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Northern California Bluegrass Society provides this CD review. You can find our most current reviews on our Message Board, where you can comment or query the author directly. Our monthly magazine, Bluegrass By the Bay also publishes them. Return to CD Reviews. |
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| David Thom Band | Plays Bluegrass |
| Review by Larry Carlin | |
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Swollen Records Personnel:
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Some things are a given -- the sun rises in the east, taxes are due on the 15th of this month, festival season always passes much too quickly, and The David Thom Band Plays Bluegrass. Which, amazingly so, also happens to be the name of the new CD by The David Thom Band. When you have a fiddle, banjo, mandolin, doghouse bass, and acoustic guitar in a band, it is a pretty safe bet that you aren't going to hear any rap, hip-hop, or funk music. Thankfully this is true here on this recording, as it ain't nuthin' but straight-ahead, good old-fashioned bluegrass -- the way it was meant to be played. The David Thom Band is based in Marin County, not (yet) exactly a hotbed for bluegrass music. Sure, bluegrass gods David Grisman and Peter Rowan live up there. And Dr. Elmo & Wild Blue have been playing in the county for about 10 years. Yet aside from these names there had been little else happening bluegrass-wise in Marin until the Thom boys started pickin' away a few years back. And now they are at the forefront of a bluegrass Renaissance that is slowly taking hold in the Bay Area. They play often at the Sweetwater as well as other clubs in Marin that normally do not feature bluegrass music. They are trailblazers in the truest sense of the word. David Thom is the lead singer, guitar player, and front man for the band, as well as the main songwriter. He is also a darned-good flatpicker. Jonathan Schiele picks a mean 5-string, sings the high harmonies, wrote two of the instrumentals here, and he sings lead on one song. Jon Mask plays the mandolin and sings baritone harmonies, while Paul Knight sings and plays the bass. Newest member to the group is fine fiddler Doug Holloway. There is lots of good stuff on the new CD. Five of the songs are original, yet the strongest numbers are the bluegrass classics. The band pays tribute to some of the bluegrass greats here: there are two Bill Monroe songs -- Goldrush and On & On; two Ralph Stanley tunes -- Katy Daley and If I Lose; Homestead On The Farm is by A.P. Carter; Never See My Home Again is by Dillard and Jayne; and there are the bluegrass standards Over In Glory Land and Dark Hollow. There are three instrumentals, a couple of gospel songs, a waltz, and lots of darn good pickin' going on here. The David Thom Band Plays Bluegrass is a well-rounded debut bluegrass recording by one of the Bay Area's finest up and coming bluegrass bands. If you missed their CD release show at the Freight and Salvage in February you can go see the band on Tuesday, April 18th, in Mill Valley on the monthly Bluegrass Gold show when they will be releasing as many CDs as possible at the Sweetwater, Marin's venerable nightclub. They will also be sharing the stage with Batteries Not Included at the Palo Alto Unitarian Church on Saturday, April 29. More info on the band and the CD can be obtained at www.thedtb.com. Buy a few dozen of these CDs before the 15th and use them as a tax deduction. You'll be helping the band pay their own taxes and you'll be spreading the word that The David Thom Band Plays Bluegrass. |
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