The Sonic River of Humble Digs (STUDIO CONCERT VIDEO)
by Jody Jenkins
There’s something revelatory about those moments when you step into a situation with your head full of pigeonholes only to come away with a completely new appreciation for the notion of leaving your baggage at the door. It opens you back up to all the possibilities.
From what little I had heard of them, I had imagined Humble Digs to be something of a Dead Head tribute band, wandering hippie minstrels keeping the dream alive by roaming the bars and low dives and festivals of the Pioneer Valley on lost weekends to the delight of that seemingly endless river of Jerry Garcia fans.
The mystique of music is its almost zen power to bring you into the moment. Like love or tragedy or travel, music stakes claim to immediate emotional ground in a way few things do. And these four guys take you on a sonic journey as lived experience, into a soundscape that feels expansive and unexpected and wholly their own.
But Chris Fonte, who’s a big fan, kept saying just how special these guys were. As they plugged up for their session for Live At The Grid, they had the focus of a band come ready to play. And when guitarist and leader Jake Slater stepped to the mic in his bare feet and hat askew, they eased into a set that quickly evolved into something altogether unforgettable. The summersong ballad opening of “Montauk” slowly wound into George Condon’s agile fretwork over Jake’s full-throated highway guitar as Ryan Fess’ and Henry Condon’s tight bass and driving drums corralled the whole thing in. The sound unfurled with abandon through multiple seamless breaks and surprising tempo changes that kept you off balance like a kid on a carnival ride. All the while Jake was out front, singing and hammering his guitar, divining the sound with his body language and wearing the easy smile of someone at one with what they’re doing. It was nimble and powerful and accomplished and they left everything out there on the floor.
The mystique of music is its almost zen power to bring you into the moment. Like love or tragedy or travel, music stakes claim to immediate emotional ground in a way few things do in life. And these four guys take you on a sonic journey as lived experience, into a soundscape that feels expansive and unexpected and wholly their own. With a pair of doubled-barreled guitarists fronting a badass bassist and drummer, they slide from nuanced reflections into full-bore, pedal-to-the-metal leadouts and long, winding turns and dives on the tremelo that warp the sound through hairpin transitions. This band has chops and the originality they bring makes you feel like you’re discovering something new about the world. And because what they do can be so in your face, you don’t simply find yourself waiting for the moment you can suspend your disbelief and go with the flow as much as just hoping somehow that what you’ve suddenly found yourself caught up in doesn’t end before you can get a handle on what’s actually happening. Recognizing what they had just put us through after the first song for Live At The Grid, Jake promised to slow things down a bit so we could catch up.
They call it “warm psych pop folk funk,” influenced by Radiohead, Tame Impala and the Dead. But categories don’t really capture their range. There’s traces of Mark Knopfler, The Allman Brothers Band and Santana (brothers from different mothers) in there as well, touching wide references without being derivative. There’s even some Steely Dan and bits of wa wa and sqwak box. It takes a while to find your footing because they lay down rhythms and suddenly shift gear and speed off down a side road destined for somewhere else. It’s a bit like walking on slippery rocks in a river of sound.
“Now we’re kind of hitting a point where we have a better idea what we’re going for,” Henry said. “We’re more out for a specific thing.”
That “in the moment” thing Humble Digs brings to their shows has been both a blessing and a curse and it’s something they’ve been trying to come to terms with. They’ve gotten a reputation as a jam band and drummer Henry Condon said it’s boxed them in some respects. They were way more experimental in their earlier days, pulling a thread and then everyone was off to the races to see where it led. And you can see it in shows they did for UMass television and others: They were more unabashedly “Dead,” with the multi-colored glasses, necktie headbands and a follow-your-bliss ethos of a group feeling it’s way along because they hadn’t quite figured out who they were.
“Now we’re kind of hitting a point where we have a better idea what we’re going for,” Henry said. “We’re more out for a specific thing.”
And that “thing” has the elements of the free flow of a jam, but much more polished and powerful and purposeful. George, Henry’s brother, plays a Gretsch that at times sounds like a Knopfleresque guitar and a Hammond organ at once, which gives the music a more multidimensional feel. The focus and agility he brings is mesmerizing and he stands on stage as though he’s about to draw down on somebody … when he’s really about to draw down on everybody. Jake, aside from songwriting and singing duties, brings his own virtuosity, and together the two guitars compliment and play off of one another. Jake said what the band does on stage has a throwdown element where they’re trying to “shit” on one another to up the ante. And that playful back at ya creates personality in the music. You find yourself looking around to see who’s going to do what next.
Like his brother, Henry’s intensity and precision reveal a demanding musician who’s honed his craft. He’s taken the broad range of influences the band has been swimming in and boiled them down into a set of skills that contain everything from the subtlety of jazz to lighter, ballad fare to the sudden impact of rock, all of which they might go through in a single song. And then there’s Ryan, who not long ago was the bassist for the Luke DeRoy Trio, one of those three-piece bands that have a sound so much bigger than their size. Ryan plays just under the front edge of the music, laying down lines like drop shadows to the intricate twists and turns the band runs through in any given set. Then suddenly his sound emerges out of the background, pounding the room. Being a good bassist requires an unusual blend of selflessness and brashness, a willingness to undergird the work of others and then to step up and show. Watching him, you quickly begin to understand how bass is so elemental to what any band does.
George, Henry and Jake make up part of the original group that formed around six years ago and Ryan joined about a year ago. At their core,they’ve been playing together for so long, they have such an intimate sense of where they are in the sound and their collective devotion to this whole emanating from it that they can simply let go and jump off a cliff. It gives the music a sense of sonic inevitability and beauty.
“We’re just trying to make it work,” George says, to which Jake chimes in “I’m trying not to work,” and they all laughed. They’ve found a following but are trying to break through the ceiling of being a local band to tap into a wider audience. They have college loans to pay and outside jobs, working to keep their dream alive while navigating the complexities of the “real world.” George is a residential case worker in Greenfield doing short-term assessment for rapid reintegration for kids who get pulled out of where they live. Henry works at UMass in Residence Education and Ryan is working as a behavior therapist for kids with autism. Jake spends a lot of his time handling the band’s bookings … and he says he’s a serious mulcher.
“Right now we’re all just trying to make sure we have enough time to get together and do this,” Henry said. They all try to keep as many evenings and weekends free to practice and play gigs.
The name Humble Digs grew out of the first compilations Jake recorded when he was living in a tiny apartment that barely fit all of his stuff: “Humble Digs,” as the Brits say. He was pursuing ‘sound-dynamic’ songs that were expansive and personal and that can manage to be tender and gentle while grooving super hard and loud. It seems as a group they’ve reached that bar, but the name is ironic because the musical digs these guys inhabit are anything but humble.
Jody Jenkins is the writer and filmmaker from Northampton. He is Director of Field Production for Amherst Media and Editor of The Collective.
