After 13 months of writing and recording, Longfellow is presenting Jangling Tea Trolley to the public with a CD-release party Saturday at Donkey Coffee and Espresso.
The original Longfellow group released a
self-titled record in 2002, but the only remaining member is lead vocalist and songwriter Nick Long. As the original players moved on, Long kept the name alive with new members.
The replacements were keyboardist Matt Harvey, bassist Zach Quillen, violinist Jonah Powell, Latin percussionist Grant Cambridge and drummer Joe Farone.
After all the pieces were in place
I just stuck with it Long said. I just love making music and writing music and when that is inherent in a person it's very difficult to subdue that in any way.
The band is a mix of Ohio University School of Music graduates and undergraduates -except for Harvey, who switched to audio production. Longfellow credits its eclectic, complex rock music and knowledge of music composition to its higher education.
It's all nerdy music
Cambridge said. We have Neapolitan six chords in our music
and nobody knows what that is
but we do and we use it to our advantage. It makes it more interesting. It makes it more fun than just a three-chord typical pop song.
Longfellow combines a plethora of instruments with its complex musical compositions to develop its variations of indie rock. On the album, the group uses the mandolin, banjo, double bass, acoustic guitars, slide whistle, soprano sax, nipple gongs, organ, Native American flutes and four cow bells to fill out the sound.
There's a lot of sounds
there's a lot of flavors
there's a lot of textures
Cambridge said. There's a lot that we pull from that's kind of cool that demonstrates everybody's experience and education and interest in music.
Beginning the album in January 2004, Longfellow sacrificed its weekends to record in studios in Cincinnati. Cambridge works at Rooftop Recording, and the band had unlimited free studio time, which at times was a burden as much as a blessing, Harvey said.
It got to the point where we became real particular about things
he said. The burden came in making a trip to Cincinnati to make changes
but all in all we have an album we can sit back and listen to and not think it's not perfect.
After a two-and-a-half-hour commute from Athens to Cincinnati, the group would start work in the studio at 10 a.m. and stay until 3 a.m. The late nights resulted in raspy voices and tired minds, which the group used to its advantage.
Quillen purposely recorded vocals to Lie to Me after hours in the studio to add a raw edge to the ballad.
The meaning and the feeling of the song is like it's 2 o'clock and the bar is closing
