Acoustic Mayhem

Acoustic Mayhem and the Cohens warm it up at Steve’ Guitars

(In a continuing series of articles by Carbondale, CO writer Kathryn Preston, reviewing happenings in the local music scene, we bring you this account of a recent night at Steve’s Guitars. An unexpected cancellation yielded a night of enjoyment of the warm Appalachian sounds of a couple of local musicians, followed by the rabble-rousing harmonies of Acoustic Mayhem.)

BY KATHRYN PRESTON

Special to the VJ

Expecting to sit in with bluegrass band Sweet Sunny South, Andrea Early Cohen instead sat with her husband, Mathew Cohen as the members of S.S.S. were stranded in Paonia, CO with what Steve Standiford somewhat jokingly referred to as ‘whooping cough.’

Braving sub-zero temperatures, the pair warmed up the room at Steve’s Guitars on Dec. 3 with their soft Appalachian sounds.

The duo took the audience on a tour of instruments, cultures, and mythologies. Fiddling a frenetic instrumental titled, “Ellie’s Tune,” in honor of her cow-dog, Early Cohen was accompanied by her partner on a West African djembe drum. Switching mid-song to a Celtic bodhran (pronounced “bow-rawn”), Cohen musically displayed a few of the translations of the drum’s name: “tray drum,” “thunder,” and “soft, dull sound.”

Cohen then picked up his guitar for a playful homage to a “coffee buzz.” He expressed his gratitude for the stimulant singing, “There’s nothin’ in the world like your daily grind.”

The couple then introduced the audience to the didgeridoo, an Australian aboriginal wind instrument. The painstaking breathing process involved is fascinating to observe. The resulting sound is an extended hypnotic bass monotone. Considered the world’s oldest instrument at 40,000 years old, research reveals a gorgeous mythology associated with the instrument: “As the Gods play, dance, and sing, they create the world.”

Pulling another folk-music surprise from their bag o’ tricks, Early Cohen played her fiddle while her husband played percussion by tapping on her fiddle strings with fiddlesticks. According to scholars, the playing of fiddlesticks was considered “common” by the upper classes in Shakespeare’s time. This disdain can be found in “Henry IV” as The Bard writes, “The devil rides on a fiddlestick.” Linguistically, this explains how the expression evolved to mean that something someone just said was nonsense. However, the consensus at Steve’s Guitars that evening was that another delicacy had been added to the cultural smorgasbord offered that evening.

Another folk tradition, Clogging, a percussive blend of Irish, English, and Scottish step-dancing, was enthusiastically demonstrated by Early Cohen.

Mr. Cohen ended their set with the “dancing goose,” a variation of the limberjack. Cohen held a stick, with a wooden (goose) cut-out attached to it, over a dancing board he sat on. He used subtle pressure from his fingers to push the board down, creating a spring-board under the goose which caused it to “dance.”

An almost eerie synchronicity emerged as Acoustic Mayhem took the stage. They launched into a song about a mythological character called the Hoo-Doo. Elliot Leonard, on guitar and vocals, explained that the Hoo-Doo could be found in the woods or at the side of a road. “ … But they freeze like a deer on the headlights, so don’t slow down, just run that Hoo-Doo down.”

Interestingly, African folk legend says that Hoo-Doos appeared to hunters and planters in the forests to teach them the transformative properties of herbs, minerals, and other life forms. “Hunter’s Moon” incorporated this mythology as Leonard sang, “… and the spirits ride on the night of the hunter’s moon.”

The band — Craig and Lorraine Curry, Elliot Leonard, Lester Rogers, Marc Bruell, and Ken Carpenter — are heavily influenced by the Austin music scene and musicians like John Hyatt, Rodney Crowell, Buddy and Julie Miller, and Emmy Lou Harris. The band’s rabble-rousing harmonies hit their peak in the yodels of “Kansas City Star.”

The band’s covers of John Gorca, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Utah Phillips, and the Rolling Stones are both passionate and quietly thoughtful. These dual energies can also be heard in the rowdy, “Memphis in the Meantime,” skillfully driven by Curry’s cello, and in “This Old Porch” by Lyle Lovett, a slice of Americana that sounds a bit like Dan Fogleberg with a twang.

Craig Curry treated the audience to an impression of “Elvis,” a tune recorded by Jimmy Buffet under the name of “Freddie and the Fishsticks.” Elliot Leonard's poignant vocals on “Denver Diner” evoked strains of Harry Chapin, while “High Mountain Air,” written and sung by Leonard, recalled the clarity of spirit of John Denver. Marc Bruell’s violin playing displayed a sensuality that seemed to embody a medieval minstrel attempting to woo his mistress.

In the spirit of the giving-season, and in the tradition of indigenous cultures, it’s appropriate to give some thought and thanks to the music and music-makers that touch our hearts. In most folk /acoustic instruments the resonator is made of wood while the actual source of the sound is of animal origin. Once-living beings are now literally a part of the music. Their essences combine to create the songs of the universe.