Trainhoppers evoke olden times

by Steve Penhellow
Published on February 3, 2006, Page 2W, Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN)

It started the way many mystery novels do.

Six people each received a mysterious envelope in the mail.

The envelopes did not, however, contain invitations to a remote mansion by a host who failed to appear after everyone else arrived. The envelopes contained a call to action.

Perhaps it would be best to start over.

It did not start the way many mystery novels do. And it didn't really start with the envelopes.

It all began when local musician Matt Kelley attended his grandmother's funeral and saw a picture of his great-grandfather, Lafayette "Layf" Bacon.

Kelley is a great fan and practitioner of country and folk and Delta blues, and here was a photo of a long-dead relative holding a violin and posing with other members of a turn-of-the-century string band.

Kelley grew obsessed with finding out more about this man, but 400 pages of family history failed to append much to that image.

So Kelley shifted his focus.

"I had never seen the photo before and had no idea that he had this quintet," Kelley says. "He had a mandolin in his hands, and I was just taken with the look and style of these guys. Crooked hats, bank-robbing suits and steely glares. I just stared at the photo and thought to myself, I have got to re-form this band."

He visualized an all-star band in the tradition of The Traveling Wilburys and The Highwaymen comprised of established local musicians sharing common musical affections and a desire to get playful with mythology and mystique.

Thus, the envelopes.

"I presented it as a chance to make the sort of rootsy music that we weren't able to make in our other bands," Kelleys says.

The result is The Legendary Trainhoppers, a gathering of band members from Go Dog Go, The Brown Bottle Band, The Matthew Sturm Band and Definitely Gary.

The roster features Jon Ross on drums, Phil Potts on guitar, Damian Miller on bass, Dan Smith on guitar, Matt Sturm on guitar and keyboard, Chris Dodds on keyboard and guitar, Kelley on guitar, mandolin and banjo, and everybody on lead and backing vocals in various combinations.

Two parties for the release of the band's debut CD, "Ramble On," will happen tonight at the Indiana Hotel lobby.

A lot has happened since Kelley first sent out those invitations.

What started as a romp has gained a surprising amount of heft in the interim.

The CD was produced by Grammy-winner Scott Mathews, who has worked with so many of the greats of pop and rock music that it would be easier to list all the people he hasn't worked with.

It features mandolin work from David Grisman, the legendary Jerry Garcia collaborator and inventor of a modernized form of bluegrass called "dawg music."

The CD will be "shopped around" by Mathews at next week's Grammy awards ceremony.

"I don't think any of us anticipated how much was going to happen in such a short time," Sturm says, putting it mildly.

The trip to the Bay area to work with Mathews was arranged by Monkey Wings Records, a local label partly owned by longtime area music producer Jon Gillespie of Monastic Chambers Studios in New Haven.

It happened in October.

The songs were recorded at Tiki Town Studios in Mill Valley, Calif. Tiki Town is a little like Willy Wonka's Factory.

At Wonka's, everything you touched was edible. At Tiki Town, everything you touch is a piece of priceless rock memorabilia.

"Anything we picked up had Brian Wilson's germs on it," Sturm says.

"I played the same drum set that was used on Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition,'" Ross says.

Potts used a guitar once played by Keith Richards, which created more headaches than shivers of excitement.

"I think the last time it had been used was when Keith played it 20 years ago," he says. "It had to be tuned after every song."

"We spent a lot of time sitting at this table, putting our hands on it," Miller says. "At the end of the week, Scott said, 'Oh, by the way,; that was owned by Janis Joplin.'"

If you are curious to know the historical significance of a certain toilet, you are going to have to ask Dodds tonight.

The Trainhoppers sent Mathews 40 songs before visiting him and a lot of culling happened before and since.

Kelley says Mathews seemed to favor uptempo numbers to ballads.

"Phil has a few songs that can get you sobbing," Kelley says.

One of the casualties was "Ramble On," the song for which the CD is named.

It may be the first instance in rock music history where a title survived the demise of a title track.

Which is perfectly fine, because "Ramble On" works equally well as a motif.

The CD makes a good case for embracing Kelley's initial vision.

The band me be a fresh assemblage, but the music rambles like the work of men whose home is the road and whose rapport is second-nature.

The band may never get the national recognition it seems on the verge of grabbing, but the guys are in such a state of perpetual surprise at this point that they've evolved beyond expectation.

Says Ross: "We've already done more than we ever thought we'd do."