bandZandt rocks the valley
Cover band also does originals
by Christopher Key
My friends keep telling me I should get out more. What they should have been telling me is that I should get out the road more. Meaning get out of Bellingham and see what is going on “out in the county.” There is an amazing amount of talent outside the city limits and I have been somewhat remiss in checking it out. Gas prices, y’know?
A friend recently invited me to the Fall Harvest Festival in Van Zandt, so I flipped off OPEC and made the drive. It was well worth it. This year’s festival involved a potluck focusing on zucchini. Not my favorite vegetable, but it grows like gangbusters in our peculiar climate and creative Northwest cooks can make the bland squash sing. I didn’t try the zucchini hot dogs because it was just too much of an oxymoron for me to overcome.
But I didn’t come out to celebrate the vapid veggie; I came to hear a group called bandZandt. I’ll leave it to you to figure out where they are based. Robin Wallbridge, the heart and soul of Mockingbird, is also the driving force behind bandZandt.
“I’ve sung with a lot of groups,” Wallbridge said. “But this group is one of the most comfortable. There is such a connectedness, such a feeling for the music.”
In addition to Wallbridge on vocals, bandZandt features Kent Rogers on vocals and lead guitar; Diane Leigh on vocals and keyboard; Doug Sutton on vocals and rhythm guitar; Gregg McClaren on trumpet; and Chuck Loos on drums. Chuck’s 11-year-old daughter Isabel occasionally sits in on a number and she inherited Dad’s talent in spades.
bandZandt does a lot of covers, from Beatles to Joni Mitchell. That’s not unusual. What bandZandt does goes beyond most cover bands. They don’t try to copy the music, but to add an original context and make it their own.
Their strength, and it’s a big one, is multi-layered harmonies that seem to have been left behind in the current rock scene. I’ve always wondered why rock critics are so dismissive of that sort of musicianship. They seem to have some obsessive need to put down the celestial harmonies of groups like Abba, the Bee Gees and the Eagles. Is it because those tight vocals require much more talent than is expected of most rock bands? Or is it because the poor musicianship of most rock bands is somehow cool?
I have made a career out of being uncool and that’s probably why I like bandZandt. Their layered vocals are as tight as anything the Everly Brothers could have hoped for and it raised goosebumps on most of my elderly body when they came together.
Yes, the instrumental work needs a bit more polishing, but these band members are mostly educators who have very demanding day jobs. One of them, Kent Rogers, is the principal of an elementary school. That, in itself, is an indicator of how much things have changed. When I was in school, the principal not only didn’t rock ‘n roll, he was doing all he could to stamp it out.
bandZandt is a remarkable group both for those amazing vocal harmonies and for their original takes on rock classics. Don’t even try to put them in some kind of musical box. They do blues, jazz, country and anything else that turns them on.
The band has a number of originals in the can and is planning to release a CD within the next year or so. They will be playing the Fairhaven Martini Bar on Monday, November 10. Trust me, you’ll regret it if you miss it.
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