Great expectations

Strangefolk step up to the groove-rock plate

by Don Fluckinger

Vermont groove-rock quartet Strangefolk no longer dream of being on a major label, having signed to Mammoth and having finished studio work on their new album A Great Long While. They do, however, wonder just what it takes to follow in the footsteps of their jamming brethren Phish and Blues Traveler and to expand their audience beyond New England.

Phish -- who, like Strangefolk, hail from Burlington -- did it by touring relentlessly and by creating the greatest post-Dead concert vibe, while Blues Traveler were greatly aided by radio play of their catchy singles that appealed to a general pop audience. Strangefolk, who play the Palladium Saturday, figure to do both.

Touring is a big part of the Strangefolk equation; they're coming off a seven-week West Coast swing that even included a stop in Las Vegas, not a place that conjures up images of neo-hippies in tie-dyed shirts frolicking in green meadows. The bigger Strangefolk news, however, is on the recording front. The group just finished A Great Long While, set for release later this winter.

Since forming in 1991 when lead vocalist Reid Genauer and Jon Trafton started playing coffeehouses as an acoustic duo, Strangefolk have emphasized song structure, melodies, and vocal harmony in their recorded work, as opposed to long meandering solos. As a full band now with bassist Eric Glockler and drummer Luke Smith, the sound mutated into a jangly electric-acoustic sound with solid jams and catchy choruses.

Their attention to melody and to recognizable songs was likely one of the reasons Mammoth chose Strangefolk from the horde of competing unsigned groups. In the studio, the band members don't try to capture a live show and its extended jams on every tune. Instead, they create shorter, more accessible tracks that can be enjoyed by more than just the commited concertgoer.

"In a live setting it's appropriate to maybe sing a chorus a hundred times or have a 15-minute solo, and it may not be in the recorded version," Genauer says. "There are different parameters that you operate under. I'm excited about this record in that it does capture the essence of Strangefolk. The spirit of the live performance is there, but there are the added bonuses of the studio life."

Strangefolk's 1997 CD Weightless in Water was a tight, nicely produced work, but A Great Long While should blow it away, with help from legendary producer Nile Rodgers, whose successes include big-charting hits for artists diverse as David Bowie and Sister Sledge. Recording While was much a much different experience than Weightless, Genauer says.

"He brought with him access to -- and the people who knew how to utilize -- state-of-the-art equipment," says Genauer, who along with the rest of the band laid down the tunes at BearTracks Recording Studio in Suffern, New York. "They really examined the music from the ground up. . . . It was like having a coach, where before we were largely coaching ourselves."

At first, it would seem strange that a groove-rock band would be working with Rodgers, whose biggest successes have come in the realm of disco and dance music. Lead vocalist Genauer reassures fans that Strangefolk have not taken a turn toward funk or toward a bubblegum pop sound. Rodgers, he says, helped clean up arrangements and added subtle textural strokes -- keyboard lines here, percussive touches there. Horns, too, show up for the first time on a Strangefolk CD.

"It's not like, five percent of the album sounds like us. It's more like, us recorded well," he says. "If a schooled Strangefolk listener were going to consume this record, the horns would be the one thing where they'd kinda say `ah, Nile Rodgers.'"

The band and Mammoth hope that the new album will attract more fans and still appeal to the Strangefolk grassroots fanbase that already has bought tens of thousands of copies of the band's two self-produced CDs. As a thank-you to the faithful, the group released Strangefolk Live, a full-length CD that is not for sale but is handed out free at shows.

While the band wait for the new CD to come out, Strangefolk are in somewhat of a holding pattern. And though this is their major-label debut, the group have been on the scene for eight years, working hard to build a mailing list of more than 10,000 fans. Is this the big break they've been waiting for, or business as usual?

"Kind of both," Genauer says. "We have always put one foot in front of the other, but at the same time this is definitely a loaded opportunity. It's a quality record, with a much larger team of people and a much larger budget behind it. It'll be a graceful transition, but hopefully we can take a larger step forward than in the past."

Strangefolk play at 8 p.m. on November 27 at the Palladium with Jiggle the Handle. Tickets are $15. Call 797-9696.