Mr. Acoustic Deejay Scientist

By Aaron Davis (for Jackson Hole Weekly, JHWeekly.com)Jackson Hole, Wyo. - As soon as Keller Williams mentioned playing at the Shady Lady Saloon, I rewound to about 1999. It was then that I first heard a mix tape of Williams, playing solo—sans looping—but still impressively filling a lot of space with fast, thumpy acoustic lines and rolling through the rapid fire quirkiness of “Kidney in a Cooler.”Days after my interview with Williams, drummer Andy Peterson recalled a time when Williams opened for a band Peterson was in at the time—Grass—at the Shady. Not surprisingly, the band members hadn’t heard of Williams but were impressed by his tenacity. He had four studio albums to his name at that point, including “Breathe,” his first with The String Cheese Incident.“I love coming to Jackson. I remember the Shady Lady being small and perfect,” Williams said, going down memory lane. “I also remember playing the [Snow King] ice rink with String Cheese Incident and The Mother Hips. I played the Mangy Moose a couple of times too, and once we tried to go through [Yellowstone] in the winter, but it was closed and it took us five hours to get around. We showed up at 10 o’clock. Not a pleasant day.”For those who’ve never experienced a Keller Williams show, he’s a mad scientist, one-man jamband who has managed to create an acoustic dance show through the use of a Gibson Echoplex Delay system. Using acoustic guitar as his foundation, he builds grooves by recording a riff, then adding layers of drums, bass, percussion, and samples. If you haven’t caught him since one of those early Mangy Moose or Shady Lady shows, his sound has progressed.“The deejay formula is firmly in place now with my looping,” Williams said. “The electronica world has definitely immersed itself into my brain. There’s something about that whole world that turns me on. It started with opposites attracting.“In 2000, I was using one looper, creating a groove and soloing and singing over top of it. Now I have three loopers. The drums and bass have their own, so implementing that deejay formula I can drop them out at different times and bring it back for some kind of built-up climax. These are all samples I’m creating live on stage. I’m having a ball.”Performing solo has been Williams’s bread-and-butter over the years, but he seems to have as many side projects as Jerry Garcia once had. Just last summer, he fronted the Mickey Hart and Billy Kreizman-led Rhythm Devils band that played at The Spud, delivering mostly Grateful Dead material. His collaboration with Larry and Jenny Keel, Keller and The Keels, features bluegrass-inspired versions of tunes like Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.” Pepper-in his dub-funk trio, K-Dub-O-Licious, and his quartet with Keith Mosely, Gibb Droll and Jeff Sipe, and one ponders the ultimate freedom of a solo artist, and how he makes time for it all.“It’s 100 percent to the infinity about the freedom,” Williams said. “It baffles me sometimes how much I can get away with. I’ve had to take on the notion that you can’t please everybody all of the time. It starts with me entertaining myself first. That’s something I live by and hopefully that translates to the audience. The freedom is unbelievable.”Keller Williams, 9:30 p.m., Saturday, Pink Garter Theatre. $27.50 at Tobacco Row, Pinky G’s and PoppaPresents.com.