Aphera Music

I swear they didn’t need to play a note, I was already in awe looking down at the set up on stage – the combination of 6-7 guitars, mandolin, and banjo… I have a soft spot for banjo.  Then the 6 man band, Railroad Earth began to play. The fiddler dueled with the flutist in between the verses. The upright bassist rocked out in the back until his moment for a solo came. Then guitarist put down his guitar, picked up the mandolin and began to duel with the flutist turned banjoist. If they didn’t sound so together my head would have been spinning. They managed to play as one beautiful melody, beat and energy. The energy seemed to be created through pauses, solos, and anticipation. At one moment, the fiddler had just finished the last few notes of his solo, the entire band seemed to take one breath, the drummer struck up a beat, the lead vocalist struck a chord and they bounced right back into the song. This moment of anticipation built up so much energy the entire audience erupted in cheer. Here is a video below of Railroad Earth playing at the 8×10 on April 22.

I love how they describe themselves, “And like The Band, the members of Railroad Earth aren’t losing sleep about what ‘kind’ of music they play – they just play it.” Composing without discrimination of genres is one of the reasons I love indie music. Railroad Earth is an interesting example because if you had to be discrete you would most definitely label them as bluegrass. However, the great thing about Railroad Earth is that they make bluegrass extremely accessible. They haven’t gone as far as Deer Tick (strictly indie), they didn’t dumb their music down and they didn’t go mainstream, they just gave it emotion.