Swinging through the Garden of Eden
Dustbowl Revival mixes it up at Old Towne Pub
08/19/2010
With a name that evokes an era decades past, Dustbowl Revival can surprise audiences as one of the more musically sure-footed and adventurous ensembles in town — and, not coincidentally, one of the most fun.
That may seem an unlikely observation to make about a band of smartly dressed merrymakers who routinely pillage songbooks from the 1920s and ’30s. But bandleader Zach Lupetin and his “folk-blues orchestra” work hard to win over listeners. Lupetin started the freewheeling collective about three years ago, after relocating to Venice from his native Chicago with a dream of forming a “roots supergroup.” Onstage, his everyman demeanor masks savvy showman instincts. Self-deprecating but musically astute, he picks and strums his acoustic guitar like a percussive instrument, diligently monitoring audience response as well as his bandmates while fronting a sparkling lineup that can include, depending on the occasion, bass, banjo, clarinet, cornet, drums, mandolin, trombone, trumpet, tuba and washboard.
“We were kind of a string band with fiddle and mandolin,” Lupetin says of their beginnings. “Then through some of those musicians it was a snowball effect: why don’t we try this trumpet player? I saw Vaud and the Villains and approached their trombone player, and then the horns started becoming a bigger element. We tried it out a few times with the big group, sort of like a little big band, and it was so powerful and people were responding to it in a really encouraging way, so I decided to have it be sort of a folk orchestra.”
There are usually at least eight or nine band members onstage, although they can stretch out to include 13 players. Everyone generally gets a chance to shine centerstage. At a recent show at the Coffee Gallery Backstage, clarinetist Chloe Feoranzo and mandolinist Daniel Mark took their strutting solos in the midst of the audience, and banjo player Dan Gianotti stepped to the microphone to sing a tune. Stylish soprano Caitlin Boyle shoulders lead vocal duties alongside Lupetin, wailing sassy come-ons like the Nina Simone blues “Be My Husband.” Many of Dustbowl Revival’s songs are drawn from their recent CD “You Can’t Go Back to the Garden of Eden,” but their extensive repertoire also includes a lot of jazz, blues and country chestnuts.
“I try to take my schizophrenic love of various genres and say, ‘Why can’t we put them all in one band?’” Lupetin explains with a laugh. “People ask me what the band sounds like, and I don’t really know what to tell them. Sometimes we’ll be playing Chicago blues with harmonica and it’s a little grittier. And sometimes, I love ’50s doo-wop, this sweet swing kind of stuff. [We] can appeal to a lot of tastes, which is fun.”
Dustbowl Revival joins the Evangenitals at Old Towne Pub, 66 N.
Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena, 9 p.m. Friday. Call (626) 577-6583. dustbowlrevival.com
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