Saturday Night Tunes--Jamestown, Plume Giant, The Willow and the Builder concert—No Trouble Lying in the SOB House

The Willow and the Builder, Plume Giant, and Jamestown, The First Town in America will perform in that order at a concert this Saturday at the Sons of Orpheus and Bacchus house, 342 Elm Street, from 10pm-12:30am.

According to the facebook invite, the bands will be jamming in a wooden-floored barroom and invite guests to “sing, stomp and dance along as we diddle-doodle on our instruments and play you some songs.” Apparently 118 people have already decided to attend.

Eliza Bagg SM ’12, violinist and vocalist for Plume Giant, said the band does not decide which songs it will play before the concert and will play songs both on and off their album, including some very recent tunes and covers.

One tune the band is likely to play is their hit “Honey Pie,” which combines the three voices of the band's members in cool harmonies. Nolan Green’s ES ’12 guitar provides the stable chordal backbones of the track and the recording includes drummer Mathias Kunzli, who is also really crucial to grounding the piece and marking tempo changes, especially since the group lacks a bassist. Eliza said Plume Giant usually performs without a drummer, so we’ll see how they do Saturday.

I’m generally impressed with this group’s ability to play fiddle instruments and still sing well. The lyrics of “Honey Pie” don’t seem to mean much, but the three voices add a rich musical texture to what might otherwise be a sparse performance. It’s also kind of cool that they have no frontman. All three musicians get equal play.

The Willow and the Builder is a new group I don’t know much about. I do know that the band members worked on their own interpretations of the group’s title separately and then combined their efforts.

Whoah, poetic.

The group has a folky sound and should be fun to check out.

I’m even more psyched to here Jamestown, The First Town in America perform. They have eight members, which you’d never guess from listening to “Troubled Child” (which I may or may not have been playing on loop all week) because it does such an impressive job of blending lead and backup vocals with the occasional trumpet solo. This is one of the primer tracks for 17O1’s album, (you can dowload it free here) so if it didn’t make it to the album I’m dying to know what did.

Because this track’s pretty effing awesome.

“Troubled Child” has a really interesting way of slowly building tension throughout the chorus towards breaks—triumphant chords often with drum rolls. It pulls you through the piece with just the right amount of energy, managing to stay calm as the lyrics suggest while still being really fun to listen to.

And the lyrics are fantastic.

“Don’t you rest your head where the trouble lies.”

Just go to this concert; it should be awesome.