American
songs are full of deranged old ghosts howling at the moon.
Vinegar Creek Constituency, an eclectic, incendiary string
band out of the PA Dutch Country, channels these venerable
old ghosts of the American folk tradition through
imaginative, emotive original songs delivered with rock n
roll intensity. Full of shouting, floorboard-stomping soul,
their live performances are uplifting, high-energy events
with fans dancing in the aisles and clapping, stomping, and
singing along.
Like
their folksong forerunners that took root around campfires
and on back porches across America, the songs call out from
the crossroads of light and darkness. They are dreams of
Heaven alongside visions of Hell; songs in praise of love
alongside tales of murder and the madness of lovers
betrayed; songs that ride the rails, wander the countryside,
rise from the grave, and cackle in the face of impending
doom.
The
musicians of Vinegar Creek Constituency come from diverse
musical backgrounds that range from formal Classical
performance to experimental garage Rock to traditional Old
Time Appalachian string band music to Gypsy Jazz.
Consequently, the band’s sound encompasses elements of
many styles, including super-charged bluegrass, early
rockabilly, swing, vaudeville, and ragtime. Singer/
songwriter/ guitarist Leonardo DiSanto says of the band's
style, "I really hear our music as a form of primitive
rock n roll played with a bluegrass instrumentation. From
the age of 9 I've been a huge Elvis fan. If you listen to
Elvis' legendary earliest recordings on the Sun label, it
was really just a 3-man string band lineup: acoustic guitar
for rhythm, double bass on the bottom, and electric guitar
phrases for embellishment. Elvis was recording Bill Monroe
songs back then, Bluegrass songs like "Blue Moon of
Kentucky," and charging them up with the energy that
would come to characterize rock n roll music. I think those
records are ancestors of what our group does."
In May
of 2008 VCC traveled to Cumberland, MD performing in and
winning the first annual Delfest band competition, an event
that became a catalyst for the band's growing creative
energy. Their eponymous debut album was released in October
2008. The follow up album, Angel of the Last Waltz, was
released in May 2010. Both albums were engineered, produced,
and released by the band members themselves and feature all
original material. The Vinegar Creek Constituency currently
performs in clubs, theaters, and festivals in an
ever-expanding range throughout the East from New England to
the Appalachian South, headlining or sharing the stage with
legends, luminaries, and notables of numerous genres of
American music, from rock to bluegrass to country. Some of
these include: Del McCoury, Sam Bush, Larry Keel, Railroad
Earth, Sara Evans, Langhorne Slim, David Bromberg, Chris
Thile (of Nickel Creek), and John Cowan (of Newgrass
Revival).