The Powder Kegs

"...People definitely seem to be digging it’s bass line and lyrical perfection, including me..."


- Kick Kick Snare

Band: The Powder Kegs

When/Where: June 7, 2011, Plough & Stars, Cambridge, MA

Expectations: I saw The Powder Kegs a few months ago and have been a fan of their music and especially their latest LP that came out in March. It’s always fun to catch them when they’re in town.

Concert: Even though the “stage” at Plough and Stars is just a corner, they filled that corner with more than enough energy for the entire bar, putting on a show that strays from their recorded songs just enough so that they remain recognizable, but also so that the listener knows they are more than capable of adding nooks and crannies and flourishing during a live show. The bassist, Ryan Dieringer, and guitarist, Daniel Maroti switch off on lead vocals, both being able frontmen, further diversifying their sound. One of the Powder Kegs’ strengths is seamlessly going from a tumultuous loud stretch right into a simple and subdued strumming, it pulls the audience right in, especially on their song “Falling Together, Coming Apart”.

They played an older song, “La Mariposa”, an elegant pop song filled with warmth and a wonderful contrast at the end where they let the careful structure fall away to a clamoring outburst of sound. Hearing it, I felt a rush of excitement because it was the first song of theirs I ever heard (and played on repeat many times), and also as they segued to newer songs their growth towards a distinct and developed sound was blatantly clear. The Dylan and Beatles influences are sometimes just beneath the surface, but they do it remarkably well, something you can see for yourself when you listen to the song they closed with, “The Amanicans”.

Concert Afterglow: Plough & Stars is easily the tiniest venue to be a part of the 100 bands project, but The Powder Kegs adapted well to the small space even though they often play to sold out shows in New York where there core fan base resides. It always kills me a little when a band this good is playing in a tiny corner of a bar, but at the same time it’s special because you know you might not be able to see them in such an intimate space again. It was a wonderful treat on a warm summer night to see them, and I was smiling all the way from their first song until I fell asleep.

Recommendation: I think this band should get more recognition, and I’d love to see that happen. You’re bound to enjoy their live show if excellent indie rock is what you like. - Sunset in the Rearview

Stationed in Philly, The Powder Kegs are a new band with penchant for pop. Their catchy song "Say You Love Me," off of their debut full-length, The Amanicans, has me hooked. It's Today's Top Tune. - KCRW

“At our core, we’re songwriters,” says Ryan Dieringer, singer and bass player for Philly via New York band, . “The Powder Kegs began as a folk band, and we’ll always be a folk band, even if the ingredients to make people dance to our songs – or space out to our songs – sometimes include elements of rock and roll, electro music, latin music.”Joined by Sam McDougle on drums, Chris Madden on Keyboards and Daniel Zane Maroti on guitar and vocals, The Powder Kegs are a new kind of band, the kind of band that moves to Philly from New York, and not the other way around.“Living in Philly is just too good of an opportunity for a hard working young musician,” says Ryan, “there’s cheap-ass rent, amazing local support for music, amazing bands to play with, cool spaces to play in…it’s altogether a fantastic place to grow as a band and build a name for ourselves. I don’t know where we’d be without the freedom Philly affords a young artist.”Those opportunities really come through upon listening to the bands latest record, ‘The Amanicans’. Playing the sort of throwback style of rock that Dr. Dog employs, but updated with plenty of 00s reference points, ‘The Amanicans’ is sparse in all the right places, giving the songs plenty of room to breath without going no where or losing any pop sensibility.“We [plan for] songs to breathe because often that approach guarantees both a variety and intensity of effect a song can have on our listener,” says Ryan, “all of our favorite songwriters and artists are sparse arrangers, and we hope to carry on that tradition.”What makes all of the space work, though, is the amount of thought that the band obviously puts into its work. “If we do our jobs right, you should be hearing the songs,” says Ryan “and a variety of attempts at making those songs exciting.”Exciting seems almost like too bland of a word to describe the songs on ‘The Amanicans’. ‘When the Body Tricks the Mind’ floats in and out of space, built off of a few off-kilter riffs before turning into a bona-fide rock and roll dance party by the end. ‘Broke Time’ could have been another late 00’s indie rock song, but clever turns of phrase mixed with equal fits of passion elevate the song to something so much better. ‘Say You Love Me’ feels soft, tender, and kind, plodding along softly with a beautiful melody, all without becoming overly sentimental or drab. Opener, ‘Hospital’ does a great job of doing what The Powder Kegs do, the song starts with a simple riff and a simple vocal melody all while proceeding into soaring anthems by way of catchy choruses.All in all, ‘The Amanicans’ does exactly what Ryan and the rest of the Powder Kegs want the record to do – it takes plenty of different ideas, employs them and does so without sounding unfocused or ever approaching something boring.Odds are, The Powder Kegs will be doing significantly more in the future. With songs so well crafted, thought out, and just flat out good, it will be pretty exciting to see what the band does next. - Blaqbook.com

Philly popsters The Powder Kegs caught some good notice last year for the breezy Empty Side EP. But, on its full-length debut, the band comes out swinging. The Amanicans (which drops next Tuesday, March 30) has punchy drums, tightly interlocked guitar lines, and songs that—while thankfully avoiding the overblown “anthemic” thing—sound huge. The Philly quartet emigrated from New York City a couple years back, but still keeps ties to its ancestral home; The Amanicans gets a Brooklyn release show on March 30 at Death By Audio, and a Philly release show on April 3 at Kung Fu Necktie. - WXPN's "The Key"

April 4th, 2011

Live Review: The Powder Kegs At Kung Fu Necktie Sunday Night

Straddling Philadelphia and Brooklyn, the Powder Kegs are trying to make it with a debut LP The Amanicans and summer tour. Here’s three reasons why they just might.

Rock Appeal

The first riffs said it all, sounding like Rev. Gary Davis’ ragtime blues from the 20s when recording was just starting. Beyond B.B. King blues, straight to the source—the cotton lands.

Two measures of Dan Maroti’s guitar lead in to the title track off The Amanicans, and a girl in black leggings and a denim jacket is already dancing. As Maroti sang the opening lyrics, the Powder Kegs pounced onto the rhythm and didn’t look back, the definition of “rock.”

Maroti, cutting through Sam McDougle’s thick drumming and all the other instruments filling the tiny 100-capacity room with sound, sang, “In every doorstep there’s a doorway, on the doorknob there’s a doorlock and the door’s locked, locked for you, locked for me.” As the music swelled and the band played like starlight and storm, his voice and the backing vocals rode on top, creating shifting moods.

The kids danced right up to the raucous encore. The crowd, as bassist/vocalist Dieringer said, had “the power to make things happen.”

“That’s the crazy thing about making music,” Dieringer said. You could be the best musician in the world, but “great crowds are what make great shows happen.” The Powder Kegs are pretty fine musicians, and the crowd must have been whipping these boys into a frenzy, because it was a pretty great show.

Listen Appeal

“So you want to be in love,” they sang, and we’re hooked. In came the silver trombone of Dylan Hume, and we’ve arrived at the mariachi-fusion of Neutral Milk Hotel song craft. Dieringer and Maroti took turns on lead through the set list, backing each other up with keyboardist Chris Madden adding a third voice at parts. They played songs that try to get as deeply as they can into their audience, led by McDougle’s fast but seamlessly welded drumming. Beyond “rock” their genre’s hard to define, but they bow to their influences: Lennon, Paul Simon, Czech disco. They pay tribute without trying to replicate, keeping a grittiness throughout. In doing that, they had moments of greatness within their hour or so long set.

Sex Appeal

Flannel shirts. Impressive without trying. Ladies dancing all night long. $3 PBR. (Ada Kulesza) - Philadelphia Weekly

"...when you do end up seeing them, just remember my voice echoing, “I told you so!”..."
- Two.One.Five Magazine Blog

"...The Powder Kegs’ new EP, Empty Side, is good listening..."

- Indie Rock Cafe

"...The Powder Kegs expertly combine organic folk sounds with influences far ranging as they are old..."


- Indie Shuffle

"...I see it mostly in the pleasant simplicity of their music..."


- Ampeater Review

Source URL:
http://www.7dvt.com/2008powder-kegs-you-and-your-right-now

The Powder Kegs, You And Your Right Now

Album Review
By Dan Bolles [08.20.08]

(Self-released, CD, digital download)

’Twas a muggy summer night in the city of Winooski, and tensions would soon run as high as the temperature. The scene was the Monkey House, a curious little watering-hole-in-the-wall in the heart of the Onion City’s curious downtown. On the bar’s small corner stage stood a scruffy troupe of wandering minstrels called The Powder Kegs [1]. The capacity crowd anxiously awaited a blistering set of the twang-infused newgrass for which the group had become renowned. But then a funny thing happened. Not elegant uptempo acoustic picking but gritty electrified strains filled the beer hall. Rock music. Loud, hooky rock music caught the crowd off-guard, as if a sonic sucker punch. Spirits were crushed. Mellows were harshed. Hippies were dazed and, ahem, confused — more so than normal, even.

What unfolded that evening was the Phoenix-like birth of a power trio. And rising from the ashes of a (broken) string band, comes The Powder Kegs’ terrific second album, You and Your Right Now.

The record opens with “Love Has Gone.” Lead vocalist Ryan Dieringer croons earnestly over folksy acoustic guitar. If you didn’t know better, you might think the remainder of the record would follow in pseudo old-timey suit. That is until the chorus, which explodes with a soaring electric guitar line doubled by fiddle. The transformation is abrupt, jarring and absolutely stunning.

The album continues in chameleonic fashion. Even when The Powder Kegs revisit their old-time roots, as on “Love in a Time of Terror” and “I Break for the Union,” they infuse definitively rock influences, much like twang-pop contemporaries The Avett Brothers. While there is enough twang and down-home sensibility sprinkled throughout to sate Americana purists, You and Your Right Now is a pop record, plain and simple.

As is often the case in rock ’n’ roll lore, the opening tale is a fable rooted in a modicum of fact. The Powder Kegs, long a darling of the Yonder Mountain/String Cheese set — especially when they summered in Vermont — did “plug in” that fateful night in Winooski. And while the event is hardly on par with say, Dylan going electric in Newport, according to those who were there, they were met largely with dumbfounded disapproval. However, in the wake of unrequited expectations and refund demands, a remarkable thing has emerged: one of the finer local(ish) pop-rock groups in recent memory. And the irrefutable evidence of that marvelous transformation is You and Your Right Now.
- Seven Days

Source URL:
http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2007/9/Music/CD-Review-The-Powder-Kegs

CD Review: The Powder Kegs
The Seedhouse

by Robert Burke Warren, August 27, 2007

Independent, 2007

Ever wonder why some folks willingly embrace the hard life, take to the road, and depend on the kindness of strangers? Hudson Valley-based acoustic fivesome the Powder Kegs could learn ya with “Hard Travelin’,” the first cut off their rip-snortin’ debut, The Seedhouse. The track is a Woody Guthrie chestnut that details rough times—backbreaking, menial labor; slogging through six feet of mud; aching for a woman—but this version careens from pillar to post like a celebratory spiritual. On several cuts from this live-in-a-room collection, the subject matter is dire; for example, the sole original, “Take Another Shot,” or the folk stalwart “Policeman.” Yet the Powder Kegs are ace players on fiddle, guitars, doghouse bass, banjo, and mandolin, and still manage to deliver all of their chosen tunes with a subtext of contagious joy.
Click Here!

First-prize winners on “A Prairie Home Companion’s” People in Their Twenties Talent Show and increasingly popular on the festival circuit, The Powder Kegs still busk on street corners and in public parks. The dust and dirt of the byways is audible on The Seedhouse. This is lovingly rendered music designed to be heard across Appalachian hills and in juke joints sans amps, with vibrato-free and often ragged-but-right vocals recalling Leadbelly and Hank Williams (his “Lonesome Whistle” is covered here), and, when they join their voices, The Band.

The one song the Kegs choose to slow down is the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers,” and dang it if these upstarts don’t make the tune all the better by dragging it through the streets. - Chronogram Magazine

Our performance is archived here:

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2007/04/21/index.shtml - NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion" w/ Garrison Keillor

Powder Kegs bring energy to city streets

Five young men tuned their instruments at Waterfront Park last week plucking A's and D's and G's amidst steady banter and laughter. They began to play, slowly building up steam, with songs of hard times and coal mining. They moved out of the jumbled circle in which they'd been playing, making room for an audience that had begun to gather. As the band went into full swing: enthusiasm!

There is excitement. Because this college band is doing something new. They are playing old music. Older than songs by Radiohead and Pink Floyd. The Powder Kegs play Old Time music. Old Time music, typically including a banjo, fiddle and voice, is rooted in the American South, where the tunes, rhythms and instruments of the early Anglo-Celtic settlers and African slaves were combined.

Its moniker, coined in the 1920s as a marketing ploy, evokes images of old men on porches with banjos and rusty voices, the popping of dust on a record player and many generations of barn dances in simpler times. . .

(To view full article in PDF, go to http://www.thepowderkegs.com/files/kegs_article.pdf) - Burlington Free Press

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