The Curios will play their 14th Annual Winter Concert tonight at 7:30pm at the Mildred Owen Concert Hall. Tickets are only available at the door, so be sure to arrive early before the show sells out.
Pacificans Nancy Hall and Lee Parvin founded The Curios 14 years ago, around the same time as the band’s first Winter Concert. Hall and Parvin have been playing together much longer than that though, and their musical history spans several bands, solidifying a creative connection that has always been strong.
During the past year, the two friends haven’t played together much but when they recently got together to share new songs they’d each written, they found that much of their new music shares themes and even some musical structure.
“We were having a musical conversation without even being together,” said Hall. “Our music had been communicating.”
Tonight’s performance will celebrate and showcase the synergy of their new songs. Look for recordings in the next few months, possibly available for online download.
The ukulele seems to be popping up across nearly all musical genres these days, but The Curios were incorporating ukes in their music long before it was a trend to do so. Some of Hall’s new material features her on the ukulele, playing what she calls “music box music.”
Hall is not only an accomplished musician, she's also a brilliant sculptor and she creates unique music boxes that play her own beautiful tunes.
In addition to Hall and Parvin, The Curios include longtime band members Marc Games, Jim Kerwin and Mike Tyler. Tonight’s show will also feature guest drummer Danny Montgomery. “Danny is a world class musician and a good friend. We’re thrilled that he’ll be able to join us,” enthused Hall.
Montgomery lives in Spain where he’s a member of the hit band Stormy Mondays. The band made world news earlier this year when they won a song contest sponsored by NASA who then played the Stormy Monday tune “Sunrise Number 1” as a morning wake-up call for astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.
Hall and Parvin met Montgomery during their earliest days of playing music together, when Montgomery was the house drummer at the Sigma Phi House at U.C. Berkeley. “We got the full Animal House treatment playing gigs there!” reminisced Hall.
More information on tonight’s show is available here, but tickets are only available at the door. Be sure to arrive early!
