Bluegrass grows on campus thanks to Lion in the Grass

“World music” connotes exotic sounds from far off places. But Lion in the Grass, Columbia’s bluegrass band, is one of three campus world music ensembles associated with the Department of Music, along with the klezmer and Japanese gagaku bands. According to music graduate student and founder Toby King, a bluegrass band contributes something “distinctly American” to the mix.

“Whenever I hear that kind of [bluegrass] music I have this feeling of driving out to the middle of nowhere and being with my family and being on a lake or in the forest,” King said. He recounted listening to the radio in the car on the way to Maine for family vacations, and credited NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion partially for his familiarity with acoustic, folk, and bluegrass music.

“For me, bluegrass is more a texture than anything else… As soon as you hear that texture, that’s when you say ‘Oh, that’s bluegrass,’” King said, referring to the sonic layers created by the six official instruments—fiddle, five-string banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin, upright base, and resonator guitar. “But that’s gotta be heresy to somebody,” he added. Indeed, some would argue that the genre is defined by its timing and rhythm rather than its “texture.”

Still, as King pointed out, nearly anything can be played in bluegrass style, as evidenced by the countless albums that reinterpret classics in other genres with titles such as, “Pickin’ On The Rolling Stones” and “Pickin’ On U2: A Bluegrass Tribute.”

Lion in the Grass is currently comprised mostly of undergraduates—including Spectator art editor Hannah Yudkin, BC ‘11—with the exception of Nick Vogt, a graduate student of Chinese history. Having never previously played an instrument, Vogt bravely took up the dobro—a type of resonator guitar—upon joining the band three years ago. “I try to make up for in enthusiasm what I lack in skill,” Vogt said.

Like Vogt’s journey to the band, King’s journey to Columbia was nontraditional. Working for an oil company in Denver, Colorado, before coming to Columbia, King experienced what he described as “an attack of idealism.”

“I was drilling holes in the ground, destroying the earth, and I was so miserable,” he said. So he took a year off to study music history and theory, and applied to the Columbia graduate program. He founded Lion in the Grass to bring a type of music to Columbia he felt held both nostalgic and international appeal.

“Bluegrass is also a way of interacting socially,” King said. In the case of Lion in the Grass, the educational and social components of membership go hand in hand. Budding talents like Vogt intermingle with more experienced players like Neil Pearlman, CC ’11, and Hannah Kligman, CC ’11.

Pearlman, who hails from a musically-inclined family, grew up playing piano and picked up the mandolin at age 10. Kligman, who is trained in classical violin and has also played in the klezmer band, said he finds that bluegrass “more fun than classical music.”

King requires members to learn the cues and lingo native to the bluegrass genre (such as the kickoff, the nod, and the tack). Members must play an instrument and sing, perform at least one solo—and cannot turn a solo down once it is handed to them.

Though the rules may sound daunting, King said that they all contribute to his central goal: for each band member to be able to partake adeptly in a bluegrass jam. “I’m happy to say I’ve never failed,” King said.

“It’s rad to just show up and play some tunes,” said fiddle player Colin Cotter, CC ’11, after several members of Lion in the Grass played for the International Day of Climate Action on Saturday, Oct. 24. As Yoav Guttman, CC ’10, noted, “It’s good to see some organic non-electric music on a day like today under a tent. It seems natural.”

Not one to play second fiddle even to a campus legend, Lion in the Grass beat Vampire Weekend in a battle of the bands three and a half years ago. “It’s official, we’re better,” Vogt said. The band’s self-conscious and unprompted comparison to Vampire Weekend perhaps indicates another reality of being a band on Columbia’s campus—competition with new and old campus performers.

The competition, however, is friendly. King, a self-professed Vampire Weekend fan, mentioned that drummer Chris Tomson played the mandolin with Lion in the Grass in its inaugural year.

Lion in the Grass will be performing as part of an end-of-semester concert on Sunday, Dec 6 at 7 p.m. in 301 Philosophy Hall.