Royal Pine: Press

When Whispers Are The Screams of Clasped Hands

Her voice sits lovingly upon your wrists like momentary razorblades; it is warm to the touch and burns at your heart strings, yet leaves your insides capricious and content. The music is like slow rolling molasses over honeyed holes of torn apart maple trees. It is best played in the dark, and at such a whisper it jags and drags at the nape of your neck like your imaginary lover. There is a sincerity made of newly blown glass in the underpinnings of the soft subtle music that is made by Royal Pine; they lead you and leave you lost but with a hopeful heart.

I was honored to share a showcase with them once. I stood at the back of the room as they made aural sounds that tickled at my eyes and ears and marched gentle steps over the pores of my skin.

Their CD is so many elements set about in waves upon waves in hearts upon hearts that it is difficult to describe without committing a heinous injustice to them or their music.

Buy it.
Listen to it.

Descriptions will be unnecessary, for it will burn like the disregarded candle wicks in your heart; at both ends.

Royal Pine
Robin Aigner and Brook Martinez, the makeup for Brooklyn’s old-time, folksy duo, bring a bit of unimpeded passion into their bluegrass, as each virtuoso is apt to change instruments at any given time, bouncing back and forth between churchy jubilation and straight-edge constraint. Each song, usually backed by a metronomic banjo, guitar or ukulele, has the intimacy you’d expect to find on some backwoods porch, smack in the middle of Appalachia. Apparently our quaint mountain folk have exported something other than Beverly Hillbillies stereotypes.

The two met after sharing a stage in New York. Martinez, a native of Pennsylvania, is a percussion high-flier. He’s also known to be addicted to bands, with his name regularly appearing on too many lineups to count. Now, as a result of all his shopping around with so many groups, he’s found something special through his collaborations with Aigner. Her soft, smoky voice guides each song with a smooth, calculated precision, building towards, as they describe their effect, “hypnotic cacophony.” We also have it on good authority that Aigner is a champion hoola-hooper. It’s always nice to have a backup plan. (Kevin Crowe)

BC Hot Notes, 3/13/06, Brooklyn Comes to West Nashville

A black Toyota with New York plates pulled up in our driveway. A woman with brown curly hair got out, carrying a backpack. She walked across the gravel driveway, up to our front porch and through the front door. With a smile, she introduced herself as Robin. A few steps behind her was a young man with blue eyes also carrying a backpack, introducing himself as Brook. We were expecting them – they were booked in the Writer's Room. What we didn’t know was that they formed a group called Royal Pine. You can see their cool website at www.royalpinemusic.com

My first question is usually “Where are you from?” and when they said Brooklyn, we had a place to start, since I had lived in Park Slope (where Brook lives) and Brooklyn Heights briefly during my early musical years. They asked about a local place to buy food, and when they specified healthy fare, we knew to send them to Wild Oats. No junk food for these two.

They were in Nashville to play at the Bluebird, as part of a tour of Southern cities. My world was opened up to catch a glimpse of this neo-folk network, as they mentioned clubs like Barking Legs in Chattanooga, Down Home in Johnson City, Barley’s Tap Room in Knoxville.

Most of their gigs were with another group called The Everybody Fields, an acoustic trio based in Johnson City, whom they’d met a few months back. It’s the sort of networking that happens all the time. Musicians and writers meet each other, admire each other’s work, discover their compatibility, and agree to cooperate for some joint shows.

The Writer’s Room, which we run in our home, attracts plenty of songwriters. Many of them have solo projects, but never before have we hosted a touring group. They were traveling together in that Toyota, carrying their guitar, banjo, ukulele, melodian, etc., sounds which we could hear coming down the hall as they rehearsed.

Brook and Robin exude creative energy. I had a chance to hang out with them the morning after their Bluebird show. They are part of a vibrant scene in Brooklyn, a community not restricted to “neo-folk” or any particular idiom. Brook, for example, is a drummer who has started a band that plays his jazz arrangements of music that was originally from Pakistan – the songs of a Sufi master named Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Brook’s Qawwali Party, as it’s called, includes at least four horns and three drummers. As his website bravely asks, “what the heck is Qawwali?” (visit www.brookmartinez.com or his spot at MySpace.com) Brook brought in his iPod and played me some of the original recordings of the Ali Khan songs, then the arrangements played by his band, which happened to be in the same key. The effect of hearing those melodies on saxophones was something like Duke Ellington wearing a turban, if that doesn’t sound too sacrilegious. Brook had learned of this music at the World Music Institute in Brooklyn, and got inspired by Ali Khan’s songs, the way Paul Simon was drawn to African music before making Graceland.

That introduction to a form of music I’d never heard of was only the beginning. Brook also plays in a funk band formed by one of the sax players in Qawwali party. His name is Tony Barba, and the band is called the Barbarians.

Robin likewise has her finger in several pies. One of them is called the Strung Out String Band, which combines what they call “old time” music – fiddle tunes from the Appalachians – with early gypsy music – fiddle tunes from Romania.

It seems to be the most normal thing in the world for a musician in Brooklyn to be in several bands simultaneously, all of them playing wildly different kinds of music.

The adventurous spirit, the fearless approach to music and community, struck a familiar note: I thought of another group from Brooklyn, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, a retro-funk band known to Nashville fans because of the enthusiasm of Mike Grimes, music fan extraordinaire, owner of Grimey’s New and Preloved Music. (See their site at www.grimey’s.com.) My own unique Grimey’s experience was walking into the store for the first time a few years ago, in its older Berry Hills location, and learning about Sharon Jones from co-owner Doyle Davis, who was also booking shows at the Slow Bar, which is why Sharon Jones played there. Doyle and Grimey convinced Sharon Jones to give Nashville a try.

I asked Robin and Brook if they knew about Sharon Jones, or about Grimey, which they didn’t. I recommended that they contact him. I was glad to know about someone in Nashville whose musical vision was broad enough to speak Brooklynese. I thought Grimey would be the perfect guy to appreciate them and maybe invite them to do an in-store appearance.

In a matter of minutes, I had caught a glimpse into the lives of two people who are members of an emerging neo-folk scene, visited various websites, listened to an iPod with a jazz band playing the songs of a Sufi master, told somebody about a cool Nashville record store, and felt the thrill of creative lives intersecting. I was sure there was nothing else in West Nashville going on at that moment quite like what I was experiencing with Robin and Brook. I hope they take a good report back to Brooklyn.

– BC

A little bit country, a little bit
rock & roll, a little bit cabaret,
gypsy and Americana, too!
That’s the sound of Royal Pine.
The brainchild of singer/
songwriter Robin Aigner and
multi-instrumentalist Brook
Martinez, Royal Pine plays
original old-timey folk songs ,
written by Robin, layers ’em with
guitar, banjo, ukulele, then adds
tabla, washboard, harmonica,
piano, xylophone and more.
Robin’s dewy lead vocals plus
Brook’s haunting harmonies
round out the hypnotic cacophony.
Royal Pine is based out of
Brooklyn. A native of Hastings-on-
Hudson, New York, Robin started
writing songs at a young age, but
kept them pretty much in her
head, playing them for an
appreciative audience of imaginary
pals. Years later, she became
an adult, took up smoking, quit
smoking, and--needing something
to do with her hands--took up the
guitar. Robin has been an integral
part of the N.Y. music scene ever
since as a performer, a booker, a
music writer, and a champion
hoola-hooper. She writes songs
via recordings on her circa-1992
answering machine.
Brook hails from Ambler,
Pennsylvania. He teaches drum
and is in myriad bands, including
Brook’s Qawwali Party, for which
he translates, charts and plays the
melodies of Pakistani legend
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in western
instrumental format. Brook cofounded
POP!, Percussionists of
the People, in 2004, an interactive
workshop that seeks to expand the
cultural awareness of today’s
young people by exploring
traditions of percussion from
Africa, Brazil, Cuba and the US.
The kid does a mean Michael
Jackson impression, too.
Royal Pine songs have that
small-town intimacy of Gillian
Welch and Patty Griffin combined
with the worldly-wise and wit of
Tom Waits and Lucinda Williams.
The music is eclectic, irreverent
and smart. The shows are
theatrical and mesmerizing. The
sound is best classified as neo-folk:
it builds on traditional music,
adding just enough edge and
nontraditional instrumentation to
make the music timely and
interesting. This is folk music for
the unafraid.
This is not your mama’s folk.
We interviewed Robin and
Brook while they were on the road
heading south in their Winnabago
...
LOAFER:So are there a lot of
old-time mountain music pickers
in Brooklyn?
ROYAL PINE: Oddly, there are.
There seems to be a big trend in
recent years toward old-time
music in New York, especially in
Brooklyn. City-wide there are
about five monthly jams, and there
are variations on the traditional
jams, too, like a monthly Johnny
Cash/Hank Williams night.
LOAFER:You guys have
separate lives, so to speak, as
independent musicians. Does your
solo stuff resemble Royal Pine
music, or does it have a different
flavor and feel?
ROBIN: Well, I was pretty much
solo till I met Brook. So we started
building on my solo material; so
for me, I sound similar when I
perform by myself, but Brook
brings all these other sounds to
the music - which is fantastic,
because it takes the music to a
whole other level. But I'm also in a
traditional old-time band, and I've
been recently dabbling in gypsy
music - so that stuff is really a
departure from our band.
BROOK: I'm a percussionist by
trade, so to be doing all this
singing and playing all these
instruments that are new to me
(banjo, ukulele, xylophone) is
really different than what I
traditionally have done on my
own, or with other bands. In fact,
my other big project is Brook's
Qawaali Party - a 14-piece band
for which I translate and chart the
songs of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -
so that is totally different.
LOAFER: You've become
friends with the everybodyfields.
How did ya'll get together with
them, and how have they helped
you break onto Southern stages?
ROBIN: The Everybodyfields
literally changed the course of our
career. We were driving an old
Winnebago through the south last
year - spending all of our time
trying not to crash a big house on
wheels and all of our money on
gas. We were on our way to
Memphis, played a gig at Johnson
City's Down HOme and Jill
Andrews happened to be in the
house that night. She really liked
our set, bought our CD and gave
us some flattering malarky about
never buying bands' CDs after
their shows - well, we were
flattered. Anyway, Jill and Sam
Quinn really impressed us with
their music and they convinced us
to ditch our Memphis plans (a 10-
hour ride that probably would
have taken 20 in our rig) and
instead go with them to Merlefest,
which we did. Well, many latenight
jam sessions later, we have
formed a really solid friendship
with them and have shared bills in
Tennesse, New Hampshire and
New York. Aside from just being
great musicians, and warmhearted
people, they have hooked
us up with gigs and radio
appearances and have exposed us
to a wide audience down here that
we might not have been able to
reach. So we're incredibly grateful.
We've learned a lot from them,
and are continually inspired by
them.
LOAFER: What moves you
about old-time music?
ROBIN: When I first started
playing music, I stumbled upon
Freddy's Old-Time Jam in
Brooklyn, and it really changed
my whole approach to music. First
of all, it was an environment in
which I could make mistakes--if I
played a 4 instead of a 2, if anyone
could even hear it over the 10
other instruments--no one was
really too bothered. Plus old-time
songs are repetitive enough that
they are relatively easy to learn.
But what I love best is just this
sense of community--of a shared
love; kind of like you're all just
hanging out on the back porch,
passing 'round the hooch. And in
the circles I play in, there is very
little spotlight-hogging. So I guess
for me old-time music has this
great balance between familiarity--
it's pretty easy to catch on to an
old-time tune- and sponteneity -
no song is ever the same twice.
LOAFER: Do you feel, judging
from groups like Old Crow
Medicine Show, everybodyfields -
a resurgence in old-time music,
and how do you folks fit into that
picture?
ROBIN: Absolutely. I think it's
the result of a couple of different
things. The popular music
industry has become so monopolized
that it has really forced indie
labels and underground music to
find other avenues. It's like a big
sieve that has strained out all the
pulp--well, all that pulp has to go
somewhere, so it goes to the
coffeehouses and the cafes and the
street corners of cities like New
York. And eventually, it catches on
with the kids, and Gillian Welch is
playing at Town Hall. But also, the
digital age has really helped bring
traditional music to the mainstream.
It's so much easier now to
make a record--or even record a
song--and distribute online, so
things get proliferated more easily
and more quickly. You no longer
have to go to Appalachia to hear
old-time; you can hop on the
subway and go to the Lower East
Side, or even Brooklyn!!!
LOAFER: What do you like
most about the South?
ROBIN: Well, we were pretty
impressed by Ryan's honey butter
last time. But honestly, it is
without question, the people.
We were never without a place
to stay last year and we've met
the most wonderful, welcoming
friends.

As Robin Aigner and Brook Martinez harmonize "Who's gonna ride this old train?" with naught but a banjo and handclaps on "This Old Train," one is reminded how music can be so simple yet good at the same time. Mixing folk and bluegrass with Aigner's clever narratives, this duo know as Royal Pine shoots out an unpretentious, easygoing winner with "Chanty Town." As Aigner sings, "Swimming in the sweat of the vinyl summer heat/jolly rancher melting in the wayback seat" from "Seventy Seven," it's easy to notice how such little observations can make for great lyrics.

Royal Pine is a Brooklyn-based duo that combines Robin Aigner, a quirky and frequently charming, singer-songwriter who wrote nine of the ten songs on this duo's debut and who plays guitar, banjo and ukelele, and Brook Martinez, a multi-instrumentalist who variously plays guitar, xylophone, harmonica, piano and percussion instruments like tabla drums and washboard. Royal Pine's musical influences include 19th-century parlor songs, traditional folk, European cabaret, country and rock & roll.

In "This Old Train," the CD's opening song, Aigner's protagonist is a 19th century Southern woman who longs to break free from her strict upbringing, something her sister has already done, but who seems just a little bit afraid of the consequences. Aigner's old-timey banjo playing, fleshed out by Martinez's kitchen-table percussion, is a perfect accompaniment to her clear singing. Next is "Portland," in which she captures the anomic feelings of rootlessness in a place where everyone seems to be from somewhere else, and "At the Palace," which observes the spread of popular culture in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism.

One of Aigner's most interesting songs is "Seventy Seven," in which she recounts childhood memories from the summer of 1977 that include her mother's search for romance, the Son of Sam murders--juxtaposed with references to Dr. Seuss' Sam I Am character--and the massive power blackout in New York City.

Although it is Aigner as singer and songwriter who is in the spotlight, Martinez adds much with his creativity on the various instruments that he chooses for each song.

Good folk should be sweet, sentimental, haunting and timeless. “Sweet Gabriells,” the obvious single choice from Royal Pine’s full length that has been stuck in my head since it arrived in my mailbox, is all these things. It is a dark folk guitar part underneath a bittersweet fiddle harmony, with a melody that starts from somber darkness, but moves seamlessly into a cute welcome release. The chorus, a plea from a male lover to the object of his desire, sounds especially poignant sung by the sweet female voice of Robin Aigner, which is rich and full of character, cracking in just the right places and hitting all the nostalgia and sentimentality a tone is capable of. Influences of Alison Krauss, Norah Jones, and Ani DiFranco blend together to create a classic familiar sound. The balancing of the cute and sweet with the intelligent and artistic is what really pulls this album off, making it as interesting and artistically relevant as it is purely enjoyable. The songs on Chanty Town span the gammit from slow, somber and sweet, to quirky, upbeat and energetic, as they move from traditional folk to more modern sounds and song structures in a cohesive line that sounds a little premeditated. This self-aware artistic streak holds it together keeping it from being heard simply as a pretty homage to old time music or as contemporary folk with some throw back leanings. The arrangements are mostly roots based, layering a banjo, acoustic guitar, or ukulele underneath a single lead of a fiddle, reverb heavy piano or bells, while eclectic percussion round out the bottom. The songs are striking and more artistic for the crisp and clean production. Each piece of the sparse arrangements comes across strong on their own, blending together but still remaining distinct. With Robin’s voice over the top often combined with a double tracked harmony or the low subtle voice of band mate Brook Martinez, we have a lush and beautiful sound to bring out some good songwriting.

On "Chanty Town," Royal Pine's songs are swaddled in a patchwork quilt sensibility. It's music that invites listeners into a world that is cozy and familiar. But each track is packed with patterns and hooks that demand closer attention and keep you coming back for more. Therein lies Robin Aigner's songwriting skill. The band's lead singer & songwriter has crafted
an album of songs that are sophisticated and folksy. It's a winning blend of heart and mind that sustains itself from start to finish...then from start to finish, again.

Fans of Americana had a chance to enjoy a bill of acoustic harmonies, folksy storytelling and good old-fashioned sturm-und-twang when Brooklyn, N.Y., duo Royal Pine and Tennessee-based The Everybodyfields paired up at The Stone Church last week. Royal Pine opened the show and clearly adhered to standard folk conventions, despite claiming “an unconventional take on folk music.” Though they may substitute a number about New York City’s Blackout of ’77 for a standby like the “Wreck of the Old 97,” their use of banjo and washboard, as well as their references to Arkansas, ministers and walking lonesome miles, would have made the patrons of any ’60s coffeehouse audience swoon.

Nov 30, 2005 / vol 12 iss 18


Eccentric like me


At what point is novelty just not novel anymore?


by Alli Marshall


OK, here's my brilliant idea for the next big thing: novelty festivals. A summertime event where accordion players, toy-instrument bands, zoot-suited swingers, Mexican-wrestling-mask-adorned rockers and sideshow acts of all shapes and sizes can have their day. You know, in the sun and all. And all the porkpie-hat-wearing, crinoline-skirt-twirling, hula-hooping, combat-boot- and striped-knee-sock-sporting fans can jive, boogie, jitterbug, swing and pogo dance their way to their particular bent of quirky ecstasy.


Just one little caveat before we print up T-shirts for Novelty Fest 2006: If you gather a whole bunch of oddity acts together, at some point, doesn't weird just become the norm?


Not according to Jason Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. As the patriarch puts it: "The more avant-garde, then the better the show."


That is, as long as the songs themselves are "sensibly melodic, lyrically relevant, socially significant, and intriguingly innovative," he went on to explain during a recent interview with Xpress.


"Should the finished presentation be comical and artistically groundbreaking, then that's entertainment."

If it seems like novelty – at least the local breed – started a decade ago with the advent of neo-vaudevillians Snake Oil Medicine Show and their folky, twangy, psychedelic-lite, arty stage mayhem, well ... not quite. Medicine shows hearken back more than a century to the days of traveling horse-and-buggy "doctors" who sold promised miracle cures and true-love tonics between variety acts designed to gather crowds. Snake Oil shares its historical namesake with plenty of other latter-day charlatans, including has-been pop-country band Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show and current old-time hipster darlings Old Crow Medicine Show.


But those first back-road placebo peddlers weren't exactly traveling the novelty circuit alone: magic acts, animal trainers, storytellers and disfigured unfortunates displaying their various birth defects were all common incarnations of entertainment. That was long before big stadiums, the wall of sound and '80s hair bands in circulation-disabling jeans became the norm. It's worth noting that those same hair bands have already become fodder for various novelty-flavored "tribute" bands.


Today's hipper novelty acts, however, draw inspiration from the stars of the vaudeville era (think the Original Creole Orchestra, Ukulele Ike and Judy Garland as part of the singing Gumm Sisters) and from burlesque – smut-free vaudeville's spicier counterpart. Heavily dependent on parody, burlesque, according to wikipedia.com, spawned the exotica and lounge-music revival of the 1990s, as well as this decade's New Burlesque, personified in Asheville's own beloved, if apparently short-lived, Rebelles.


Austin, Texas, took the whole novelty revival more seriously than probably any other city, starting with the post-new wave New Sincerity movement of the 1980s. "Austin's parody history glories in such acts, from Balcones Fault and Kinky Friedman to Not Daniel Johnston, the Wannabes and Glamourpuss," reported the Austin Chronicle in 2004. Today, the city's novelty contingent includes naughty nostalgia group Asylum Street Spankers, kilt-wearers the Brobdingnagian Bards and pop-music skewers the Uranium Savages, who've been on the scene for 30 years.


It's a pirate thing (you wouldn't understand)



Wonder how much booty they get?: The Jolly Garogers don't break out of their pirate schtick. Ever.



Which brings us to Austin's Jolly Garogers – a group that casts itself rather in the mold of other minority artists, preferring to be called a pirate band, period, rather than a new fragment of novelty entertainment. Unlike the better-known Asheville novelty acts – postmodern parlor group Mad Tea Party or high-energy old-time artists the Rib Tips – the Jolly Garogers have nothing to do with early-20th-century revival. Rather, their schtick, from the pirate gear they wear on stage to their assumed names and the "Aargh, matey" lingo, is total Captain Hook.


"I see no connection between [novelty meaning 'new'] and using stage props, costumes, etc. to cover up a musical lack of talent or a lazy work ethic in practicing. I suppose you could try that, but people will see right through it," Captain Phleabag asserts via e-mail. "There is no substitute for great songs, and great stage performance. You can only achieve these goals with hard work and practice." He goes on to list famed bands like KISS and Devo and artists like Alice Cooper and even U2's Bono as acts who've used stage personae to their benefit.



Scaring up success: Monsters of Japan know that demonic makeup and bloody baby dolls can work more magic than a well-meaning publicist.



For some reason, though, KISS is considered something of a rock legend, while Asheville's makeup-splattered, chainsaw-wielding schlock rockers Monsters of Japan are stuck wearing the novelty collar (not that the S&M-inclined band seems to mind).


"Bands today have lost the whole mentality of showmanship," Monsters front man Roast complained to Xpress earlier this year.


Even Snake Oil Medicine Show, whose members neither spurt fake blood nor bludgeon baby dolls, sees the benefit in taking showmanship to its edge. "I'm a thespian – I say go for it," asserts bandleader George Pond. His crew often travels with artist Phil Cheney, who creates his psychedelic, cartoonish paintings on stage to the beat of the band's acoustic vaudeville strumming. "[We've] been called over-the-top by some people," Pond boasts. "I support dramatic expression."


What would Django say?


Then there are the groups for whom dramatic expression doesn't require a full-time painter – just an affection for Eastern Bloc eccentricity. NYC-based gypsy-punk outfit Gogol Bordello has upped the ante of the violin- and accordion-based band. As if freaking out new audiences with archaic instruments isn't enough, Ukrainian-expat front man Eugene Hutz channels Iggy Pop, orchestrates a stage show with "Gogol dancers" dressed like border cops who bind him with his microphone cord, and imbibes copious amounts of booze. "We're not allowed to play in CBGB, Brownies [or] Mercury Lounge," Hutz bragged to the Village Voice in 2002. "They don't want to deal with that level of excitement."


Banned from CBGB – the bar that hosted the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols in the '70s.


Other, tamer gypsy-punk outfits have cropped up like so many colorful mushrooms – including the Luminescent Orchestrii, ROYAL PINE, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, Waiting for Guinness, Doch, and, not least, the Hellblinki Sextet, a self-described "gypsy pirate blues group" that recently relocated here. The traveling Circus Street Orchestra could recently be heard carnival-barking and squeeze-boxing away an afternoon at the tourist-heavy junction of Wall Street and Battery. Other reimagined ethnic folk groups include the Klezmatics and Josh Lederman y Los Diablos, who proudly rock their Jewish roots (the latter band's Latin name only adds to the artful ambiguity, of course). But New Orleans' Zydepunks – half of whom are holed up in Asheville since Katrina – may take the multicultural prize: They're billed as the Big Easy's "favorite Cajun Irish Breton French Klezmer Slavic Zydeco Punk band."


Which begs the question: Is the world-infused folk resurgence an ever-expanding – or, rather, a rapidly shrinking – market? As up-and-comers like the Warsaw Village Band – a hipster old-time Polish group who really are from Poland – gain a foothold with Western audiences, old-world wannabes may lose some of their exotic luster.



Picture this: The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are perhaps the most truly novel act on the weird-folk circuit.



But ethnicity has nothing to do with the determined unorthodoxy of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. "We are an indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop band," explains papa Trachtenburg. "We are entering the golden age of mixed media. I say this because what else is there left to do but combine elements of our overwhelming culture and then turn those elements into art?"


The Slideshow Players are a family band in the truest sense. Trachtenburg's 12-year-old daughter, Rachel, plays drums and sings backup and his wife, Tina, mans the slide projector. The band's songs relate to found images – often the vacation slides of strangers culled from yard sales. "Our band is a natural extension of our family lifestyle," Trachtenburg explains.


But for the Slideshow Players, being an anomaly isn't sufficient: This group lives to get laughs. "As a concept, we are staying true to our original premise of turning the lives of anonymous deceased strangers into pop-rock music exposés based on the contents of their found slide collections," the songwriter philosophizes via e-mail. "We must go by the presumption that audiences are paying big bucks [for] the ultimate reward of having their expectations challenged and their points of reference forever altered."


He continues: "We are contractually obligated to ... acknowledge the entire audience to the fullest, bring entertainment back to entertainment and to do song introductions that are always longer than the proper songs themselves."


Day jobs are obviously not an option.


Folk: reinvented (again)



The right brew: Mad Tea Party tempers its quirk with well-written songs and a pleasing self-deprecation.



And this kind of skewed sense of purpose is echoed throughout the motley genre that is novelty. From all-female ukulele swingers to shock-rockers to little Big Bands, avant-garde musicians are out to prove it takes talent to be long-term quirky.


"We can't book ourselves as a singer/songwriter act or [as] a preservationist act, either," Mad Tea Party ukulele player Ami Worthen admitted to Xpress in 2003. She went on: "I have a lot of respect for people who are preservationists, but I am part of keeping folk music alive in terms of creating new songs and new sounds."


The group, which currently consists of Worthen, multi-instrumentalist Jason Krekel and standup bassist Lora Pendleton, bases its sound on vintage jazz and ragtime. But other influences peep through – strains of rueful, apologetic geek rock carried through Worthen's breezy original tunes. And then there's the songstress' commitment to reinstating the uke as a viable stage-worthy instrument.


Sure, Mad Tea Party studies the old-school 78s, but according to Worthen, "my particular role is in reinventing folk music, and less in trying to preserve what was done before."


Pond asserts a similar claim. Snake Oil, he says, "is creative anarchy. By nature of the instruments we picked, we did music geared toward the banjo." Read: old-timey with a twist. "With the evolution of the music, we did novelty rag beats – but creative anarchy means we suspend the rules. We do what we do, but we may not like it tomorrow."


Their sometimes-sloppy sideshow hokum act has delved into several interesting cross-genre efforts. Like 2004's reggae-infused Bluegrass Tafari and their latest rock-steady effort, We Make It Nice.


"This is not novelty as sentimentality," Pond attests.


The Jolly Garogers' Phleabag would probably agree. As the pirate points out, having fun is serious business. "We have been able to win over many newcomers at gigs just by doing what we do: putting on a great show," he says. "We have never left a show without gaining many new fans, and that is why we keep doing what we do.


"Anyone who sees a Jolly Garogers show will have as much fun as we do," he persists in well-practiced PR mode. "We give the audience what they want: escape, an hour with larger-than-life, rock 'n' roll superheroes – a real rock show."


Novelty goes mainstream


Check Xpress' Clubland listings any given week and you'll find plenty of opportunities to catch a novelty-flavored show. Locals include the ubiquitous Rib Tips, the swinging Sweet Mama T & Her Red Hot Sugar Babies, sleaze-rockers Crank County Daredevils and favorite nostalgists the Firecracker Jazz Band, along with a steady touring stream of zydeco-meets-punk, bluegrass-meets-rock and old world-meets-urban bands from Portland, Seattle, Austin, Boulder and all points northeast.


Even formerly classifiable bands are getting in on the action. Canadian alt-country artists Luther Wright and the Wrongs released Rebuild the Wall, their bluegrass tribute to Pink Floyd, in 2002, and New York City's Demolition String Band (which seems sort of novel, until you put the group in Jack of the Wood, where string bands are rote) does a mean twang version of Madonna's "Like a Prayer."


Even Gogol Bordello's handlebar-mustachioed Hutz landed a role in the Warner Brothers film Everything is Illuminated, where he stars as – big stretch – a gypsy.


So what do the intentionally novel groups think of this move toward the mainstream? "There's a challenge to being novel," muses Pond. "There's a chance that someone else may do the same thing."


Which isn't necessarily bad – especially for bands who figure they were there first. "I feel pretty encouraged by that," Pond notes. "Clearly [Snake Oil] is an art party. It's an art and music fusion. We're 13 years into this, and [we] look around now and start to see a bunch of bands bringing painters on stage. ... They're trying to create a multi-sensory experience; it seems like props."


By props he means respect, not structural assistance – though that would work, too.


"If there should suddenly be an influx of conceptual slide-show family bands on the market, then we will certainly be assured our place in history in that specific field as being pioneers and influential trendsetters," Trachtenburg chimes in. "The usual usually becomes usual usually after unusual exposure to an open palate."


He adds, as if any encore were needed, "On any given night, we – or any other band for that matter – can be the best and most important band in show-biz history. [We] can change the world."


Or at least squash the competition. "Aaarrgghhh! Mosh the man down, me hearties," growls the Jolly Garogers' Phleabag, who obviously aims to ride the novelty wave till it crashes.

April 21, 2005
The inner wanderer

Royal Pine mixes old-time music tradition with N.Y. living


By Rusty Marks
Staff writer

You can take the girl out of the holler. But can you bring the holler to Brooklyn?

New York-based folk singer Robin Aigner is trying to find out. Mixing quirky, contemporary lyrics with old-time accompaniment, the 38-year-old songwriter has created a style of music she refers to as “indie-folk gypsy Americana.”

Aigner and her sidekick, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Brook Martinez, bring their band Royal Pine to The Purple Fiddle in Thomas at 7 p.m. Sunday (cover $5) and Charleston’s Empty Glass Café at 9:30 p.m. Monday (no cover).

Aigner grew up in a quiet New York suburb, where a nagging sense of wanderlust was not helped by a boring, nine-to-five job.

“I was pretty uncomfortable in the corporate world,” Aigner admitted in a telephone interview from New York. By her 20s, bored and perhaps a little disillusioned, she decided to drop out to concentrate on writing songs.

There was just one small problem — she didn’t know how to play the guitar. She taught herself to play by learning old-time music, in part because the simple chord structures are easier and partly because Brooklyn’s nurturing old-time music community took her under its collective wing.

Aigner played with a few old-time bands around Brooklyn before striking out on her own to record a solo CD, titled “Volksinger.” The disc is a mix of cowboy-inspired ballads and Appalachian-sounding melodies, but with quirky lyric twists. Aigner’s oft-quoted ditty “Stone Cold Mamacita” gives a pretty good idea of what to expect from the songwriter:

“I’m a stone-cold mamacita / with an ex-pat hippie papa / we got a lot of terra cotta / and we’re a long way from home ... We live on wit and vino rojo / in our orange El Camino / our perro’s name is Pedro/ we’re a long way from home. ...”

“Sometimes I’ll try to write really old-timey stuff,” Aigner said. “I’ll want to write a country song or an old-timey song. But it’s hard to escape the influences we’re around today.”

Aigner’s lyrics are full of images of cowboys, anti-heroes and lonely wanderers, juxtaposed with contemporary concerns like insomnia or the vagaries of modern relationships.

“There’s definitely an element of the escapist in the songs,” said Aigner, who admits she’d wander off and live in a cabin if she thought she could get away with it.

“There’s the wanderer, the person in me who wants to travel the country in a Winnebago,” she said. “What you get is this kind of old-time tradition I have, and the contemporary vibe I get from being in Brooklyn, and the world aspect that Brooklyn brings to it.”

It’s almost as if, Aigner muses, Woody Guthrie were alive today, writing songs while trapped in Brooklyn’s concrete cage.

“[Woody Guthrie] did live in Brooklyn for a time in his life,” she pointed out. “I think the difference was in riding the rails and being the pioneer. That’s how he grew up, and then he moved to the city.

“I’m kind of the reverse.”

ONLINE: www.robinaigner.com

To contact staff writer Rusty Marks, use e-mail or call 348-1215.

If you go

Royal Pine, featuring Robin Aigner and Brook Martinez, performs 7 p.m. Sunday at The Purple Fiddle in Thomas (www.purplefiddle.com), cover $5. Call 463-4040. The band appears at Charleston’s Empty Glass Café (www.emptyglass.com), 410 Elizabeth St., at 9:30 p.m. Monday, no cover. Call 345-9893.