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Lefty at the Washout didn’t begin as a band. The members were just having fun.
“It started out as just wanting to have a good time, and hearing the songs we wanted to hear,” said Charles Wilkie, the band’s singer.
The band’s early practices in 2007, a few held on Headliners’ stage and open to the public, was a way for the band to get together with friends. Almost two years later, Lefty at the Washout will release its debut CD, “Forty to Five.”
And it sounds like a real band.
Lefty, which includes Barry Hicks (drums), Rob Grookett (saxophone/keyboards), Jay Foster (bass), Jonohn Taylor (turntables) and Stan Laraque (guitar), plays a sun-soaked blend of reggae and rock. But there are also some heavier rock songs.
The tunes were made for the beach, a day on the lake or for casting a line from a pier.
“We have so many different influences,” Wilkie said. “The music is everywhere. And that’s the way we like it.”
The music, it must be said, is also similar to the blue-eyed reggae of bands such as Slightly Stoopid.
But Lefty separates itself by not taking its music too seriously. Songs such as “Can’t Come Out” and the title track are summed up by a line in the latter: “kickin’ back and enjoying this life.”
And have you noticed the CD title?
The music was produced by Cory Plaugh, a local producer who plays in Justin Smith & the Folk Hop Band. Wilkie said Plaugh helped Lefty find its stride.
“He’s one of the best producers that I have seen,” he said.
Many who follow the local music scene know Wilkie, a former owner of Headliners, as a booking agent for All-In Entertainment.
With the assistance of All-In, which owns the Music Farm and runs the calendar at several venues, including Amos’ Southend in Charlotte, Lefty could be playing a lot of stages bigger than the Elbow Room.
“We can get onto any show we wanted to,” Wilkie said.
But instead of, say, playing the Music Farm in Charleston, the band has worked crowds at Johnson’s Pub there instead.
“That’s a venue geared towards a crowd we can build in front of,” Wilkie said.
Bands know that bigger stages mean bigger stakes, one being: Can the band fill a certain club?
But worrying about that can smoke the fun out of playing.
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