boulderacousticsociety.net

When you hear that the Boulder Acoustic Society is coming to this year’s Beartrap Summer Festival, you might assume that they’ll be playing classical music. Which is true, if your idea of classical includes vintage clothing, a tin whistle, a washboard, and beat-boxing.

So how did the band get its genteel name?

Their explanation is a simple one: “We wanted the group to seem bigger than it was. When people hear the name, it sounds large and important. Actually there are just four members in the band, but there are thousands in the ‘Society.’”

Admittedly, the members all have formal music training. But as the Boulder Weekly remarks, “they build on it rather than rely on it.”

Whether the BAS is covering Steve Earle’s “Oxycontin Blues” or premiering a brand-new original, you can’t mistake them for any other contemporary touring group. One reviewer has dubbed them “klezmerpunkamericana”:

“Their set swings from gorgeous bluegrass waltzes to raving klezmerpunk fusions to piano rockers, all of it undercut by their spectacular rhythm section–drummer Scott Aller and upright bassist Neil McCormick, who may just be the best rhythm section working in Americana today. Aller in particular is a monster behind the kit, fierce and driving and subtle, and it’s always a pleasure to watch him work.”

Freshly rested from a grueling but triumphant three-week U.S. tour, the Society four albums to their credit, with cuts whose variety range from “Burn the Pity of Our Past” to “Frog Pajama Waltz.” Among the plaudits for the CD “Punchline” are: “Old school, but never old, Boulder Acoustic Society is the new wave of American roots music. It’s what happens when four songwriters get together to mash up blues, folk, gospel, indie and world music to soothe their musical curiosity.”

As if that weren’t enough, the CD packaging for “Punchline” is itself a work of art. When the case is not providing protection for the CD surface, it incidentally folds into a retro, pop-up 3-D stereoscope, which can be used to view slides of the band (included).

Honest.

Of their most recent work, the EP “Champions of Disaster,” reviewer Cory O’Brien describes it as:  “…a grounded, beautiful morsel of indie-folk that finds Boulder Acoustic Society honing in on a sound and then exploring the possibilities within that sound’s framework. There is still room for experimentation, such as the murky organ jam on the title track, but the strength of the EP can be found in the confessional lyrics of ‘Where Have the Good Ones Gone’ or the levee-breaking final chorus on the folk rock ear-worm ‘How Many Times a Day.’”

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

Boulder Acoustic Society – “Oxycontin Blues”:

jalancrossland.com

Despite the stagemanship and repertoire that has earned singer/songwriter Jalan Crossland the upbeat sobriquet “The Trailer-Park Troubadour,” he’s much more than just a pretty face.

Though (because?) he lives in a town whose population is 307, he has an almost uncanny grasp of the machinations of heartbreak and human nature, as expressed in lyrics such as “Checkout time / And the Sunday morning sunshine / Is a jury trial…”

Crossland admits he hasn’t always fully respected roots music. As a young man, he was briefly seen performing electric guitar on tour with “big-hair, whammy bar, Iron Maiden wannabe bands” before reason eventually prevailed.

Since then, he’s made up for lost time by compiling a trove of original music and becoming a master of the acoustic guitar—with no less a picker than Spencer Bohren referring to him as “one of the finest guitarists in America.” To which Panache Magazine adds, “If you’re lucky enough to hear Jalan play live, observe the audience. It will be made almost entirely of drop-jawed, glassy-eyed, altogether astonished listeners.”

But a reviewer for Planet Jackson Hole cautions listeners not to expect mere razzle-dazzle: “More than just a great picker, Crossland’s performances feature graceful delivery and genuine character.”

As for his choice of subject matter, the Wyoming Chronicle’s Jeff O’Gara reports that “Crossland writes songs about people who shoot at tin cans, put tires on their trailer-top roof, and maybe drink just a bit too much. But when you listen to the songs and the characters he creates, you’ll hear that within the humor, amidst the banjo notes and behind the twangy voice, there’s a real affection. He lives it.”

Aficionados of the banjo will notice up front that Crossland’s model is left-handed—and has six strings, besides. He credits his love of the instrument, and a large part of his musical upbringing, to his musician Uncle Dan: “I quit playing the banjo in high school because it was the age of synthesized rock-and-roll, and banjos were definitely uncool. But I took it up again, about 10 years ago.”

The reason for his unlikely contraption, he says, is that “I’ve never been able to learn any of the really proper styles on the banjo, like the rolling Scruggs style or the knock-down frailing style—which my uncle used.  So because of that I built this hybrid-style thing, which most banjo players just find appalling. But it works.”

Crossland and his group, who have dubbed themselves “The Little Country Band of the Apocalypse,” have released three CDs: “Moonshiner,” “Poorboy Shanty,” and “Trailer Park Fire and Other Tragedies.”

But perhaps Crossland’s greatest recent contribution to Internet discourse is the tag line for his home page, which has been forwarded through so many Twitter and Facebook accounts that its head is spinning, offering this personal wisdom:

“I ain’t great at anything, but if you are half-assed at enough things, and roll ‘em all together, you can amount to more than one whole ass.”

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

Courtesy Of Sugar Hill Records

Jim Lauderdale:  Thriving On An American Mixture

Jim Lauderdale occupies a high seat in the pantheon of Bluegrass: Grammy awards, AMA trophies, Hall of Fame memorabilia, and a solid 19 acclaimed studio albums in 25 years. Even audiences who don’t follow Bluegrass are familiar with his songwriting, if not his name.

Lauderdale has penned hits for George Strait, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, the Dixie Chicks, and too many other artists to list. “It’s hard to understand why Jim Lauderdale remains on the alternative fringe as a recording artist,” writes critic Don McLeese, “but his indie status gives him the freedom to make the music that he wants.”

Case in point is Lauderdale’s just-released album “Reason and Rhyme,” a collaboration with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. The CD has already drawn a rave from The Boston Globe, which says “Lauderdale’s terrific musical stylings, the twangy expressiveness of his singing, and his backing ensemble’s crack playing results in a classic Bluegrass sound that is yet just a turn off-center–an effect that Lauderdale seems to bring about no matter the genre.”

The North Carolina native’s life started out in a very different bailiwick: musical theatre. After studying in the Drama Department of the North Carolina School of the Arts, he moved to New York and landed roles in the touring productions of “Cotton Patch Gospel” and “Pump Boys and Dinettes.” But throughout, he played guitar, networked with songwriters, and did open-mics and one-nighters whenever his schedule allowed.

He had the good fortune to hook up with Dwight Yoakam’s producer, and his 1990s solo albums “Planet of Love,” “Pretty Close to the Truth,” and “Every Second Counts” won him a cult following and established him as a singer-songwriter to watch.

Lauderdale recalls growing up around a wide range of musical tastes: “My parents played all kinds of stuff. They played jazz vocal groups, Broadway shows. My dad liked country, and my mom was the choral teacher at school and the church choir director. Then my sister made me watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and that really changed me.”

Nowadays, in between his touring and recording, Lauderdale manages to keep a hand in the non-musical aspects of performing as well. He’s hosted the Americana Music Awards for the past seven years, and hosts a monthly concert called “Tennessee Shines” at the Bijou Theater in Knoxville, as well as two programs for WSM Radio in Nashville: “The Jim Lauderdale Show” and “Music City Roots: Live from the Loveless Cafe.”

Not long ago, he starred in a regional theater production about the life of George Jones, and says he’ll never forget the night he looked out and saw George sitting in the audience. “He left during the last song so as not to cause a fuss,” Lauderdale says. “But that was quite an evening.”

“I’m considered Americana,” Lauderdale says, “but I do a mix of different styles: progressive and traditional country, Bluegrass, and blues. My last two albums were Bluegrass. Before that, I put out a record with a bunch of guys who had played with Gram Parsons and Elvis Presley.

“So I guess that means I’m due to do another straight-ahead country record before too long.”

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

See Jim perform live from “Reason & Rhyme”:

Dang Ol' Boys, Facebook

At first blush, the musical territory known as Acoustic Bluegrass Country Irish Punk Rock Fusion would seem a fairly rarefied one. But the eight-member assemblage known as the Dang Ol’ Boys somehow make it seem as comfortable as a lawn chair beside a campfire.

Which is not surprising, from a band whose home page lists their chief influences as “Guinness” and “music that doesn’t suck.”

They’re equally at home in a concert hall and a standing-room-only saloon, and they can deliver a jaunty “Walking with my baby / Down by the San Francisco Bay…” and the Lyrnrd Skynyrd heart-breaker “I can see the concrete slowly creeping / Lord, take me and mine before that comes…” with equal aplomb.

And considering their band moniker, Roger Miller’s classic is apt to sneak into their song list at some point: “Dang me, dang me / Ought to take a rope and hang me / High from the highest tree / Woman, would you weep for me?

Even Dang Ol’ Boys distinctive logo has a touch of the Gaelic dark side: a profile view of a cowboy in traditional hat and kerchief, with a grass stem in his mouth. The only jarring note is that the skin of the cowboy’s face is melted away, a la The Crypt Keeper.

Guitarist/banjoist Brendan Lamb gives all the credit to Casper artist Matt Baker: “We only had a few requests when we approached Matt to design our logo. Basically we just asked for a skeleton-type cowboy with a piece of wheat between his teeth. What he came up with is amazing. He puts a tremendous amount of detail in his work.”

Lamb says the Dang Ol’ Boys “had a really good time” at last year’s Beartrap Summer Festival, and are looking forward to the 2011 event. “Beartrap is a totally different experience than playing in a bar,” he says. “The meadow is beautiful, and the stage and sound setup are good. It’s hard to beat playing music outdoors on a nice summer day.”

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

Dang Ol’ Boys live at Wolcott Galleria:

Within relatively short order, they’ve won two coveted Bluegrass competitions—Telluride and RockyGrass—and are the first Colorado band to be signed by Virginia powerhouse Rebel Records.

One way Spring Creek has come to the forefront is through an intriguing mix of original material, classics, and re-interpretations: “We choose songs that suit our style,” says guitarist Taylor Sims. “I enjoy the pilgrimage…learning songs the way they’ve been played for years and years, staying close to tradition. But a lot of other, different kinds of songs can also fit into the traditional Bluegrass style if they’re done really well. We try hard to do each song justice, with authentic Bluegrass-type harmonies and arrangements.”

Hence the title of their first release, “Rural and Cosmic Bluegrass.” The cuts span the territory from “I Wonder Just Where You Are Tonight” and “Blue Ridge Cabin Home” to “Clinch Mountain Freak Out.” And though they credit the bands Country Gazette and Hot Rize as their main influences, you’re likely to hear a Gillian Welch or Elton John cover squeezed among the traditional fare.

The members met in music school in Texas, but currently call Lyons, Colorado, home. They’re especially interested in introducing Bluegrass to new audiences, and vice versa.   Reviewers tend to concur: “Spring Creek has redefined what can be accomplished on acoustic instruments,” writes Chris Kelly. “They’re an act not to be missed, as their constant live performances have allowed them to become a tight-knit musical ensemble with real chemistry onstage. With its energy and adrenaline, the band can thrust itself into an acoustic frenzy.”

Another critic has dubbed them “high-intensity high lonesome.” They’re clearly high on their music. But these days, they’re far from lonesome.

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

Check out music from Spring Creek Bluegrass Band below, and get ready to see ‘em on the mountain at Beartrap 2011!

“Shenandoah Breakdown”, live with Peter Rowan in Dillon, CO:

“Natural To Be Gone”, live at last year’s Flatwater Folk Festival:

bigdamnband.com

May I have the envelope, please? The award for Most Symbolically Descriptive Band Name at this year’s Beartrap goes to “Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band.” As you might surmise, “Reverend” is an honorary title. The group itself often plays in the types of establishments where serious churchgoers fear to tread. And “Big” is meant figuratively, not literally. They’re actually a trio.

Nonetheless, they deliver big-time musical manna, both on the road and in the studio. One reviewer has christened their style “Hick Punk.” Another observes, “I have never heard a Dobro, washboard, and five-gallon pickle jar sound so good.”

And “laid back” takes on a new level of meaning when you watch their recent video “Clap Your Hands,” loosely based on the familiar Vacation Bible School anthem. The production was shot in one day, in a barn, with a cast of dozens including line-dancers, break-dancers, cloggers, live poultry, an elderly Tai Chi practitioner, and members of a carnival freak show.

Life was not always thus for the Reverend (christened Josh by his parents); he grew up in rural Indiana, the son of a concrete mason and fur trapper who happened to own a serious LP collection of blues and rock, ranging from Hendrix and Young and Dylan to the occasional BB King and Muddy Waters.

He took to the guitar early, but he played his senior prom with such gusto he injured his left hand, was told he’d never play again, and started working as a hotel clerk instead. Eventually, surgery not only restored his playability, but provided a bonus—at last he was able to master the finger style that had eluded him for so many years. He met up with his wife-to-be, a washboard player named Breezy, and the rest is history.

Their travels, with drummers including at various times Peyton’s brother Jayme and currently cousin Aaron Persinger, have taken them to Austin City Limits, the Warped Tour, Telluride, Bonnaroo, plus miscellaneous gigs in Italy and Switzerland.

It’s no accident that many of their songs concern home-cooked edibles (and drinkables). “I want to thank y’all for the food you made us,” one song begins, “But it don’t hold a candle to Mama’s fried potatoes…” Other titles include “The Persimmon Song,” “Two Bottles of Wine,” and “Pork Chop Biscuit.” A notable exception to the food theme is “Your Cousin’s on ‘Cops’.”

The real common thread to their music, Peyton says, is this: “I don’t like us to be classified as some 1930s throwback thing. We stick out like a sore thumb anywhere.

“The world has gotten used to pretty kinds of margarine, and we want to be their butter.”

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

Check out videos from Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, and get ready to see them this summer at Beartrap!

“Clap Your Hands”:

“The Persimmon Song”:

“Mama’s Fried Potatoes”:

longroadhomebluegrass.com

Saunter in to someplace where Long Road Home is playing Bluegrass, and you can be forgiven for thinking you’ve stepped a half century back in time. The music and voices are so authentically kin to the golden era of the Monroes, Stanleys, and Flatt & Scruggs that it’s apt to send a chill down your back.

Which is especially remarkable considering that most of the band members were, until recently, teenagers. Mix those sparks with the work of veteran banjoist Pete Wernick, and it’s soon clear how Wernick’s seminal Bluegrass band Hot Rize got its name.

Long Road Home won the nationally acclaimed Rockygrass band competition in Colorado in 2006 with a repertoire that includes original songs by guitarist Martin Gilmore. Some of the songs, such as “Keep Rolling,” sound as though they were written decades before he was born: “Times get good, and times get bad / These times are the worst I’ve had / Ain’t no use in looking back, keep rolling…”

Pete Wernick, meanwhile, recently added a new honor to his long list: he’s the first Bluegrass player to be heard on Mars. A music connoisseur at NASA woke the Mars Rover “Spirit” one morning with Wernick’s instrumental “Big Rock in the Road”–an apt choice, since the Rover was about to approach its most imposing rock yet, a monster nicknamed “Humphrey.”

But Wernick also holds a much earlier distinction. He was one of a few hundred people who attended the first-ever Bluegrass festival– held near Roanoke, Virginia in 1965. “It was a few benches in front of a makeshift stage in a horse-farmer’s field. There weren’t any tour buses; the acts arrived in cars and station wagons. I think tickets were something like six dollars. Bluegrass was on hard times back then, and it took the festival idea a while to catch on.

“Those of us who play Bluegrass know whose shoulders we’re standing on,” he says. “Monroe seemed to start what he did out of nowhere, but there was precedence for it. Nowadays when you listen to Ricky Skaggs, for instance, you’re hearing music that originated in the Southern Appalachians. Ricky was on TV with Flatt & Scruggs when he was six years old, and joined the Stanley Brothers full-time when he was 15.

“So many branches on this tree. It’s not just a bunch of bands trying to make money in the industry. It’s more like a family.”

Wernick’s current musical family, Long Road Home, captures a snapshot of that experience in the last line of “Keep Rolling”: “Life don’t always treat me right / But when I’m up here in these lights / I make it through another night / I keep rolling…”

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

Check out some videos of Long Road Home, and get ready to see them this August at Beartrap:

When your band is named “Haunted Windchimes,” it’s almost impossible to be confused with any other currently touring traditional string act. And for the Pueblo, Colorado group, their sound is likewise distinctive.

The most concise description of the music comes from critic Bruce Sylvester: “The rustic, honeyed harmonies are a delight, recreating the vibe of rural 1930s music with a contemporary consciousness.”

If you’re rusty on your high-school history lessons, the 30s was perhaps the most complex and turbulent era in American history—sandwiched between our recovery from the Great Depression and the ominous approach of World War II. But the Windchimes’ music is far from being a drag—it’s by turns inventive, infectious, and highly danceable.

One reviewer calls them “Among Colorado’s most significant musical treasures,” and another adds: “The ghost of classic Blues mingles with a pop sensibility that’s given an edge by incredibly touching harmonies.”

The Haunted Windchimes’ original songs occasionally have a vibe of the “Down From the Mountain” soundtrack of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, a hint of Gillian Welch, or of the sheer raw vocal intensity of the breakthrough duo The Civil Wars. If that sounds like high-falutin’ company, it is. But be aware the group is anything but derivative.

Even the most rhythmically upbeat tunes have a dark edge to their lyrics, as in “Find the Door”: “That late night light that you’ve been burnin’ / I ain’t warmin’ up to any more / Find the door…” That goes double for the eerily hypnotic ballad “Little Bones”: “Little bones / Little bones / Don’t fail me…” And when these sensibilities pen a happy-sounding song titled “A Ballad of Human Progress,” you know the irony is thick indeed.

Incredibly, the verve of their vocals matches the originality (with a capital “O”) of their songwriting abilities. The harmony voices sound more like the reeds of an instrument than like individual singers. A newspaper reviewer in their hometown calls their sound “startlingly unique.”

That may be partly because, before the Haunted Windchimes was created, the personnel were hitch-hikers who played on street-corners and in college quads, for donations. As member Inaiah Luhan explains, “Something happened to me on the road, back in 2006. I really got in tune with this different spirit out there, just the idea of not being tied down to anything and experiencing freedom on a different level.”

Inaiah’s sister Chela (the two grew up on a Navajo reservation in Arizona where their father was a teacher) says performing at open-mic nights during part of her travels was a priceless experience: “I was playing music just by myself, trying to get rid of the anxiety of performing in front of people.” Gradually, she got comfortable playing to strangers: “No one in those places knew me, and I was like, ‘Yeah, OK!’”

Their occasional cover versions of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly fit seamlessly into the song list. Another reviewer has described their music as “perfectly suited to college radio, but also could have existed in a Southern blues joint a hundred years ago.” Two of the members have solo albums coming out before year’s end.

The fact that they all share the same house and attend college together works to their advantage musically, Inaiah says: “If you put out good energy, I’m of the belief that you get it back. Through music, we can communicate with a lot of people and we can all be under the same roof enjoying music and it doesn’t matter what color we are or what our political stance is. You know, all that goes away.”

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

Check out music from Haunted Windchimes, and see them live this summer at Beartrap!

23 String Band, Facebook

The origin of their name remains shrouded in mystery: obviously, the members of the 23 String Band play more strings than that onstage. But the type of music they play is unmistakable. They describe it as “Original Hillbilly.” Which would be true, if the original hillbillies had listened to Paganini and the Beastie Boys.

“Bluegrass Unlimited” describes their style as “old-time music that offers up a new twist.” The material on their eponymous debut album covers familiar territory for traditionalists: from the melancholy “St. James Infirmary” to the toe-tappers “Cluck Old Hen” and “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down.” But you can tell from the get-go that the five young guys from the Louisville, Kentucky, area have a mixture of classical training and church-revival upbringings.

Violinist Scott Moore, for example (not to be confused with Elvis’s guitarist Scotty), started playing at the age of four and writing music at age six. He’s played Carnegie Hall and held solo seats with classical orchestras. Bassist T. Martin Stam holds two degrees in music performance, and has studied at the feet of Yo-Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis. Banjo player Curtis Wilson, on the other hand, emulates the style of his grandmother’s next-door neighbor Dave “String Bean” Akemon.

Mix it all together, and the result is described by one reviewer as “A hard-driving, leg-shaking, new kind of old-timey.” As this moment, the 23 String Band is in the studio putting the finishing touches on their new album, “Catch 23,” which will include new original songs along with the remade classics.

And though the recording process can be stressful, Scott Moore says he’s always felt at home there: “When I was a little kid, I’d get the Casio tape recorder out and record myself playing music, or talking, or whatever. Over the years I’ve been able to do a lot of session work, and I always find that really exciting.”

But even the best of albums can never quite capture a band’s onstage persona, and the 23 String Band is no exception. One reviewer calls their outdoor stage shows “electrifying”; another says “Their vocals are as tight as the cork in a jug of moonshine, and their high-powered music kept the crowd dancing well into the night.”

(Next in this series: How the heck DID they get their name, anyway?)

–Dale Short, carrolldaleshort.com

See a sample of what’s in store from The 23 String Band this summer at Beartrap: