PREVIEW: Rum Rebellion at the Blackwater
PREVIEW: Rum Rebellion at the Blackwater
By: Aaron Davis / 209Vibe
On: June 15 at 07:17 AM

At front, Dave Noyes. Above, Rum Rebellion.

Throughout grade school, it was probably hard for most of us to think about our teachers having any kind of life outside the classroom. We probably blindly envisioned them going home every night, popping a can of Campbell’s chunky and going to bed at 9 p.m.

Dave Noyes students in Portland, however, realize their elementary school music teacher who is the front man of an Irish pirate punk band.

And, not surprisingly, they think it’s pretty cool.

“Many of my students all want to come to the shows; a few (former students) have actually made it,” joked, Noyes, the singer for Rum Rebellion, a band quickly making a name for itself around the Rose City with their raucously engaging brand of acoustic/electric maritime and drinky-time punk rock.

They first showed up in Stockton in the first week of January, and they’ll be sailing back into the Blackwater on Tuesday, June 17. The Blackwater Café is at 912 N. Yosemite St. Show time is at 7 p.m., and tickets are seven doubloons (or $7, if you want to get technical).

The Outlaw Dance Society will also be performing (as they did last time Rum Rebellion was in town), along with Sid & Fancy, a bluegrass punk band from Eugene, OR with a crazy-awesome band name and an equally cool approach to acoustic-bred punk rock.

After playing the Northern California Pirate Festival in Vallejo this weekend, and then at Blackwater, Rum Rebellion sets sail east on the largest tour they’ve ever embarked upon; not a bad way for Noyes to spend his summer vacation.

Since evolving from a small acoustic project to a high-seas battalion of multi-instrumental romp, the cries of “avast ye” have been quickly spreading as the band’s buzz grows.

“We were all punk; it was fun playing acoustic, but we just wanted rock harder,” he said. “Going electric was just the obvious next step. Being acoustic, we were limited to small house shows and the Saturday market or things like that.”

The band now includes Noyes on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, Ben Taylor on the bouzouki (a traditional Irish string instrument), Tyler Bennett on Irish whistle, Sage Howard on bass, and Jack Morrison on drums.

“This gave us the chance to get on stage,” Noyes said, “but we still play with no distortion, and there’s no electric guitar. It’s electric versions of acoustic instruments; we’ve been able to retain some of the same sound we started with.”

The unique instrumentation of the band gives Noyes a perfect chance to flex his musical muscle while still tapping his own punk rock wanderlust.

“I love the challenge,” he said. “It’s just more opportunity to get into arranging. I think we’ve done a pretty good job at showing off the variety we have in the band; we’ve done every different possible way you can combine the instruments.”

With a sound that falls somewhere between Flogging Molly and the Pogues jovially swigging rum on the deck of a rusty clipper, Rum Rebellion went from playing only traditional tunes and sea chanties to mixing in their own punk-flavored originals.

While many of his own students are no-doubt sporting Jack Sparrow on their lunch boxes and hordes of scurvy landlubbers have made pirates a mainstream fixture these days, Noyes is merely taking the theme that, as he says, no one else was doing at the time the band was started, and he’s just having fun with it.

“We never sat down and said ‘oh gee people are really into pirates right now, so let’s make a pirate band,’” Noyes said. “It’s more of a pop culture deal, but we were always into it, so it was more coincidence; it certainly wasn’t planned that way.”

Comments

michael brooking photography Jun 18th @ 12:56AM

Great show, Saw Rum last time they came and thought they were great guys and I loved their music, Missed both Rum and Sid and nancy.....bummed, had another shoot....talked with all of them watched the Outlaws rock thwe house. I did manage to get some shots and will be posting soon..... Michael Brooking Photography

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