Album Notes

It’s hard to pin down exactly what POW is. There are a couple of things we know for sure. It’s Duluth, MN bluegrass rockers Two Many Banjos 5th released CD since they formed in 2007. Erik Koskinen, who has produced CD’s by Trampled By Turtles and Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank, recorded it one April afternoon in Minneapolis, 2009. However, most of the songs have never been done live and no photos exist from the session. Head songwriter for the group Marc Gartman wasn’t even sure they could play the songs live. And so it sat on the shelf for nearly a year without much thought on what to do with it next. Was it a full length? Did it need to be released at all? They decided to put the material away and wait for the air to settle.

In the interim lead banjoist Dave Carroll went off with his Trampled By Turtles and released their critically acclaimed album ‘Palomino’. Marc Gartman recorded a second CD with his side-project Coyote but with Matt Mobley (TMB’s bass player) and Bryan “Lefty” Johnson (TMB’s percussionist) now on board as full time members of both bands. Scratchboard wizard (and Charlie Parr cohort) Lane Prekker became a restaurateur in Duluth (Lake Effect) and Jillian Rae became one of Minneapolis’s most sought after fiddlers. It was a busy year for them all.

To help dust off the tracks from the POW session Gartman and Carroll enlisted the help of their favorite in town recording engineer Jake Larson (Charlie Parr, Black Eyed Snakes). They had all worked together before on the TMB debut CD a couple years back and hoped they could conjure up some of that ol’ magic to finish this CD. More significantly perhaps Jake has recorded (approximately) 62.4% of all of the material Marc has released since relocating to Duluth from New York City in 2005. The three of them hoped to piece together a decent CD.

To everyone’s delight a CD was, in fact, rummaged from the archives and quite an interesting set of tunes it holds. Dave Simonett (TBT’s front man) pops up on the tunes ‘I’m Coming Home’ and ‘Oh No, John!’ adding some nice harmony work. Glockenspiel, Rick Rubin-esque piano, hand claps and shakers through out…even some moody saw work from Dave Carroll on his own composition and title track ‘POW’. A majority of the songs clock in at a scant 2:30 masking itself as a pop record. And in some ways it is; plenty of verse-chorus structures, melodic hooks, three part harmonies, etc. If the math was done (in)correctly there may even be a single or two…

Two Many Banjos will be on tour throughout the mid-west supporting POW in June 2010. www.twomanybanjos.com for more info.

For booking inquiries please contact Mark Grundhoefer at MJG Productions: mjgpro@hotmail.com/ 651 699-5068.