Give and Take - A New Release from Drymill Road

28 January 2015
Winchester, Virginia

"How should we record our next album?"
"That was the question we were asking each other for much of 2014. After four years together, with two projects under our belts, we were ready to start our next recording project, but how should we go about it? Our busy touring schedule had left little time to focus on another studio project and we wanted to do an album of work that had lots of energy, which is lost sometimes in the studio environment. Drymill Road was having too much fun on the road to stop to stop touring for a studio project, and our best musical moments were happening night after night in front of a live audience. Suddenly we had the answer: "Let's record a live album!" Still, we wanted to take it a step further and make it more intimate and personal rather than going the traditional route of recording a live show with all the amps, speakers, multiple mics, etc., we wanted to strip it down and make it about the instruments and voices. "Dynamics" was a word used a lot when discussing this project and we wanted to capture that as well. We wanted a sound and feeling you can only get from a group of musicians using nothing but their instruments and voices, without the help of electronics.. So we found a venue, picked a night they were closed to the public and invited a small crowd of our biggest fans, friends, and family to join us during our recording session. On the evening of September 8, 2014 we gathered around a single mic and simply played our music. It's a snapshot in time of a band trying to capture that pure sound and I think we did just that. Enjoy!"    Robert - Drymill Road

       Thus Robert Mabe introduces the latest CD from Drymill Road in his liner notes. The work is a compilation of a few songs previously recorded and new originals that the group has been experimenting with in lively performances before numerous audiences. It's a departure of sorts as indicated by Robert Mabe, who is not only one of the serious lead-vocalists for the group, but also consummate banjo-player and ad hoc business manager and main promoter for Drymill Road. They call themselves a bluegrass band but that's just a mere fragment of their versatility as performers and musicians. Any one who's experienced this group in live performance knows that at the heart of the matter, they're anchored in "three chords and the truth," but are never satisfied with just that as a basis for their message. One of the most astounding departures on this project is the addition of  Patrick McAvinue (Fiddle) who is highly acknowledged in the field of bluegrass, traditional, and Celtic music as one of the best Fiddlers in the business. His resume and list of accomplishments so early in his career are golden. Drymill Road's music and presentation have always been about excitement and drive,  but Patrick McAvinue adds a dimension that takes this project one step further in building a solid foundation for what the band could become. They've come a long way in a few short years (four to be exact,) but one of the qualities that I admire in Drymill Road's approach is the acquisition of musical maturity before going for the short-term. They've already established a record of festival appearances, an appearance at Carnegie Hall in New York, and a busy gig schedule in the eastern coastal states. This summer begins a cross-country tour which will be a new venture, but the fans know this has been forthcoming. It was inevitable; and a sure sign of seriousness toward their musical careers.

        The new CD is accompanied by a DVD of  the live performance of  "Give and Take" that Robert Mabe refers to in his liner notes introduction. The band invited a select group of supporters and fans, gathered around a single mic with little engineering or technical equipment and let it rip. Oddly, the DVD is high quality in recording, production, and editing standards. It allows you to see and hear all the positive and negative factors exhibited in merely listening to the CD. Sean Loomis, Lead singer and guitar, at one point says to the gathering "I hope this comes out OK." It's a telling statement of the whole project, the risk involved, wading into uncharted waters. Drymill Road is not a band that has ever relied on using the "one-mic" standard in bluegrass music. There is an art to that and it requires hundreds of performances under all sorts of  house conditions to get it right. There are masters of  the art in the business and when you hear them live you know exactly who they are. There is another danger lurking in a project such as this and that's your invited guests. I really like Marvin Gaye - except for some of those stupid, canned, songs he produced that were supposed to sound like you were in somebody's apartment having a raucous party. They annoyed me back then, they annoy me even more years later. After Marvin Gaye did it then every R&B singer followed suit and it was so hum-drum. Even today the concept returns full-tilt in a lot of  Hip-Hop except that the party-banter, "Let's-get-high" facade has been replaced with a lot of scatological and sexual references. In other words, trash for the sake of  who can be the trashiest. On a very personal level for me, and I alone, I wanted to savor the material when I came home with the package and give it a first listen and the DVD a first-view. Even though it was produced before a small and select audience in a closed venue, I was immediately annoyed by the overly-exuberant yelling and screaming that continues throughout every song. There are five or six very distinguishable culprits and they could have been easily edited out of the final  product, both the CD and DVD. It really eats into what for me is a unique group of musicians who have only one central message: Listen carefully to what we have to offer - it'll be a while before you hear the likes of this again.

       I've always maintained that Drymill Road (if you want to label them bluegrass,) is the closest you're going to get to hearing Jazz modes in bluegrass. I'll be the bluegrass snob right up front and proclaim to anyone who wants to fight me on this point, that Drymill Road is a band that requires an appreciative, listening audience. Let the partying and yahoo exuberance come later. That they do create the audience exuberance is a feature any performer would die for. Like the Marvin Gaye recordings, you can't manufacture it and expect any kind of truth in the art-form. Drymill Road is an odd-bird in my own personal taste for traditional bluegrass. Can they do "three chords and the truth?" Exceptionally. Can they crank up a program that appeals to a younger, beer-drinking crowd? Most certainly. While everyone talks about the demise of traditional bluegrass among a younger generation Drymill Road is that transitional phenomenon that traditionalists and non-traditionalists will talk about in the coming decades.

Drymill Road: Give & Take (2014) produced by Sean Loomis, Robert Mabe, and Douglas Ross in Winchester, Virginia. Independent production.

Drymill Road: Sean Loomis, guitar. Robert Mabe, banjo. Doug Ross, mandolin. Dave Hurt, bass. special guest: Patrick McAvinue, fiddle.