New Years Eve with the Urban Pioneers
The Urban Pioneers currently call Albany, TX home, but they spend about 250 days a year playing around the country. When Liz and Jared are not on tour they do some hog trapping. Prior to playing in Urban Pioneers, Liz and Jared have been integral players in several well loved underground roots band. (This last May they played a special reunion show at the Westport Roots Festival with Jake Orvis and The Broken Band.) When listening to the Urban Pioneers it’s hard not to feel like your hanging out on a big wrap around porch jamming out with some extremely talented musicians. The Urban Pioneers might spend time trapping hogs, but they have not gotten trapped in to just one style of music. Liz comes from a classical background and Jared got his start “listening to Nirvana and learning the rock songs from the tabs in the back of Guitar World Magazine.” (bendsource.com)
On their newest album Hillbilly Swing Music (January 1, 2018), you’ll find a genre jumping album of goodness. They found the right mix of slow and fast songs. Their opening track perfectly describes their music, the sweet waltz, “Waste My Time” has me wishing I had someone to waste my time with, “Kitty’s Favorite Day” makes me thinking of trying to make my bed on laundry day with my cat, “Tortured Orchard” has me dreaming of summer and lemonade. On New Years Eve, we had the pleasure of hearing many of their new songs off the album, which I Love KC Music highly recommends getting, if you like to feel good listening to music.
That Hillbilly Swing Music, Western Swing Music, mixing that Texas with East Tennessee Music of the Urban Pioneers was enough to pull people out of their warm houses on one of the coldest days of 2017. The Urban Pioneers swept out 2017 and brought us charging right into 2018 at The Westport Saloon. The Urban Pioneers had people going with the contrast of Liz’s jaw dropping fast paced fiddle playing, Jared’s plucking on the banjo with a little guitar too, Martin’s driving bass beats bring the whole sound flow. In addition to playing lots of songs from the new album, they played the quirky crowd favorites like Never Had A Waffle at Waffle House (was I the only one who left dreaming of breakfast food?), and Chocolate Easter Bunny. For added goodness, Missouri local, Chad Graves joined them on stage playing the dobro. Toss in a complimentary shot of Four Roses Bourbon at Midnight and friends and I can’t think of a better way to spend New Years Eve.
