Mofro. photo, Jensen Hande

Mofro is in the basement of North by Northwest (NXNW) waiting to go on stage while the night's opening act Papi Mali, jams above. Mofro is making Philadelphia one of the many stops during its tour to promote its second album Lochloosa (Swampland Records).

At the core of Mofro is the duo John "JJ" Grey and Daryl Hance, who have been playing together for fifteen years. The two initially met at construction projects in Jacksonville, Florida.

In between the beer bottles that are constantly hurled down the basement chute and clang inside a trashcan, Hance, who plays guitar and dobro, quietly explains how the name of the band came about. "Mofro is a substitute for cuss words. Something we tossed around at work. It doesn't actually mean anything." The word "Mofro" may be meaningless, but the music Mofro creates is rooted in meaning.

Grey, who does the vocals and plays guitar, bass, drums and harmonica, writes about good times, good eats, and the land of North Florida. Grey, without hesitation, murmurs that the soul music of Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, Muddy Waters, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Band has been a great influence. He also mentions Loren "Totch" Brown, a lifetime native of the Florida Everglades. Florida's wilderness and inhabitants are as important to Mofro as any musician, according to Grey. Both CD titles, Blackwater and Lochloosa, pay homage to the area where Grey grew up and continues to live.

The band's style is self-described as "countrified soul" and "front porch soul." Grey elaborates on the hybrid style as "whatever I do when I write a song is what it is." Whatever it "is," has bands flocking to Mofro, hoping to be its next opening act. "We get CDs all the time for people who want to open for us," Grey explains.

The band's August show at the Mount Airy Club North by Northwest is Mofro's third time playing Philadelphia, its first heading of a gig here. In April 2003, they opened for Susan Tedeschi at the Keswick Theatre. They also opened for North Mississippi Allstars in April, 2004 at the Theatre of the Living Arts (TLA). As the band prepares to go on stage, Grey adds that this tour has been "fun, grueling, everything."

When Grey hoarsely greets the crowd, he explains there was "entirely too much time between sound check and playing." True to form for a city known for its boisterous and tumultuous fans, the crowd roars its approval of Grey's "hoarseness" and embraces the Southern-fried, soulful, swamp-funk sound. Joining Grey and Hance are tour-mates Adam Scone, who is the group's keyboardist and organ player, and drummer George Sluppick. After the crowd demands an encore, Mofro comes back on stage for an extra set, but their jam session is cut short at 1 a.m. when the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) cuts the power on the entire Germantown Avenue block in order to do maintenance work. Mofro is left in pitch-black with a bunch of inebriated, rowdy Philadelphians. The night ends abruptly.

Mofro survived the storm of crashing beer bottles by waiting out the glass torrent in the basement of NXNW--- just as it lately has weathered the hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne back home in Florida. The raving of the notorious Philly fans at NXNW and the plug-pulling by PECO has become offset by the utility company making up for its mistake by sending employees to Florida to participate in the restoration of electric service and to help clean up the overall damage left by the hurricanes.

To find out more about Mofro, visit the group's website www.mofro.net. NXNW is located at 7165 Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia and can be reached by telephone at (215) 248-1000 and visited on the web at www.nxnwphl.com.

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