614 Magazine - Columbus, Ohio

At Home with Old Hundred

By Travis Hoewischer

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Old Hundred: a traditional name for first lines of Psalm 100, often known as 'The Doxology.'

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Blake Skidmore is tuning his guitar, shoeless, in what would be a cliched expression of front man excess, had we not been sitting in his Summit Street living room.

I tell him I'll let that slide considering the circumstances.

"Well, we usually practice naked, but we knew you were coming," he says with a laugh.

Touche.

It's my second day with Skidmore and Old Hundred, and they're running through a heart-stomping version of Neutral Milk Hotel's "King of Carrot Flowers." With Nate Gelinas and his mandolin on lead, Skidmore seems to be more than at peace with folding into the sonic background, on the floor with tambourine and a mic, chiming in like a kid playing with his new toys.

In a way, he kind of is.

After years spent playing as a solo house show act around Columbus, Skidmore finally has a band of musical brothers in Old Hundred, half of which literally arrived on his door step like shiny new packages. Gelinas and Jon Helm (drums, guitar, vocals) came to Ohio via Massachusetts back in February, and came to be roommates of Skidmore's through his friendship with Helm's fiancee. Hal Hixson, a sometimes-collaborator with Skidmore, joined the trio after a handful of shows last winter, and the most recent addition, violinist Sally Louise Polk, came to the group after a stint in Wing and Tusk.

"It was like hitting fast forward on starting a band," Skidmore said. "They moved here in February, and in late March I had a solo show. I was like, 'You wanna start a band?' It wasn't perfection, but it felt like a band."

Now, the newest addition to the city's growing sub-genre of indie folk, inhabited by bands like Couch Forts, Saintseneca, and the aforementioned Wing and Tusk, finds itself in a period of new-band bliss, where fresh material has been abundant. The band has put new spins on material culled from Hixson and Skidmore, as well as songs written by Gelinas and Helm with their band back east. Now, Skidmore says he can eschew the limitations of "sappy singer-songwriter stuff" for a diverse musical palette with elements of traditional folk and bluegrass to percussive indie rock.

"I'm honestly a 10-chord guitar guy. That's pretty much what I can do," he said. "To come into a scenario that keeps growing in a really good way, I can rely on other people to build these songs with things I can't do on my own."

Meanwhile, the band has been building a quick repertoire of shows in town, shows which boast as much variety as their material. They've served as the unlikely opening act for locals Brainbow and Beaten Awake, as well as for Black Keys-backed ingenue Jessica Lea Mayfield at Rumba Cafe.

Playing with that kind of versatility is what drew Polk to the band.

"We're able to unplug and get quiet, or we can hook up and fill up a bar with sound - certain songs can fill a certain scenery," she said. "It's pretty neat to know we can adapt to our surroundings."

Skidmore said the band's sound - or at the very least its set list - has even changed with the seasons, getting a little darker over the fall, perhaps most notably in their thundering revival song Good-Timin' Man. Helm insists that's mostly a result of more songwriters and more instruments in the mix.

"The more hands that come in, the more gravity the music tends to have," he said. "It's easy to be a little more skippy with just a few acoustic instruments. It has progressed that way. We'll see how we are by the dead of winter."

"We'll see if we can even get out of bed," Skidmore says with a laugh.

The band certainly feeds more from camaraderie than combativeness, says Skidmore.

"We've lucked out on the chemistry," he said. "We've never had any shouting matches. A lot of bands argue their way through practice, and we've never . . . I mean, three of us live together. We just don't get into those type of confrontations."

So, what then, counts for band tension within the realm of Old Hundred?

"Blake, do the f@#$%&* dishes!" he laughed.

While the band has made an effort to play out as much as possible since their inception, Old Hundred has gelled as a group of musicians by playing a number of house shows, including a slew they've hosted on Summit. Self-dubbed the Elk House, the living room where we sit is as much a part of the band as its members; it's where they've practiced and performed more than anywhere else, and where they recorded their recent self-titled EP this summer.

"For us, it's just fun," Skidmore says. "We're sort of creating a space for our friends, and it's become a community around what we're doing."

Keeping things somewhat in-house, too, means keeping the focus on the music and not on being that-guy-in-that-band.

"Being a band that has been successful in house shows is completely different," says Polk. "It's so refreshing. On a stage where you're spotlighted, people treat you differently. It's just a strange way to socially interact with people. But, when you're in someone's house . . ."

"In our house," Skidmore interrupts with a laugh, "It's about the bathroom. That's usually the first question after we finish a set. No 'Good show,' just, 'Where's your shitter?'"

Old Hundred Performs @ Wild Goose Creative on January 9th, 8:30 p.m.
2491 Summit St.
Hal & Al's on January 15th, 8 p.m.
1297 Parsons Ave.
The Elk House on January 22nd, 8:30 p.m.
2106 Summit St.
www.myspace.com/oldhundred

Originally Published: January 1, 2010

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