Underneath Your Umbrella

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		A Couple More Raindrops	5:34	Play
2		Rockingchair	3:12	Play
3		She Went Pretty	4:58	Play
4		On the Rail	5:31	Play
5		Almost Sara Chestnut	4:33	Play
6		Drag Me Under	3:44	Play
7		A Warm Drink and An Old Friend	4:22	Play
8		The Radio	4:45	Play
9		33	4:24	Play
10		Echo	4:06	Play
11		Private Parts	1:32	Play
12		Spiders in My Breakfast	1:57	Play
13		Umbrella	3:05	Play
14		Come Back Down	3:08	Play
15		Lullaby #7	2:22	Play

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Description

The Harmonica Pocket....put it in your ear!

If you enjoy leaving a loud-ass rock club smelling like cigarettes with the sensation of your ears burning off your face then you will probably hate The Harmonica Pocket. All others, please say "howdy" to Seattle band The Harmonica Pocket.

The Harmonica Pocket is a deliciously unusual recipe for music with minimal ingredients: guitar, drums, words, and a harmonica. The avante-pop-jazz tunes consciously play with notions of space between the instruments, giving a distinct and important voice to each instrument as it drops in and out of the delicate mix. Players are encouraged *not* to play the entire song and the result is a highly dynamic, low volume, un-crowded sound that will put a smile on your ears.

The Harmonica Pocket is all about coloring outside the lines and invites listeners for a warm drink with fresh, colorful sounds. The well-crafted, intelligent songs showcase a sassy wah-wah distorted acoustic guitar, a drummer who plays a half conga / half drum kit with his bare hands, and pretty vocal and harmonica melodies catchier than a velcro shoe. Stylistically, the songs cover much ground. Consider "On The Rail," a bluesy tale documenting the final 5 minutes of a downhearted man's life as he lays his head on a railroad track and waits for the next train to come. From the playful "Spiders In My Breakfast," a children's song written from the perspective of a spider as she tickles her way from a bowl of cereal through the inner workings of an unlucky eater's digestive system, to the pop-jazzy tune "A Couple More Raindrops," which uses hand claps and tapped harmonics to simulate raindrops, The Harmonica Pocket builds lyrical and musical images with a strong sense of fluency and purpose.

The Harmonica Pocket walks the curb between rehearsed material and spontaneous music by regularly inviting local Seattle and Vancouver musicians to sit in at live performances and in the studio. Such an undertaking forces the players to listen and interact musically rather than just reiterating pre-arranged parts. The impromptu collection of players combined with a natural tendency to take an improvised musical stroll results in diverse, raw tunes which are rarely delivered the same way twice. The Harmonica Pocket's debut release titled "Underneath Your Umbrella" takes musical risks and captures this sound over the course of the 15 tracks. From beatbox and standup bass, to harmonica and didgeridoo, The Harmonica Pocket combines untraditional instruments and pulls it off with refreshing results.

But don't just rely on the written word and deny yourself the aural experience, put The Harmonica Pocket in your ear.


The Harmonica Pocket is:
Keeth Monta Apgar - geetar, words, harmonica
Lorne Watson - percussion

Keeth Monta Apgar - geetar, words, harmonica, kalimba

Born an East Coast kid, Keeth Monta Apgar has been making noise ever since discovering the pots and pans his mother keeps beneath the stove. He quit the trombone at 13 because it hindered get-aways from those local bullies who routinely chased him, picked up the guitar at 14, and has been playing ever since.

Keeth writes, records, and performs a massive amount of music. In addition to over 200 song compositions, he has also co-authored a rock opera called "The Jigsaw Dog" - the story of a cardboard dog who comes to life after his last puzzle piece is put into place, and wanders the country in search of the person who put him together. Imagine a modern Americana version of "It's a Wonderful Life" crossed with "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" with a playful pop-jazz soundtrack by Frank Zappa - this, in essence, is The Jigsaw Dog.

Among other exploits, Keeth holds a B.A. in Ethnomusicology from Mary Washington College in Virginia, spent 6 months studying the didgeridoo in Australia, and is currently learning to play the kalimba - an African instrument also called the mbira or thumb piano. In January 2002 Keeth was invited to attend the Lester Sill's Songwriting Workshop hosted by ASCAP in Hollywood. Keeth also collects lamps older than him, owns a strange-canned food collection with bizarre delicacies including "kung-fu mushrooms" and "grass jelly"; and is not embarrassed to cite Eddie Van Halen as a major musical influence.

Keeth can be regularly found wearing enormous straw hats, carrying a harmonica around in his pocket, and strumming up a tune in Seattle or Vancouver.


Lorne Watson - percussion

Lorne Watson was banging on stuff before he had teeth. After moving on to solid foods, he got his first drum at 2 years old and has gone on to study music as a life long endeavor. After high school, Lorne continued his percussion studies with Robert Hohner at Central Michigan University where he graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Music Education and Percussion Performance. In music school, Lorne worked on an enormous list of Western instruments and really got to know the percussion instruments. From the marimba to the dulcimer, congas to timpani, Lorne got to play them all.

The foundation for Lorne's bang-your-hands-on-different-stuff trademark was laid during rehersals for "Far More Drums," one of 6 albums Lorne recorded with The Robert Hohner Percussion Ensemble. Lorne says, "The director wanted us to do a trash can piece, and one day as we were unloading timpani, I started playing the crates like congas and the light in my head lit up." Lorne and his conspirators went on to compose "Crates," a piece played on music stands, chairs, timpani crates, and pickle buckets - which conveniently, when on the road and without a roadie, meant less gear to haul around. Lorne's unique style has evolved to include a hybrid half drum / half congo drum kit played with brushes, mallets, and his bare hands.

In Michigan, Lorne had the high honor of being a classroom teacher for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. The "High Spirit Drum" honored him with an invitation to sit at pow-wows and sacred ceremonies. Around this time Lorne was locally famous for getting air in his tan 1982 Chevette, once landing it in a ditch. Realizing he was tired of scraping ice and snow from his beat up car, Lorne headed west to Seattle.

Lorne is currently a percussion instructor at the Seattle Drum School and is involved in a handful of musical projects including The Harmonica Pocket. Lorne's list of musical influences begins with 80s metal bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica, and spans to include the likes of 20th century composers Stravinsky and Bartok, the classic rock of Hendrix, and the jazz styles of Max Roach and Mongo Santamaria. His favorite food is mashed potatoes drowning in butter and gravy, which he washes down with a Coca-Cola and a glass of rum for dessert.

These days, Lorne can be found accepting applications for roadies, smoking Winstons, and tapping out a melody on his snare drum.