If there’s anything the Loyola-bred band Dirty Bourbon River Show wants people to leave their shows with, it’s the knowledge that it won’t be the last they will see of the group.
The five musicians — accompanied by their co-manager and over a dozen instruments — have played over 50 shows around New Orleans since forming last spring. They recently released their first album, “Volume One,” opened a show for Rebirth Brass Band at Tipitina’s during Carnival and now they’ve been booked for the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas this March.
Among the self-proclaimed “gypsy band,” only one member is a New Orleans native — drummer and percussionist Dane “Bootsy” Schindler, mass communication junior. He and music industry business senior Noah Adams, who is the main songwriter, lead vocalist, piano, guitar and harmonica player, began playing together under the name “Buck Johnson and the Hootenanny Kid” last year after Adams transferred to Loyola.
Before that, Adams lived in Portland, Ore., and California, and then traveled through Thailand and China before being drawn to New Orleans to work on his music education.
“My grandpa played music, and he told me all sorts of wild stories about New Orleans,” Adams said. “I took some road trips and passed through before and after Katrina. It just felt natural (to come back). There are so many good musicians here, you have to be on your stuff.”
It didn’t take Adams long to find some of those musicians. Over time, the band picked up Charles “Big Charlie” Skinner, performance sophomore and backup vocalist, jazz studies junior Wayne Mitchell on tenor and soprano saxophone, flute, clarinet, electric guitar and piano, and Jimmy Williams, A ’09, on upright and electric bass, tuba and sousaphone. Adams had already found his co-manager, merchandising manager and tour manager in his dorm roommate, music industries business junior Clay Miller. After a brief break from working with the band, Miller is back and said he is in it for the long haul.
“The goal, it sounds kind of cliché, is to be able to do this once we graduate,” Miller said. “If we can do that, we’ve already succeeded.”
They started like many other Loyola-based groups, playing smaller venues around the city before working their way up the food chain.
“We started playing shows almost every other weekend at Café Prytania,” Adams said, “and we got Tipitina’s through that.”
“A lot of people get stuck in a rut with Café Prytania and The Neutral Ground, but now we tend to get these big venues,” Skinner said. They have since played The Dragon’s Den, One Eyed Jack’s, The Howlin’ Wolf and the Blue Nile — just to name a few.
But they haven’t forgotten their roots in the small spots. Their most recent big gig — opening for Rebirth Brass Band Feb. 12 at Café Prytania — was, for Williams, a pinnacle of their success.
“I really admire Rebirth,” Williams, said. “I got here and they were basically the first brass band I got into.”
Williams, a big fan of jazz, brass and funk music, also hones his talents in a separate brass band, and teaches children to play string instruments as part of the New Orleans String Project.
The Dirty Bourbon River Show’s sound is large — sometimes haunting and always unusual; each song is drastically different from the one before it. The array of instruments, welded together with guttural vocals à la Tom Waits, is the only accompaniment to the show and musicians themselves.
And once people hear it, they can’t seem to get enough of it.
“When (people) first hear the music they’re kind of skeptical about what they hear, then they sit down and listen to it,” Skinner said. “It’s a beautiful disaster, it’s great and terrible at the same time. It’s definitely the kind of work I enjoy doing.”
Since the release of “Volume One,” the band is busy creating new songs and preparing for an upcoming Gulf Coast tour, which coincides with South by Southwest.
“We’re working on a whole other set that Noah and I have written together,” Skinner said.
But bigger change has to come at its own pace, according to Adams.
“Right now, it’s very appropriate with the five of us and I’m very wary of tinkering with it,” Adams said. “I would love to one day incorporate an orchestra, but it’s working very well with a five piece. Maybe one day, when the band’s ready. But I think we’re all really happy with the way with things are.”
Luckily enough, they have time until then. Though they’ve only been playing together for about a year, they already get along like old friends and respect each other’s contributions.
“Noah’s got his very crazy demeanor; he’s always 100 percent all the time,” Williams said. “Wayne’s like that too, he’s got his colorful flourishes.”
“Wayne, if you see him play, he’s just a beast,” Adams said. “Bootsy ties the rhythm together; he’s good at that New Orleans sound.”
“I’ve learned so much about interacting with people being in this band,” said Skinner. “We’re all very different types of people. You throw all of us in a room together, you can have some damn interesting conversations. They’re my boys, they’re my Wu Tang Clan.”
Kevin Zansler can be reached at [email protected]
