PRESS | 2007

Texarkana Gazette vist the website
February 2007
By ANTHONY DAVIS
Weary Boys enliven local scene with up-tempo tunes

The audience drifted into Cinema 218 at a rate as sparse as the snowflakes Thursday night at the Weary Boys concert until the venue was actually packed wall-to-wall.But the initial sluggishness of the assembled crowd did nothing to slow down this Austin country/bluegrass express once it got rolling.Tall, lanky, red-haired fiddler Brian Salvi, dressed in a zip-up sweater and Wyoming-style cowboy hat, jetted into a rousing, bow-burning lead-in to a show not commonly seen in a Texarkana music spot.The way up-tempo countrified bluegrass fiddle work fell nicely into place with a new, diminutive banjo player whose 10-gallon hat shaded his face from a clear view and whose identity is still unknown. Word has it the git’r done picker Matt Downing joined the band about two weeks ago following the departure of original Weary Boy Mario Matteoli.The blue jean and tee-shirt fashion adopted by remaining band members lent a flavor and looseness the musicians could wallow in all evening.Vocalist/guitarist Darren Hoff led the Wearys through their Hill Country-tinged paces as each instrumentalist shown brightly in solo and group performance. Hoff demonstrated the near-lost art of executing rhythm guitar licks with an old-school bang and twang designed to fit smoothly with low-enders bassist Darren Sluyter and stiff-arm drummer Cary Ozanian.Speed-pickin’ alternating with forlorn-sounding fiddle touches and the occasional banjo flourish gave the audience plenty of influences to sort through as the music filtered through their individual orientations.Bluegrass instrumentation is hallowed ground in these parts, and the Weary Boys needn’t justify their talents in that genre, but Goff and his sidekicks add a few layers of muscle and grit in distinguishing their original fingerprints from those of others.Fiddle-smokin’ fury forged by see-saw bow strokes, tempered by clear note-finding banjo licks and mellowed or tweaked by a solid rhythm section were the distinguishing features of the Weary Boys’ performance at Cinema 218.These organic bluegrass-based musicians provided an ideal initial exposure to the quality and type of Austin scene bands heading this way again Thursday with the South Austin Jug Band.And SAJB gets the pleasure of priming Texarkana music fans for the big enchilada of alternative/bluegrass/country hilarity proffered by The Gourds scheduled for a Feb. 27 appearance at Cinema 218.Ya’ll come back, now, ya’ heah?
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