Three Rivers Arts Festival

Local Indie Music Showcase

19 May 2010 by Ross Scarano in Featured, Music

In years past, Three Rivers Arts Festival has brought great local acts to the Dollar Bank Stage, introducing Pittsburghers to up-and-coming bands like Donora and Meeting of Important People. This year, we’ve upped the ante with our first ever Local Indie Music Showcase, or, as I like to think of it, Yinzerpalooza (we’re taking suggestions – if you have a better, catchier name, please leave a comment). Here’s the lowdown on the 4 exciting bands.

David Bernabo + Assembly
Recorded with over 20 local musicians, David Bernabo + Assembly’s latest album, Happener-Magicker, surely qualifies as one of the most ambitious musical endeavors to come out of Pittsburgh’s indie scene. You could tell that just from reading the liner notes. Then, upon actually listening to the record, ambitious becomes too weak a word to capture the art-rock soundscapes Bernabo and crew explore. Indebted to everyone from Jim O’Rourke to Steve Reich to the Dirty Projectors, Happener-Magicker is surely one of the most exciting, challenging records to come out of the city in recent memory. Leaping like a frog on a lillypad-strewn pond from free jazz to prog-rock to avant-garde, pseudo-classical string arrangements, this record grins defiantly in the face of genre. Lucky is a word we could use to describe how we should feel, having this band here in Pittsburgh, but, again, it doesn’t seem strong enough.

Last year, Happener-Magicker’s wonderful first single, “Out There,” competed with a slew of other local tracks in the Pittsburgh Rocks Battle of the Bands. It didn’t win – because y’all weren’t ready. But maybe now you are.

Boca Chica
The title of Boca Chica’s latest album is Lace Up Your Workboots, and whether that’s an order directed at the listener remains unclear. But giving the record a spin, it’s pretty clear that workboots were not involved in the recording of this gorgeous, unassuming folk-pop.

Essentially, Boca Chica is the solo project of singer/songwriter Hallie Pritts and whatever musician friends she happens to be recording with at the time. Her voice is sweet yet idiosyncratic, something like a sleepy Joanna Newsom. She drapes her easy words in lively banjos, gentle guitars, singing of “Snow Angels” and “Afternoon Tea.” Iron & Wine had best watch their back; Boca Chica may trounce them for the title of indie folk’s best crafter of lullabies.

Harlan Twins
Being from Pittsburgh, the Harlan Twins (a five person outfit containing precisely zero siblings) are situated geographically between Canada and the South. There is a certain logic, then, that the Harlan Twins cultivate a sound that draws equally upon the Band and the Allman Brothers, classic groups from Toronto and Jacksonville, respectively.

Folk-rock, ping-ponging across state-lines and through the decades, manifests itself differently with each group of musicians who choose to explore it. In the hands of the Harlan Twins, it takes on indie-rock qualities, incorporating intense quiet/loud dynamics and the hazy, reverb-heavy atmospherics exemplified by the music of My Bloody Valentine. They describe their sound as yinzer pastoral, and that sounds nice, but you could just as easily settle on calling it great music, and you’d still be right.

Lohio
About a minute and a half into “Grandfather’s Chaise,” Lohio makes it clear they’ve got the folk thing and the rock thing down. The first minute of the song is a sweet, CSNY-style meditation on waking up, feeling the early morning sun, etc. that is followed, triumphantly, by a roaring guitar solo that would make Wilco proud. The song is a statement of purpose, and it says: “We’re Lohio. We effortlessly make big music that you should listen to.” Or something like that.

Lohio came together around Greg Dutton, a singer/songwriter who migrated from Ohio to Pittsburgh, only to fall in with a circle of like-minded musicians, including Boca Chica’s Hallie Pritts. This network of artists interested in exploring folk through the perspective of Pittsburgh took Dutton in, allowing him to assemble the good men and women of Lohio.

Two albums and one EP later, Lohio is a firmly established part of the city’s indie scene. The confidence time and reputation brings can be felt in each of the 5 new tracks on the self-title EP Lohio released last November. “Grandfather’s Chaise” is the first track (you can stream it on their myspace) and, as mentioned, it’s a doozy, the kind of song that makes you stop your Internet browsing, scroll back to the page streaming the mp3, and just listen.

Local Indie Music Showcase with MC Cindy Howes of WYEP’s Morning Mix
Saturday, June 12
5:30pm: David Bernabo + Assembly
6:30pm: Boca Chica
7:30pm: Harlan Twins
8:30pm: Lohio
Dollar Bank Stage at Point State Park