Friday September 4
Brushfire Stankgrass
at Pisgah Brewing
8pm
http://pisgahbrewing.com/
www.myspace.com/brushfirestankgrass
Featuring eclectic live performances showcasing inventive songwriting, educated musicianship, and a knack for making people dance, Brushfire Stankgrass fuses old mountain music with new for a remarkably original sound. This
"Stankgrass" sound has landed the group three sessions in western North Carolina's famed WNCW Studio B over the past two year and regular airplay on independent stations nationwide. Their live concerts, recorded in stunning multi-track clarity, are downloaded from archive.org at a rate of over two hundred downloads per week.The remarkable chemistry and live experimentation in the music of Brushfire Stankgrass begins with its founding members, Ben & Will Saylor. The brothers began playing music in the Suzuki method at the age of three and picked up the banjo and guitar at 10 & 12, respectively. They still maintain their bluegrass chops today, but have added some Moog analog effects and "trance-mountain dub" rhythms to create a style which has moved beyond the traditional into truly uncharted territory; they call it Stankgrass. Along the way the brothers Saylor have found two outstanding musicians to round out the group. Bassist Bryan White hails from the land of Merlefest (Wilkesboro, NC), and is a veteran composer and performer on upright and electric basses.
Drumming virtuoso Ian Cunningham slides into the newgrass-style seamlessly, due probably to the fact that he comes from a bluegrass-picking family (his father was a founding member of Whitewater Bluegrass Co). Both Bryan and Ian are accomplished musicians in their own right, and they maintain a busy schedule playing music full-time with multiple groups. Brushfire Stankgrass believes it is their own task to bring southern Appalachian music one step further. John Hartford said that "Bluegrass music is a thing of the past and the same for rock & roll." As banjo player Ben Saylor stated in a recent WNCW interview, "We like to think that we picked up where Hartford left off."
