Metro Pulse Online: The Piners

Comment
on this story

Who:
The Piners

When:
Wednesday, March 8 at 9 p.m.

Where:
Barley's Taproom

No cover and will be simulcast on WDVX 89.9 from 9-10 p.m.

The Piners travel that high lonesome country road

by Adrienne Martini

The last time Portland, Maine's The Piners came to Knoxville, they saw stars and, no, David Keith was not in town. The lights in the sky they saw were of the celestial type.

"It was great!" says Boo Cowie, the girl in the band, from her home in Portland. "We were there for a meteor shower, which we watched after the show." The Piners were in town to play Barley's Taproom, that Old City beer and pizza joint that is also home to 'grassers Sarah Pirkle and Jeff Barbra's Behind the Barn bluegrass/country radio show, which is broadcast from The Little Camper That Could in Norris, WDVX.

The next day, they went out to the trailer park to play at the station itself. "Oh yeah, that was unique alright," laughs Cowie. "We met some pretty weird guys."

The band itself may never have gotten started had Cowie not met some other guys who at least have some weird names. Cowie met string player Pip Walter when he waltzed through the door of a record store where she was working nine years ago. He was looking for a partner to sing harmonies with and Cowie was the woman he found. Walter had another project, The Rauncheros, with songwriter/guitarist Haakon Kallweit. One fall day in '97, in a burger joint called Silly's, the three jumped on-stage and magic was found. The group began as a bluegrass trio, which also just happened to win at New York's Winterhawk Festival that same year. Soon, though, the sound evolved; fiddler Phil Block and percussionist Tim Myers round out The Piners' current lonesome country meets Fleetwood Mac sonics.

Thus far, The Piners have released one eponymous CD and another is in the works. While this first recorded effort has a few misses that rely a bit too hard on country clichés (like "Beer-stained Letter," which could easily be sung by any achy-breaky Nashville star), there are some gems. "Reckless Heart" is an easy rocker about a woman who is a magnet for bad boys; "Austin Texas" is a sweet heartbreaker about a broken heart; and "Tennessee" is a soulful ode to starting all over again in a beautiful locale. Granted, none of these are new tropes in the ever-expanding Americana lexicon, but Cowie, Walter, and Kallweit add sweet harmonies and the songs make the most of lazy train-like rhythms, which makes The Piners' reinvigorated old-timey sound unique.

Cowie came to the idea of being a singer in a band while in, of all places, high school musical theater. "But I discovered that it was the music, not the theater that I liked," she says. From there—and after years of being forced to sing harmony with her brother Ted—Cowie bounced from church choir to new wave bands to motherhood, giving birth to her daughter Laura just before she met Pip. Once she opened her mouth to sing again, it all felt right.

"It's in my heart," she says. "I guess because it comes straight from my soul. It's the kind of thing I was meant to sing."

Now The Piners are traveling the country in an RV, keeping costs low, playing for as many folks as possible, and leaving family behind while they pursue their dreams.

"We all have a definite goal to take the band as far as we can take it," says Cowie. "It's hard but we have to make the sacrifice."

For Cowie, one tricky part of the endless touring has been the close quarters in the trailer, which she shares with her four male bandmates. "I usually try to grab the bathroom before the guys have any clue that I'm in there," she says with a throaty laugh. "That's about the biggest drawback—not having my own space to chill out. I was a little tentative at first but that didn't stop me from doing what I wanted to do."

So far, the cramped quarters have paid off. The Piners have caught the eye of Country Weekly and Blue Suede News, both of which have given the group kudos. They've been opening for bigger acts like Asleep at the Wheel and Johnny Dilks. Plus, the leg of the tour that brings them to Knoxville also includes stops in New York City, Los Angeles, and Nashville. In fact, the Exit/In show will be broadcast both in Music City and on the web as part of Billy Block's Western Beat Roots Revival program at www.liveonthenet.com on March 7 at 8 p.m.—just in case you'd like a preview of what The Piners pine for.

Granted, it hasn't always been smooth sailing. At a recent Star Bar gig, the place was nearly vacant, except for some folks at the bar. In true music-lovin' fashion, the group decided to abandon the stage and take the show to the people, plunking down in front of the bar and playing an intimate show that sticks in Cowie's mind.

"It's sometimes hard to play to an empty room, but the show must go on," she relates. "And they loved it. Tim played the lights, the bar, everything. We just tried to make the best."

And that, in itself, could almost be a motto for this traditional outfit that has followed in the well-traveled footsteps of most "over-night sensations:" Make The Best. Cowie views every gig—even the bad ones—and every discomfort, every moment away from her family as a chance to make it big with the music she feels compelled to sing. To her, it's another chance to make a convert to The Piners' mission. "You never know," she concludes. "You just never know."