Black Swans expected to float through Donkey Coffee performance
By Kristin Nehls, Staff Writer
April 25, 2008 | 11 a.m.
If the uglier the duckling means the more beautiful the swan, then Columbus-based band Black Swans must have had a rather ugly start. The band's music currently boasts the same unique beauty as the old folk tale's outcome.
Creating a unique fusion between folk music and bluesy melodies, The Black Swans will perform at Donkey Coffee and Espresso this Friday, coming to Athens from their hometown of Columbus. Currently consisting of members Jerry DeCicca, Noel Sayre, Canaan Faulkner and Brian Jones, The Black Swans are an ever-changing landscape of musical merit that is sure to liven up Ohio University’s campus this upcoming weekend.
The Black Swans will perform a compilation of songs that pull from their three albums, focusing primarily on their most recent project, Change!, which was released this past fall. Additional records include the Sex Brain E.P. from March of 2006 and their 2004 album, Who Will Walk in the Darkness With You?
Each particular album has a unique sound that remains consistent in the band’s overall style but shows a definite transformation between CD releases. Much of this change can be attributed to the band’s “shedding a little skin,” as lead singer Jerry DeCicca referred to it.
“The music seems to change and grow as we do with age and life experiences," DeCicca said. "Records and songs are nice ways to keep track of time and place, like a musical calendar. Like all people, the more experiences you have, the more you are likely to change."
Violinist Noel Sayre and lead singer/guitarist Jerry DeCicca have been playing together for 13 years. Throughout the past seven or eight years, DeCicca and Sayre cycled through a plethora of other musicians in order to find the perfect combination of talent to best suit the jive that The Black Swans emit through music. DeCicca and Sayre are the only people who have consistently played on all three Black Swans albums.
Bass player Canaan Faulkner has been with The Black Swans for the past three years, thus appearing on the band's past two releases. Brian Jones, the newest addition to the band, has not yet made an appearance on any of the band’s CDs. However, he will be playing drums on the newest release, the recording of which is set to begin next month, DeCicca said.
Despite the obvious evolution that has occurred between Who Will Walk in the Darkness With You? and Change!, the one thing that The Black Swans have consistently upheld is their obvious negligence to simply give in to societal standards of what indie, emo or folk music should be. According to the band's Last.fm page, all three genres have been used to describe The Black Swans' musical stylings. Nevertheless, the band persistently defies conventional labels by combining different genres and sounds to reap a final product of complete individuality.
Much of this individuality comes from the variety that each member brings to the band's overall sound. Bass player Cannan is also a member of a band who focuses on parlor songs from the 1940s, DeCicca said. Sayre is a member of a traditional orchestra while DeCicca has an interest in roots music and contemporary poetry. All of these elements can be discerned within the heart of The Black Swans’ music, and each contributes to the imperative aspect of an evading musical personality.
While the band is currently based out of Columbus, The Black Swans’ visit to Athens is sure to conjure memories for Sayre, Faulkner and Jones, all three of whom are Ohio University graduates and will be experiencing the OU music scene from the other side of the spectrum for the very first time.
The Black Swans have a resume that boasts of sharing the stage with bands such as Akron Family and Mi and L’au. Given the band’s unparalleled take on modern folk and blues, its future looks just as prosperous. Besides the promise of a fourth album, which will be soon in the making, DeCicca has an album coming out in May that was produced last summer with Larry Jon Wilson, a 1970s “bona fide member of the country music ‘outlaw’ movement,” according to The Journal of American Roots Music.
“I never thought I would ever get to see this man play and now I get to produce with him,” DeCicca said.
The Black Swans are adamant about the idea that sharing music is not a conscious choice -- it is simply done for the sake of musical expansion and creativity. The band is compelling in its entirely interpersonal process of creating music and expressing it to the audiences simply for the sake of art.
“[We] really do create it for [ourselves] and then throw it out into the world and hope it sticks somewhere," DeCicca said. "We tour, play big towns and small towns, so we are doing what we can to reach an audience.”
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The Black Swans will play a 9 p.m. show with Russenorsk this Friday, April 25 at Donkey Coffee and Espresso.