more...

I worked the merch table at a really great show the other night. And while the headiner was playing this young guy came up to the table, extremely excited about the band and bought the CD. Now honestly, it was like this kid had discovered electricity! He was so pumped to see and hear something new, so thrilled to be "in the know" about this band.

The band is a three piece, one guy on guitar, one on drums (with a suitcase for the bass drum), and one rotating through a number of stringed instruments - guitar, banjo, ukelele... and singing. From their website: "... call their music Death Country – dark, gritty folk music built around whiskey-drenched vocals and lyrics evoking images of love, loss and murder. In their soul-thumping bluegrass songs, banjo keeps time to a strange and chunky angular stomp, with vicious Kentucky-hardcore acoustic guitar and somber, achingly confessional vocal harmonies."

Bluegrass. Like electricity, it's been around for awhile. And while these guys are definitely darker and have a harder edge than traditional bluegrass... they are undeniably bluegrass.

And please don't get me wrong - I think it's great that this guy was so excited about this band. I think this band is well worth getting excited about. And I was, in fact, really happy over the idea that someone would get that excited about this band as though they were something brand new (and they are definitely something that hasn't been done in quite this way, at least in this neck of the woods, or quite this well, in a very long time). And I hope this opens a new musical door for that guy. I hope he ends up with a whole new world of music to listen to.

I am not in anyway diminishing his experience. It was just really interesting to watch and think about since I was already reflecting on some of these ideas.

I "discovered" Fado music in much the same way two years ago. Fado is a type of Portugese folk music - mostly sea songs, laments about people lost at sea, love put on hold for a sea voyage, that sort of thing.. but it is the style and emotion and passion of the singer that is the most important element. I knew nothing of this music type, nothing of the virtually never-ending history of the traditions behind it. I just knew that this beautiful music moved me and that I had to hear more.

Maybe that's all I needed to know.