By Todd Lavoie
Bowler hats, banjos, backwoods hollers, and burlesque hawkers – sounds like old-timey goodness to me. San Diego’s mountain music-loving vaudeville-revivalists the Silent Comedy will be dishing out sepia-toned balladry and carny-shouted hootenannies to the Café du Nord crowd Friday, Nov. 21.
It should be one hell of a rompin’-stompin’, suspender-slappin’ shindig. Whether or not the band will share their homebrewed bathtub-gin onstage remains to be seen, but they’re certain to be generous with everything else you might need for a round or two of Prohibition-era revelry. OK, the bathtub-gin thing is pure speculation on my part; what else could possibly be fueling their deliciously unbridled rip-ups?
The quintet, formed in 2005 by brothers J. John and J. Benjamin from the remnants of their San Diego post-punk band Dehra Dun, is rooted in acoustic-based roots music – banjo, mandolin, and violin figure prominently – but indie rock has clearly played a significant role in shaping how they approach country and folk idioms.