{"id":10416,"date":"2016-03-30T05:30:59","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T05:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=10416"},"modified":"2016-03-07T14:29:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T14:29:42","slug":"plankeye-peggys-album-release-carnival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/30\/plankeye-peggys-album-release-carnival\/","title":{"rendered":"Plankeye Peggy’s Album Release Carnival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: the album release carnival discussed in this feature has already taken place; check out Plankeye Peggy’s other live dates here<\/a><\/span>.<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t want people concentrating on how many key changes we go through, the whole prog rock thing,\u201d says Dave Gilbert<\/strong>, guitarist in Asheville, North Carolina-based Plankeye Peggy<\/strong>. \u201cThat’s not really the crowd we’re trying to reach.\u201d Songwriter and keyboardist Danny Tetrault<\/strong> concurs: \u201cOur music is extremely composed, and actually really hard to play. But we want to put on a really fun rock show; we want people to come to our shows a second or third time and still be very surprised.\u201d The audience should expect the unexpected at what Plankeye Peggy is billing not as a party, but rather an \u201calbum release carnival\u201d on Friday, March 18 at the Mothlight.<\/p>\n

The four-piece \u2013 Tetrault and Gilbert plus bassist Brian Grasso<\/strong> and drummer John Lauterer<\/strong> \u2013 recently put the finishing touches on their debut album, Let’s See What We Have Here<\/i>, recorded with Matt Williams<\/strong> at the Eagle Room in Weaverville. The album seeks to capture the swirling, carnivalesque energy and vibe of a Plankeye Peggy live set. Listeners may detect elements of gypsy jazz, surf-and-spy guitar, even the ambience of Ennio Morricone<\/strong> \u201cspaghetti western\u201d soundtracks. Or they might think Plankeye Peggy sounds a bit like Danny Elfman<\/strong>‘s old band. \u201cThat’s funny,\u201d admits Tetrault. \u201cI never listened to Oingo Boingo<\/strong> when I was growing up. I just recently listened to them, and I was shocked at how much we sound like them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"plankeye_peggy\"<\/p>\n

But one shouldn’t make too much of the similarity; Plankeye Peggy approaches their music from a very different perspective than did the 80s band that made \u201cDead Man’s Party\u201d and \u201cWeird Science.\u201d Gilbert describes Tetrault’s compositional approach as \u201cbig, long song forms, and really surprising or shocking changes. It’s all thematically linked and moving somewhere.\u201d Tetrault says, \u201cmy background is really in jazz and free jazz. But we don’t want to be pretentious; we don’t want people to be bored with us, sitting there explaining our time signatures.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s not likely to happen, especially at the album release carnival. Gilbert says the band wants to \u201cbreak down the separation between band and audience.\u201d To that end, the interactive evening will include a wild array of guest performers. In addition to opening act Wasted Wine<\/strong>, the evening will include a simultaneous performance by the Discordia Arts dance troupe. \u201cThey’ll also be performing with us,\u201d Tetrault says.<\/p>\n

Other performers will include burlesque artist Catalina Mystique<\/strong> from Knoxville; master of ceremonies Keith Shubert<\/strong>, a mainstay of Asheville Vaudeville; and juggler clown Luke Eden<\/strong>. The list goes on, explains Tetrault. \u201cCarlos Vera<\/strong> will be doing live, improvised painting. Dan Sinkfowl<\/strong> is a clown belly dancer. And we’ll have ‘Power Femme,’ making confusion and putting people in their place.\u201d Gilbert laughs and sums up the evening as \u201corchestrated chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

That phrase is also an accurate description of the Plankeye Peggy sound. Explaining just one of the new album’s ten songs, Tetrault says, \u201cIt goes into a kind of old-school 12\/8 soul section. And then the outro is a kind of spacey synth thing.\u201d Let’s See What We Have Here<\/i> also features an up-front horn section on half of its tracks. Gilbert admits, \u201cIf we had more time, every song [on the album] would have had horns.\u201d For the carnival, the group will be joined onstage by Chaz Burchill<\/strong> (sax) and trumpeter Joseph Dowdy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

One might well ask what the audience is supposed to do amid all the planned activity at the carnival. \u201cWe try to get ’em dancing,\u201d says Gilbert. \u201cIt’s not always the easiest music to dance to, but we promote the waltzes.\u201d So carnivalgoers can expect music in 12\/8, waltzes, clowns and jugglers, and \u2026 cross-dressing musicians. \u201cWe cross-dress all the time,\u201d Gilbert says. \u201cWe like to take the whole male-female thing and smash it together.\u201d Though they admit they haven’t had much luck so far getting audiences to show up in costume, Gilbert and Tetrault heartily encourage anyone who wants to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re into the pirate thing; we’re into the carnival and circus thing. But we’re not defining ourselves by those genres,\u201d says Tetrault. \u201cThere’s a kind of carnival scene in Asheville, and we love being part of that. But you can tell by our music: we’re a rock band.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: the album release carnival discussed in this feature has already taken place; check out Plankeye Peggy’s other live dates here. \u201cWe don’t want people concentrating on how many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,56,62],"tags":[2650],"class_list":["post-10416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-prog","category-rawk","tag-plankeye-peggy","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-56-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10418,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416\/revisions\/10418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}