they were off. Four studio
albums followed, consistent gigging in the Northeast,
a dedicated fan base that grew quietly and loyally.
Then, in 2017, something changed. Peter Anspach
joined Goose. the Wilton -based jam band fronted
by guitarist Rick Mitteratanda, and they would
go on to become one of the breakout acts of the
early 2020s, playing at Radio City Music Hall,
Red Rocks, headlining arenas, and eventually
sharing the stage with Trey Anastasio himself.
Suddenly, one of Great Blue's founding members
was in the fastest -rising band in the jam world.
Great Blue went into a kind of a hiatus, still
alive, still relevant, but quiet. That is, until
Goose fans started doing their homework. First,
the name. Great Blue is a reference to the Great
Blue Heron. If you spent any time around the
rivers and wetlands of New England, you know
this bird. Tall, elegant, patient beyond belief,
standing perfectly still in shallow water before
striking at exactly the right moment, with surgical
precision. It's a Connecticut bird, a New England
bird, and it perfectly captures the energy Great
Blue brings to the stage. A long patient build
and then a strike that leaves you breathless.
Now, the Goose connection. When Ann Spatch joined
Goose, they didn't leave his old catalog at the
door. Songs from Great Blue's repertoire started
surfacing in Goose's set lists. Doc Brown, Butterflies,
Yeti, songs written by Great Blue that founded
new audiences through Goose's rapidly expanding
fan base. For many Goose fans, hearing one of
these songs dropped into a Goose set was the
first introduction to Great Blue. The Curious
fans did what Curious fans do, they went looking
for the source. What they found was a band that
had been quietly doing extraordinary work for
years. a band with four albums, a thick catalog
of original songs, and a live reputation built
night after night in basements, clubs, and small
theaters without the benefit of a breakout co
-pilot. Now, the Golden Retriever. I promised
you a Golden Retriever and I'm going to deliver.
In the early days of Great Blue, back in those
Connecticut basement sessions, the band had a
mascot. His name was Leo, a Golden Retriever.
He would sit on every practice session no matter
how loud the PA got turned up. He just stayed
right there patient and loyal and happy to be
in the room while the music happened around him.
Leo has since passed and at a 2022 show in Saratoga
Springs, Anspach paused before playing a song
called Line in the Grass and he took a moment
to reflect on their old bandmate and mascot.
Then they played the song in Leo's memory. That
is the kind of band Great Blue is. The kind that
names a song for a dog, remembers him on stage
years later, and plays it with everything they've
got. My one song for Great Blue is Doc Brown.
Yes, as in Back to the Future, Great Blue wrote
this song, a bass -heavy, reggae -tinged, absolute,
irresistible groove, and it has taken on its
own life far beyond the band that created it.
Goose plays it regularly. Goose fans know it
like a standard. But it started here in Wilton,
Connecticut and these four friends who wanted
to write something that made a room want to move.
And it works every single time. Here's what makes
Doc Brown special as an entry point into Great
Blue. It has an immediate recognizable feel and
you know within 10 seconds whether this song
is going to live in your body. The reggae rhythm
is patient and deep and the melody comes in and
it's playful and warm, with just enough quirkiness
to keep it interesting. You can dance to it,
you can drive to it, you can play at a party
and watch half the room look up and ask, what
is this? Find Doc Brown on live recording. The
live 2024 album on Bandcamp has a great version.
Press play, let the bass hit, you'll understand.
Now, for an unforgettable night in Saratoga Springs,
May 19th, 2022, at Putnam Place in Saratoga Springs,
New York, Great Blue's first tour in five years,
Goose fans who had found the band through the
connection to Anspach were showing up alongside
longtime Great Blue diehards, and the band came
in ready. The review that came out of that night
described Great Blue as setting their controls
for the sun and lifting off like a rocket ship
from hell. That is a beautiful sentence and I
believe it completely. They opened with Lily's
Tiger, then Willie, old Great Blue songs played
with the confidence of a band that has never
stopped believing in its own material. Then together
not the same which features what the reviewer
calls an insane guitar solo from Antspatch who
completely lost himself in the music, smiling
ear to ear while thrashing about the stage in
pure punk rock fury. He was not in goose mode,
he was fully completely himself, the version
of Peter Antspatch that existed before the fame,
before the arenas, before Radio City Music Hall.
The band worked through Banana Jam, and a cover
of Vampire Weekend, Sunflower, and then the Doc
Brown moment. The bass -heavy reggae groove settled
into the room and Goose fans audibly responded.
Then mid -jam, the band pivoted to Whale's another
Goose song with great blue DNA before seamlessly
returning to Doc Brown's reggae roots. The two
songs from two different bands braided together
live with no seams showing. Then came the Lion
in the Grass tribute to Leo. Then Ant Spatch
and the guitarist Ethan Michael played a portion
of the song while both of them were lying down
on the stage floor, on their backs playing guitar,
on the floor because they could, and because
Great Blue is a band where that kind of thing
happens without warning and feels completely
right. As the house lights came down that night,
multiple people in the crowd were heard calling
it the best show they'd ever seen in years. The
best $15 they've ever spent, that's Great Blue.
That's what happens when four lifelong friends
who have nothing to prove and everything to enjoy
get on the stage and just play. All right, things
you should know about Great Blue. They played
at the Capitol Theater. In December 2024, Great
Blue played at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester,
New York, one of the most storied small venues
in the Northeast, a room that has hosted everyone
from Grateful Dead to Fish. to Goose's own landmark
five -night stand. For a band that started in
a Connecticut basement playing at the Cap feels
like a particular kind of homecoming. Last fact
that you should know, the band covered Weezer
at the Saratoga show. At the 2022 Saratoga Springs
show, they played Weezer's Undone, the sweater
song, as part of the set and then covered Red
Hot Chili Peppers later that night. This is a
band that plays music it loves with zero genre
anxiety. Reggae, funk, psych rock, Weezer, it's
all in the same night. Here's what I want to
leave you with about Great Blue. There's something
genuinely rare about a band that started in a
basement as teenagers, has outlasted lineup pressures
and hiatuses and competing band commitments,
and still plays with the same energy and joy
they had when Leo the Golden Retriever was sitting
in on their practice. Great Blue is not trying
to be anything other than what it is. Four friends
from Connecticut who love playing music together,
have an incredible catalog of original songs,
and bring every ounce of themselves to every
stage they walk onto. One of those friends happens
to also be in one of the biggest jam bands working
today. that visibly has brought new listeners
to Great Blue's door, and every one of those
new listeners finds the same thing, a band that
has been good for this long, without anyone making
a fuss about it. Start with Doc Brown, then Butterflies,
then find the Saratoga Springs 2022 recording
on their band camp, and if Great Blue is playing
anywhere near you, and they have been touring
more frequently in recent years, please go. Bring
a friend, spend your $15, you'll walk out calling
it the best show you've ever seen in years. That's
Great Blue and that's Shecky's Jam Bands. Thanks
for listening and I'll see you next time.