Bluegrass For The Masses

The Road Reveals The Faces Of The Packway Handle Band

originally published May 23, 2007

Unfortunately for most music fans, all-access badges are not issued  indiscriminately, and it’s difficult to find stories - even in the age of information overflow and overload - offering a proper fly-on-the-wall perspective of grass-roots performers.  Instead we’re  inundated with unauthorized biographies of unavoidable pop stars  and the curiously famous, penned by gossip columnists and packed with revealing paparazzi photos, littering magazine racks and  bookshelves.

To gain a better and more personal understanding of emerging  artists these days, fans must cross fingers and hope that MySpace  friend-requests are honored, or have uncomfortable (often  inebriated) conversations at merch tables or in back alleys, as the  trailer-toting getaway vehicle idles and the set is being struck.

Flagpole asked local bluegrass quintet Packway Handle Band for the  ultimate fanboy experience, complete with the right to piggyback and the luxury of having a designated driver.  In  exchange they’d receive a glorious piece of real estate here in the pages.  Thankfully, the 2006 Flagpole Athens Music Award-winning band held up its end of the bargain.   Three of the band's many faces were revealed over eight days and  several hundred miles within the intimate confines of a plum -colored passenger van and on stages of varying sizes and levels of  import and prestige.

For those keeping score and painting mental pictures at home, here's who the  Packway Handle Band is.

The swashbuckling, charismatic de facto frontman Andrew Heaton (violin and vocals) is an engaging storyteller. He's also the lone South Carolinian  and non-lifer, having been in other bands before, most notably the increasingly scarce Calliope Fair.

Josh Erwin (guitar and vocals) is the lone non-Athenian, but his flat-picking makes his inside-the-perimeter Atlanta address more tolerable. He's a Harrison High School (in Kennesaw) alum like the next three dudes.

Ray-Ban invented its Aviator line of sunglasses for the former (nearly literal) tree hugger Tom Baker (banjo and vocals), but even if you’re unable to look him in the eye all the time he’s instantly familiar, cerebral and engaging.

Every band should have its quintessential rock star like Zach McCoy (bass), unafraid to call it like he sees it (on the record), with a  penchant for good grooming, not afraid to share a smoke or admit to the band's innermost (albeit limited) dysfunctional tendencies.  As the least organic element and the furthest removed from the performance semicircle, his job on stage seems toughest - and we don’t think he’d  argue that.

The prolific and private songwriter Michael Paynter (mandolin and vocals) provides astute commentaries on and evaluations of  everything from doomed relationships to the personalities of  weathermen.

En route to Augusta, McCoy is at the wheel, blaring Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage and performing a variety of air-instruments while Baker plants the first seeds of doubt (or expectation) in our minds, mentioning the  hit-or-miss nature of the band's previous experiences in town, and the  fact that the group has never before performed at this evening’s  destination, The Mission.  He laughs about the fact that the music  calendar on the venue’s web site was not as obviously updated and  maintained as the section advertising the fact that the place is for sale. During load-in the band collectively notes the proximity to a Mellow Mushroom, and it is agreed that that can’t be bad… perhaps it’ll help draw a crowd?

The gutted and converted former thrift store has been stocked with  bizarre works of art and heady brews.  After soundcheck the band  feeds at the Mexican joint recommended by the bartender when he  learns that palettes will be satisfied only by cheap food.  "Cheap " generally influences most culinary decisions, advises Heaton before the conversation turns to talk of the opening band, a roots-rock four-piece from Columbia, SC called American Gun, and the size  of the keyboard they hauled in.  “I thought we were playing with  one of those Guitar Center bands,” confesses Heaton.

Ready to view Packway’s first face at the club, a space that would  not be uncomfortable in downtown Athens east of Lumpkin (and not named Tasty World); the youth of Augusta have converged.  They are  an eclectic mix of the unshaven and exceptionally shopping-mall  chic, taking the night off MySpace to drink paychecks, shoot pool  and - naturally! - absorb bluegrass music.

Obviously, with their self-admitted many visages, the bandmembers have become mobile musical chameleons who can please even the most  discerning or oblivious listeners.  It’s just a question of which  bluegrass camp will be represented when they roll through your town.

On this evening they, at least according to Heaton’s introduction,  would premiere “Earl the Duck,” a song that will undoubtedly be a  set-list staple regardless of venue or circumstance for years to  come, and one that begs the questions: is this face of the band a beer-goggled  version of bluegrass?  Does the Packway bar show resemble shorts-on-stage jamgrass?  While the subject matter (ducks enduring a gender  identity crisis) may stray from the genre’s standard love/livestock/Lord formula and veer toward the surreal, the musicianship is never  compromised.  These Packway guys are professionals who rarely surrender to ill-moderated dalliances - their solos are tasteful, tight and for the  most part concise.  Thankfully so.  Listeners can revel in the fact that they’ll be entertained, regardless of chemical ingestion, for as long as the club owner, festival time-slot or wedding  reception allows - and they’ll play dozens of songs, culled from a  canon of choice covers, clever originals and timeless  traditional compositions.  If doing it in flip-flops in front of  drunks makes it jammy… meh. 

On the way home we watch The Complete Truth about De-Evolution, a DVD that features dozens of Devo music videos, while the band discusses which of these criminally underrated songs might fit comfortably in their  repertoire. Once again, if that’s jammy - sure, we’ll take it.

We continued to gather evidence a few evenings later on Legion Field in Athens where Packway was sandwiched on an interesting bill featuring Hope For Agoldensummer and Modern Skirts. The boys are dressed to the nines and unfortunately the weather is not quite as handsome, but even in a steady drizzle - which could not be coaxed into more as the band played “Downpour,” but ironically intensified during “Keep on the Sunny Side” - the band had feet tapping and children spinning.

Essentially, the five Packway Handle boys had the patrons as much in the palms of their hands as a getting-wet crowd could be in an alcohol-free environment. More than 100 miles from Augusta and 180 degrees from The Mission, the band is once again right at home. It is evident in their countenance.

The road goes on forever, or so it seems for this touring band - presently on the road in support of the recently released Live in 2006 EP Extreme, as less than 24 hours later it’s dusk in Dahlonega. Soundcheck for Heaton and Baker takes the form of an informal busking session a stone's throw from a fudge shop and this evening’s venue The Crimson Moon. The sun sets behind the west end of the town square, and the old Lumpkin County courthouse casts a shadow on a park bench, where an old-timer watches impressed, as the duo swells to a trio and then a quintet as Paynter, then Erwin join the fray.

Inside the Crimson Moon, a quaint and historic space - the second oldest building in downtown Dahlonega, equal parts general store, coffee shop and dinner theatre - the bandmembers prepare to reveal yet another side of themselves. The stage is ideally cramped and crowded; Heaton slips off the lip and almost into laps a few times early on, but soon enough everyone is comfortable. They joke of the small boulder that anchors the band's dual-condenser mic stand. Paynter suggests that this is what happens when a pet rock is overfed. The crowd eats it up - along with their salads, entrees, dessert and coffee, as the Packway sound captivates them for two sets featuring more than 30 songs, all throughout five courses.

A quick survey of those in attendance and we find a rather conservative collection of personalities. Given the choice, they may have passed on the chance to see Packway perform at The Mission or Legion Field, or honestly any place that wasn’t as simultaneously historic and sterile as The Crimson Moon. These are God-fearing folks, which begs another question: with an album like 2005’s (Sinner) You Better Get Ready, which features a slew of inspirational gospel tunes, can it be presumed (or perhaps, to a lesser degree, argued) the group represents the old guard of players performing on the less than secular tip?

Not so fast, flat-picker. While there's no question where Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder is on Sundays, there are plenty of questions and dashes of mystery, intrigue and progressive thinking in this Packway camp. Again, thankfully so.

Without belittling the merits of faith and piety, Packway performs with tongues that are firmly yet playfully placed in cheek. Listen to their earnest and exalting interpretation of that sophomore album’s title track and then seek out the delightful “Satan’s in Outer Space,” and you’ll understand and agree immediately - it doesn’t matter how you feel about something if you can aggrandize it with such skilled (yet humble) aplomb.

If they aren’t exactly jamgrass, grungegrass or old-guard traditionalists, then where, as is our journalistic duty, can we pigeonhole them? How's the following if/then statement: If you like Chatham County Line and/or The Avett Brothers, then you should catch this perpetually touring five-piece for a trad-absurdist experience delivered from exceptionally seasoned youths.

David Eduardo

WHO: Packway Handle Band, The Hackensaw Boys
WHERE: Georgia Theatre
WHEN: Saturday, May 26
HOW MUCH: $8 (advance); $10 (door)