PUTNEY — Folk musician Tim Eriksen and The Trio de Pumpkintown return to Sandglass Theater on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m.
Pumpkintown is an evening of old and new Yankee hymns, tunes, and ballads from the region's often-forgotten multi-cultural history, and stories - all accompanied by original and historical magic lantern projections.
Audiences are asked to abandon any need to separate fact from fiction when considering the colorful history of the imaginary New England village of Pumpkintown. The Trio de Pumkintown is the house band for this village who unpack a mysterious trunk found in the attic of one of Pumpkintown's residents, Silas.
The Trio teams up with Putney artist Sue Brearey and Sandglass Theater's Kirk Murphy as they attempt to untangle the curious history of Pumpkintown through their eclectic songs, stories, and images.
The Trio, comprised of Tim Eriksen (voice/guitar), Zoë Darrow (fiddle/voice), and Peter Irvine (percussion/voice), share pieces learned from their friend and life-long Pumpkintown resident Silas Billings III, b. 1959, including songs of the sea from his great-grandfather “Black Josh,” 1799-1891, love songs about death from Josh's third wife, Absence Wing b. 1835, and shape note tunes by local Abenaki/Scottish composer (and Dartmouth graduate) Doctor Knox Samson.
But what about the Yankee gospel of the old African church over the hill? Fiddle tunes from “Frenchtown,” and the Cape Breton girls over to the mill? And what was the music of the man who may have been Absence (and Presence) Wing's father, described in scant local accounts only as “an itinerant from Europe?”
Founded in Western Massachusetts in 2012, the Trio's players are representatives of Pumpkintown's invisible denizens. Eriksen has both punk and folk credentials, as well being trained in South Indian vocal and instrumental performance.
Drummer Irvine can drive a rock song or odd-meter Romany pop tune, or evoke an atmosphere with cymbals, glockenspiel, and other percussion. Darrow studied the many facets of Celtic fiddle in Ireland, Cape Breton, and on Prince Edward Island, before beginning her musical career with her father in 2002 and later becoming a sought-out collaborator and session musician.