TICKETS: https://smoothhoundsmith.bpt.me
The Coffee House at Chestnut & Pine and Tall Tales Music Festival are proud to present Nashville, TN Americana band Smooth Hound Smith!
Saturday, March 21
7:30PM
The Coffee House at Chestnut & Pine
492 N Pine Street
Burlington, WI 53105
About the band: The saga of Smooth Hound Smith begins in Southern California. It winds from there through countless club gigs to East Nashville, big-time arena shows opening for The Dixie Chicks and finally to a third album, on which the seeds planted by experience blossom into a sound unlike that of any other artist.
Dog In A Manger is the third effort from husband-and-wife duo Zack Smith and Caitlin Doyle-Smith. While their previous releases evince their unique vocal blend and ability to coax compelling music from minimal instrumentation, Dog In A Manger brings it all to a higher level of expression.
There are reasons for this, the first being their musical and personal synchronicity. They began building their bond in Los Angeles, when Zack sat in with Caitlins band. He was working as a bartender and playing bluegrass gigs on upright bass in addition to working solo as Smooth Hound Smith. She had grown up in Fresno, studied at the L.A. Music Academy, earned her degree at the Academy of Contemporary Music in England and returned to Southern California. When he sat in one night with her band Dustbowl Revival, something clicked. By 2013 she was supplementing his one-man-band, guitar/drums/whatever and singing with complementary vocals and percussion.
Cultural arbiters took note. In response to their eponymous debut album, No Depression marveled that Smooth Hound Smiths raucous clash of backwoods folk, raw blues and underground rock generates enough power to fuel a full band. A few years later, Ken Templeton extolled one of their shows for Red Line Roots, noting Zacks blistering guitar playing and adding I saw lots of folks shut their eyes just to take it in that much more.
Which leads us to Dog In A Manger. Here, Zacks writing is more concise yet more communicative than ever Caitlin calls it denser. Their melodies, hooks and harmonies are in balance. Each song seems to stem from everyday, even mundane incidents. For example, over a sunny, skipping groove, Life Isnt Fair recalls a friend who would, in Zacks words, constantly make himself the victim. Backslide stems from the night Zack opened up his hotel window in Las Vegas and found a TRUMP sign blazing just outside. Waiting For A Spark cites the New Testament and Plato in picturing someone who is weighing her options, just looking for any little glimpse of light.
As much as they've achieved with Dog In A Manger, Smooth Hound Smith know that this is just one stop down their path toward promising horizons. Caitlin and I feel like this is exploratory, Zack explains. Its like, say, leather working: If you put in five or ten years of working leather, you're going to be pretty good at it. If anybody throws a job at you, youl'l be able to do it.
I feel that way about music. Everyone of our songs is a little different from the others. The next song I write could be the best one I've ever written. It could be the worst song I've ever written. But I do know that five years from now Caitlin and I are gonna be making music much better than anything wed made before.
A point well proven by Dog In A Manger, the next step in a unique adventure.