**Take advantage of advance ticket prices, as they go up the day of the show!** ADV: $18/$16 MEM; DOS: $20/$18 MEM
Voted #1 a cappella band in the U.S. in 2007, Voco is the energy of street singing and the elegance of a string quartet. Their ethereal and gritty four-part vocal harmonies combined with the delicious vaudevillian mixture of cello, accordion, and banjo delivers original, improvisation-built songs steeped in Appalachia and Eastern Europe.
This year finds the band touring with their newest live CD, circle, square, diamond & flag. With sweet, hard-driving Americana mixed with crooked Eastern European dance and dissonance, it’s no wonder they’ve been called "a truly phenomenal act" by FolkWorks magazine and "fascinating and multi-lingual" by the Los Angeles Times. Swallow Hill Music first presented Moira Smiley & Voco at the annual Shady Grove Picnic Series, where they were enthusiastically received, and we are pleased to bring them back for this encore performance.
All of roots music is a stage for Daisy Mayhem, and this four-piece string band loves nothing more than choreographing a jubilant mix of traditional, original and contemporary sounds. With Rani Arbo's bewitching alto at the helm, stunning vocal harmonies, a 100% recycled drum set, fiddle, guitar and bass, Daisy Mayhem "has a grand knack for pumping new blood into old music" (The Boston Globe). (Imagine, for example, a pre-Civil War song from the Georgia Sea Islands sung over a New Orleans-style groove. Or, an old Irish fiddle tune with new lyrics, capped with a solo on a South American box drum. A Sondheim tune done jug-band style? An original Unitarian funk gospel song? You begin to get the idea.)
With influences from Doc Watson to Django Reinhardt, from Ghanaian drumming to the Funky Meters and from Fiddlin' John Carson to Bob Dylan, Daisy Mayhem celebrates America's rich musical past and brings it into the present with good humor, impeccable musicianship, powerful songwriting, and a clear love of playing together. Here are four musicians who pick up what's lying around—from tin cans to old songs and wry observations of modern life—and create something new. "As hard to classify as it is to praise highly enough...an intoxicating blend of roots music styles, with deep traditional roots and a healthy futuristic outlook. Strongly recommended." — The Rogue Folk Review, Vancouver BC
