Like a tank full of moonshine to a thirsty soul in a broken down barn on a dirt road between Muscatine and Ardon; except nicer.

15 MP3 Songs
FOLK: String Band, COUNTRY: Old-Timey

Show all album songs: The Gilded Bats Songs


Details:
With a lineup of fiddle, banjo, guitar, and washtub bass, The Gilded Bats play rockin' old-time string band music - from driving dance tunes to crooked modal tunes, from lonesome mountain ballads to rough and rowdy songs. Comprised of Norbert Sarsfield's West Virginia inspired old-time fiddling, Andrew Epstein's dynamic and inventive clawhammer banjo, and the rock solid rhythm section of Bill Bryant's guitar and Chris Clark's thumping washtub bass, the Gilded Bats are Eastern Iowa's premier old-time stringband. The Gilded Bats self-titled debut CD was funded in part by a grant from the Iowa Arts Council. The Gilded Bats are part of the Mud Dauber Records family of recording artists.
____________________________

CD Review
The debut disc on artist/engineer/producer Patrick Brickel's new label, "The Gilded Bats" showcases a muscular, energetic old-time stringband that's steadily been expanding its profile in Eastern Iowa.

Comprised of Norbert Sarsfield (fiddle), Andrew Epstein (banjo, jaw harp), Billy Bryant (guitar) and Chris Clark (washtub bass), The Gilded Bats apply their kinetic pickin' to an endearing set of 16 evergreens culled from the hill-country canon -- and everybody sings with gusto.

Befitting a band whose moniker was cribbed from the title of a 1966 novel by eccentric Gothic marvel Edward Gorey, the songs' subjects tend to be at least a tad bit twisted, as in the Holy Modal Rounders' "Give the Fiddler a Dram" -- "Pretty little girl with a red dress on/She took it off/I put it on/In come Johnny with the big boots on ..."

Funded in part by a grant from the Iowa Arts Council, "The Gilded Bats" is crisply played and sung, and the disc is brilliantly recorded and mastered (kudos to Justin Kennedy and Brickel), resulting in a freshly-packed barn dance that's ready to go.

-- Jim Musser, Iowa City Press-Citizen, 11/08/2007