The Maybe Sometimes
In thirty days, we went from nothing to a band with a name and a record. We all still don't know how it happened, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. More to come...
On a whim, with a 30 day turnaround, and on a budget that could be scrounged in between the couch cushions, Ashland’s newest band, The Maybe Sometimes, have assembled a stellar new album with rich harmonies, superb string work, and authentic woody themes that take you on a trip down recollection roads to the place you want to be.
The band is a collaboration between Ashland music’s first couple: Sage Meadows and Dave Hampton (The New Autonomous Folksingers), Jeremy Hickman (Stoney Point, Craig Wright’s Horsefeathers), and SOU Grad and Ashland’s best unknown songwriter, Bekkah McAlvage. Every member of the Maybe Sometimes has a big enough bag of tricks to build their own band around, and just the idea of a collaboration of these talents is enough to make your music pants go crazy. Sage Meadows and Bekkah McAlvage harmonize like they are joined at the hip and ate the same breakfast, Jeremy Hickman can pick the guitar quicker than a chicken can do the pick dance on top of a hot tin roof, and Dave Hampton's work on the signature washtub bass is smooth and solid. Hampton was also responsible for the twisting and tweaking during the recording of the album, and by just giving it a listen, you would never imagine it was recorded in a living room. The sound is crisp, authentic, clean, but still loyal to the live aspects of the Maybe Sometimes’ sound, and the production is intelligent, allowing every note, every tone to come across unabated so it can reach its full potential and convey its full impact.
This album is full of songs that you will feed your ears but never get full of, like Vitamin D, High Country, and Sarah. It is also full of those moments that steal your heart, like the harmonic dance that Sage and Bekkah do on Train Song, and the chicken pickin’ roller coaster ride Jeremy takes you on with ‘John Hardy.’ At the end of the album, I noticed myself yearning for more of Sage Meadows magnanimous vocals or Jeremy Hickman’s guitar work. But all great works leave you yearning, and possibly the greatest feat of this album was to pack all of this musical talent in, without any hint of any elbows being bumped. And moreover, I came to the conclusion that in many aspects, this is a band and an album that has the Bekkah McAlvage stamp on it, highlighting her strengths and her songs, and this is not a bad thing at all, and it is about time.
So just in case you are wondering, yes, I am drinking the Maybe Sometime’s Kool-Aid.
Yum yum.
—Kyle Coroneos
Music Critic and Historian
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