Date/Time
Date(s) - Friday, December 28, 2018
7:30 pm
Location
The Parlor Room
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Doors at 7:00 / Show at 7:30
Tickets: $20 / available online here
David Wax Museum
“Suz and I started this band as friends,” says David Wax, “but now we’re married and have a child and have our family on the road with us. The stakes are different.” Those stakes are what lie at the heart of David Wax Museum’s fourth and boldest studio album to date, Guesthouse. It’s the sound of a band reconciling the accountability of marriage and parenthood with the uncertainty and challenges of life on the road; of coming to terms with the limitations of the “folk” tag that launched their career and pushing past it into uncharted musical territory; of reimagining their entire approach in the studio to capture the magic and the bliss of their live show. In typical David Wax Museum fashion, the songs on Guesthouse are simplistic and sophisticated, elegant and plainspoken all at once. Rather than succumbing to the weight of the newfound responsibilities that landed on their doorstep, the band has leaned into the challenges to capture a brilliant portrait of the messy beauty of it all. The roots of David Wax Museum stretch back nearly a decade, and all the way from New England to Mexico. As a student at Harvard, Wax began traveling south of the border to study and immerse himself in the country’s traditional music and culture. Back in Boston, he met fiddler/singer Suz Slezak, whose love of traditional American and Irish folk music fused with Wax’s Mexo-Americana into a singular, energetic blend that captivated audiences and critics alike. Their 2010 breakout performance at the Newport Folk Festival made them the most talked-about band of the weekend, with NPR hailing them as “pure, irresistible joy.” They released a trio of albums that earned escalating raves everywhere from SPIN and Entertainment Weekly (who described them as sounding “like Andrew Bird with a Mexican folk bent”) to the New York Times and The Guardian (which dubbed the music “global crossover at its best”). They earned an invitation to return to Newport, this time on the main stage, as well as dates supporting The Avett Brothers, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Buena Vista Social Club, and more.
Dave Dersham
In his 20s, he spent a hot, dry summer working Dornan’s chuck wagon beneath the purple of the Grand Tetons; taught Environmental Ed among the ponderosa pines of the Black Hills; trekked the sage with underserved youth in southern Idaho; and explored the cultures of Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.
By his 30s, the muse pulled Dave to the luster of the Cambridge folk scene where he completed his first CD, “The Burn of Summer.” The album enjoyed regular airtime on folk radio’s WUMB, Emerson College’s WERS, and produced a finalist selection for Mountain Stage’s Emerging Artist competition.
His second album, “Gilding the Lilies” was recorded with the assistance of Lloyd Thayer’s unorthodox lap-steele, as well as the shrewd production of Jared Fiske. The CD was released in the fall of 2011 and was distributed internationally. He is currently working on an CD to be released in 2018.