Metro Pulse/Music/Yonder Mountain String Band

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What:
Yonder Mountain String Band w/ Snake Oil Medicine Show

When:
Thursday, Nov. 20, 8 p.m.

Where:
Bijou Theatre

Cost:
$16 advance, $18 door

Yonder Mountain String Band ain't your grandpa's bluegrass

by Clint Casey

In recent years, bluegrass music tiptoed back into the national consciousness, due in part to the success of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and in part to the rise of the jam-band phenomenon. Bluegrass rocketed from an old man's tape deck to being the choice of a new generation; WDVX decals are arrogantly plastered on the same SUVs that once flaunted Widespread Panic stickers. The Colorado-based Yonder Mountain String Band has benefited in droves from the renaissance.

Formed in 1998 in Nederland, Co., the twenty-something band met at an open jam session. Guitarist Adam Aijala explains, "Jeff, our banjo player, and our mandolin player, Dave, knew each other in Illinois in Champagne-Urbana from school. They moved to Boulder, and I met everybody last. From my perspective, all three guys were in place, and they asked me to be in the band."

Growing up in an era dominated by anything but bluegrass music, each member of the band fell backwards into the traditional music. "I grew up listening to rock 'n' roll, and started listening to more classic-rock-oriented music in my teens and college. I got into the Grateful Dead, and someone told me that Jerry [Garcia] played banjo in the band Old and in the Way, and I really dug it. I really didn't have any guidance as to where to go or what to buy and wasn't in a position to go out and buy random CDs. It wasn't until I met the other guys in the band that I really got some direction as to what's out there and what's good."

The band plays music that they enjoy without compromise, and they don't feel compelled to cater to particular audiences. "We still play what we've always played, and whoever it attracts is who it attracts. We all have our outside influences with none of us coming from bluegrass. We have a wide range of musical tastes ranging from classical music to jazz to heavy rock to classic rock to reggae to old country stuff. When we write songs you can hear those influences. We are definitely not a traditional bluegrass band."

The members, however, have been under fire by traditionalists for not playing bluegrass. "I would definitely say that we are," Aijala says. "It's just a modernized, evolving sect of bluegrass that hasn't really been explored too much with many other bands."

Traditionalists argue that because YMSB plug their instruments in to amplify sound that they can no longer be considered bluegrass; their fluid, unconventional style is also cause for debate.

"If you listen to Jimmie Martin or Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, that stuff is different from what we do," Aijala explains. "That would be traditional bluegrass. All you have to do is listen to one of their discs, and then put on one of ours. There are so many reasons why we are still bluegrass. I would say the instrumentation, because we don't have drums, but we do have upright bass, banjo, guitar and mandolin. Throw in a fiddle and we're most definitely bluegrass."

Despite criticism over style, the members don't feel pressure to perform specific material. "We are definitely in a position where we know that people are going to be coming to see us multiple nights. We're not the band that plays the same set every night. We're always trying to get new material, and we're always trying to pull stuff out.

"From my perspective, I always let creative ideas come to me," he says. "I don't sit down too much and just say, 'OK, now I'm going to write something.' Usually a melody will just come to me or something will hit me and a lyric will come to me, and I'll go from there. It's a tough situation when you know that you need new material."

The band's latest effort, Old Hands, is a collaborative effort with fellow Colorado tunesmith Benny Galloway. Each band member contributes vocals on two tracks, with Galloway contributing vocals on five. Aijala recalls their first meeting in Ward, Co. "I met him over five years ago at the Mill Site. It's the kind of place where a lot of older folks are not all cool with new people coming, and he was one of the one of the people that was immediately cool to us right from the start."

Since their introduction, the band continued to play with Galloway for a year without realizing his knack for songwriting. "Jeff and Dave were picking with him, and he was playing a lot of different tunes and came to find out that he wrote all of them," Aijala says. "He's not really someone that you would look at and think he would be such a great songwriter. We're all drawn to his songs. This is stuff that we felt like we had to get out there. We're in a better position to get his music out there than he is, because we're out there playing 170 shows a year all over the country."

The band plays a general admission show at the Bijou Theatre—unfortunately without Galloway. Though, perhaps, the jam-band community-endorsed flavor-of-the-month, Yonder Mountain String Band is an anomaly in the genre. By concentrating its efforts on perfecting one style, the band is, thankfully, not all things to all people.