The Armadillos
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The Armadillos

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Band Americana Punk

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"Multi-Instrumentalist Sheila Liming Pulls Double-Duty -- And Then Some"

OCTOBER 14, 2010
Multi-instrumentalist Sheila Liming pulls double duty -- and then some

BY AARON JENTZEN


When The Armadillos took the stage Thursday at Lava Lounge, it was hard to believe they didn't have a drummer. But their driving rhythms were just acoustic guitar and mandolin, plus rippling, percussive upright bass. Atop that foundation, the local folk band managed a surprising variety, in part due to multi-instrumentalist Sheila Liming, who switches between accordion and tin whistle and shares vocal and songwriting duties with Austin Vanasdale.

Liming's instrumental and stylistic range doesn't stop there. A founding member of local Celtic band Callán, she also plays some classical piano, the "world's shittiest guitar," and her primary instrument, the bagpipes.

A Seattle native, Liming played in punk bands (and bagpipe bands) before moving here four years ago for graduate school at Carnegie Mellon. She "didn't know anybody" in Pittsburgh, she says, but soon found her way into the music scene. Folk sessions at Murphy's Tap Room in Regent Square introduced her to musicians who would eventually form Callán in 2007; last week, the group released its debut album, The Road to Fort Duquesne.

Then in early 2009, she met the already active Armadillos, by answering a Craigslist ad for a female singer. The band had formed in Butler, playing traditional music, before relocating to Pittsburgh in 2005 and focusing on original songs.

"We just got lucky," says Vanasdale, of Liming's instrumental skills. "The ad was just for vocals."

A consequence of Liming playing in both The Armadillos and Callán is cross-pollination between the groups. Blending the Appalachian and Celtic styles "is not intentional, but it's bound to happen," she says. "Those overlaps are so numerous anyway."

A second consequence is her relentless performance schedule -- sometimes several shows a week. She estimates Callán plays about once a month, but The Armadillos play a lot more, especially at their home base, Howlers Coyote Café, in Bloomfield.

"We try to play at least one show a week," says Vanasdale. While many local original acts find it difficult to keep an audience interested when playing so often, Vanasdale says it works well -- as long as they mix it up. Opening for rock, ragtime and other types of bands, he says, has "allowed us to grow our audience."

This week, catch The Armadillos Thu., Oct. 14, opening for The Two Man Gentlemen Band, and Sun., Oct. 17, hosting The Whiskey Social with Holy Ghost Tent Revival, both at Howlers Coyote Café in Bloomfield. For details, visit www.myspace.com/pittsburgharmadillos. For upcoming Callán shows, visit www.myspace.com/wholelottaruckus. - Pittsburgh City Paper


"The Armadillos roll rootsy sounds up into tight ball"

The Armadillos roll rootsy sounds up into tight ball
Preview
Thursday, September 02, 2010
By Manny Theiner
Kathryn Stabile
The Armadillos have evolved into an "old-time" band.

How does an indie rocker gain entry to the world of old-time roots music? The answer for guitarist Austin Vanasdale was simple -- start a band with a banjo player.

With Butler High school chums Matt Rychorcewicz and Eric Rodgers (the banjoist in question), Mr. Vanasdale moved into a South Side house and christened their band The Armadillos.

"We'd all been in rock bands previously," recalls Mr. Vanasdale. "I wrote songs by myself for a while. When I was younger, I was into indie artists like Bright Eyes and Sufjan Stevens. When I started playing with Matt and Eric, they introduced me to traditional music -- first the Kingston Trio, then Pete Seeger and Patsy Cline, then it got more old-timey like Hank Williams."

Mr. Rychorcewicz bought a mandolin and began learning it in earnest. The buddies scoured thrift stores and Jerry's Records for Cline and Williams records. He noted that unlike in bluegrass or newer roots music, where the mandolin might serve as a melodic or solo instrument, on older records the rhythm and fill elements were more prominent.

"The backing instruments aren't as important compared to the vocals, which are front and center as a storytelling [device]."

Gradually, The Armadillos evolved into an "old-time" band appropriate for the elegantly waxed handlebar mustache Mr. Vanasdale had cultivated.
The Armadillos

With: Mon River Ramblers and Now You See Them.

Where: Howlers Coyote Cafe, Bloomfield.

When: 9 p.m. Saturday.

Tickets: $5, 412-682-0320.

"I always talked about it in high school, how I should grow a handlebar," he says. "There was this old guy who hung out at the Butler Eat'n Park and talked to us young kids smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. He had a pretty decent-sized mustache, so I was inspired by that."

The departure of Mr. Rogers' banjo paved the way for another singer and songwriter to join the group.

"I responded to their Craigslist ad looking for a vocalist," remembers Sheila Liming, the co-founder of traditional Celtic band Callán. "I said, 'I can also play the accordion, are you interested in that?' They said yes, so I entered into a dual capacity. After a year, I started to contribute some of my own songs, so these days [Austin and I] write about half and half."

Both songwriters in the band deal with similar basic themes -- dark lyrics with bouncy melodies. The songs are often dour in subject matter, "like the Donner Party, or the Yorktown battle from the Revolutionary War," adds Ms. Liming. "Some themes are from contemporary life, like domestic abuse ['Eleanor'] or labor issues ['Working Man's Wages']."

The self-titled, DIY-pressed debut CD, which The Armadillos will release Saturday at Howlers, also includes "Crop Circles," which is about a malcontent with a short temper and itchy trigger finger, rather than spooky alien phenomena from a M. Night Shyamalan flick. Stand-up bassist Chuck Shrever, moved up from Florida with a background in punk and rockabilly and became the final piece of the puzzle.

"He worked with my friend at Church Brew Works," Mr. Rychorcewicz said. "I mentioned I was in an old-time band, and he mentioned being a bassist. I talked to Austin, who said 'Call him right now!' All of our friends played electric bass -- the upright was almost unheard-of."

On "Yorktown," Ms. Liming borrows Emerald Isle flair from Callån with her deft tin whistle playing ("a room-friendly version of the bagpipes"), capping off the lengthy production of the CD, which took nearly a year to assemble from recordings at McKeesport's Soundscape studio, where Anti-Flag did its most recent album.

"It was an adventure for them," recalls Mr. Vanasdale. "They told us they'd never done an acoustic band that was all strings and accordion."

Bengt Alexander, Howlers' house soundman, mastered the result to balance out the parts and make the group sound as live as possible. Male and female vocals mesh with the accordion, while the guitar and mandolin add intricate melodic interplay to the mix. The low-end thump of the upright bass, however, hits listeners in the gut.

"Chuck makes it easier for people to dance to our music," Mr. Vanasdale says. "We don't need a drummer because he's our percussion -- he even slaps the bass sometimes."

With groups like The Avett Brothers attracting a large, crossover audience, the time seems right for a Pittsburgh act like The Armadillos to grab similar reins.

"I think we're easily relatable to a younger crowd," Mr. Vanasdale says. "There's recently been a revival of not just folk, but [roots music] all across the board, and we fit into that."

"I've noticed the variety of bands we get put on bills with, ranging from punk and rockabilly to bands that are, compared to us, very electric like Southern rock," adds Ms. Liming. "We find ourselves playing with bands who plug in, even though we're still an entirely acoustic outfit."

Yet on their touring jaunts, The Armadillos also have been a hit with "geriatrics" in the South. "In Asheville, North Carolina, we do well among an elderly population that wants to hear traditional-sounding songs and put money in our case," says Ms. Liming.

"We strike a chord with them," adds Mr. Rychorcewicz, "since this is old-time music. There's a lot of bluegrass purism down there -- you'll see people play fiddle like you've never seen in your life."

So far, The Armadillos' touring luck has held, with only one or two poorly attended shows, and the out-of-town crowds are generally responsive. They graced the airwaves of Carnegie Mellon's WRCT-FM and the legendary community radio show, the Saturday Light Brigade, hosted by Larry Berger. But their ultimate goal, with a new product to sell, is the festival circuit -- not the jam-band fests so much as the folk events.

"They can be quite competitive, but I think that'd be a really good scene for us, because our music tends to appeal to a range of ages from young and old," says Ms. Liming. "The only thing is, the folk people might say we're too [lyrically] depressing for them."

With cannibalism and gunplay already in the can, will hangings and beheadings be far behind? "Well, we have a gallows song, but it's not on the CD," Mr. Vanasdale adds. "Give us time, though, and we might come up with a song about the history of the guillotine."

Manny Theiner is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10245/1084256-388.stm#ixzz1Af7W3dI6
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Discography

"Armadillos" (self-titled EP; 2010).

"The Donner Party" single; play on WYEP (Pittsburgh), WRCT (Pittsburgh), WCDB (Albany, NY).

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Bio

The Armadillos started with a couple of guys from Butler County, PA (the once-crowned "Fattest County in America"). A bass played named Chuck, an accordionist-vocalist named Sheila, and a city named Pittsburgh completed the rest of the picture for The Armadillos. They're a fast-paced, melodic, Appalachian-influenced ensemble that, in less than a year, has found a firm niche in both local and not-so-local music scenes. They take pride in versatility, splitting show bills with anything from punk bands to bluegrass groups, and generally getting along with everyone in the process. They boast a wide audience appeal, winning the hearts of both nostalgic senior citizens (as the citizens of Asheville, NC will attest) and rowdy young things (as the regulars at Howler's Coyote Cafe -- their Pittsburgh local -- will enthusiastically agree).

Also look for us on myspace: myspace.com/pittsburgharmadillos