Dirty Linen #99

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen Magazine #99 (April / May 2002). The magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription.

The Mammals
cd cover

Young Old-Timers
by Tom Nelligan

A modern old-time string band may sound like an oxymoron, but that's a good capsule description of The Mammals, a fast-picking, slick-fiddling, modal-singing, multi-instrumental trio based just outside Woodstock, New York. "It's a contemporary traditional Neanderthal thrash band!" said singer/guitarist Tao Rodriguez-Seeger with a laugh. "It's contemporary because we write a lot of original material, but it's traditional because we use these old instruments and we're sort of steeped in the tradition of Appalachia." And as for Neanderthal thrash? "It's when you really rock out but it's all acoustic. I really love that phrase!" he grinned.

It's also a group whose members bring a variety of musical backgrounds to the mix. Rodriguez-Seeger, the grandson of folk icon Pete Seeger, grew up in Nicaragua. He began performing with his grandfather at the age of 14 but also admits harboring a teenage fondness for power rockers like AC/DC. Ruth Ungar, a hot fiddler and strummer of an amazing variety of ukuleles, is the daughter of master fiddler Jay Ungar and singer Lyn Hardy. She studied acting in college but was eventually drawn back to the musical family trade. Michael Merenda grew up in New Hampshire and played guitar and drums in a string of rock and ska bands while also taking up clawhammer banjo along the way. "One of the things we all have in common," Rodriguez-Seeger noted, "is that music has been part of our lives for a very long time, which is handy, because even if you're not playing it, that music is sinking in at a subconscious level. When you do start playing, that exposure at a young age comes out in your music."

Onstage, they have an infectious enthusiasm that energizes their fast instrumental sets and draws the audience into their songs. While fiddle and banjo front their sound, the most distinctive touches are Rodriguez-Seeger's richly chiming 12-string guitar, an instrument seldom employed in old-time music, and Ungar's ukuleles, large and small. Their repertoire ranges from traditional Appalachian dance tunes to crisp original instrumentals, from mountain ballads to Merenda's thoughtful new songs to ingenious covers, like Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," rendered as a showcase for frailed banjo.

"We really focus on having diverse material," Merenda said. "We don't just stick to one idiom. We play old tunes, and we write new tunes that sound old, and we write new songs that sound new, and we write new songs that sound old. And we try and match all the pieces up. Not in any contrived sort of fashion — it's not really a goal; it's just what catches our ear. We like to compare and contrast and weave all these influences together."

This is an excerpt from an article in Dirty Linen #99 (Apr./May '02). Read the full text in the magazine, available via subscription or on newsstands and in bookstores.