“Woodshedding” is a word in the music realm synonymous with “practice.” While someone with a banjo “practicing” for the first time may produce a sound pleasing to that someone, it’s likely not pleasing to someone within earshot. Hence, you send them to practice in the woodshed, so those practice sounds fall on no other ears. For violin player Michael Rendon, his woodshedding was actually “tipi-ing” – It turns out that living in a tipi on 36 acres is a great place to learn the violin.
“You’re just awful when you begin,” he said.
Those early days of tipi-ing led to the forming of local band Carute Roma, which will celebrate 20 years of being a band with a show Saturday at the Sunflower Theatre in Cortez.
Carute Roma are currently Rendon on violin, Brian Arens on guitar, Nicole Carey on trumpet and lead vocals, Robert Aspen on accordion, David Sachs on drums, Jon Broholm on bass, and Mark Walser on violin.
When Rendon left the tipi for more modern housing, he gained tenants and future bandmates.
If you go
WHAT: Carute Roma celebrates 20 years of playing.
WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday.
WHERE: Sunflower Theatre, 8 East Main St., Cortez.
TICKETS: This event is sold out.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.sunflowertheatre.org
“Arens was one of my tenants, as was Brian Locke. He was learning the mandolin, and the three of us started playing. Robert Aspen played piano but had never played accordion. My mom had one she wasn’t using, so he took it. He still plays my, om’s accordion,” Rendon said. “So that’s how the original band started. We realized we needed a real musician, so we got (bass player) Alexii Carey. Then we got Sachs, that made us a whole lot better, and Nicole came with the trumpet and vocals and that added a whole other element.”
The past 20 years they’ve embodied that spirit of the aforementioned “Roma culture,” meaning individual members don’t mind travel. It’s a tough way to keep a band together, but it’s aided to the looseness of the band. If one member splits, there’s another Durango musician eager to fill shoes. If that replacement musician doesn’t know much about the music, they’ll learn. That “come and go” mentality resulted in about a half-dozen former members, although “former” is a strong word because nobody is ever really “out” of the band.
To help celebrate their 20 years they’ll have two of those “former” members in bass player Alexii Carey and accordion player Lisa Sumi return for a number of songs.
It’s all about education. While new to the band, musicians were forced to learn about the music and its history; the songs inspire the listeners to educate themselves.
“Especially when we introduce a song. There’s one song that we say, ‘this song is about a hat vendor,’ and so I think that immediately sort of sparks ‘what is this all about?’ Then they start dancing and they have a great time, and I think it will make them curious,” Carey said.
“It’s all over the place,” Rendon added. “We’ll go from the hat vendor to this 2,000 year-old Hebrew traditional song. Yeah, it’s somewhat eclectic but there’s a common vibe. We just wrote a song about the Santa Rita neighborhood. It’s where we live, it’s who we are.”
While much of this music is from Eastern Europe, described with the less correct term of “Gypsy,” Carute Roma has also picked up centuries-old songs of the public domain that are ancient folk and religious songs. It’s also quite lively, ripe for a wedding or any celebration. It’s dance music.
“It’s really upbeat, everyone can dance to it, it’s super high energy, super fun. I think with this 20th anniversary, it will be old tunes we played for years, newer songs we’ve written, and we’ll share some stories with the band,” Rendon said. “It’s just going to be a whole lot of fun.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
