Spring Break
Bluegrass band gives fans a double treat
SETH MCKELVEY
Issue date: 1/17/08 Section: Out & About
"My perspective is that good music is good music, regardless of genre," he said.
The band also has a unique live setup. Rather than micing each vocalist and each instrument, the band hooks the bass up to the sound system while the rest of the band crowds around two closely-spaced condensor microphones.
"It's fun to play that way," Baker said, adding that the setup helps the band to harmonize its vocals.
"You're in a tight circle, you can hear everybody real well," he said.
Andrew Heaton, who plays fiddle and sings backup vocals, said that it's difficult to fit all four of them around the mic close enough to be picked up properly.
"It inevitably means you are going to have to be fighting for space," he said. "And that whole dynamic of four people fighting for that space, and people coming in and out when they're not absolutely needed, gives the audience a whole different thing to watch."
"It's a little different," Baker said. "There's sort of this dance to it."
The band also has used this method for its recordings in the past, but for its new album went with a more standard, multi-track approach, which Heaton said helped improve the overall quality of the new release.
"We knew that it would be better production-wise, and we knew the performance, especially instrumentally would be better," he said. "We knew that we were going to have a good year and a half of getting better at our instruments between the previous album and this one."
However, Heaton was nonetheless anxious about the album.
"I was worried that it was going to be somewhat sterile," he said. "I was worried that it was not going to be that exciting."
However, all is well that ends well for this quirky quintet.
"I think that it definitely stands, in my opinion, well above anything we've recorded before," Heaton said.
The band also has a unique live setup. Rather than micing each vocalist and each instrument, the band hooks the bass up to the sound system while the rest of the band crowds around two closely-spaced condensor microphones.
"It's fun to play that way," Baker said, adding that the setup helps the band to harmonize its vocals.
"You're in a tight circle, you can hear everybody real well," he said.
Andrew Heaton, who plays fiddle and sings backup vocals, said that it's difficult to fit all four of them around the mic close enough to be picked up properly.
"It inevitably means you are going to have to be fighting for space," he said. "And that whole dynamic of four people fighting for that space, and people coming in and out when they're not absolutely needed, gives the audience a whole different thing to watch."
"It's a little different," Baker said. "There's sort of this dance to it."
The band also has used this method for its recordings in the past, but for its new album went with a more standard, multi-track approach, which Heaton said helped improve the overall quality of the new release.
"We knew that it would be better production-wise, and we knew the performance, especially instrumentally would be better," he said. "We knew that we were going to have a good year and a half of getting better at our instruments between the previous album and this one."
However, Heaton was nonetheless anxious about the album.
"I was worried that it was going to be somewhat sterile," he said. "I was worried that it was not going to be that exciting."
However, all is well that ends well for this quirky quintet.
"I think that it definitely stands, in my opinion, well above anything we've recorded before," Heaton said.
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