By John Pluntze

This weekend offers another plethora of terrific music choices at a myriad of various Valleywide locations -- some at venues you'd expect, such as Whiskey's ( http://www.whiskeyjacques.com ), which'll have the Honey Island Swamp Band (http://www.honeyislandswampband.com ) -- but others at venues you might not expect ... including The Power House In Hailey (703 N. 1st Avenue/ 788-9184), which tonight will host a Wood RIver Valley-based band whose name is popping up more and more here: Toast.

Formed some five years ago when founding members Sean Dahlman, Zach Herbert, Sam Funk and Andre Keys were still attending the Hailey Middle School, Toast has been making the rounds over the years at venues as diverse as The Mint (during one of their many open-mike nights there), and at The Wicked Spud.

Inspired in part by their school's justly-celebrated band instructor at the time (Bart Bailey), these four increasingly-ambitious music students took what started out being a mere afterschool hobby of sorts and steadily shaped it into a legitimate, pulsating and rather unique-sounding band -- one that recently had scores of extremely-appreciative listeners at The Moose Girls Cafe in Ketchum (360 E. Avenue/ 727-9767) held in rapt attention for several hours that evening (they'll be performing there again this coming Sunday, btw, from 7-9:30 p.m.) ... much the way the band did last summer during the Hailey Night of Music, right outside McClain's Pizzeria (a venue where they'll be performing at again this coming Monday for THIS year's Hailey Night Of Music), a gig that proved be one of the group's most popular ones up that point, one that literally stopped traffic there right in front of McClain's for hours on end that evening in July, 2010.

"Andre, Sean and I started out as an acoustic improv group, and we went through pretty much EVERY music genre there is before settling on our current one," Wood River High School grad Zach Herbert told me recently. "We always l oved that aspect of creating a song on the spot -- taking themes from the audience and then shaping into a song that hopefully connects WITH the audience."

Indeed, during their recent, wildly-popular musical outing at Moose Girls, an audience member suggested "sea turtles" as an idea for a song -- one that eventualy inspired a reggae-style tune with that very theme.

"We're NOT a cover band," Herbert said (equal parts proudly and emphatically), "Nor do we ever WANT to be..."

From its inception, Toast has always been fiercely determined to NOT be pigeonholed into a particular musical genre -- which is part of he reason that this year they added another member to their group, Mia Jefferson, who now shares lead-vocal duties with Herbert, and who will be attending the University Of Idaho (in Moscow) in the Fall.

"I was always friends with these guys in school, but it took awhile for me to get involved with the band," Jefferson said, adding with a laugh that, "Zach apparently saw a gleam hope in me as a musician."

"Mia totally blew us away the very first day she auditioned," Dahlman told me. "We'd already tried out several other female singers before her and none of them seemed right for the group. But when she came in and started singing, I think we all just knew right then and there that we had our girl -- our voices just blended soooo well together!!"

Toast already has one album to its credit ("Spotless Mind" -- recorded in Las Vegas, and in a mere six hours, too) and at least one hauntingly-beautiful and -powerful single that many people seem to think would be a perfect movie-soundtrack song ("Paper Wings").

"We have a verrrry nice balance of personalities and musical styles in this group," Jefferson said, "and hopefully that comes across in our concerts."

Adds Dahlman: "I've always been something of the 'The Reluctant One', I guess, when it comes to getting up there in front of an audience. But it's really a GREAT pleasure and honor to be sharing a stage with incredible musicians like Zach and Andre and Mia and Sam Funk, too -- who really is a PHENOMENAL FUNK player, by the way ... just an incredible powerhouse performer by any standard!!"

Toast will be performing tonight at Hailey's The Power House Bike Fit Studio (from 8-10 p.m.), on Sunday at Moose Girls Cafe (from 7-9:30 p.m.), next Monday in front of McClain's Pizzeria (5-9 p.m. or so), Tuesday, July 19th at 7 p.m. (as the "Ketch'em Alive" opening act that evening), and also at Zenergy poolside (on Friday, July 22, from 5-7 p.m.).

Contact Zach's father (who doubles as the band's manager), Jim Herbert (720-5801/ n606xe@gmail.com ), for info about the band's availability and rates.
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In some other music news for the weekend, the always rolicking and delightful Kim Stocking Band returns to the Silver Dollar in Bellevue tonight (788-2900), The Might Shims perform tonight at Zenergy poolside from 5-7 p.m. (725-0595), and the incomparable Carter Freeman ( http://www.myspace.com/carterfreeman ) returns for another stellar gig at the Sun Valley Brewery in Hailey (788-2900) this evening as well.

Also this weekend, Lefty's (726-2744) will have the popular local band, Hat Trick, performing there on Saturday, and Sean Jackson on Sunday (6-9 p.m. both evenings). And the Sun Valley Latin Jazz Ensemble (with Russ Caldwell) will be the terrific featured musical offering at Ketchum's Rotary Park on Sunday for its always-terrific ongoing "Jazz in the Park" series (6-8 p.m.).

And that's just some of the musical fun that awaits avid music lovers this weekend in the Wood RIver Valley....