Read the Story that was featured in The Vacaville Reporter
Billboard

Friday, June 23, 2006

Blues-rockers Matty T Band at CreekWalk tonight

By Richard Bammer/Features Writer

As an adult, blues and blues-rock color his musical palette, from Jimi Hendrix' "Red House" to Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Cold Shot."

As a child, he sheepishly admits he got bug-eyed listening to The Monkees, the late 1960s pop group noted for the hits "Last Train to Clarksville" and "I'm A Believer," among others.

"That definitely got me to want to play guitars," said Matty Taynton of Vacaville, a guitarist and founder of a rock band that largely bears his name, The Matty T Band. "I have two older sisters and I'd listen to their records." He then laughingly recalled the time, however, when Hendrix, newly returned from England, where he forged his now-famous "power trio" sound with The Experience, actually opened for The Monkees on a U.S. tour and was roundly booed for not being, well, The Monkees.

Taynton, a Vacaville merchant whose band performs tonight at CreekWalk, plays covers that include Hendrix, Vaughan and Clapton, guitar gods all, as well as some originals he describes as "bluesy rock instrumentals."

But if you go to downtown Vacaville at 6:30 p.m., when the music gets under way, expect the group's stock in trade to be a guitar-based gumbo, tunes such as Clapton's (in Cream) "Badge" and "Old Love" to Hendrix' "Stone Free" and "Hey, Joe" to Vaughan's "Texas Flood" and "Empty Arms."

"We're a rockin' blues band," said Taynton, 43 and the owner of Tweed Hut Music, where he sells guitars, amplifiers and publc address systems. "We cover different songs in a blues-rock kind of way. I don't like to sound like the originals but I do stick to the arrangements - I just interpret it by doing my own thing."

His own thing is collaborative. He is backed by Jim Papesh on bass and vocals; Tony Garcia on drums and vocals; and Marvin Eguia on keyboards and vocals. The band formed about 18 months ago and has played, largely, locally, and plans to record an album, possibly at Vacaville's Sound Farm, within the next few months.

Born in Sacramento, Taynton grew up in Novato, in Marin County, the home of many famous rock 'n' roll guitarists.

"Steve Miller, Journey, The Jefferson Starship - these are people you'd see driving around," he recalled. "It's a pretty competitive guitar market over there. It's a pretty happening place musical."

For his shows, Taynton allows for some histrionics, such as playing his instrument behind his head, a la Aaron "T-Bone" Walker.

And do you pick it with your teeth, too?

"My parents paid for braces, so I don't do that," he said, laughing. "It's kind of hard to do, actually."

Taynton said his guitar heroes were generally the white players who learned from the post-World War II black musicians who created the hard-edge Chicago sound, namely Hubert Sumlin, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush.

"Those were the guys I really liked," he said of Hendrix, Vaughan and Clapton. "They learned from the masters and I learned from them."

Taynton's musical education came through experience, by just playing, mostly by ear, not reading music. He does not sight-read.

"I kind of work it out," he said, adding that he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration. "If I had had access to teachers, then that would have been great, but I didn't. I just sat in my bedroom and ruined a lot of records." Today, they are stored in his garage, since he no longer uses a turntable.