Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

The Duhks
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Opening guests... TBA
Central Bar and Grill, 708 View St. 250-361-1700
Doors 7pm, Showtime 9pm
Tickets: $15 Advance / $17 Door
Available at: Lyle's Place (cash only) 382-8422, Central Bar and Grill 361-1700 & the
High Tide Box Office @ www.hightideconcerts.net or charge by phone 250-478-1888

For more info: hightideconcerts@shaw.ca
The Duhk's Website: www.duhks.com

The five practiced, risk-taking twenty-something musicians and singers who make up
this singular new band out of Winnipeg, Manitoba will, if asked, good-naturedly toss out
some of the attempts at labels astonished listeners have turned to…In the two years that
they've been a unit, many have tried to describe The Duhks' music-- "contemporary
acoustic," "progressive soul-grass," and “kick-ass rock/folk fusion” being just a few of
the attempts to classify the group.

There are elements appropriated from Irish fiddle tunes, Canadian French and
Scots/Maritime folk, and Appalachian Old Time string band in their high-energy music--
but from the first sight of The Duhks (pronounced as in "That's Just Ducky" and "Ducks
a' L'Orange"), you know that no stab in the classifying dark can quite capture the
synthesis and musical attack of this crew.

That phrase "contemporary acoustic" doesn't readily suggest-- until the moment you
see The Duhks enter and go at it, live --a drummer (Scott Senior) pounding dance
rhythms, even graceful salsa polyrhythms, on a handmade cajon drum right out of
Havana, or a striking, soulful singer up front (Jessica Havey) awash in tattoos, cooing,
crying and shouting like a punk rock-era Gladys Knight--or India.Arie. That their salsa
and soul regularly intertwine with turns on banjo (Leonard Podolak), fiddle (Tania
Elizabeth) and guitar (Jordan McConnell) out of traditional instrumental folk music only
underscores that this band is essentially something else again, with sounds of their own
making, working a potent new North American vein of World Music.

Festival fans have been found dancing and banging on the front of the stage during their
sets, in spontaneous full-on, working mosh pits. For all of the delicacy that The Duhks
bring to their quieter tunes and all the swing that drives their jazzier ones, the full-throttle
force they bring to the whole endeavor yields something very much like acoustic rock
and roll.