The Secret B-Sides photo courtesy Robin Tolleson

I’ll make no bones about it — whenever longtime Modern Drummer writer Robin Tolleson brings one of his bands to town, I’m psyched. His articles were part of my blueprint as a young drummer, and as it turns out, the man can play a daggone groove.

He’s been here with two bands. Hip Bones, a funky jazz-fusion project featuring multi-instrumentalist Gary Schwantes, bears the imprint of Tolleson’s days in the San Francisco Bay area. He has been in Asheville, N.C., for several years now, and his best-known AsheFrancisco project is The Secret B-Sides, which one North Carolina weekly dubbed “solid gold baby-making music.” Honestly, I can’t beat that line.

Led by frontman/singer/songwriter Juan “Franky Flowers”  Holladay, the B-Sides lay out some infectious old-school soul and R&B grooves infused with just enough hip-hop to keep it feeling contemporary. With Tolleson on the drum throne, you know the grooves are going to be there.

Catch the band at 10 p.m. Wednesday at Martin’s Downtown Bar & Grill. The next night, the B-Sides hit Growler’s, where the band played its Roanoke Valley debut in November 2011, when the joint was still Awful Arthur’s Towers. Both shows are free, so there’s no excuse to miss out.