You know, you don’t have to be smart as long as you know smart people.
I had never heard of guitarist Greg Koch until my friend Kevin emailed me that he’d just seen him interviewed by Rick Beato. “We gotta see him!” was the bottom line. I looked him up online, and was impressed by the accolades by the likes of Les Paul and Joe Bonamassa. Ok! Let’s go check him out. Per God’s providence, Koch just happened to be coming to town, so we headed out to this fairly new club in Venice, The Venice West to catch the show.
The club itself reminded me of an Irish pub: hip atmosphere, good food, nice stage and acoustics and enthused service. I could come here more often-maybe bring the wives next time!
By the time the impressive opening act of an acoustic blues guitar duo was done, 8:30 rolled around and 6’7” Wisconsin bred Greg Koch lumbered up on stage, with his sweat shirt, baseball cap and glasses looking like someone’s Little League coach, bringing with him his son Dylan for drumming and Minnesota resident Toby Lee Marshal on a keyboard and Hammond SKX. Koch comes up to the mic with a big Midwestern smile, welcoming everyone with an avuncular “Who’s Ready?!?” before strapping on his 53 Fender Telecaster and delivering a 100+ minute set that got the juke joint jumping.
First of all, his touch is clean and immaculate, and not only is his selection of notes perfect during the solos, but they never over stay their welcomes or feel contrived. He mixed up his own cleverly titled originals with covers ranging from Freddie King to Hendrix to Jeff Beck to Led Zeppelin and The Allman Brothers. In other words, he gave tribute to the past, but wasn’t stuck in it, and the band played with a ferocity that made you feel like they were playing for keeps.
Dad Greg gave some tasty guitar pickings of boogie shufflers like “Stumble” and the double time avalanche of “Redhouse” with son Dylan hitting harder than a caffeinated John Bonham. Metal pieces like “The Ripper” hit like a jackhammer, while there was a Memphis swamp fest with dad on guitar as he sang on his own hilariously boogie’d “There’s Only Two Things Wrong With You And That’s Your Face” and rollicked on “Sugaboo”. Meanwhile, Marshall is humming on the Hammond like he was grave robbing from Jimmy Smith, making the speakers howl like a souped up Harley on ‘You Can’t Lose A Thing You Never Had” and even taking some vocals on the chunky funky “Don’t Change Horses In The Middle Of The Stream” .
Greg then took the So Cal crowd on a trip to Chicago and the Delta, delivering a rendition of Zeppelin’s “Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You” that had his strings mix create harplike droplets of dew on the solo intro, but then tapped into his inner Django Reinhardt before poppling the clutch and upping the butanes for a searing cry of drama that built up like a Puccini aria. WHEW! He then donned his glass finger slide and gave some Southern Comfort on “Humans Gonna Human” and a sweaty “Sin Repent Repeat”.
Koch started the final lap of the night with a wacka wooka’d boogaloo take of “Whipping Post” that had son Dylan steamrolling through the floor and then encoring with a clean, classy and clear rendition of Jeff Beck’s “Cause We Ended As Lovers” that had the strings cry like Pagliacci. After Dylan and Marshall chickaboomed with Greg to wrap up the evening on the V8 engined “Standing On Shaky Ground”, the trio hung around to glad hand and chat with the crowd. Nothing like Midwest charm and values, not to mention amazing chops and craft, to win over the California Cool crowd. When’s he coming back?!?
Upcoming shows at Venice West include Canned Heat 01/31, Ambrosia 
02/05, Eric Hutchinson 02/08 and Ozomatli 02/21