Things have been really zany lately, particularly with my car. It recently hit 100,000 miles, and all hell kinda broke loose in the engine. It's had four separate issues in the last three months, two of them in the last week. Trust me when I say that coming out of work Friday and finding a dead battery was enough to make me temporarily give up on reducing the fat and sweets in my life and order Thai food. Pineapple fried rice can cure many ills.
Just a few days before this month's car issues started (on Monday, June 7), I went to a concert at a local eatery. I hadn't been to the restaurant before, and I hadn't heard the band either. But my sister and her boyfriend highly recommended this group called the Toughcats, and while their musical tastes don't always match mine, they know music far better than I do. When the band took the stage, I could see why my sister loved them - a banjo, a metal guitar, and an odd looking drumkit (spread out in a circle around the drummer, as opposed to mostly in front of him). She loves bluegrass, but I'm less of a fan. I began to wonder if perhaps the $15 entrance fee was a waste.
But no. These guys had a really unique sound. Breathy voices in harmony, and smooth, old-time-y sounds. Plus, they were clearly having a tremendous amount of fun. When they kicked into a much more upbeat second song, things suddenly jumped into high gear. The drummer was a whirl of motion, vibrating madly and drumming his heart out. I have never seen anyone throw that much energy into drums - I swear, as the set went on he must have gone through nearly a day's worth of calories just playing. And he managed to suddenly still all that motion and sing, right on key with no tremor in his voice.
They played originals. They covered a Fleetwood Mac song I couldn't recognize, but loved in a high-speed bluegrass style. They also covered Betty Davis Eyes, always a suggestive song, but which is even more entertaining when sung by that drummer. The finale had the guitarist start off singing, followed by the drummer playing drums on the guy's guitar, and the banjo player sitting at the drum kit and adding cymbal at appropriate moments. And I learned that the banjo can be played with a bow, in the manner of a violin but with just one string, to produce haunting sounds.
It was a great show, and easily worth every penny.
I'm now curious about their latest album (I didn't have the extra cash on me to pick it up), reviewed in the local press:
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/138782.htmlhttp://thephoenix.com/Portland/music/99388-tough-enough/Those reviews made me realize: Oh, that odd square drum he used sometimes was indeed a suitcase.
If you hit their website,
http://toughcats.blogspot.com/ you can listen to a few of their originals - the singer is generally the guitar player, with harmony from the drummer. The videos at the bottom of the site include a promo for the show I was at (first video) which sounds like it has the drummer on lead vocals, a hilarious cover of Girls Just Want to Have Fun (with a guest lead singer) which really shows of the banjo player's talent, the second video form the bottom shows the drummer playing a suitcase (he's lost a lot of weight since then, probably from just drumming), and the video for Out on the Ocean has kind of washed out vocals but you can see some of the drummer's antics. I'm also a fan of their Christmas Special (Good Gifts Are Hard to Find) which includes the drummer's trademark howling mid-song. Plus, I did not know you can light up a banjo!
They're touring in California soon, but I'm hoping to catch one of their shows in Maine in late July or August.
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