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Pulse of the Twin Cities, April 20th, 2006

The very first thing you notice when Down Lo gets up on stage is that front man Mark Grundhoefer (guitar, vocals) is stone cold serious about having real big fun. You can’t help it. The guy is everywhere at once, nodding his head, jumping up and down, turning around. Hell, I get tired watching him. Of course, you also notice that all four of these guys (Grundhoefer, bassist Ryan Nielsen, drummer Mike Cini and Will Nissen on keys, sax, vocals) came to play: from first note to last, they are dead-on with chops to burn. Down Lo works like a chain gang on overdrive. When you go to see them, be sure and bring dancing shoes.

Amazingly enough, the band loses none of its blistering energy on their debut studio album, Lead My Way (FSM). Taking a page from the book of thoroughbred funk, with a nod or two to the likes of, say, Van Morrison, Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall and Robert Palmer, they incorporate an eclectic barrage of influences—from blues to bluegrass—always bringing it straight home to soulville. The opener, “Take Care,” chugs with a hip-thrusting reggae thump, Grundhoefer sailing on the hard-charged vocal. You get thrown something of a curve when they hit the bridge and the time signature takes a left turn, wending into jazz territory. Stay with it. The intriguing interlude segues on a dime, slipping right back to where things left off, locked in the pocket, grinding nice and sweet to the end of the line. In general, notice has been served that, with this album, your ears—and any taste you have for innovation—are in for a fine time. “Ain’t It A Shame” is nasty as a New Orleans alley, with Nissen getting up off some Allen Toussaint-style, barrelhouse piano and Grundhoefer hollering like a rutting drunkard. “Pimp Junkie” and the instrumental “Smooth” are culled from the Maceo Parker school of getting down on the good foot and so barebones funky, you may need to open a window. “Lonesome Train” is a good old straight shot—no chaser, thanks—of hand-clapping, foot-stomping honky-tonk. Long story short, you really can’t lose with Lead My Way.

Down Lo formed in, of all places, Northfield , Minn. , which is better known as pristine suburbia than a breeding ground for rocking funkmeisters. In the summer of 2000, Mark Grundhoefer and Ryan Nielsen hooked up with jamming buddy Casey Wasner on drums and gigged extensively around that area. As it usually turns out with fledgling efforts, individual agendas and attendant creativity outlived cohesion, moving the three in separate directions. Nielsen moved on to L.A. and a band called One Fluid Ounce. Grundhoefer just dropped everything to heed the responsibilities of daddyhood (“Kaia Marie” off the album is named for his now 4-year-old daughter). Eventually, they reunited in Gates Avenue , which didn’t last. Then came woodshedding with Will Nissen and drummer Logan Schutts. Schutts graduated Carleton College, quit the band, was replaced by Mike Cini and the rest was a matter of writing, rehearsing and staying together long enough to start getting somewhere, working countless bars, festivals, clubs and parties over these past couple of years throughout the Midwest and Rocky Mountain region. Now, Down Lo is pretty much poised to take the Twin Cities by storm. They tour their asses off, blow crowds away and happen to be signed to St. Paul ’s state of the art label Fuzzy Slippers Music.

Asked what prompted him to join forces with Grundhoefer in the first place, Ryan Nielsen says, “Mark and I jammed together and just locked in right off the bat. From then on, I knew I wanted to play with him.” As for what in the world Nielson was doing, making nitty-gritty noise in Northfield , he readily attests, “I love the funk. Whatever I do, I wanna make it funky. If it’s funky, people dance. Even in Northfield .”

Mark Grundhoefer writes the lion’s share of Down Lo’s material. Though Lead My Way was produced by the band and engineer Brian Ricke , Grundhoefer was executive producer with label owner Rich Leone, and anytime there wasn’t a consensus, he made judgment calls as to how the album would sound. “By the end of it,” Grundhoefer recalls, “it had become kind of a thing where we would change hands. Certain parts Ryan would take over on and make production calls. If there was any point where [there was] trouble coming to an agreement, I would make the decision. Beyond that, it was a group project. Everybody stepped up.”

Among those who’ve influenced his songwriting and performing he notes B.B. King, Freddie King and the legendary Doc Watson. “Country and blues, old time folk music, all blended together, is the heart, I believe, of what American music is.” As for all that jumping around on stage, “Music to me is a life force. It is life. It’s one of those things that as much as you put into it [is] as much as you get out of it. I just find that the more energy I put into my live performances, the better I play, the more I give it, the audience responds to that. ’Cause, they’re out there, trying to have the time of their life. It brings people back, too. People love a good show.” ||

The Rift – Todd Harrison – Issue #13, April 2006

St. Paul ’s Down Lo combines elements of jazz, funk, blues, reggae and country into a mix most sandal-clad, earth-worshipping music fans should find irresistibly tantalizing. The album’s opener, “Take Care,” is fairly representative of the bulk of the CD. The music is standard, laid-back white boy raga funk tied to a pleasant organ groove. The song takes an abrupt turn midway through, picking up tempo and segueing into space jazz reminiscent of Casino Royale. This track is followed by “Bluegrass in E,” which, despite its title, sounds nothing like bluegrass, but more like Sublime by way of Nashville . The rest of the album continues in a similar vein, with a handful of instrumental tracks sprinkled throughout, giving the band members a chance to show off their considerable musical prowess.

When it comes to bands such as Down Lo, lyrical content often comes second to building a strong groove an audience can dance to and “Lead My Way” is no exception. Most of the themes are standard boilerplate fare about finding love, losing love and the hardships of touring. Singer/guitarist Mark Grundhoefer has a smooth voice that, at time, recalls G. Love, Bradley Nowell of Sublime and numerous other Caucasian purveyors of cultural-musical appropriation. His guitar work is quite impressive, as are the musical talents of Down Lo’s three other members and “Lead My Way” gives them all ample opportunity to impress the listener. With this much talent and the ability to lay down an easy groove, Down Lo may very well be the heir apparent to the local jam-band throne currently occupied by the Big Wu.

Shoutin’ to the Nation: A New Sound from the Cities

Janie Franz, High Plains Reader – Fargo, ND
December 6th, 2007

“If you’ve been following Minneapolis band Down Lo for the past few years, you’ve probably noticed that these musicians have been all over the map musically. You’ve heard funk, bluegrass, jazz, rock and roll, and intricate instrumental jams as the band members explored new genres and lyrical styles.

A couple of years ago, Mark Grundhoefer, lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter, began to test the waters of rap and hip hop. That eventually led to a collaboration with San Diego rapper Deploi, first as a guest at some of their shows and later as a shaper of the band’s new urban sound. This new path for Down Lo allows the band to offer up something uniquely theirs but definitely Midwest-grown. It is hip hop with the friendliness of Minnesota and details of the people of the region.

Down Lo and Deploi have distilled this Midwest sound into their latest CD, for which they are currently hosting several CD release parties. They will be in Fargo and Grand Forks this week to celebrate this landmark album.

The journey to this new sound was not forced. “It’s been a kind of a natural progression,” said Grundhoefer in a recent telephone interview. But it clearly was his connections with the hip hop realm that brought rappers to the Down Lo stage. “There’s a DJ that I’m good friends, DJ Innovation, here in St. Paul. I met him right after he moved back here from San Diego. He had lived there for a few years and that was where he met Deploi. So, DJ Innovation and I started doing some work together and promoting some shows in St. Paul. Eventually, it was kind of a no-brainer when he said, ‘I know a great MC from San Diego. Let’s bring him out.’ So, we flew Deploi out for a show and that’s when we first met.”

As Grundhoefer began to bring him out more frequently, Deploi started interacting more and more with Down Lo. “After a few jam sessions and collaborations, we started to do full tours with him. It’s a creative brainstorming between all of us. We’re inspired by each other.”

Mark Grundhoefer and Deploi wrote about the snowy streets of St Paul and the warmth of the people there, not about crime or drivebys. “It’s about good music, and it’s about breaking those boundaries. It’s about making something new without being restricted by the rules. Hip hop doesn’t mean that you have to talk about guns and violence. The more we recorded, the more we wrote, the more shows we played, it became evident that we were making a pretty unique connection from the Midwest all the way to LA. It was almost two different worlds that we were mashing together…just because you’re from the Midwest, it doesn’t mean that you can’t play hip hop.”

Grundhoefer’s facility with the medium has placed him on stage with Deploi, trading verses. In the new CD, Grundhoefer’s place as Down Lo’s lead singer isn’t totally usurped by Deploi’s vocal skills. “I have a number of tracks that I still do. I will take the bulk of the song. I’ll take the first two verses, and then we let Deploi do the last verse. There are other ones where we trade off verse for verse. Then there are times where we trade off within the verse. That’s the new experimental stuff.”

The band still does all of the musical arranging, “but the words, definitely, was where Deploi had input.” Not only in the studio. “Performing live, we come up with new stuff a lot.” That usually means new lyrics generated during the performance.

That kind of freestyling soon became easier for Mark to do. “I pretty much became an MC by touring with a seasoned veteran like Deploi,” he admitted, though he had been trying it for about two years on his own. “Now, I freestyle on a regular basis on stage. Being on tour with an MC like Deploi and the dynamic that’s created live on stage, like trading off verse for verse or line for line, all that happens spontaneously because we have that kind of chemistry.”

As Down Lo ventures farther from the Midwest, they are finding fans everywhere. “People are very excited about the new sound, even bands that are very far off from what we do, bluegrass and country bands. There’s even a collaboration being developed right now between the White Iron Band and Deploi.”

"Possible heirs to Greazy Meal..."

In Our World review from CD Baby

SoCal lyricism meets Minnesota funk on this collaboration, which splices together two distinct flavors to generate some hard-hitting hip hop and intricate grooves. While this is ostensibly move-the-crowd party music, the complexity of both the words and the instrumentation bumps it up to levels that surpass that generalization, leaving the listener with plenty to take in, process, and feel. Deploi's flow is rugged but on point, dialing in with the rhythm section and often accenting their offbeats with his verbal barbs. When he stops to catch his breath, the band steps up, digging deeper into the heart of the groove and throwing the spotlight on some of the individual instruments. "Expander" showcases some fierce guitar soloing, while the horns on "Party Joint" are huge, taking over the track (in the best way) and creating a fantastic celebratory anthem. To top it off, the production and recording quality are top notch, so you know that when that kick drum kicks and the bass digs down deep, you're going to feel it. And you're going to like it.

- CD Baby, click here for more details