Wooden Dinosaur

I'm pretty sure I've seen these guys in Wooden Dinosaur, who play a very slightly "alt" version of alt-folk on traditional instruments. They're from Burlington VT...I think maybe they played Thing in the Spring in Peterborough one year. Anyway, they've got a new album out called Spaces, which songwriter Michael Roberts describes on the Wooden Dinosaur blog:

It was sometime in the warm months of 2010. I was driving through Somerville, Massachusetts, and I was listening to a CD that Katie Trautz, WD’s fiddle player, had given me, called “Homegrown Yodel.” Katie went to W. Virginia for a fiddling festival and took a yodeling workshop and they gave her this CD. It is a remarkable compilation that someone made. If you want it, email me and I’ll give you a download link.

Anyway, there is a Bob Wills track, a version of a classic called “I Ain’t Got Nobody” on this homegrown yodel CD. It changed my life. I listened to it probably 1,000 times that day driving around in Somerville, Massachusetts. If you listen close to our album, you’ll realize that the yodel line from “Talkin’ About Death” is very similar to Tommy’s yodel in this track. Also that “Pistol” has the same joyous feel. Also yodeling.

But basically it was this: country music, with horns. Jazz with banjos. Rock with an upright bass. Our band is just a crappy, contemporary version of the Texas Playboys. We throw it all in there together and see what happens. It’s not always perfect, but we like to think it is always real.

More here