Like FaceMan's First Waltz this time last February, this year's FaceMan's Waltz is poised to be an all-star-filled night of local music to remember. It also marks the first time many of us will get a chance to hear the results of the band's enviable sessions with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Rebirth Brass Band last summer.
"Our time together was short," recalls FaceMan's unimokered frontman, Steve. "But we've built a relationship and intend on maintaining it. Those guys are the real deal and are musicians that we look up to. Both bands that have lasted for thirty plus years! At the end of the day, having living legends on this record is an amazing accomplishment for us, and still feels a bit surreal."
Last summer, as you might recall, Steve first approached Dirty Dozen with an unlikely invitation to join his outfit in the studio and guest on a few tracks. To Steve's unexpected and pleasant surprise, those guys accepted, and Feuchtinger captured the whole thing on tape (or wave form, as the case may be). Pressing his luck, Steve reached out to the Rebirth Brass Band when that act came to town a short time later, and to his delight, they also accepted. From the sounds of it, their noteworthy contributions fell completely in line with the goals set forth by Steve and his bandmates -- guitarist David Thomas Bailey, drummer Dean Hirschfield, and Greg Raih, who handles the band's visuals.
"As compared to our first release, the second album is much more of 'FaceMan on the attack,'" he offers. "We dig some trenches, but we're sprinting every chance we get. The first record, for the most part, was a folk album and was an accurate documentation of the beginning of the project. This record is folk musicians running on a hamster wheel. Ha! It feels like pent-up energy in a box. We can have a big sound and wanted to prove it. It's also meant to be collaborative, and we wanted to feature other musicians we believe in and are humbled by. Whatever it is, it was fun as hell to pull together."
Sounds like it.
Check out "Need," Feeding Time's penultimate track, featuring the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, with Scott McCormick on keys and Kate Shoup on backing vocals, and then catch the band this Friday, February 3, at the Bluebird.
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