Editor’s Note:
Our first guest post this week comes from Justin Shatwell, an editor over at Yankee Magazine who writes a music column there. We met while working together, and after a brief, five-minute conversation about his impeccable music taste, we pulled out the safety pins to become blood brothers. He’s by far the hippest cat to ever reside in the Granite State and walks around making quotable quotes all the time. When I asked him to write a guest post, his response went a little something like this:
Funkiest Priscilla,
If the young and disaffected clamoring for a better tomorrow on the internet were a revolutionary guerilla army, you were our Che Guevara.
Peace,
Justin
What’s not to love? And here’s a little music review by him of a band you NEED to check out…
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There are few instances when it is either safe or socially respectable to follow strangers back to their van. Spending an evening hanging out with folk musicians is a borderline case in both regards. Lucky for me, they weren’t just any folk musicians, they were husband and wife vagabonds Rebecca Hall and Ken Anderson, otherwise known as Hungrytown. And it wasn’t just any van, it was the Blue Meanie, their custom built twenty-two foot long wannabe Winnebago. Inside they crammed a bed, shower, toilet, kitchenette, and desk. It’s wireless, has room for their instruments, and carries all the gear they need to set up impromptu recording sessions. It’s also blue and stocked with diet soda which they serve up liberally to guests.
If you ever, in a fit of youthful idealism, declare your intention to work for the U.N. and your parents demand to know where that will get you in life, refer them to this post. Ken, a reformed lawyer whose first official act was to retire, and Rebecca, an erstwhile English major, kicked around the lower echelons of the world service for years before deciding to follow in the footsteps of the Carter family. They quit, cashed in their pensions for a small house in Vermont and their big blue touring machine (the van was more expensive), and they haven’t looked back since. I caught up with them five years into their odyssey after they rocked the geriatric face off the Rutland Free Library.
The first thing that strikes you about Hungrytown is how damn cute they are. Seeing them on stage, you’d swear this whole “folk musician” thing was just an extended second honeymoon. The show is full of sidelong glances, little jokes, and matrimonial barbs. Before one song Rebecca reminded Ken “Now don’t forget the new intro” in the same tone one might use to remind their husband to bring the car in for an oil change or to empty the lint trap before drying the linens. They’re genuinely having a good time. They’re the type of unspoiled musicians that are still perfectly pleased to be playing a thirty seat room half-filled.
Musically Hungrytown is like few folk acts out there. Not because they’re pushing the envelope with turntables and electric sitars, but because they’re doing exactly the opposite. Ken and Rebecca kick it way old school – like 1930’s old school. Most folkies I know either try to modernize the genre or go the traditional Celtic route. Hungrytown opts instead to revisit the golden age of Appalachia. The majority of their music is purely American, referencing the kind of acts that played the Grand Ole Opry when Elvis and Johnny Cash were kids. The twist is that most of the songs, though ancient, are brand spankin’ new.
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Ken and Rebecca discovered folk relatively late in their musical lives. While they were international bureaucrats, they kept their sanity playing separate gigs in New York. Rebecca was a jazz singer and Ken played drums for a rock outfit. It was only after a conversion experience with an old folk anthology that Rebecca started toying around with Americana. Ken didn’t join her until he filled in for her regular bassist for a major gig (in order to achieve this feat, he had to learn how to play the bass in three days. If that’s not love, Cupid can freakin’ eat me). For whatever reason, they found in folk something they didn’t find elsewhere. They have an incredible knack for writing songs that sound so authentic they might be referred to as forgeries. They also found something they can do well together, which sounds cheesy as hell, but seriously, isn’t that what we all want? They take the trials and tribulations of their daily lives (like those involved in buying a new house or living with your husband in a very small van), craft them into simple versus, and hurl them back in time. The soul of the songs is modern, but they sound like something that should be coming out of a gramophone.
Hungrytown is definitely worth a listen. They may be a little too authentic for some tastes, but the charisma of their live shows it worth seeing in-and-of-itself. It is a rare thing these days to see a band that really took the leap of faith to become musicians. It’s easy to quit your job at Starbucks to chase the dream; leaving behind a secure high-paying job to hit the road in a genre that rarely brings in a lot of cash, that’s something else entirely. The drive required to do that is something hard to describe, but they where it on their sleeves at every concert. It’s worth going to one of their shows just for the inspiration. I guarantee it’ll be an experience as classic as their sound.
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You can preview their album “Hungrytown” in the sidebar widget. Enjoy!
