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Though it doesn’t record much music, the Yonder Mountain String Band has enough songs lined up for an EP.
Before Mumford and Sons stunned America, and before the Lumineers broke through with jangly acoustics, the Yonder Mountain String Band had cornered the market on foot-stomping, acoustic rave-ups.
It’s part of the reason the band’s live shows have always been so acclaimed and so well-attended. Its New Year’s Eve shows are legendary and its regular appearances at the Northwest String Summit in Oregon fall in the same category.
These, and the many other shows the band performs throughout the year, keep it in our collective musical consciousness, but it also means that with so much touring, recorded music from the band could be termed “sparse,” though guitarist/vocalist Adam Aijala doesn’t necessarily see a down side to this situation.
“(Mandolinist/vocalist) Jeff (Austin) made the joke years ago, and I still use it, that we’re going to be the reverse Beatles – we’re just going to tour and not have any records,” Aijala told the (Cincinnati) City Beat recently. “That’s what it kind of feels like. At least we’re out playing and you can download all our shows. It’s not like there’s a shortage of new materials, it’s just all digital.”
That being said, perhaps Yonder would be wise to put some strings to wax, considering the proliferation of string-based bands that all of a sudden feel like a new thing to the not-seasoned.
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Yonder Mountain String Band With the Deadly Gentlemen WHEN: 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 13 WHERE: Sunshine Theater, 120 W. Central HOW MUCH: Advance tickets $20 and available online at sunshinetheaterlive.com |
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The band did release “The Show” in 2009, but since then, songs by the Lumineers (“Ho Hey”), Of Monsters and Men (“Little Talks”) and even Phillip Phillips (“Home”) have blasted continuously through the airwaves. These songs display many of the characteristics that make Yonder special, without the extreme proficiency at which Aijala, Austin and their bandmates perform at.
No worries, though, Yonder fans. Aijala said that the band has enough songs written for an EP, and in fact, it could be that as busy as the band is on the road, it could take to releasing smaller doses of studio music to those interested.
“That might be a good plan of action to use in general for years to come,” he said. “With the availability of music, people just want new stuff,” he said. “It’s not difficult to make an album; it’s the time, especially with the technology today.”
