Neighbor N8
If you be-bopped by the Sacred Harvest Music Festival at Poe Rd. Music Sanctuary in Grand Rapids, Ohio this year, you might’ve caught Dayton’s very own Subterranean lighting up the stage like a molten groove engine.
This quartet—Chris Coalt on guitar/vocals, Stephen Buttree on sax/keys/vocals, Chuckie Love holding down the low end and vocals, and Rob Brockman pounding the drums—has been deep in the jam world for over a decade, blending rock, funk, jazz, blues, and pure improvisational spirit to shape a sound that’s both familiar and freshly unpredictable.
Their origin story is equal parts chance and chemistry—four musical nomads in Dayton who found each other underground and decided to dig in together. They’ve cut their teeth on regional fests (The Werkout, Resonance, Mad Tea Party Jam, Hookahville, among others) and local stages in Ohio and neighboring states, building a tight live reputation wherever they roll.
I had the chance to stream and record their 2025 set at Sacred Harvest Fest, it felt like the mid‑Ohio jam fam had rendezvoused in a mystical clearing. Their set swelled from low simmer grooves to blazing peaks, with Chris’s guitar lines weaving through Danny’s sax flights over a foundation that Chuckie and Rob held rock solid but never static. The energy was contagious—fans danced, sat, closed their eyes in the dusk light, and just let the music carry them.
In that wooded embrace of cornfields and old black swamp canopy, SubT delivered not just a performance but a ritual: deep jams, soulful breakdowns, and improvised pivots that felt born in the moment. For those who were there, that set became part of the Sacred Harvest lore—and proof that Subterranean still has new corners of their sound to explore in every show.
