Hunnabee & The Sandy Tar Boys / September 7, 2012 / Street corner

By: Nick Rose-Stamey, Contributor

While West Virginia-based 600 lbs of Sin fumble through the electric menagerie in the back of their tour van, a faint thump pulls the listener away and up the street from the cover-charged Casa Cantina

gig. A block away, a ragtag bluegrass band known collectively as Hunnabee & The Sandy Tar Boys lit up the night. Or was it just the fluorescent lamps that they played under?

Reformed from the ashes of (the now dead) Mbanza, Hunnabee & The Sandy Tar Boys features Hunnabee Simonetti on fiddle, Jake Loew on four-string banjo, Ben Kain chunking away on a ¾ guitar, Sweet Baby Jake (the group’s everyman) and Aaron Smith providing the thump on upright bass. This smaller setup works to the group’s advantage (Mbanza, in its prime, shifted between 9-11 members), offering an intimate and mobile experience. Blazing through bluegrass standards such as “Hey Black-Eyed Suzy," “The Craw Dad Song," and “Little Bird,” it took no time for the group to generate an audience. Did I mention that they were busking?

For whoever it may concern, busking is the art of spontaneous street performance by either an individual or, in this case, a group of individuals for “gratuities.”

           

The group’s performance, being about as planned out as the album Free Jazz, delivered. Why? Well, for one, the group is tight. Not one rhythm or melody line fell out of place during their hour plus-long set. This is a bunch whose efforts during their rehearsals show because of the relative comfort that they have with their material. It is because of this that their comfort then translates into the audience’s comfort, which pulls everyone into the bluegrass sound, the heart of the experience. When the band can have fun throwing a series of songs out in the same key (“D-songs” as bassist Aaron Smith called them) and motivate an audience to move to them all, that proves the band’s second greatest feature: their X factor.

           

“We all sing,” explains the group to a passerby. Confused, the young man with his gauges tries again. “Yeah, but who's the singer?” It’s a fair question given the group’s name. Anyone would assume that Hunnabee leads the crew, but that isn’t the case.  And that is the only stumbling point of this potential-endowed band: not one of its members will take the reigns for longer than a chorus. So, even with just five members, the group has too many voices. But this is a minor complaint and could be a case of over criticism. Thoughts?

Anyway, it would be unfair to critique Hunnabee & The Sandy Tar Boys' performance by a paid gig standard because payment was optional. But they have earned a professional review because of the bluegrass soul that they fearlessly expressed and the sheer joie de vivre that they created on a lonely street corner one night in Athens, Ohio.

Now, look up Hunnabee & The Sandy Tar Boys on Facebook and check them out on Saturday, September 15 at the Pawpaw Festival!

Get hit in yo’ soul!

Twenty One Pilots, MBANZA and Dean Tartaglia / January 12, 2012 / The Union

By: Kyle Rutherford, Contributor

Sunshine and cats: that seemed to be the theme at The Union Thursday when Westerville, Ohio’s Twenty One Pilots rolled in to play a free show for a packed house of patrons who seemed happy to be out of the snow.

Opening bands included MBANZA and Dean Tartaglia from Mind Fish, both from Athens.

Tartaglia started the show with only him, his guitar, and a backup electronic drummer. Now, I’ve never listened to Mind Fish until I started writing this review, so I’m not exactly sure if he played any of their songs. But, he played a good amount of stuff that the crowd could easily grasp: a more pop-punk-like set that compares to Weezer, or even a stripped-down Fall Out Boy. The major mindfuck of his set came when he sang a song about his cat, using meow more than most lyrics.

The 8-piece MBANZA came next, donned in face paint and feathers to make themselves look like members of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan. Their Folk/Roots set was pretty great, though the younger crowd could only get into it had they had a few drinks in them. The more interesting part of their set came from a vocalist/percussionist who did some sort of a melodic yelling, like the guy singing at the beginning of The Lion King, but with no words. Their covers of “Lotus Flower” by Radiohead and “You Are My Sunshine” were interesting, as well as great.

Last onstage, much to the crowd’s pleasure, was Twenty One Pilots. It’s hard to give these guys a particular style, but I can say they sounded like a more electronic version of Flobots, but with the stage presence and energy of--dare I say it--Hollywood Undead; the rap skills of pretty much any great artist in the game; and a light show comparable to that of Innerpartysystem. By all that, the crowd was wowed. The raw energy coming out of the two members was incredible.

Most of the music played from a laptop controlled by drummer Josh Dun, but Tyler Joseph smoothly transitioned between singing/piano, keyboards, and rapping. The crowd was intense, with constant jumping and alcohol-spilling, though no one seemed to care. Their cover medley included “Steal My Sunshine” by LEN and “It’s Gonna Be Me” by 'N Sync, and everyone ate it up.

A band could be a crowd-pleaser, but not play well musically. But overall, the unsigned Pilots could soon be a force to be reckoned with in the alternative music world.