The David Wax Museum

Yesterday, Boston's David Wax Museum performed a free show at the Appalachian Brewing Company (ABC) here in Harrisburg. They're a fairly new band, at least on the national scene, having made their big break at this past Newport Folk Festival. Recently, they were featured on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series, where I first heard them.

David Wax, Suz Slezak.

They arrived unheralded, but as soon as frontman David Wax set his 8-stringed jarana jarocha on the stage, they started sound-checking instruments and the vocal harmonies that define their sound. David Wax Museum's lineup is an ever-changing list, from the drummer and mandolin player listed in their second album to the bassist and saxophone player seen in the Tiny Desk Concert to the accordion player on stage at ABC. Wax introduced him as "my cousin, Jordan Wax." Suz Slezak rounded out the trio.

The Museum's style could be described as Mexican-inflected American folk, or perhaps as revivalist Mexican folk by way of Boston. Their compositions run the gamut from nostalgic laments (Lavender Street, Let Me Rest) to foot-stomping rock-mariachi tunes (Unfruitful, Born With A Broken Heart). The band was touring on their new album, "Everything is Saved," released just this past Tuesday.

Having heard a few of these songs arranged for a (slightly) bigger band on the NPR video made the experience of hearing performed by a trio no less enjoyable. The band played all their "hits" (if Daytrotter, NPR, and XPN can be considered to be hit-makers) and plenty of tunes off of their earlier album, "Carpenter Bird." Slezak, who, with Wax, is the other of the band's two permanent members, switched between the violin and the donkey jawbone, a mesmerizing, traditionally Mexican, and completely non-vegan percussion instrument.

Though the crowd in ABC's upstairs Abbey Bar was not the most attentive, there were ten or twenty of us down front paying close attention to the band, listening for their three-part harmonies and the playful accordion/violin four-bar trades. To their credit, the band kept their energy up, playing to the back of the room even when the back of the room was trying to drown them out with conversation. David Wax tilted his head back to belt out the lyrics, stomping his cowboy boots in time as Slezak swayed back and forth, jawbone in hand.

This raucous joyfulness paired well with the band's down-to-earth attentiveness to those of us who were there for the music. They directed their stage chatter to us in the later half of the show, and they stuck around afterward. At one point, they walked away from their microphones, stepped off of the stage, and played a song right on the darkened floor in front of us. The stage stood empty, and we who were listening were the only ones who heard the intricacies of the nostalgic waltz-like tune until Slezak jumped up onto a chair and belted the chorus into the back of the bar.

"All I'm saying," I said as we walked out, "is that the Low Anthem is gonna have to do a pretty bang-up job when I see them later this month if they want to keep on being my favorite band."

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Carpenter Bird and Everything is Saved are available here.