Old Hat on BushwickBK.com

Old Hat performed at Northeast Kingdom last Friday. Kevin Armento from BushwickBK.com was there and he thought something about us. He thought so much that he wrote about us and put our picture on the website in an article called Folk and Frenzy at the Den. Below is the photo and excerpt about Old Hat:

Old Hat - photo by Alison Cartwright

Old Hat - photo by Alison Cartwright

The second act of the night is Old Hat, and what can one say? Two men and two women take the stage and proceed to give us songs divined from their spiritual leader W. Alan Yankovic (who has a blog, and unconfirmed connection to the musical parodist of similar name).

Songs in Friday night’s set included “Dominic the Donkey,” “Uncle Pat’s Pig Roast,” and “Fucking Morphine,” which was described as “the song about the time we took drugs and nothing happened.” They take breaks in between songs to auction off a macabre painting, and end up taking a collection from the audience – twice, because they weren’t satisfied with the results of the first go-around.

All this, and the music itself was fun, spectacularly entertaining, and very often witty. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone play the acoustic bass with intensity, but that is what Old Hat’s bassist Preston Spurlock did. Besides being a talented musician, his violent outbursts with and towards this usually-docile instrument were perhaps the most entertaining part of the show. I don’t know if his rage-fueled bass-playing was part of the act, or just part of an artist’s passion in the moment – I don’t care, it was fucking fun.

These musicians (the others are Dibson Hoffweiler on guitar, Deenah Vollmer on mandolin, and Fran Agnone on drums) smile out the side of their mouths throughout the set, as though they’re getting away with something. Indeed, at one point Hoffweiler – their sort-of lead man – remarked that they must be doing something wrong, because not nearly enough people had walked out yet.

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