Gut the Van

Dispatch's Gut the Van is the inevitable two-CD live album from a jam band with several studio albums under its belt that makes its living on the road. The collection spans dates on the group's East Coast tour of the winter and spring of 2001 from Virginia to Massachusetts, the only exception being a 1996 take of "Steeples" from Middlebury College in Vermont. Dispatch is a hard-playing trio that makes the most of its three instruments and voices, sometimes taking the form of a classic power trio of electric guitar, electric bass, and drums, but just as often employing two acoustic guitars and congas. No matter the instrumentation, the music is groove-heavy, often set to a syncopated beat, the bandmembers singing the songs' elliptical lyrics in an approximation of a Jamaican patois. Reggae is a big influence, and so is rap, but so are earlier trios, particularly the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Police. In concert, Brad "Braddigan" Corrigan, Pete Heimbold, and Charlie Stokes emphasize group interaction, stretching out the songs in a way that emphasizes the rhythms and the music's emotional content over meaning. As such (and no surprise for a jam band), Gut the Van, which contains songs from all of the band's previous albums, makes a terrific introduction, and may be the record to break Dispatch beyond the fervent cult following that makes itself heard in the audience.