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Local bluegrass quintet Packway Handle Band shows off a new self- titled album tonight at the Georgia Theatre. The band kicks off the night at 8:15 with a CD listening party, followed by its show at 10.

Bluegrass band gives fans a double treat

By: SETH MCKELVEY

Posted: 1/17/08

Packway Handle Band doesn't seem to fit into the typical mold of a bluegrass band - but it's sometimes difficult to pinpoint why.

"On the surface, it's so traditional - it's so old-time," said Wil Greene, owner of the Georgia Theatre, where the band will debut its self-titled third album tonight. "If you heard an album, you'd think it's standard, even though if you really focused on the lyrics perhaps it's not that standard."

However, lyrics are only as important as the live show in which they are presented.

"There's something about it when you see it live that lets you know that it's not standard," Greene said. "There's something very unusual and progressive, and different about it, and it's very hard to put a finger on it."

The band certainly attracts more than your typical bluegrass crowd.

"You look in the audience and there are all these indie kids and punk rockers. There's not a bunch of old folks in overalls in the audience," he said.

PACKWAY HANDLE BAND CD RELEASE PARTY

When: Album preview at 8:15, show at 10 p.m.
Where: Georgia Theatre
Cost: $12
More Information:
www.georgiatheatre.com.

The band brings a unique background to the table, which may contribute to its uncommon sound. Banjo player and harmony vocalist Tom Baker, a 2002 University alumnus, said that four of the five members went to high school together in Kennesaw but bluegrass wasn't what they grew up on.

"We were all playing rock and roll growing up," Baker said. "I personally didn't have any real concept of bluegrass until I was in college."

Baker didn't even start playing banjo until right around the time the band was formed, but fell in love with the bluegrass style.

"My perspective is that good music is good music, regardless of genre," he said.

The band also has a unique live setup. Rather than micing each vocalist and each instrument, the band hooks the bass up to the sound system while the rest of the band crowds around two closely-spaced condensor microphones.

"It's fun to play that way," Baker said, adding that the setup helps the band to harmonize its vocals.

"You're in a tight circle, you can hear everybody real well," he said.

Andrew Heaton, who plays fiddle and sings backup vocals, said that it's difficult to fit all four of them around the mic close enough to be picked up properly.

"It inevitably means you are going to have to be fighting for space," he said. "And that whole dynamic of four people fighting for that space, and people coming in and out when they're not absolutely needed, gives the audience a whole different thing to watch."

"It's a little different," Baker said. "There's sort of this dance to it."

The band also has used this method for its recordings in the past, but for its new album went with a more standard, multi-track approach, which Heaton said helped improve the overall quality of the new release.

"We knew that it would be better production-wise, and we knew the performance, especially instrumentally would be better," he said. "We knew that we were going to have a good year and a half of getting better at our instruments between the previous album and this one."

However, Heaton was nonetheless anxious about the album.

"I was worried that it was going to be somewhat sterile," he said. "I was worried that it was not going to be that exciting."

However, all is well that ends well for this quirky quintet.

"I think that it definitely stands, in my opinion, well above anything we've recorded before," Heaton said.