The Racquette

Issue date: 5/8/09 Section: A&E

Media Credit: Nestor Diaz Gutbucket performs their signature high-energy, genre-bending music at Galaxy Hut in Arlington, VA.

The word "gutbucket," although now a somewhat obsolete term, might conjure up the image of a clunky, homemade washtub bass and the raw, raucous early New Orleans jazz associated with it. NYC-based band Gutbucket stays true to the barrelhouse implications of its name, but tends to avoid being pigeonholed by any genre-specific stereotypes. Gutbucket has brought its musically rabble-rousing sentiments into the 21st century through a unique juxtaposition of every genre from jazz to punk to neo-Classicism. They have declared musical warfare, "destroying walls between art-rock, avant-squonk, and mathed-out prog," so they say on their website bio.

Breaking musical assumptions

The quartet consists of Ken Thomson on saxophone, Ty Citerman on guitar, Eric Rockwin on bass and Adam Gold on drums. Just reciting the instrumentation, and calling it a quartet, probably brings some assumptions to mind. "People have a sense that if there's a band that's saxophone, guitar, bass, drums-if you tell them that's what the band is and that it's instrumental, they have a certain guess or expectation for what that's going to be and they're thinking jazz; they're thinking people kind of standing still and looking a little bored, and being really, like, overly intellectual. I guess what I love to do with Gutbucket is not do that. Really, do my best to make it a show. Really try to connect with people with instrumental music, which is kind of a hard thing to do because it's not always clear," elucidated Ken Thomson, saxophonist of Gutbucket.

With their rebellious approach to instrumental chamber music (literally, music to be enjoyed in an intimate setting), the gents of Gutbucket risk alienating haughty classical music lovers and young punks alike. That is a risk they are willing to take. Thomson clarified his goals, "I want to…kind of bring instrumental music and instrumental music with a saxophone into places, into people's heads, where they kind of wouldn't expect it and in a way they wouldn't think about it." Gutbucket accomplishes the unexpected on every record, sometimes with "rabid genre-switching" (as Thomson called it) and other times by juxtaposing asymmetrical rhythmic meters. One thing is for certain: Gutbucket's music will take you on a veritable rollercoaster of sound.

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