Bird Lands on Josh Williams guitar and stays for a song.

At about 1:30 a bird comes out of no where and lands on Josh's guitar.  Then it stays for a while.  Josh handles it pretty well.

The Devil makes Three....Foot stomping music.

I recently caught The Devil Makes Three at Stubbs in Austin.  The show was inside on their smaller stage which provided an intimate setting.  It also provided a lot of standing around packed like a can of sardines due to their growing popularity.  Next time these guys come around there is no doubt they will be playing a larger venue.  Regardless these guys put on one hell of a show.

Based out of Santa Cruz California they are part of an acoustic revival going around the country today.  Some may call their style folk punk but it’s hard to put a label on it.  I for one got more of a ragtime and bluegrass feel in what they played although the lyrics definitely had a more edgy feel. 

As the name states they are a three piece consisting of front man Pete Bernhard, Cooper McBean, and Lucia Turino.  Since they do not incorporate any drums or percussion it falls on Lucia Turino to hold the rhythm on stand up bass and DAMN does she deliver.  Turino keeps the crowd on the beat and her slap style is percussive enough that a drummer would only clutter things up.  Cooper McBean (gotta love that name) to me is the straight up hillbilly of the group and my favorite.  Cooper will switch from guitar and a four string tenor banjo adding most of the over lying lead work.  Cooper keeps it simple but really gets after it and adds some great licks that give each song that little added something.  Pete Berhand as I mentioned is the face of the group and will also switch between guitar and banjo with Cooper.  He is great at holding down a variety of rhythms and his voice has got the perfect feel for the style they play.  Cooper and Lucia provide amazing harmony vocals on every song and Cooper even has a few of his own tunes that he sings…one of these being my personal favorite of the show.  It is through this fantastic harmony vocal work that these guys are able to get the crowd screaming along.

The above youtube video is a studio session of one my favorites called Do Wrong Right.  It is a little more laid back but if you catch them live this song will have the crowd on fire.  As I mentioned I caught these guys in a small venue that was uncomfortably packed.  But after two songs this little three piece acoustic group had us all jumping, singing, and bumping into each other.  And no one was complaining about the space at that point.

Check them out on their website   http://www.thedevilmakesthree.com/