Local Band: Trashcan Joe

Weekend!Music

The Portland Tribune, Dec 15, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

COURTESY OF TRASHCAN JOE

Jason Wells (left) and Cap’n James Cook deliver more of their band’s signature “idiosyncratic old-time jazz,” which marries timeless-sounding tunes and modern sensibilities.

All pretense aside, any band that started out as a vehicle for a newly created instrument called the “trashcanjo” (that would be a banjo crafted from a waste receptacle) and then named itself after said item set out to have a good time.

You can certainly hear that on “Real Life,” the third and latest offering from local combo Trashcan Joe.

Cap’n James Cook and his merry men play “idiosyncratic old-time jazz.” What that means is much less stuffy than it sounds. While plaintive instrumentals like album closer “Monology” are lovely postcards to a bygone era, the band’s raucous originals are sure to raise eyebrows – and get feet stomping.

From the opening strains of “Real Life” through tongue-in-cheek ditties like “Cell Phone,” “Enough About You” and “Rehabilitation,” it’s clear that this is not your grandparents’ music.

While the instrumentation on “Real Life” is enough to raise a chuckle, the vocal harmonies are the star of the show. In addition to the trashcanjo, the album features kazoo, washboard, zob stick, accordion and a one-string trashcan bass.

This is an album you’ll want to put on repeat – but, more important, this is a band you want to see live. This kind of energy and old-fashioned good time doesn’t come along every day.

– Barbara Mitchell

9:30 p.m. FRIDAY, Dec. 15, Imbibe, 2229 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., 503-239-4002, $6<,/em>

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