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Fantastic String Sensations @ Jalopy
Date : 19 March 2010
From : 09:00 pm
Category : General
Event Description :
Red Hook, Brooklyn, 9 pm Friday, March 19th- A rare treat to get M.Shanghai,
The Ukuladies and Jan Bell all in one night.
In 2002, the M SHANGHAI STRING BAND got together in the basement of a
Chinese bistro in Brooklyn to share good food and play some music. This
acoustic-culinary combination was too special not to repeat, and the band
(named after the restaurant) was born. Their debut album "Up From the Ground
Below" was recorded in the restaurant's dining room. Its twenty songs were
captured completely live in one day. At their CD release party, the MSSB
played four live sets to a standing room only crowd. Brooklyn's best kept
secret was out.
"The banjos spit fire, the acoustics soothe the soul, and the vocals tell
honest tales. Every song from Up From the Ground Below is a perfect combo of
old time American folk and the music as it stands today... a musical
performance that is enduring." -Chris Lewis SHUT EYE
An adventurous take on Americana, the M SHANGHAI STRING BAND's songs are not
easily classified. They are remeniscent of traditional roots music styles,
yet innovative in their musical form and modern lyrical content. The
dynamics range from barnstorming breakdowns to achingly beautiful ballads,
expressing originality and simplicity in the same breath.
The MSSB have gained a reputation around the New York City area as a
must-see live act. The band alternates from five to eleven players at any
given show; a tight knit extended family that performs as a true ensemble.
As machine-made, mistake-free music becomes the norm, the M SHANGHAI STRING
BAND creates music the way it used to be: heartfelt performances on the
human scale, recorded live with a sense of dangerous abandon. It's an
old-fashioned idea rendered new, and the results are both vibrant and
timeless.
The Ukuladies, a perpetually-touring, twin-sister, aunt, and one
tap-dancing-cousin act from Winnipeg, Canada with a lust for life and its
idle curiosities include fraternal twins Genevieve (tenor uke, bari uke,
banjo uke, voice, toy piano, flute, glockenspiel, penny whistle, and kazoo),
Jimmy Lou (ukes, voice, fiddle, saw, kazoo), Aunt Mary (ukes, voice, kazoo,
toys), and Cousin Bunny (tap, interpretive dance, toy accordion, party
favors and antics). The "ladies" grew up together in a close and large (or
is it large and close?) anyway....they grew up. They grew up in a family - -
that was big. They played music together under the tutelage of various
uncles and an occasional grandmother who nurtured the girls' love of small
instruments that make plinky sounds.
Jan Bell, Brooklyn's country bell, grew up in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire,
England, and spent several years on the back roads of north america,
learning songs from the rural south and mountain towns. When she first heard
the songs of women such as Mother Maybelle, Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard
- she felt right at home.
Wherever she goes, people always ask how come an english girl is singing so
many american folk songs? Jan reckons the root of many of the songs she
loves, are back in the coal mining country side where she was born and
raised.
"Sometimes the main difference is in the name of a river, a town, a girl or
a boy - but the melodies, and the stories are essentially the same. When
folks from northern Britain sailed across the Atlantic- especially if all
they knew was mining - they often settled in the Appalachian mountains. For
generations, they stayed there, and the music was not only kept alive - but
thrived. When i first went to Virginia and Kentucky, I could hear broad
Yorkshire in the way people spoke. They had to be true dreamers, to get on
the boat back then, and you can hear all that sheer hope and faith and
courage in the songs."
