The Ghost of Paul Revere

One Liner: Banjofied Americana and Harmonic Folk (with a big ginger beard!).

Wikipedia Genre: Americana, folk, alternative country
Home:  Portland, Maine.

Poster Position: 18
Day: Sunday at 1:15
Both Weekends

Thoughts: Saw Portland as their hometown, and thought, "of course they are, banjo-playing Civil War enthusiast hippies should live in Portland," only to realize that is Portland MAINE!  Surprise!  Their Wikipedia bio pretty much is two sentences, including a note that they played on Conan's show in January 2018.  Does Conan O'Brien still have a television show?  Really?  Huh, yeah, he's apparently on TBS.  Dropping cable has increased the room in my brain for more music, instead of dumb late night shows and re-runs of Gone in 60 Seconds, so I feel like I'm in better shape than if I had seen these guys play on Conan back in January.

The tunes though, they are pretty fun, banjo-fied ballads and foot-stompers.  They started out with a 2012 EP that contains their most listened to track, which also later appeared on their first full-length, 2014's Believe.  Here is "San Antone."

Live version, but you get the idea.  Kind of like a Mumford-before-the-rock-transition vibe, with good harmonies and fun driving guitar/mandolin/banjo breakdowns.  And a stack of harmonica.  Although I'd like to take umbrage with the fact that they call the tune "San Antone" so that it seems like it would be an homage to the Mission City, and instead he just falls in love in Texas but he still loves the frozen tundra of his home up north. Juke move, bro.

In 2015 they put out another album, called Field Notes, Vol. 1, which includes two of the more odd (but kinda cool) pieces of their discography.  One, a bluegrass-ized version of The Who's "Baba O'Riley."  Everyone loves singing about the teenage wasteland.  Two, a song from the perspective of soldiers from Maine in the Civil War.  That one is cool enough for me to show it off here.

Sorry, you have to turn that one up a little bit, they went soft with the recording.  But this is some Decemberists shit right there, a detailed ode to joining up with the Union army to do battle for your fine fellow laddies from Maine.  I like it.

Finally, they have a recent album from 2017, Monarch.  This one goes a little more rock and roll, a little less traditional bluegrass, but still keeps the banjo featured fully and front and center.  The top track from that album is "Next Year," with 296k streams, but the one with a full video is called "Montreal," and is currently more popular (albiet with only 158k streams so far), so I give you that one.

Yeah buddy.  Another good one.  Is the banjo the finest instrument in all of humandom?  I'm going to say no, but it sure is hard for me to dislike any band that heavily incorporates the cool sounding pluck of a banjo.  But that tune has a lot of longing and melancholy mixed in with a great harmonic sound.  Well done.

I'm a fan.  I was unsure when I started because the name is kind of too cute, but I've enjoyed the music.  I'd try them out in the fall.