Born on the Wrong Planet (CD - 1997)

Personnel: Bill Nershi (vocals, acoustic guitar); Maya Dorn (vocals, flute); Jamie Janover (vocals, didjeridu, bongos); Keith Moseley (vocals, electric bass); Michael Travis (vocals, drums, congas, percussion); Stacey Ludlow, Liza Oxnard (vocals); Tony Furtado (banjo); Michael Kang (mandolin, violone, violin).

Recording information: Akashic Recording Studio.

Photographers: Laura Klein; Jamie Janover.

Unknown Contributor Roles: Stacey Ludlow; Jamie Janover.

The String Cheese Incident's debut album contains traces of their rootsy, bluegrass beginnings as well as their strong in-concert musical presence--most of these tracks sound like live recordings, with minimal overdubbing. Any one-dimensional effect this technique produces is swiftly dispersed by the band's good-timey energy and lively improvisations, whether on the folksy "Black Clouds" and "Elvis's Wild Ride," the talking blues of "Resume Man," or the freshly-minted Caribbean rhythms of "Lester Had a Coconut," which underpin some nice stringed-instrument harmonies. The foundations of the Incident's runaway success as a live jam band in the Grateful Dead mould are omnipresent in cuts like the funky, episodic stoner rock of "Jellyfish" and "Texas," both of which hymn the pleasures of hazy good times and marching to the beat of one's own drummer. minimize