There’s nothing like the anticipation of a concert coming up . . . especially when it’s the first show ever with a brand new band. Molsky’s Mountain Drifters played its first a few weeks back, and we’re happy to have some video here! MMD has been coming together for months now, in rehearsals jammed into busy schedules, emails about what to play and how to play it.
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The Trio!
Many of the old players I met years ago said that each person should play their own way, have their own voice, even when playing old tunes and songs. I want to see where traditional music is headed through my own eyes, and have been pounding away at the possibilities. And I’ve been lurking and listening to newer voices emerging around me, and want to be part of where they’re headed, too.
Allison de Groot sees it that way, with fresh approach, huge abilities and her own voice, no doubt. She does almost all of it on clawhammer banjo, through her own groups like The Goodbye Girls, Oh My Darling and others. She jumps into jam sessions and on-stage mashups, and the energy just blossoms; you can see it on everyone’s faces.
Stash Wyslouch comes to traditional music through some mysterious creative vortex, with metal and punk at the top, then the transition to acoustic music and finally into the barrel of tradition. His evolution includes the ground-breaking Deadly Gentlemen plus his own groups. His songs simply kick ass. I don’t know how to play them yet, but would like to.
Allison and Stash have agreed to dive into the possibilities with me. And so we’ll be playing concerts and festivals and growing ourselves as a musical unit. In March we recorded our record to be released September 2016, and we are stoked at the possibilities of such a snapshot in time.
I hope that Molsky’s Mountain Drifters will always be an old time band steeped in possibility. The journey finding out just what that means is going to be it’s own reward.