On July 7, Performer Magazine, along with The Cat’s Pajamas, is presenting a fun-filled evening of awesome music at Slim’s in San Francisco.

Cat’s Pajamas’ founder and MC, Ginger Murray, explains, “The Cat’s Pajamas started at the Make Out Room in February 2009. It is a cabaret that incorporates poetry, music, dance and history into a night that defies scenes and brings a diverse audience together. In this retro city, I always book an act that reflects the actual cultural truth of an era or a place while also mixing in contemporary expression.”

“For this first Slim’s show, we are bringing back our Honky Tonk night. Honky Tonk was not juts a musical style it was also one of the few peculiar true American cultures that we have. Mixing together blues and ragtime riffs with twang, the style also in turn, inspired Jelly Roll Morton. The juke joints of the ’30s and ’40s were also called Honky Tonks and were one of the few outlets for poor people, loose women, whiskey drinking and wild nights. Lord knows a little bit of fun is what is needed after a long, hard work week.”

On the bill is Performer fave Buxter Hootn’n, a Bay Area band chock full of wonderful grooves and lyrical storytelling. We were lucky enough to sit down with Vince Dewald (vocals/guitar) from the band to chat about the show, the new record and what the future has in store for Buxter Hoot’n.

How did the band form?

Jimmy and I are brothers and moved out to SF from Indiana where we had played in bands and started writing songs. We met Jeremy and Ben within a week of each other right when they both moved here from the East Coast, although they didn’t know each other. We all clicked musically and personally right away. About a year later we met Melissa, who moved here from New Hampshire. We were all hanging out late night after shows trading songs and singing old blues’, and it sounded so good that she joined the band full-time.

Some early influences?

After hearing the Fillmore East from the Allman Brothers Jimmy and I took up bass and guitar and started our first band. If we are talking about our earliest influences my first loves were Elvis and Michael Jackson, but we grew up on Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stones, the Talking Heads – all stemming from our parents record collection.

How would you describe your sound? It’s a really interesting, eclectic mix of genres.

Our main focus is having each song tell a story, lyrically and musically. We all come from diverse musical backgrounds so the songs naturally go in many different directions. Ben was a classically trained violinist since the age of 2, Jeremy is a first call jazz drummer who has played with jazz musicians like Esperanza Spalding and Hiromi, Melissa is an R&B encyclopedia, and Jimmy and I are steeped in the songwriting and rock ‘n roll tradition. When it all comes together, telling a story is always the focus.

Your new record (the band’s 3rd) came out a few weeks ago. What can you tell us about that?

It’s really a snapshot of our band at the time.

Where was it recorded? What were the sessions like?

The album was recorded in 3 non-stop days in Chicago at I.V. Lab Studios and the Attic. We were lucky enough to be working with a great team of engineers including our good friend Greg Magers, who has worked with multiple Grammy Award-winning artists. We basically played music for 13 hours a day, slept on the studio floor and woke up and did it again. The sessions were a blast. We were able to just focus on the music. We were on the road and having fun.

You’ve got a show coming up at Slim’s on the 7th that the magazine is co-presenting. What are you looking forward to the most? Have you had a chance to play the new record in front of a hometown crowd yet?

The Slim’s show is going to be a blast. The bill is outstanding. We are looking forward to unveiling some new songs for our hometown crowd. And, the show is going to have a lot of interplay between all the artists on the bill. On top of playing our own set, we are going to be the backing band for Quinn Deveaux and Kelly McFarling and there will be people sitting in all throughout the night. It’s really great when you can play with these other artists who you respect and enjoy but have never performed with. It’s going to make for a very exciting show.

What’s next for the band? A tour? More recording?

Yes, we are planning tours for the fall and a new record is in the works. We are going to take our time recording this one, creating kind of the opposite type of album as the snapshot approach we took for Buxter Hoot’n. We have a lot of new songs that have already become central to our live shows and we feel like we are writing our best stuff yet.

If our readers could only remember one thing about the band, what would you want it to be?

Authenticity. Soul. This band has been basically like a family for five years. Living together, playing, writing together, hanging out.

This music means a lot to us all and has kept us together through a lot. On stage and in the recordings that depth of relationship shows. We all believe in the songs we sing and our lyrics and concepts are equally important to us as the music. It’s not like going to see a bunch of hipsters with star complexes. We do it for the love of playing this music with these people.

For more info on the show, please head to

http://www.slims-sf.com/slims-bin/showcal?date=2011-07-07