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Pearl and The Beard, Live @ Joe’s Pub
You’d be hard pressed to find a New York City band more huggable than Pearl and The Beard.
The Brooklyn trio, featuring Jocelyn Mackenzie on glockenspiel and melodica, Emily Hope Price on cello and Jeremy Styles on acoustic guitar, features silky, three-part vocal harmonies, equally alluring and arresting. Blending campfire folk with damaged marching band dirges, this group of NYC folksters has stumbled upon a new, happier breed of freak folk.
To put it another way, if Iron & Wine’s Samuel Beam ever wore a smile, his music would sound a lot like Pearl and The Beard.
On Saturday, April 26th, the band played one of its biggest shows to date, headlining a sold out CD release party at the famous Joe’s Pub in the East Village. Climbing the stage, dressed for the occasion in black-tie attire (Jeremy) and splashes of twinkling sequins (Jocelyn and Emily), the group acknowledged the crowd’s loving welcome with warm, sheepish nods. Though a tight and show-tested outfit, the Saturday night spot at Joe’s Pub is no small gig – clearly the threesome was delighted by the outstanding turnout and overjoyed to shake off pre-show nerves.
Launching into their first song, the trio displayed their mightiest asset: harmonies ringing clear as glass bells. Interlacing melodies on the breezy “Voice In My Throat,” their intonations bobbed and weaved like vocal interpretations of math-rock acrobatics. Jocelyn and Emily’s warm cadence lovingly outlined Jeremy’s sweet, throaty baritone. Switching smoothly between soothing runs and alarming shouts, their voices bounded confidently over one another like children playing leapfrog -- occasionally treading on toes, but ultimately landing in three-part bliss.
Playing alongside an additional cellist (Bridget Kearney), full backup drummer (Jamie Alegre) and members of the string quartet 46 ink, “Dumb Lovers” built its structure upon waves of tension. Fuelled by Emily’s rich bowing and Alegre’s pistol-shot snare beat, the song frames a couple’s intimate bedside confessions -- the male hiding behind insecurity while his lover reaches towards him. Allowing Jocelyn a platform to showcase her remarkably moving vocal chords, she delivered the line “We could be freedom lovers / Tonight” with bare, heart-wrenching hopefulness.
When the tune stopped on a dime, the 165-seat venue swelled with cheers, louder than the recently amplified band on stage.
Though many of their songs are unapologetically uplifting, dark, murky undercurrents and intriguing juxtapositions run through even the band’s bounciest tracks. Hidden within “Dumb Lovers’” tender progression, there’s a reference to ground zero, an allusion to an unborn child and, all the while, the man’s repeated mantra of fear. “Vessel,” (one of the night’s biggest crowd-pleasers,) follows a sailor wrecked at sea, hearing the call of the sirens as he drifts into unconsciousness. On stage, the sailor is played by Jeremy, begging the audience to “Drain my guts / Spill them out onto the deck,” while the siren’s song is carried by the softer side of the band, enticing the protagonist in silken tones to abandon all he seeks. By the end of the serenade, he sees dark shapes gliding towards him under the waves -- the sirens come to claim him -- as he sinks into the depths.
As loose, complex narratives go, the song veers dangerously close to pop-perfection, and stands as one of the band’s strongest tunes.
Though their choice of on-stage flower barrettes and truly funny between-song banter may come off as cute to the hardcore-indie crowd, those puritans would be missing the point. Behind the group’s charming veneer are moving, honest stories wrapped in gut-churning cello, propelled by melodies that burrow themselves into your brain and call it home. Like The Decemberists, another folk-inspired outfit whose songs lean towards the upbeat, Pearl and The Beard’s tunes are deceptively devastating. Mining the cracks between happy memories, the band knows the sweet is at its sweetest because of the sour. It’s the audience’s fortune to rediscover this alongside them each show.
The group closed out their set with “O’ Death,” a churning three-minute march, mashing together duelling themes of eminent death and unquestioned love. Reverently stomping along with the song’s heartbeat, the audience shook the venue floor. As the tune climbed from its earthy, tromping verse toward the chorus, the crowd’s voices converged. Wailing the anthem “I love you / The way you are / The way you’ve always been” alongside Jocelyn’s joyful belt, the walls reverberated with the audience’s unified holler.
As the three-headed, song-crafting machine that is Pearl and The Beard struck its last chord, the crowd rose up, their enthusiastic eruption drowning out all other sounds in the venue, as on stage, three blushing musicians struggled to make sense of the overwhelming response, gave up, and just smiled.
* * *
After the gig, Feedback sat down with the breathless three-piece backstage as they chatted about the unifying power of happy hour, Nicole Kidman’s soft caress, and “healing” fans at shows.
Is this the biggest show you guys have played?
Jocelyn: This is the first big show that we’ve headlined. We played at The Bowery Ballroom and we’ve played at Southpaw, which are larger size than [Joe’s Pub]. But this was the first show that people were there to see us and get our CD. This was our night and that was so exciting. We’re out of CDs! We made 150 of them. Out.
Does it freak you out when people respond that lovingly to you?
Emily: It freaks me out (laughs).
Jocelyn: When you start out playing you’re like, “I’m gonna do an open mic tonight. Wanna go?” One friend is there. “I’m gonna do a show.” Twelve people are there. A year and a half later you almost sell out this amazing venue and it’s because you realize after time, how many of these people are our friends and how many of these people are our fans? What I’ve found is, because I love this band so much -- we put so much effort and energy into it -- my friends are excited for me and my friends have become our fans.
How would you describe the music you play? Have you ever aligned with freak folk?
Jocelyn: Freak folk? I don’t even know what that means. I don’t like the word ‘folk’ because I always associate it with (imitates nasal folkie voice), “Whoooah, the war is bad / Ohh, the war is so bad / The war is bad / The war is bad / Everyone go fuck my dad.” I don’t think the war is good, but I don’t want to go sing about it.
Emily: I don’t like the word “folk” or “pop.” I like “Jeremy, Jocelyn and Emily.” That’s the kind of music that we make.
What’s the song “Vessel” about?
Jeremy: It’s about Watchmen (laughs).
Emily: It’s about the intensity of a love that you miss and want to get back to and the temptation of something stronger than yourself. You can quote me on that!
Jocelyn: I think a theme throughout all of our songs is that there’s a dichotomy. Like “O’ Death” – I Love You. This/that. “Voice In My Throat,” but you’re far away. There’s always this kind of bitter sweetness to what we’re singing about.
Jeremy: What I love specifically about this band is, having guys and girls opens it up tremendously. You can have different perspectives and sides. With “Vessel” we specifically wrote that to have two points and [to leave it] open-ended. Generally the [story] that’s standard is, there’s a guy who’s at sea, he’s going nuts-o, kind of similar to The Black Freighter from Watchmen – that’s kind of where I got the idea from – and also from Cold Mountain…
In [Cold Mountain,] Jude Law’s character is at war and he’s seen so much fucked up shit. When he gets back and feels Nicole Kidman’s soft, soft caress, he’s like, “I’ve lost everything. I’m all fucked up now. I don’t know what to do.” And she’s been doing her thing and getting stronger. I liked the dichotomy of the two things. And we keep it open ended: Is it sirens luring him to his death, or is it his woman singing and calling to him? He’s not even sure what he’s hearing. He thinks he’s maybe even died. Take your pick (laughs).
Jocelyn: There tends to be a lot of dichotomy in our songs. Even the name Pearl and The Beard is so much about soft and scruffily. Feminine/masculine. White chicks/black dude, whatever!
How did you guys all first meet?
Jocelyn: Jeremy and I first met at Pete’s Candy Store’s open mic and we met Emily at Sidewalk Café’s open mic.
Did you start playing together first or hanging out first? Are you friends first and then musicians, or musicians first, then friends?
Jeremy: When me and Jocelyn met it was through music, but after a while we kind of naturally became friends, because we spent so much time together (laughs).
Jocelyn: When Jeremy and I met though, I was this close to not even telling him that I did anything musical. Cause you meet someone, especially at open mics, and they’re like, (imitates Muppet voice) “Oh yea man, I’ll contact you. It’ll be totally great. Like, we’ll totally network. It’ll be awesome!” And you never hear from them. Musicians are flaky -- you can never count on anything to actually pull through.
When we met, he was like, “Do you need to borrow my guitar so that you can do your own songs?” and I was this close to being like, “No dude, whatever.” I was there for happy hour. I was not there for music. It just worked out that we were both like, “Yea, alright” and then he actually called and we actually got together and we wrote like six songs in one day, which was outrageous. It was just total musical chemistry.
When we saw Emily perform by herself [at Sidewalk Café], we were like, “Oh my god, she is amazing.” So it wasn’t like, “Oh we need a cellist.” It was like, “We want you.”
Who are your favorite bands in New York City right now?
Jocelyn: Dinosaur Feathers. Love them.
Emily: Ivan Sandomire
Jeremy: Matt Singer. Sharon Van Etten.
Jocelyn: Glissando Bin Laden and His Musichideen. Uncle Monsterface.
What’s next for you guys?
Jeremy: We’ve got kind of a large show coming up in July. I can’t tell you where…
Jocelyn: It’s a surpriiise.
Jeremy: It’s on the mooooon (laughs)! Other than that, I’d like to do some tours, basically promote the crap out of this album. Of course, I want to have some time to just write more songs. We’ve got stuff bubbling up.
Emily: This is a partial answer to your question. Tonight, a girl walked up to me, looked at me straight in the face, and she’s like, “Emily, I was healed tonight.”
Jeremy: Oh yea! That girl said the same thing to me.
Emily: That’s all. That’s all I want. And I know that sounds totally stupid to say in an interview, but that’s how I feel.
Jocelyn: I just want to keep playing in the subway. We’ve had such a great time reaching people. This is the thing I love to do most in the whole world. If I can keep doing this, no matter what capacity, I’m so ready to see what comes next.
-Zachary Dinerstein
Feedback logo by Nicholas Forker
You can purchase Pearl and The Beard’s latest release, God Bless Your Weary Soul, Amanda Richardson, here.
The band's next show is at Pianos on Tuesday, June 23rd with Anni Rossi.
Visit zackdinerstein.wordpress.com for an extended podcast of this interview and other articles. Thanks for reading!
