live @ the Black Cat 9.22.2000
High quality digital samplers have become more and more affordable over the past decade, making what was once a tool of big-budget acts a part of the sonic arsenals of more and more independent bands. One of the most ingenious outfits to make use of the technology are New York City instrumental dynamos Drums and Tuba, who sampled masterfully during their invigorating show at the Black Cat Friday night.
Drums and Tuba have a guitar player, too, and stringbender Neal Mckeeby is central to the trio’s melodic and sampling concerns. Along with tuba-man Brian Wolff (who is burly enough to handle his b-flat behemoth without looking like he may have a double hernia at any moment), Mckeeby states a phrase, captures it in his sampler and plays it back in a loop, freeing him to play other chords or melodies. Wolff’s tuba often takes the bass role, but his second lines, twisted and squeezed by electronics, often sound like a synthesizer or keyboard. Funky drummer Anthony Nozero’s whipcrack beats propels the whole conglomeration into a swinging sound that is a giddy combination of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Booker T & the MGs and sterling instrumental band Pell Mell.
Friday night marked the final show of Drums and Tuba’s winter tour (they spent much of the year opening for diehard fan Ani DiFranco) and the band churned with a combination of relief and adrenaline, converting the 50 or so folks who had hung around for a set that actually began early Saturday morning. The group balanced older material with previews of their upcoming album “Vinyl Killer”, in the process affirming their status a wholly original and groovy live act, who should be placed at the top of any thinking-fan’s list of must-see live acts in 2001.
Washington Post, September 2000
