Bow Thayer and Perfect Trainwreck will perform for the Winter Festival Weekend at the Inn at Willow Pond Pub in Manchester on Saturday at 10 p.m. (The evening begins at 8 p.m. with Goldtown, followed by The Waylons at 9 p.m.) Cover is $10; call 802-362-4737 for reservations. For more information, go online to www.bowthayer.com. This weekend's Winter Festival Weekend at the Inn at Willow Pond Pub in Manchester will feature a local band whose direction is heading toward increased record sales and larger venues. On the strength of its recent CD, “Bottom of the Sky,” Bow Thayer and Perfect Trainwreck looks like a sure bet for increased national attention. Perhaps the band will become Vermont's third nationally acclaimed rock band, following in the steps of Phish and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
I don't say this lightly. Bow Thayer has been building his songbook, CD library and performance acumen for nearly a decade. The Gaysville resident has 10 albums to his credit with this band, with other bands and small ensembles. His is a fairly prodigious output, showing that hard work and creativity and a belief in one's abilities can pay off, even when there is no national record label to back you up.
Thayer's style is a broad mixture of bluegrass, country, folk, Americana and rock. He's a competent guitarist, bluegrass banjo player and, more recently, ukulele strummer. His voice is somewhat gruff, and he isn't going to knock you out with his looks. While none of the parts alone would suggest a more than moderate talent, the sum is more than the parts themselves.
With his very good band, Perfect Trainwreck, Thayer really shines. This is more than evident on “Bottom of the Sky,” the second Thayer album featuring the band. This is a more than simply interesting 12-song compilation. It touches a variety of sounds, all familiar, all clever and all exceptionally well-delivered. The album begins with a rocking solid “Buffalo Joe” and keeps its groove throughout.
Sometimes this album sounds like the Grateful Dead, morphing later into a mix more reminiscent of The Band. Thayer's throaty delivery might be mistaken for the 1970s Bob Dylan voice.
Driving the sound, beyond Thayer's guitars and banjo, is a fine quartet. Jeremy Curtis on electric and upright bass and vocals is rock solid. Curtis and Thayer were once in a band called Elbow, a quasi-blues swamp garage band, and Jethro, an experiment in rockers turning to bluegrass.
Drummer Jeff Berlin has worked with Boris McCutcheon, Rose Polenzani, Meg Hutchinson, Brian Webb, Jimmy Ryan, Catie Curtis, Jabe Beyer and Deb Talan in the Boston music scene before moving to Vermont. He and Curtis mesh well.
Keyboard player James Rohr sometimes sounds like Garth Hudson of The Band, other times like Bruce Hornsby, adding the aural underpinning that fills out the band's sound. Chris McGandy is the pedal steel player. His sound doesn't come out of Nashville; rather there's more of a lead guitar edge to his playing.
The result for these fine players and really good material is an album that is very appealing. These guys aren't out to destroy your eardrums or give you a migraine. Rather, they want you to get on the dance floor and never leave.
Saturday's Winter Festival lineup features Thayer and Perfect Trainwreck as well as two other bands, Goldtown and The Waylons. It's a good way to usher in the post-groundhog seeing his shadow (or not) rest of winter.