Monday, November 21, 2016

The Kitchen Dwellers w/ Upstate Rubdown 11/20/16 Spaceland Ballroom

Upstate Rubdown was a curious mash of styles hailing from New York State. A trio of female singers, standup bass, mandolin, multi-reedist, and percussionist.The percussionist tapped and strummed and even used brushes on a wooden box contraption that he sat on. The mando and bass were the members with the most bluegrass chops. The reedist played flute, sax, and baritone sax. The ladies had nice vocal harmonies that were emphasized by an old-timey microphone, like the Andrews Sisters on Hee-Haw. The bari sax did a nice lead in to a rousing rendition of Billie Jean. These kids were not even born when MJ's Thriller came out.
The Kitchen Dwellers are a straight up bluegrass outfit from Bozeman MT. Acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, standup bass, and mandolin comprised the quintet. These guys were somewhere between Railroad Earth and Yonder Mountain String Band on the bluegrass continuum. Somewhat jammy, but definitive song structure made for an enjoyable listen. Sparse crowd for a Monday, which was too bad.

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