Down Home Southernaires

By: Kseniya Yarosh
Seeing Eugene Lang senior (Humberto) Jose Castello as a rather demure character--calm eyes, crisp shirt collar, a classic blazer, pipe in hand--it was surprising to discover the first word that came to my mind upon hearing his band’s audio and video recordings, was rowdy. “But not sloppy?” he earnestly asks me. “No? Good.
A Miami-based band, The Down Home Southernaires quote a passage from the Bourbon chapter in Walker Percy’s Signposts in a Strange Land, as their “influence” on their My Space Music profile (http://www.myspace. com/thedownhomesouthernaires). They are not quite country nor rock & roll, but elements of both are there--the occasional twang, the quickened rhythm. More surprisingly however, they exude something that is very rarely found in modern indie music circles-unabashed enthusiasm that is not mired in ‘ironic’ aloofness, but wit.
“Quality and beauty are particularly valued in young people’s music... but [much of] it lacks soul. And soul is all kinds of things: it’s melodrama, it’s humor, it’s human personality,” Castello says. “Of course that’s not what we’re thinking when we’re in a pool of balloons.” But nevertheless, the values expressed still hold.
Familiar since middle school, most of the original five members--including Jose and his close friend Max Johnston (“the only white boy in Miami”)--were a part of the band, Pygmy, before the Southernaires were ever on the radar. A December 2005 Biscayne Boulevard Times article described Pygmy as “a local rock act known for its abrasiveness”--a contrast to their current state. Castello left Pygmy, transferred to Eugene Lang for Literature half way through his sophomore year of college, January 2004 (“for a lack of anything better to do”), and the band shortly dispersed.
While residing in New York, Jose continued to work on some independent music projects, but overall, was “just overcome with nostalgia for the crumminess of home.”
“Overjoyed to return to Miami that summer,” he brought along with him several songs he had written during the course of his absence, and so The Southernaires were born.
They have since done two cross-country tours, released an LP, and as their bio boasts, “earned themselves a great buzz in the ‘D.I.Y’ community.”
“I, myself, am not DIY,” says Castello, “I like taking care of the musical part of it (writing songs, singing, and playing keyboard), but the organizing-even though it means a lot to me--I don’t have the patience for it.”
Looking forward, Castello says, “I do think we have high prospects.” His assurance is clear in his plans to move back to Miami after graduation this May. Jose plans to teach at a Haitian high school. “So I can focus on my band...not my students,” he explains, smiling. The Down Home Southernaires’ self-titled album will be re-released this spring. With 6 additional tracks recorded during their two cross country tours last year, it holds the title “Damn Girl!” and will be available for purchase online through their website (www. downhomesouthernaires.com) and My Space profile mentioned earlier.
(Originally Published April 10. 2006 in Lang Univ.'s Inprint in New York, NY)
- Inprint

Surprising Headway gig and a couple of nights at Kirby's
by Jedd Beaudoin (jbeaudoin@f5wichita.com)
Nothing will ever prepare you for the day/afternoon/evening/night when you have your brains spattered all over the walls of a venue by a kick-in-the-teeth show and last Thursday down at the old Headway Park (sometimes called Headway Skate Park and hereafter Headway) as local boys Paper Airplanes and Solagget returned from conquering the greater part of the Left Coast and as other local boys Arms For Hands and Ricky Fitts prepared for rampant pillaging of the No Coast was no exception. But, as with a Reese's peanut butter cup, it was the stuff in the middle that was especially — and unexpectedly — tantalizing.
In from Miami, ef el ay, the Downhome Southernaires proved a shining example of the good times that music can give you. With catchy gospel/R&B/rock influences going off all over the place like fireworks in an incinerator and tunes that were as catchy as lice in a third grade classroom, the band worked through such fantabulous tunes as "Grandma Was A Christian Woman" and "Way Down Yonder," encouraging members of the audience to dance.
It seemed a little impractical to do the Lambada, White Man's Hustle or Hardcore Fandango in the 1,000 degree heat (people were melting — it was insane) but that didn't stop the Southernaires from dropping their axes, jumping 'round and havin' a good time doing a little rug cutting of their own during one song.
If ever a set was too short, it was the one from this little collective, which hopefully more folks will have a chance to check out (that means you, you older, beer-swilling types who don't want to go stand in no gawddamned freakin' warehouse on a gawddamned freakin' night when you can crack a gawddamned freakin' egg on the sidewalk), once the band returns. Seriously, it's the perfect combination of The Band, the best parts of Three Dog Night and Motown tossed into one heaping and delicious gawddamned freakin' rock 'n' roll salad.
Originally published July 28, 2005 - F5 Alt Music

Art on the Boulevard: Southern Soul in the Subtropics
Posted by: bbtnews on Friday, December 02, 2005 - 11:16 AM
By Matt Gajewski
BBT Contributing Writer
Miami may lie at the foot of Dixie Highway, but the wizened old-timers waiting on porches for the South to rise again are far outnumbered by those waiting for Castro to die.
Amid the palm trees, Cuban cafés, and art deco, Miami seems as far removed from mint juleps and hootenannies as the Alaskan wilderness – just don’t tell the Down Home Southernaires.
A glorious blend of folk, honky-tonk, Motown, and Elvis Costello, the Southernaires’ songs pay homage to the past while simultaneously blazing
uncharted territory, revitalizing Southern music with an undeniable kinetic energy.
Comprising guitarists Max Johnston and Kris Pabon, bassist Jarrett Hann, drummer Jorge Rubiera, and keyboardist/lead vocalist Jose Castello, the band previously played together as Pygmy, a local rock act known for its abrasiveness. When Jose left to study literature in Manhattan his band mates tried to soldier on, but their enthusiasm soon faded.
“Pygmy was kind of on an ultra demise and we were fed up, it was no fun,” says Pabon. “Then Jose came down for the summer, and nonchalantly said, ‘Oh, I have these little songs.’”
Matt Preira, a friend and local promoter, asked Kris and Jose to play at a backyard show in Kendall, so the two reunited with their friends and performed the new material as the Down Home Darky Southernaires, to “get a rise out of the hippie kids,” according to Johnston.
More shows were offered and the band became more serious, dropping the “Darky” and recording a five song EP with Southern Noise Studio engineer Jonathan Nuñez in Jose’s bedroom.
The EP showcased the Southernaires’ affinity for The Band with its backwoods charm, but it proved too twangy for the musicians’ liking.
“As soon as people started making fliers with boots and everything, we knew we wanted to make our music blacker,” says Pabon.
The next album, a tour-only LP recorded in June of 2005, took a large step in this direction. And the in-progress “proper” version promises to be even more soulful, with several songs heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder.
After completing the album, the boys embarked on a summer tour that shot up the East coast to Maine, west to South Dakota, and down through Texas and New Orleans.
Performing both as the Southernaires and the backing band for Gainesville singer-songwriter Rio de La Muerte, they played mostly makeshift venues, barns in Maine and New Jersey, a packed house party in Wichita, and an impromptu show in Peoria with a local band composed of Native Americans and a Jew called the Redmen.
“The thing about shows like that – when the crowd is small, those people will remember,” says Pabon. “It’s easier to blow them away. There’s not much that goes on there.”
The Southernaires have won their share of attention in Miami as well. The local electro-soul duo Awesome New Republic invited them on their January tour of the Southeast and their label, Sutro, plans to include the Southernaires on an upcoming compilation.
“They’re the least pretentious band,” says Sutro founder Lauren Reskin. “They just want to funk you up.”
Despite their love for touring and spreading the music to kids in the sticks, the Southernaires will always have a warm spot in their hearts for Miami.
“Miami is endless material,” says Pabon. “Being from Miami, when we go around we realize our mentality is so different from America. This isn’t America – it’s like the fall of the Roman Empire.”
Hopefully Miami won’t burn like Rome, but if it does at least we’ll have a first-rate band to do the fiddling.
For more on the Southernaires, visit www.downhomesouthernaires.com
BBT
- Biscayne Boulevard Times

Yeehaw Junction
Down Home Southernaires
BY JONATHAN ZWICKEL
If you thought Iron and Wine's sleepytime hush was out of place coming from Miami, you'll be shocked at the true-blue, back porch country wail of the Down Home Southernaires. Composed of members of part-time experimental jazz-rockers Pygmy, the Southernaires' boot scoot boogie creaks and twangs with old yokel vocals, tender fiddle, electric and acoustic strumming, and gothic organ. Frankly, it's a stylistic 180, but there's enough reverence for the old-time religion -- that is, traditional Americana groups like the Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers revived -- to keep the Southernaires from slipping into indie-rock irony. Their newer material digs into the Southern soul vein of Booker T and the MGs, a great counterpoint for their original moonshine boondoggle. Keep an eye out for their upcoming album, and don't forget that these backwoods hayseeds come from the streets of the Magic City.
From newtimesbpb.com
Originally published by New Times Broward-Palm Beach Jun 16, 2005
©2005 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.

- ©2005 New Times, Inc

The Down Home Southernaires
Summer 2005 Tour Self-Release LP Review
by Josh Arcurio
The Down Home Southernaires push a dust-coated red truck to the I-95 ENDS
sign and out towards the intersection of country, bluegrass, and soul that lays somewhere in the plains of this country’s geography, picking up what they can along the way.
Reflective of the Miami life pace, the trip takes a while to hit cruising speed, but by the start of the fourth track "Seashell,” the band is jamming along, jovially and spirited. "Seashell" follows a protagonist from Miami's manatee-filled waters to the desert sands, leaving the person to stumble upon the sort of loneliness where the only escape is death - but I promise it's not even as slightly depressing as this reads.
In the tradition of American roots music, Down Home Southernaires mine Christian faith with punchy key-work by main vocalist Humberto Castello, and lace it with handclaps and backing vocals. This is never more apparent than on the traditional "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray.” They follow it immediately with a bouncing version of the Flying Burrito Brothers' "Train Song" before rounding out the record with two of DHS' best originals. "Oncology" finds the singer personifying a cancer (not the zodiac kind) that’d "rather be malignant than indignantly benign," and is so catchy about it that even Kylie would be singing along.
"Thank You for Sharing" brings us home, the musical version of those goodbye hugs on the last day of camp (awww), to neatly summarize the album in less than three minutes of rollicking, and hinting at the band's growth with a trumpet during the final build-up.
Miami’s DHS are taking familiar sounds and making a new, young sound all their own; you can peg elements of their songs to other artists (a Robert Cray guitar lick here, some Brother Jack McDuffish organ there), but on whole this Summer Tour LP (they are now on Lauren Reskin’s local Sutro imprint) escapes being labeled derivative with raw bedroom-esque production, earnest lyrical turns, and genuinely memorable tunes. If you like Violent Femmes and you like American music, pick up the Down Home Southernaires.
Originally published in Ignore Magazine (www.ignoremagazine.com) in April, 2006. - Ignore Magazine