Jacksonville's Jeff Davidsmeyer discusses reunion shows with the New Goat Ensemble, how they got their name, and playing with Brad Floreth and Bryan Leonard in the Way Out Yonders.
The following was transcribed by AI with human review.
Randy Eccles: Welcome to Community Voices. I'm Randy Eccles, and we are joined by another musician with ties to the area, Jeff Davidsmeyer. Thanks for joining us on Community Voices today.
Jeff Davidsmeyer: Hey, thanks a lot, Randy.
Randy Eccles: We have heard over the years about the New Goat Ensemble. Although you started in 1990 and took over a decade off, you got back together in 2023 for a reunion show. You did a second reunion show. Is there a third reunion show coming up?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: We hope so. We're kind of working on that. Hopefully it'll be later this fall. We're trying to pin down a couple of dates for that, but maybe looking at October?
Randy Eccles: For folks who don't know the New Goat Ensemble, can you tell us a little bit about it and how it got started?
Jeff Davidsmeyere: My friend Brad Floreth and I have known each other since high school. We were playing a little bit of music together. In 1990, a fellow by the name of Roger Zulof used to host an Earth Day here in Jacksonville every year. He asked me if I would want to play. I said, yeah, I would. The date was coming up slowly but surely. I don't want to do it by myself, so I asked Brad about it and he said he'd do it. And he was playing what they call resonator guitar or dobro. We got together. One thing led to another and was, it'd be nice to have a bass player, and then it'd be nice to have a drummer. I knew a bass player by the name of Rob Killam who I'd played with back in 1985 and 1986 in the local band here, Tapestry. I called him to see if he wanted to try this. He did. He said, "I know a drummer that I've played with before by the name of Andy Hanson." He called Andy and we all got together, and I think I had about 6 songs that I'd written. Earth Day came and we went and played. That was the beginning.
Randy Eccles: This is in Jacksonville, right?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: Yes.
Randy Eccles: What was the reception like on that first show?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: People were really, really welcoming to us. It was a little scary because we were playing our own music. We did another little show, and we only had like six or seven songs, probably 6 songs. We asked a local bar owner over at Bayhand's, Rob Yudakovich, if we could play one Saturday there and he was having his 25th anniversary of being open. It was a monumental anniversary. We played and people liked it. At that time, we were all acoustic. I played acoustic guitar. Brad played the Dobro and a little bit of acoustic the guitar. Andy had a small drum set and Rob played bass. It went from there. We went electric later. We started doing more songs, and writing more songs, and we'd throw in a cover here and there. We started playing a lot in the Springfield area and doing First Night. People seemed to like us because we were playing our own music, and that time in the early 90s it was very acceptable. We were friends with Tom Irwin. Brad played a lot with Tom Irwin back then. We just had a little following going. It was really fun. Later on, Tony Berkman joined us as a drummer. That was early on. We might have played maybe a show or two without him. And then after that, he joined. Then we had another friend that came up and started playing different percussion with us by the name of Mike Krupp. And we had met him through Illinois College. Before long, we had three drummers playing around. It was a neat.
Randy Eccles: We are joined by Jeff Davidsmeyer and Community Voices today. Did you tour outside of Jacksonville, Springfield at all? How did the band grow?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: No, not really. We would play in Jacksonville in a few places. We were always invited. Jacksonville's kind of the nice community in that it supports locals. We'd play 4th of July and we'd play different things. In Springfield, we were playing a couple of different clubs over there. Did First Night for several years. We didn't get very far away from Jacksonville and Springfield. We did play a couple of things one time, an event for somebody. It was not the right crowd because I don't know what they were expecting, but they didn't know our music. We kind of knew where to play and where not to play.
Randy Eccles: Are you still playing around yourself?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: Yeah, we're doing a couple of gigs here and there. Back in 2024. Our original bass player, Rob Killam, passed away. Bryan Leonard had played with us off and on early on. Fantastic bass player. He stepped up and said, I'd love to play with you guys if that's okay. The first gig at the reunion in 2023, Rob and Bryan shared the bass duties. Worked out really nicely. In 2024, Rob had already passed. Bryan has filled his shoes and is doing great.
Randy Eccles: When you got back together, how was the response? People must have really enjoyed getting to see you again.
Jeff Davidsmeyer: It was fun. In 2023. We had people from California, Chicago, and Colorado. Somebody, what we call a 'Goat Head,' he came back from Australia. We had people from all over the country. It was a great time. Everybody always said, "When are you going to do this again?" So we said, "We'll try and do it again next year."
Randy Eccles: Fans came in from all around the world, 'Goat Heads.'. The reason you have to have the reunion is not all the band lives here now, right?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: No, they don't. Mike Krupp is in Wyoming — Laramie, Wyoming. His band out there that he plays with, a couple of bands, they just just dropped an album this week, and they are really good, playing big places. Tony Berkman lives up in Rockford. The rest of us are local. We've got a little band on the side that's kind of gone back to the acoustic side, which we call the Way Out Yonders. We're doing Goat music. It's just a slimmed down version of the Goats, and that's with the local guys here. We'll play up at the Soap Company in Jacksonville, the coffee house. We play like an hour, hour and 20 minutes of acoustic music and some mood music that I've done. The Way Out Yonders — It's members of the New Goat Ensemble without basically Tony and Mike.
Randy Eccles: You mentioned that first show back in 1990. I heard you had six original songs and that you have always been focused on originals. How many songs do you have now?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: We could play 4 hours of original music. I bet we've got anywhere from 45 to 60 songs, maybe even more than that. Now, we tend to improvise a lot, and some have come from improvising. Years ago, I used to try and record our shows with a little cassette tape, go play them back and hear it and go, "Hey, we need to pick up on that one." That's part of the repertoire.
Randy Eccles: Are any of it available if people want to listen?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: No. There are some YouTube stuff Brian Liddard is doing for us. We've got an album that we recorded in 1993. It was three live shows that we put together. That CD got released, I believe in 1996. With the Chamber of Commerce, we had a big CD release party at the old Holidome. The mayor was there, as Jacksonville supports their community so well. That CD is available at live shows. We ought to put it on Spotify or something. It's called campeylobacter.
Randy Eccles: It's a collector's item if you can find a CD copy around. Perhaps at one of the Way Out Yonders shows you might have a CD somebody could buy?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: Yeah, we might have it there too, yeah.
Randy Eccles: What's the future looking like for both you and the variations?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: We're all interested in playing. I'm still doing some writing and bringing in this other acoustic side.
Randy Eccles: What's the future looking like?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: This other acoustic side with the Way Out Yonders. The Goats enjoy playing together when we can get Tony down and Mike out. This fall, October 4, we'll be playing for the Jacksonville celebration downtown in Jacksonville at 2:30 p.m., and the whole band will be there. Mike will be there. Tony will be there and we're going to do a little hour and a half set October 4.
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Randy Eccles: We'll look forward to getting to check that out in Jacksonville. Any iconic story or anything from that era you want to share?
Jeff Davidsmeyer: People ask about the name. Where did the name come from? Brad Floreth had always joked about having a goat name in the band. Brad and I would go see a band or something and we would say, "Well, we really like your ensemble." We used the word 'ensemble' instead of band or group or whatever, tongue in cheek. At some point, we had a little tape, it had said Old Goat Band on it. Then Roger Zulof was trying to introduce us that day, and he said something about the Old Goat Band. I said, "Goat Ensemble," Rob Killam stepped up and said, "New Goa. Ensemble." The next morning in the Sunday paper, there was a picture of us with our name, 'New Goat Ensemble,' underneath.
Randy Eccles: It's good to learn about the New Goat Ensemble. Looking forward to that Reunion 3.0 show coming up October 4. Try to find that CD from 1996 if you can. Jeff Davidsmeyer, thanks for joining us. We look forward to hearing more from the New Goat Ensemble and from the Way Out Yonders.
Jeff Davidsmeyer: All right, thank you very much, Randy.
Randy Eccles: Community Voices is a production of NPR, Illinois.
