By Brett Wilcoxson 17

Fans of various dance music will be shaking their tushes this Sunday when bluegrass funkmeisters String Cheese Incident visit the Copper Dragon.

The String Cheese Incident formed in December 1993 when a group of friends got together to play a few tunes.

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Incident electric mandolin player Michael Kang said that although the band’s music is hot, the climate from which it was spawned is not.

We’re all old ski buddies from Colorado, Kang said. And we got together and did some stuff, and we just kind of kept playing.

It is impossible to label the Incident with a simple one- or two-word phrase, and Kang said that is because of the strange variety of music the band plays.

It’s kind of a combination of everything. It’s a bass of bluegrass, with a mix of African stuff, he said. We’ve honed our craft. It’s a good dose of a lot of different kinds of dance music. We try to take people on a musical trip that has a lot of different stops.

A String Cheese Incident is the band’s second release; their first was a studio album recorded two years ago.

Kang said the guys are excited about the success they have recently met because of their new album.

It’s been out since May, and it’s doing pretty well, he said. We’ve been touring on the West Coast, and we always do well there.

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Many talented bands spend a lot of time in the studio recording and tour only to support those albums. The Incident isn’t really that type of band.

We play about 200 days a year, Kang said. We’ve been at it all summer.

While the band has not had much time off the road, Kang said they have still managed to write enough tunes that they could start recording again anytime.

We actually have a backlog of songs, he said, because we all contribute to the writing.

The incident has been around for four years, and Kang said they expect to be together for at least another 20 years.

This is for the long term, he said. When you play as much as we do, everybody is in it for the long run.

Before the band makes its way to Carbondale, Kang said they are going to make a stop at a little venue in Chicago that a few people may have heard of.

We are playing at the House of Blues before we come down there, he said.

James Karayiannis, manager of the Copper Dragon, 700 E. Grand Ave., said he booked the Incident because it offers a type of music that people in the area seem to like.

They are along the same lines as Widespread Panic, Grateful Dead, Phish, that kind of thing, he said. There’s a good demand for that style of music, but there’s not a lot in the area to supply people with.

Karayiannis said he’s been impressed with the band since the first time he saw them.

When I was in Colorado they were playing in Fort Collins and tickets were like $10 to $12, he said. They’re not a cover band.

While the Copper Dragon does not often have shows on Sundays, they felt they would make an exception in this Incident.

Sunday was the only day we could get them. It was the only day they had open on their tour, he said. So we went ahead and booked them.

String Cheese Incident will be the only band playing the show, starting the grooves at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday. The tickets for the show are $5 and are on sale now. For more information call 549-2319.