| Influences |
"Long Way Home" - Hot Day at the Zoo's new, summer 2008 EP features 5 gritty, emotionally charged songs. ‘Gypsy Moon’, the album’s opener, is a song that encompasses and transcends the band’s love/hate relationship with the great city of Lowell. At the same time, the song is cleverly intertwined with Edgar Allen Poe’s gothic masterpiece “The Raven”. The result is a deep, melancholy blues number filled with angst, bitterness and despair yet laced with subtle undertones of hope and longing. The title track, ‘Long Way Home’, is an intelligently penned song that tells the story of opposition soldiers that meet at the end of the Civil War as they journey back home. ‘Lost’ is somewhat of a biographical travel song inspired by the life of Lowell’s own poet laureate Jack Keroauc, as seen through the eyes of an old man. ‘Outside Looking In’ is a sing-along ballad that speaks of naive regrets, harsh self-examination and perseverance in the face of life’s many trials. ‘The Wheel’ tells us a tale of the unrelenting turbulence of life on the road, obstacles that are faced, and challenges overcome.
HDATZ chosen to perform at the
NACA Northeast Regional Conference
HDATZ is proud to announce that we will be performing at the 2008 National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) Northeast Regional Conference in Hartford, CT the weekend on November 6 -9.
For those who are unfamiliar with NACA, they link the higher education and entertainment communities in a business and learning partnership, creating educational and business opportunities for our student and professional members.
More details to follow!
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HDATZ set to open for Levon Helm,
the longtime drummer for The Band
HDATZ will have the extreme pleasure of opening for Levon Helm as part of the Lowell Summer Music Series. The show will take place on Thursday, September 4th at Boarding House Park in good old Lowell, MA.
The newly released Dirt Farmer is Levon's first solo, studio album in twenty-five years. A project particularly close to his heart, the CD contains music reminiscent of his past and songs handed down from his parents. The album won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album.
Find more information at: www.levonhelm.com
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HDATZ added to Ithaca Festival
Sat, June 21, 2008 - HDATZ will be playing Ithaca Fest @ 6pm on the Main Stage, located in Stuart Park Ithaca, NY
www.ithacafestival.org
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UNH Solarfest 4/27/08 set added to Archive...
Check it out ya'll:
http://www.archive.org
Thanks Corey!
Hot Day at the Zoo, a fiercely progressive 4-piece string band grown in Lowell, Ma are spreading their eclectic roots up and down the eastern seaboard and as far west as Colorado. Celebrating their 5th year together as a band in January '08, David Cleaves (mandolin, vocals), Jon Cumming (banjo, dobro, vocals,), Michael Dion (guitar, harmonica, vocals,) and Jed Rosen (upright bass, vocals) are making final preparations to their sophomore EP, Long Way Home. Darker and edgier than the wildly popular Cool As Tuesday, the new CD features 5 gritty, emotionally charged songs. Long Way Home is the first release on the band’s own independent record label INTA ? Records. “Gypsy Moon”, the album’s opener, is a song that encompasses and transcends the band’s love/hate relationship with Lowell. At the same time, the song is cleverly intertwined with Edgar Allen Poe’s gothic masterpiece “The Raven”. The result is a deep, melancholy blues number filled with angst, bitterness and despair yet laced with subtle undertones of hope and longing. The title track, “Long Way Home”, is an intelligently penned song that tells the story of opposition soldiers that meet at the end of the Civil War as they journey back home. “Lost” is a somewhat autobiographical travel song inspired by the city of Lowell and the life of Lowell’s own poet laureate Jack Keroauc, as seen through the eyes of an old man. “Outside Lookin’ In” is a sing-along ballad that speaks of naive regrets, harsh self-examination and perseverance in the face of life’s many trials. “Wheel” tells us a tale of the unrelenting turbulence of life on the road, obstacles that are faced, and challenges overcome.
"Spreading their Celtic, reggae-tinged, down-home, stomping music out across the country, the band that played its first gig at a Lowell Folk Festival is no longer small-town. Selling out the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge for their fifth anniversary in January was proof they are expanding their fan base at home. Serendipitously, as Hot Day At The Zoo hits its stride, a renewed interest in roots music has taken hold across the country. Bands like Hot Buttered Rum String Band are heating up the national circuit with Hot Day in their wake."
- Lowell Sun (Mar, 2008)
"When we think of a hot day at the zoo, we picture lethargic animals and sweating visitors. But this Hot Day at the Zoo is very cool, and anything but lethargic. The frenetic foursome from Lowell peels off a gritty urban-bluegrass sound laced with folk, blues, ragtime, and jazz - a mix their fans call 'ZooGrass'."
- Boston Globe (Jan, 2008)
"The new EP does show a creative leap from Cool As Tuesday. The sound is more diverse, and the arrangements are more tightly meshed. “Gypsy Moon (The Raven)” blends a theme of wanderlust with the supernatural inspiration of Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic masterpiece. Cleaves’s clip-clopping mandolin rhythm drives the story at a speedy, precise trot, and Dion’s vocal and harmonica nod toward the Minnesotan nicknamed Jack Frost. “Outside Looking In” is similarly Dylanesque, though it sounds as if moonshine were also a factor in its ragged-but-right performance. Cumming’s banjo comes to the fore in “The Wheel,” a road song that seems like an Appalachian version of the Buddhist cycle of life and death — though with, yes, a considerable helping of whiskey. And then there’s “Lost,” an up-tempo yarn of “a life gone wrong” that has the peppery spirit of an Irish drinking song."
- Boston Phoenix (Jan, 2008)
“HDATZ sprawls and folds in plenty of flavors without making "polyglot" a necessary adjective. And the three-set show is their specialty: build momentum in the first, slay in the second, exhaust in the third. Everyone goes home tired and satisfied, and each song makes the beer taste a little bit better.”
- Jambands.com (Jan, 2007)
“Acoustic has never sounded so electric! At first, Lowell ....bluegrass" band Hot Day at the Zoo looks like a bluegrass band. The instruments are bluegrass (all strings). The fast-paced, finger-pickin' tunes start out sounding like bluegrass. Even the slight drawl in singer Mike Dion's voice seems like traditional bluegrass. But listen a wee bit longer and it is anything but.”
- Boston Globe (Aug 28, 2006)
“Coming from a state that managed to produce both New Kids on the Block and Aerosmith within the same ten mile radius, we should have been prepared for the day when four nice Massachusetts boys would rock out with bluegrass instruments and form a band that’s destined to become a powerful musical demigod: HOT DAY AT THE ZOO”
- The Pulse Magazine (Jan, 2006)
“Hard to believe a band with so much cracked corn soul is from Massachusetts. There’s homebrewed magic here and returning for more swigs has only convinced me further of its kick. Take notice, Hot Day is gonna be around for a while!”
- Jambase.com (Jan, 2006)
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