The Bridgebuilders

I’ve been waiting to hear the Bridgebuilders, and the band does not disappoint. Rumored to have been exiled from the folk scene of Boston, this six-piece band blends a mix of Irish, Scottish, and American influences, and the result is an eclectic music experience not easily found or duplicated. The influences aren’t the only mixed bag-their instrumentation combines fiddles, the mandolin, bass, Hammond organ and the bouzouki. Not sure what the hell that last one is, but it sounds great. They’ve got a jam band sound with a seamless flow, and vocalist Chris Murray has real passion in voice during each song. (Max Bowen) - The Noise - Boston

Released late last summer, the Bridgebuilders offer this snippet of their world. They are a band determined to shake up what people think about conceptually when hearing the tag “singer/songwriter” bandied about like an hooker at a crack party, or something. Sure there are good, solid songs, but they are arranged and performed with instruments and sensibilities of indie bands who aren’t afraid of making folk a lot less pretty and tidy around the edges. While there is acoustic guitar and jazzy-groove drums, there is also distortion, tape echo, ripping solo sections, and string/fiddle arrangements with a nasty disposition. In fact, the contrast between smooth and prickly could not be starker and that is the band’s biggest musical strength. It is nice and somewhat rare to hear “folk” music played with such genuine ferocity. It’s good to know people like that are out there! (Joel Simches) - The Noise - Boston

Artistic progression is a great thing to watch over the course of a musician’s career, and it’s even better when a group like local folk-rockers The Bridgebuilders make it so visible. Having set out to release three EPs throughout 2012, they’ve finally finished their series (with a 12" in tow) this month with the Wood EP, thanks to a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign. Their improvement and maturity is extremely clear – the Wood EP is a polished progression from April 2012's Sadie EP, with a greater emphasis on instrumentation, particularly the fiddle and viola. The dynamic between the six members is fantastic, and Chris Murray’s vocal range deserves the greatest of plaudits. If you enjoy their work with Wood, The Bridgebuilders are playing shows at The Spot in Providence on 8/15 (WHAT, Sam Pace, the Gilded Grit (TX)) and at the release party for Barricade’s new album at TT the Bear’s on 8/25 (Emma Ate the Lion, Night Mayor). Stream the album below, and support The Bridgebuilders if you’re into their jams. - Allston Pudding

Artistic progression is a great thing to watch over the course of a musician’s career, and it’s even better when a group like local folk-rockers The Bridgebuilders make it so visible. Having set out to release three EPs throughout 2012, they’ve finally finished their series (with a 12" in tow) this month with the Wood EP, thanks to a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign. Their improvement and maturity is extremely clear – the Wood EP is a polished progression from April 2012's Sadie EP, with a greater emphasis on instrumentation, particularly the fiddle and viola. The dynamic between the six members is fantastic, and Chris Murray’s vocal range deserves the greatest of plaudits. If you enjoy their work with Wood, The Bridgebuilders are playing shows at The Spot in Providence on 8/15 (WHAT, Sam Pace, the Gilded Grit (TX)) and at the release party for Barricade’s new album at TT the Bear’s on 8/25 (Emma Ate the Lion, Night Mayor). Stream the album below, and support The Bridgebuilders if you’re into their jams. - Allston Pudding

New England Music Fans,

We are proud to announce that The Deli New England’s Best of 2012 Emerging Artist is Guerilla Toss! This uncompromising, bizarre industrial/dada five piece (pictured and streaming below) gathered multiple votes from our jury of scene experts, which allowed them to end up on top. Kudos also to pop punkers Fat Creeps, who placed second, and orchestral blues sextet The Bridgebuilders, who sneaked in third position thanks to the good performance in our Readers and Fans' Poll. - The Deli New England

Medford - It is not every day a group of childhood friends gets to celebrate their first official CD release as a young band. With four out of five members from Medford, the Celtic-inspired Bridgebuilders have a loyal fan base and an uncommon sound.

Flash back to Aug. 21 as the early evening sunlight beams softly through the performance room windows at Café 939 in Boston. On stage, five 20-year-old musicians are warming up and testing the sound equipment.

“We’ve pretty much had constant momentum from the beginning,” says Elliot Isen, the band’s manager. “It’s the supper summer.”

The fiddles pick up and Isen takes a break to dance a little jig. The band’s excited for the release of “Christening McHaggis,” its first album. Isen says the group is a little more than a year old and has been landing gigs in smaller venues around Greater Boston all summer.

After giving the thumbs up to the sound booth, the band plays a few songs. Their particular blend of folk fusion is fairly unique. Their fiddles and mandolins are guided by traditional Celtic riffs while elements of alternative rock and blues seep into the guitar and organ. Their youthful energy and lyrics give them a modern touch to balance out their mostly classical instruments.

All of the guys are 20 at the moment — some studying in college and some taking time to explore possibilities. The Bridgebuilders feature Chris Murray on rhythm, bass and vocals, Nathan Paine on fiddle, Peter Danilchuk on organ and piano, Nathanial Diamond-Jones on fiddle and bouzouki and the only Melrose resident Jeremy Van Cleave plays fiddle and mandolin.

Inside a Walgreens near Berklee, the band is buying energy drinks. They say it is a pre-performance tradition of theirs.

Danilchuk talks about how he held auditions for a prom date at Medford High School after being snubbed by his original choice two years ago. In the end he took a friend. But the publicity stunt did wonders for the band’s performance that week.

“That was the worst week ever for the drama director because the musical made seventh page in the paper and I made first page,” said Danilchuk. “Then our show outsold the musical.”

Danilchuk likes to tell stories and joke around. With his shaggy blond hair and full, scruffy beard, he can pull off the Scotsman impression with great effectiveness.

Back in the green room, Van Cleave is talking about a Chopin Nocturn he tried to arrange. He likes to talk about Irish folk influences, but it isn’t hard to tell that he’s got classical music in his heart.

It is almost 8 p.m. and people have started to fill the venue. The excitement in the air is palpable and the guys are trying not to act giddy. The five Parkington Sisters (all actual sisters) are getting ready to open the show.

“Hey, girls, who has the better shirt?” front man Murray asks after a dispute with Danilchuk.

“Pete,” two of them say in unison. Considering Danilchuk’s brick red and asymmetrical argyle shirt, they could be joking.

“But I have the better pants,” Murray says, running a hand along his pinstriped black dress slacks with a grin.

“Why did I wear this stupid shirt,” Danilchuck says half to himself a moment later, observing it in a vanity mirror.
Before long, the Bridgebuilders get the 10-minute warning.

“This is the show of the summer for us,” says Murray.

“We’re just really calm and focused,” says Danilchuk.

But you wouldn’t know it. Murray is alternating between jumping in place and checking himself out in the mirror. But when the time comes to set up, their stage personalities start to kick in.

9:01 — Danilchuck, Paine and Diamond-Jones are plugging wires into various components on stage.

9:03 — Van Cleave is in the green room tuning his mandolin, totally absorbed.
9:05 — Murray is back at the mirror.

9:08 — The guys are all back in the green room. They are eerily quiet.

9:10 — the announcer calls the Bridgebuilders to the stage and they dive right in.

A few numbers into their set, the crowd is jumping and feet are stomping as the stage lights flash. Up front the Parkington Sisters lock arms and win a spotlight for their jig.

The band members each resonate with their own presence on stage. Van Cleave sways with his fiddle, his clean face a mask of seriousness and determination. The curly haired Diamond-Jones wears a constant, magnetic grin. He’d probably be dancing a jig too if it wouldn’t disrupt his mandolin playing.

The tall, motorcycle-riding Paine is the fiddler with mystique, his face hidden behind a mop of curls as he races to keep pace with Van Cleave. Danilchuk lurks in the shadows, fingering steady, 70s styled organ tones. Front and center, Murray hops around with unquenched energy, winking at the girls in the front row.

With the crowd pulled into musical highs and lows, nearly two hours passes.

The band bursts through the door to the green room after the show. Shaking off the jitters they go around, hugging each o - The Medford Transcript

Melrose -
The Bridgebuilders have spent the past nine months living the epitome of the indie rock band dream — taking a year off college; purchasing a van with over 100,000 miles on it; piling all their equipment and themselves into the van; and driving up and down the East Coast performing shows in support of their first full-length album, “Christening McHaggis.”

Despite all five members being 21 years old, however, this is no typical indie rock band. When pressed for a category, Melrose resident and The Bridgebuilders’ fiddle and mandolin player Jeremy Van Cleave had to first describe all the instruments involved. There’s also mandolin and bouzouki (which to a layman looks like a lute with a longer neck and smaller body), instruments more closely associated with traditional Celtic songs — but there’s also electric guitar and bass, more often associated with rock and roll, and a Hammond organ, the last of which is most closely associated with 70s rock in particular.

“It kind of has that 70s progressive sound, but with 300-year-old fiddle tunes,” Van Cleave said. “It clicked with all the other instruments and we came up with this sound that … well, we kind of categorize ourselves as Celtic fusion. It’s not folk, it’s not Celtic. We have the fusion side.”

Next week, The Bridgebuilders are bringing their unique brand of music back to where the tour really started — Cafe 939 in Boston, where they held a CD release party last August. In addition to serving as an official return to Boston of sorts — they’ve returned home in between shows over the last nine months — the show will also serve as a celebration of the past year, Van Cleave said.

Band member and fiddle player Nathan Paine has been apart from fellow band members Van Cleave, Chris Murray (rhythm, bass and vocals), Peter Danilchuk (organ and piano) and Nathanial Diamond-Jones (fiddle and bouzouki) while they toured. The Tufts University student spent the year in Japan, where he’ll return from in August. Two of the fiddlers who filled in for Paine this past year will join The Bridgebuilders next week for the show at Cafe 939.

If you go …

The Bridgebuilders will play at Cafe 939, 939 Boylston St., Boston, on Wednesday, July 29 at 8 p.m., with traditional Celtic trio Tri opening up.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance online at ticketmaster.com, by calling 1-800-745-3000, or at any Ticketmaster outlet. Tickets are also available between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the Berklee Performance Center box office at 136 Massachusetts Ave, Monday-Saturday.

For more information on the show, visit cafe939.com.

The Bridgebuilders album “Christening McHaggis” can be purchased at the Folk Arts Center of New England, 42 West Foster St., Melrose, and at the Bohemian Coffeehouse, 132 West Emerson St., Melrose. For more on the band and to hear samples of their music, visit them online at myspace.com/thebridgebuilders.

“This show is also symbolizing the year we’ve had without Nathan and just being on the road and all,” Van Cleave said. “We just wanted to have this [past] year celebrated and have people hear the new sounds we’ve done.”

New sounds found in the studio

The new sounds found their genesis when the band spent five days last July recording the 12 tracks for “Christening McHaggis” at Chill House in Charlestown, the studio where legendary alternative rock band The Pixies mastered one of their own CDs. Van Cleave said it was the “best music-making, if you want to call it that,” the band ever did, partly due to the time constraints and partly due to the technology at their fingertips in a professional studio.

“Being in that atmosphere, we said, ‘We have 12 hours today. Let’s see what we can do,’” he explained. “We had all these possibilities, and all these songs we’ve already written to make them even that much better.”

The band members then started off on their tour, playing various colleges such as Bowdoin and Bates in Maine; Goucher in Baltimore; and, closer to home, Boston University. They also played shows in Brunswick and Lewiston, Maine, and Townson, Md. and, in January, they played at the Boston Celtic Music Festival.

Four or five fiddle players filled in for Paine during these shows, Van Cleave said, whether it was a local friend who would make the trip up to Maine with the band or a friend from Pennsylvania who would trek over to Maryland when the band was in town. The band members themselves had all taken the year off from their studies at various institutions of higher learning to focus on the concerts.

“It was a really amazing experience to put everything on hold and just go,” he said.

Over the course of the year, Van Cleave said the band played anywhere from 15-20 shows, all with the help of an eight-seat GMC Savana van the band had purchased to cram all their instruments, sound equipment and their own bodies into for the long drives from sho - Melrose Free Press