Three different forces of nature from across our great nation will converge at the Pinhook on Wed., Oct. 22 to play some of the grittiest, rowdiest, most rollicking and sweetly sublime tunes a fragile mind could handle. Sam Moss from New England, the Lowest Pair from Olympia, Washington and Zeke Graves, hailing from Durham, North Carolina, will all play together in what can only be described in conglomerate as Americana. The Chronicle spoke with each artist in anticipation of their performance.
Sam Moss
The Chronicle: How would you describe the music that you play and how do you feel about the term “Americana” as it relates to your music?
Sam Moss: I feel like I very strongly identify with being from this country, growing up here. Almost all of the music I identify strongest with is American music, even looking at composers in the classical world. I’ve never had nearly as much an affinity for European composers as I have for American composers, which is something I came to realize one day. So I guess the music I make fits under that umbrella to me because it’s very deeply informed by the world of American roots music that I grew up listening to like early blues and country and folk. It doesn’t fit in quite so cleanly into any of those categories but it’s certainly informed by the world of American roots music more than anything else. I suppose Americana is just an easier term than American roots music, at least to my ears.
TC: Do you think you could put your finger on what exactly it is about American Roots Music that draws you to it?
Sam Moss: I grew up listening to mostly dad’s music collection which is mostly post-1950s blues and blues rock…several years after I had started playing music on my own I went to the local music store and started looking backwards, I guess. I grew up hearing like Steve Ray Vaughn and Freddie King and the Allman Brothers, so I started looking for the guys…maybe back to Muddy Waters and Howard Wolf…I think I was really drawn to the lineage and that I saw, especially with blues music. I suppose that the music had changed and shifted and went from finger picking a single guitar to a full raucous electric band, but it all felt somehow related still, and I felt that when I looked at other strains of American roots music. I think subconsciously I wanted to be a part of it. I got obsessed with songwriting and was listening to Townes Van Zandt or Dylan, and those were the best songwriters I could think of, and I wanted to work on writing songs like that, which also pushed me farther into the country/folk/Americana sort of direction. When I listen to Harry Smith’s anthology, there’s a lot in there I feel like I understand. Though I grew up in New England and a lot of the music on that anthology was recorded outside of New England, I feel some sort of deep connection to it, it’s familiar to me. At the same time, there’s a lot of mystery in there, the kind of mystery that keeps me coming back. A lot of people talk about the recording of “Dark was the Night” by Willie Johnson, which is just this incredible minimal example of how you can create something so powerful with just a guitar and voice, and I think that question of how do you make a statement that’s so strong with just a couple of tools, I think that question is something I keep coming back to, and sustains my interest and probably always will.
TC: Is there a regional difference between the kinds of strains of Americana that you would hear up in New England versus what you might hear, say, in the South?
Sam Moss: One strain [of American root music] that has deep roots [in new England] is sacred harp singing. Sacred Harp is a book of religious songs that use shape notation. It’s very much sort of a social music at this point. People come together and sing together. It’s occasionally presented in concert form but rarely. There’s a pretty strong following for sacred harp singing in the Northeast which is something I’ve observed and taken part in in recent years. There is that, which does feel like a big part of at least my world around here.
TC: Sounds like there are a lot of parallels between that and Bluegrass in the South, especially the social element.
Sam Moss: I think there’s often, in these various strains of music, a big social element. Cambridge mass is a great music scene; there’s bands around town and people get together and play all the time. It’s very much a part of the music. I participate in that and enjoy it, but I also really enjoy playing alone. Part of that is just my personality, but I do think about that social component a lot because I don’t always participate in it as much as I should or I would like to.
The Lowest Pair
The Chronicle: How would you describe the music that you play?
Kendl Winter: We are two banjo players that are both songwriters, and it's kind of just this collaboration of our songs together. We try to weave in our two different banjo styles and our different musical upbringings together. He has a little more of a kind of a jamgrass, old-timey background and I have a little bit more of a funk or folk background, and we both kind of just write obsessively. It’s kind of folky but I wouldn’t say it’s really anything specific. I wouldn’t say it falls into any genre specifically.
TC: A word that crops up a lot when people write about the Lowest Pair and about Zeke Graves and Sam Moss too is “Americana.” How do you feel about that term?
Kendl Winter: Americana is easy. I like doing Americana because it just means anything rootsy. I think rootsy is another one its just kind of like draws from the roots of old songs that can tell us about the places we are now.
TC: Is there some sort of common characteristic among everything that could be defined as Americana—a common strain?
Kendl Winter: I would say that Americana tends to have acoustic instruments along with other instruments. I think they draw from a folk tradition, drawing from porch music, music that can be made around a fire or on a back porch or telling stories of the day or the field or how the work was that day. I think that kind of goes through Americana.
TC: Is there something about bands playing this kind of music out of the Pacific Northwest that make them different than those playing in other places?
Kendl Winter: Olympia is a really indie and punk kind of area, and I definitely feel really influenced by that in my music. I would say there’s definitely a different feel in different places.
TC: Are there any specific guitarists or banjo players or guitarists that you guys are very influenced by?
Kendl Winter: I’m a huge fan of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy as a songwriter. We totally admire Julian Welsh. We’re really influenced by our friends that are making music in the Midwest and on the west coast.
TC: Would you say there are any recurring themes in your music?
Kendl Winter: I would say we’re introspective, trying to figure out what’s going on in life, or like in our minds. There’s a lot of longing, I think, in our music. A lot of dreaming. We really see music as a way to explore really heavy emotions.
TC: Is there anything that comes across when you guys play live that might not be caught on the records?
Kendl Winter: The first record we recorded we recorded a month after we started, so it was just kind of like the brand new, we had just started the project. Now we’ve been touring for a year, so a lot has changed because at first we were just working on learning each other’s songs and learning how to do that, and now we’ve had time to really settle in and get playful and explore what kinds of sounds we can do with the double banjo, and we’re just a little more comfortable with each other. We’ve had some time to soak in each other’s presence, so we get to explore more of a soundscape. We have a stronger foundation now than when we recorded.
TC: Can you talk a little bit about the communal aspect of live music, especially how it relates to the kind of music that you play?
Kendl Winter: I think it’s kind of a reciprocation to watch music and to play music. I play very differently if I’m alone on my bed playing by myself than I will for an audience. So it is like a communal thing that you’re sharing. You feel like people are taking in what you’re performing and if they’re there with you, you feel like it’s almost a conversation. When you talk to yourself you talk very differently than you would talk to someone else. It’s a beautiful thing to have this communal expanse of songwriting because you spend so much time crafting this song, like it’s a very precious piece to you and then you share it so it’s a gift sort of thing. You’re sharing this thing that you spend a lot of time on and having an audience being there and being there when they’re actually receiving it, that’s the beauty of live music.
Ezekiel Graves
The Chronicle: How would you describe the music that you play?
Ezekiel Graves: For the solo stuff that I do, it’s inspired by Southern traditional music. A lot of fiddle and banjo music from Appalachia. Basically trying to take that and do something personal with it, and also tie it into my take on the history of 20th century music and experimental music. I’m interested in these points where traditional and experimental sounds meet.
TC: How do you feel about the term “Americana”?
Ezekiel Graves: At this point it can apply to a lot of things, it’s kind of vague. I think it’s a fine term, but, I think for me, when I hear Americana I think of something that’s nostalgic in a way that I don’t want to be—nostalgic, or romanticizing an image of the past or the South or something like that that I don’t really want to do. But I think people apply it to a lot of things, and I think at its worst it’s like “let’s throw a banjo on that and then it’s Americana.” It can kind of be superficial, but I think Graham Parsons called his music “cosmic Ameriana” and I really like that term. I’ve heard a lot of people calling their music recently “cosmic Americana”. I sort of like that idea, it’s Americana, it’s Southern music, it’s traditional, but it’s looking outward, at other places.
TC: Is there some sort of defining characteristic to music that can be defined under that term?
Ezekiel Graves: I think it’s a subjective thing. It’s such a broad term; you could put a lot of things in there. I don’t think there’s a defining characteristic. I think probably the defining characteristic of it is it’s referencing American music, musical styles, history at some level.
TC: Sam Moss really liked the term “American Roots Music.”
Ezekiel Graves: I think roots is a good word or term to apply to it. You’re looking towards tradition, roots, but you’re moving forward also.
TC: Would you say that there are any themes that are prevalent in your music?
Ezekiel Graves: In musical terms and the things that I really like in the Appalachian banjo and fiddle tradition are the use of drones. That’s just a sound which has always appealed to me. Having open strings ringing out and that’s another thing that ties into the experimental music and the minimal music that I like. And using different tunings on guitar and fiddle and banjo, alternate tunings. Repetition kind of used as a compositional device. And sort of a raw or gritty or grainy texture and approaching things at an unschooled way at some level. So those are themes.
TC: Are there any specific emotions that you try to evoke?
Ezekiel Graves: As a musician you sort of develop these instrumental tools and techniques in your playing and then you use those to evoke different things. I’m just trying to make something that has a feeling for me.
TC: How is your live performance different than what you might hear on the record?
Ezekiel Graves: Something that I always go for in the live performance is spontaneity, and I always have a hard time doing the same thing twice. So there’s just an element of improvisation, and it might not work, but hopefully it does. I like some chance elements.
TC: Do you think that the different strains of Americana that developed in different regions geographically all have their own unique sound?
Ezekiel Graves: There was this so called “folk revival” in the 1960s which popularized a lot of traditional instruments and traditional sounds, stuff like that. I don’t have a good sense for what scenes are like in other places. For me, living in North Carolina, I know that traditional music is pretty strong here in terms of stuff that’s fairly authentic and is really stretching back. It’s like an unbroken tradition here, a lot of people whose families have been playing the same music for years and years. And that might not be the case as much say in like Washington state. I don’t want to say it’s more watered down or less authentic in other places, but that’s the thing I like about North Carolina is that the traditional stuff is very vibrant and strong, and it’s something you can tap into.
TC: What might you get out of your live performance that you wouldn’t get from listening to the record?
Ezekiel Graves: I do like the risk of playing live where you prepare for it, but it’s always going to be different than how you thought it was going to be. It never goes exactly how you thought it was going to go. So you kind of have to adapt and improvise. And that’s just the way you connect with people as musicians. When you get out of your room or your basement or wherever it is that you’re practicing and you put it out there. So yeah, as a musician you’re getting that feedback from people.
TC: How about this communal nature of live music—especially when it comes to folk music?
Ezekiel Graves: I grew up in a musical family so we always played music together and sang together and stuff from a pretty young age. And there was always this community of musicians and artists and stuff that my parents were a part of and so I have a lot of memories of just gatherings where people would be playing music, and it was very much a participatory thing. And so that’s what I like about folk music or the folk tradition is that it’s a participatory thing, and it’s not necessarily about how skilled you are. Anyone can join in, there’s kind of a place for everyone there. So that’s how I see the communal part of it.
TC: What is it about the Durham community that makes it great?
Ezekiel Graves: I think the Durham community had a history in terms of this kind of music, like Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, both those guys played here in the 1920s and 1930s, so it has this blues history which is a cool thing. Just the whole Triangle area, ever since I’ve been here, it’s been a really good music scene. Really diverse, too. At this point, I just have a really good network of musicians to play with and people who I’ve developed relationships with over the years. I think it’s a great music scene and a great music community, for sure. And then you’ve got the college radio stations, you’ve got a lot of good venues. It’s crazy it seems like it just keeps growing and keeps getting better too. Especially Durham. It seems like Durham has grown a lot and becomes a lot stronger in recent years.
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