Rusty Belle May 17, 2008

Rusty Belle hails from that town of abounding academia, Amherst, Massachusetts; where the faces are young and the rent is cheap. Here they have concocted their strange and intoxicating musical brew, nurtured their wild and hairy live show, and built a following of loyal, almost devout, fans and friends. Matt and Kate Lorenz sing together with the intuitive harmony of siblings. Growing up in rural Vermont, they played, and arranged music together; Matt on the violin, and saxophone with Kate saddling up to the piano, flute in hand. Kate went on to study literature and sing with a voice that siphons emotion from the cellar of a melody. Kate can sing you what a song is made of. Matt attended that enigma of education, Hampshire College, where he pursued a vast area of music; from jazz to junk to noise to folk, along with adaptive musical instrument design. There he began building his extensive repertoire of original songs while strengthening his voice and style. Zak Trojano and Jazer Giles also spent their formative years under the same roof. Serendipitously, they were paired as roommates their freshman year at Skidmore College. Theyve been playing music together for almost ten years now!! With formal educations in jazz performance and improvisation, they bring to the group their subtle sensibilities and flashy facilities. Zak has rhythm in his blood. Hailing from the hills of New Hampshire, he learned to drum from his father, who learned from his father before. Zak also took to the guitar and piano in college, composing a rock opera for his diploma. Jazer started his piano studies at the tender age of three and has been at it ever since. The accordion came not much later from a childhood spent sleeping under tables at folk festivals and contradances. In the fall of 2005 these two pairs convened in Massachusetts. They arrived broke from the streets of Barcelona and California, stumbled from downtown apartments, and moved into an old white schoolhouse with six other artists and performers. The vitality of this creative environment mixed with their personal musical histories and produced a new material that none of them had anticipated. It smelled like folk, acoustic and rooted, but leaned a little more towards tomorrow than yesterday. They swagger between raw blues, tiny tangos, country waltzes and backyard symphonies. Sometimes a walk with the Roma, a twisted tale in metered time, or a yell-along-after-dinner drunken opera. A dance band that tries to tie your shoes together. The music is littered with dented paint cans, smashed up trashcan lids, old hacksaw blades, and broken glass. Like junkyard songbirds, they sing sweet through all the rubbage.

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of MochaMayas.