7#n*SWWWWWe    h x *W4skel: Neither traditional nor contemporary, IIIrd Tyme Out play and sing by their own rules FUTURE TRADITIONS IIIrd Tyme Out invents a style to suit their music WHO: IIIrd Tyme Out WHEN: Fri., Oct. 27, 8 p.m. WHERE: Bijou Theatre HOW MUCH: Phone 656-4444 for ticket info by Chris Barrett Theres a sanctity attached to bluegrass that drapes from fiddle bows and mando necks like crusade tapestry. You start messing with traditions, buddy, and youll not only draw scowls from under the Stetsons of the old guard, youll have yourself a hard time finding work. There are still pickers at large wholl tell you that if your bass needs a strap youre playing rock-and-roll and you can go play it somewhere else. In bluegrass musics tight and reverent family circle, the success of the four-year old quintet IIIrd Tyme Out seems all the more impressive. Theyve snagged the Best Vocal Group award two years running from the International Bluegrass Music Association, along with a host of other laurels. And theyve done it without mimicking any of their predecessors. We dont try to do anything that other people are doing, says (electric) bassist and bass vocalist Ray Deaton from his North Georgia home. We like it when we can record a song and when its played on the radio, people can hear it and say, Thats a IIIrd Tyme Out song. Deaton himself has a hard time defining a IIIrd Tyme Out song. Its another kind of music, he says, searching. Its not contemporary and its not traditional. We dont want to be marked as any particular style of music. We try to do something thats for everybody. Whether or not it can be transliterated into words, theres something distinctsimultaneously fresh and familiarabout the groups sound. Their vocal approach is especially unique. As much as some of us love them, most records of traditional, high-pitched, bluegrass harmonies will have the hounds howling and the missus running for the volume knob after about two songs. Drawing from their five-member choir, fronted by guitarist Russell Moores stout lead, IIIrd Tyme Out build wave after wave of mellifluous human chords. Its easy on the ears, for a change, but with no sensation that theyre trying to sneak something new (or Newgrass) past you. Letter To Home (Rounder), their fifth and latest album, is chock-a-block with IIIrd Tyme Out songs. Moore leads off on Cant Say Goodbye, singing all by his lonesome during the verses, following Steve Dillings ambling banjo melody. When the chorus comes along, the other singers come up from under and shoulder that lead on a regal litter of four part harmony. A fine cover of the Carter Familys My Little Home In Tennessee shows how IIIrd Tyme Out serves tradition without necessarily adhering to it. Purism aside, a lot of folks will simply never embrace the treasury of antique American songs if they have to endure antique styles. Replacing the Appalachian custom of harmonizing on minor chords for dramatic effect, fiddler Mike Hartgrove and mandolin man Wayne Benson chime in with their fellows on warmer three and four part major chords. The result is that just a little shack, the roof all turned a-black sounds much more like a homeplace for which a person might long. With regard to both vocals and playing, IIIrd Tyme Out arrange their songs in an atypically democratic style. Deaton, Moore and Hartgrove were all tenured members of Doyle Lawsons Quicksilver before IIIrd Tyme Out blossomed. The mind set seems to be that no one name or personality belongs at the forefront of this group. Even though string licks and vocal leads change hands regularly, theres no masturbatory hotdogging or solo career seed-sowing. Deaton says that playing and singing, he and his colleagues work only to support each other and the song. Well sit down with a song and well switch it around every which-a-way, Deaton says. We dont really know how its going to turn out until were finished with it because well change it many, many times. Their success is apparent at first listen. The whole thing is a band effort, he adds. Everybody feeds off of everybody else. We listen to each other.  MUSIC/IIIrd Tyme Out uim B2045 Washington St.C KnoxvilleDTNE37917F558-8424IWoodsY6[2\1.9]11.4^22.8y5z31{32|5}325.32B5.31 <BSTkmns @  H@ \]o#-@O H 8Sklmn ! !!!!!! nnanzs n &C&p&r8889 9 9 9 9:u:v:w:x:y:z:{:|:}:~::::::QHH(FG(HH(d'@=/R@H-:LaserWriter 8 New York  EE4MUSIC/INTERVIEW/5.32 Jophus Scone Jophus Scone