Three Stars February is rounding the finish line, just in time for you to take all that local music yearning to Unbuckled tonight. On Tuesday we visited with The Hint, yesterday The Apparitions, and today we finish with Shortstack. See you all tonight at DC9!
Shortstack play music they love. They are not a political band. They do not play art rock, or at least what you would expect to hear if provided the term. And there ain’t no indie rock ‘round here. They are a band influenced by traditional American country music. Call it avant-garde country, if you require a tag. This band does not particularly like labels.
The group was formed in Arlington, VA in the winter of 2000 by rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist Adrian Carroll and drummer Scott Gursky, when the two high school friends and former bandmates moved to metro Washington after college. Carroll, bored with contemporary indie and punk music, was drawn to the virtuosic elements of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, and soon began writing original music with Gursky. The duo became Shortstack, a name inspired by a Hank Williams lyric, and their formula was simple: to capture the instrumentation of these classic country rockers while updating it with a modern rhythm section and contemporary lyric style. Upright bassist Michael Pahn soon joined the group, bringing his own passion for country music. The sound was completed with innovative lap-steel guitarist Mike Maran, who was replaced in 2005 by native D.C. musician Burleigh Seaver.
We caught Shortstack’s headlining set at the Black Cat a couple weeks ago, and let it be known — country music this is not. Lead singer Adrian Carroll calmly takes the stage and plays sitting in a chair, keenly peering out at the audience from underneath his shaggy hair. To his left stands Pahn, supporting an upright bass nearly twice his size. Behind him is Gursky, wearing a soft smile behind a simple drum kit. And to his right sits Seaver, tending the lap steel. It is a deceptively intimate stage setting — you feel like they’re setting up to play in your house. The Black Cat crowd soon shakes as the band opens with ‘Wiseblood,’ a track off their soon-to-be-released second LP. Their country, er rockabilly, er, whatever is so driving that it forces you to move, whether or not you’re a dancer.
