Great, because tonight you're going to be hearing a lot of them.
Underbrook Coffehouse is hosting two tree bands!
First, The Willow and the Builder, a folk band made up of Richard Miron BR '13 and Wesleyan's Adrian Simon, plus other Wesleyan instrumentalists and Yale singers. The band is releasing it's first album at the stroke of midnight on Oct. 10, but if you go to the show the band will give you a supersecret code to download the album free NOW.
After these budding trees show their stuff, NYC band Tall Trees will play. I went briefly to their website. I don't think I've ever heard anything folkier. Washboards and whistling. Oh man.
Underbrook Coffeehouse should be a fun time tonight. Just let yourself be a kid again and sing along about bubblegum and underwater teaparties. If you've been fasting, be sure to bring some change for coffee, tea and cookies—especially fitting for the youthful lyrics.
In case you can't handle all the tree-hugging, come to the tree free afterparty with Jamestown, The First Town in America at 342 Elm after the Coffeehouse (probably around 10).
If you're still up in the air about tonight's coffeehouse, here's a sneak peak.
The Willow & The Builder's album has some good tracks, but is overall hit or miss.
Richard Miron and Adrian Simon have without a doubt the most adorable band dynamic I have seen on this campus, so the coffeehouse is probably worth going to just for that.
I really like the song "Cut it Down," because it effectively weaves several different musical lines to create a musical scene of a tree reflecting off of water (see album cover). The rich, emotional viola part provides the substance of the song which the vocals later add to. The keys and drums pounding out chords and steady beats keep the piece moving forward and the listener engaged, while the flute adds interesting highlights.
Tracks such as "What's Next" and "A Vast Emptiness" (the title is fitting) use basic chord progressions, sparse textures, and soft vocals that make for a generally boring listening experience. "A Vast Emptiness" captures a different kind of listener with its storytelling style and voice. It feels like an interlude during a scene change of a musical puppet show. "What's Next" picks up a bit when the backup vocals enter.
Backup vocals are an essential component of one of the band's hits "Rosaline." It starts out a bit slow, but the full, soulful vocal lines and bluesy keys really iron out the harmonies. This song is going to sound fantastic tonight with such a big chorus.
Maeve: awesome, tree-loving vocalist
Yale singers tonight include (sorry I'm not up to putting in their class years today) Marina Keegan, Cuchulain Kelly, Tobias Kirchwey, Noah Kleinberg, Paul Leo, Anna Miller, Robert Ramaswamy, Maeve Ricaurte, Steph Rivkin, Chloe Sarbib, Grace Steig, Mary Stottele, Wan Joo Teo, Nine Tigers, and Sharif Youssef. The other instrumentalists are from Wesleyan, but Oliver Hill BR '12, one of Underbrook's co-hosts, will play viola for the band tonight. (I'd like to see even more strings in "Mansion Man" because the strings are easily the best part of the song and could be built up even more.)
Some of the tracks, such as Teahouse Treehouse, are really fun and creative. The joyful, childlike lyrics describing the treehouse "though it's really not that high, it's somewhere to go," with upbeat rhythms will put a smile on your face.
The most memorable song on the album for me is one I remember liking at lot in concert last year—"Heartache."
The sixtenth notes in the keyboard, dramatic chords, and emotional vocals bring power to the music that surpasses that of other tracks. Lyrics such as "heartache, don't come near me...longing, your days are numbered," present a vivid and very real emotional process: coping. The song also has a nice, punchy ending after some longer, sustained lines.
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.”
