ROD PIAZZA & MFBQ "THRILLVILLE" Source: Jazz & Blues Date: 10/2007 Writer: Mark Smith

Frequent winners of the Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Award for “Band of the Year” Rod Piazza and crew have the live performance thing down cold. They regularly get the crowd on its feet and on the dance floor. So do a lot of other bands. What sets this band apart from countless others on the blues highway is that the sheer energy and musical prowess that sounds so great when your head is full of beer and the groove is moving you around the floor regularly finds its way to the band’s recorded work. This disc is no exception and, in fact, the energy level and looseness of the session feels so right that if the band had added some crowd chatter and applause you’d be hard put to deny that it’s a live disc. While many bands seemingly freeze up and play it safe when the recorder is on, Piazza and crew play to the various knobs and dials as if they were another audience to be won over. With Rod on vocals and harmonica, Honey Piazza on piano and bass (compliments of her left hand), Henry Carvajal on guitar and Dave Kida on drums, the band mixes its own tunes with live wire takes on classics by the likes of Little Walter, Hate to See You Go and Sad Hours, Junior Wells, Hoodoo Man Blues, Willie Dixon, I Don’t Play and Elmore James, Stranger Blues. As a testament to the band’s writing and performance skills the originals stand just as tall as the well-traveled classics.

Stand out tracks include the harmonica showcase, Snap Crackle Hop, the massively funky, MFGQ, the jumping blues of Get Wise, which unleashes Honey’s fleet fingered piano work, Honey Bee, where Rod lays down harmonica tones so fat that you’ll need a visit to weight watchers and the quasi doo-wop number, Sugar, featuring a big band sound compliments of guest saxophonists Johnny Viau and Allen Oritz. Those that lament the loss of former guitarists Alex Schultz and Rick Holmstrom from the band need only check out the instrumental showcase The Civilian to know that the guitar slot is in good hands with Henry Carvajal who lays down inventive riffs that surely have the likes of Hollywood Fats smiling down on the band. Overall, a great effort by a band that continues to be at the top of not only its own game but at the top of the blues game.