Search - Mercury Dimes :: Dime-O-Mite!

Fantastically spirited and twangy old time music

BG Guy | SF Bay Area, California | 05/24/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are an old timey music fan, this is your time (mine too). Over the last 30 or 40 years, the successive influences of the New Lost City Ramblers, the Hollow Rock (and also) Fuzzy Mountain String Bands, Garcia (under Grisman's influence), T-Bone Burnett-produced movie soundtracks, and who knows what else have given rise to the restoration of this important music to the musical sphere. The San Francisco Bay area seems to have more than its share, with the Stairwell Sisters, the Crooked Jades, the Roadoilers, and very lately, the Mercury Dimes. Their music seems to borrow heavily from the Carter Family and the world of 1920s string band novelty instrumentals. This CD ring outs with its alternating vocal and instrumental numbers. The use of twin fiddles gives the music a lush sound, though the pitch seems authentically (but not obnoxiously) inexact. Buried a little deeper in the mix are well-played mandolin and melodic clawhammer banjo lines, driving stand-up bass, and ukeleles. Stylistically, this music is about repetition, seemingly endless grab-your-partner loops run around the same melodic elements, kind of like bluegrass but without that annoying virtuosic instrumental variation. If this music is your cup of tea, this group should be your next course."