If you are fortunate enough to live in or near Marlinton in Pocahontas County, WV, make your way to the Opera House this Saturday, November 12 to see The Steel Wheels in concert at 7:30 pm. I’ll be there! I’ve been a fan of these guys for a while now, but this is the first chance I’m getting to see them live. I can’t wait. I learned about them from Bicycle Times magazine’s June 2010 issue which reported on their pedal-powered, seven night, concert tour. They strapped their instruments and merchandise to their bikes and headed from town to town, covering nearly 300 miles. This wasn’t some stunt, followed by a support vehicle in case they got tired and needed a lift; this was a genuine concert tour on bicycles. In fact, they did another this year. As I read I learned that they were based in Harrisonburg, VA, a place I knew well having gone to James Madison University for my first two years of college.
Those two things alone were reason enough reason to like these guys. They hail from Virginia, and they tour by bicycle. (Not always, of course. They have a national following, and a bicycle tour across the entire country is impractical, at best.)
They were praiseworthy, but were they any good? Now I had yet to check out the music.
I found a few tracks online, was bowled over, got my hands on everything I could, and have been a fan, since. They are masters of contemporary… Umm.. I’m always at a loss when it comes to pigeonholing music into genres… Let’s just say bluegrass, since that’s the dominant sound. But I’ll also refer you to their own description of their music on their web site, which indicates some of their other influences.
So where was I? This is contemporary bluegrass at it’s best, masterfully played, heartfelt, full of nostalgia and bound to tradition, but lively, never stale or old-fashioned. I’m firmly convinced that if more people heard it they would love it, but their sound doesn’t fit into the genre streams the the music industry knows how to market these days. They do original material that is like little else you’ll hear anywhere, certainly not in Top 40 radio and not even in Lame Stream Country. When they do standards, they do them with their sound and it is good.
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If you can’t make it to the show, or just don’t want to wait, here’s a taste in advance. Enjoy.
On the heels of their successful September 2009 Virginia Bike Tour, Trent Wagler and Jay Lapp (Steel Wheel Duo) take their biking extravaganza to Michigan in May 2010. Watch this short 1 minute promo.