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July 15, 2010

MOST LIKELY TO HARMONIZE: Terre Haute band Yearbook Committee spreading folk around town

Kyle McCall The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — A musical project that started in Jon DaCosta’s garage has made its way onto Wabash Valley stages and is starting to pick up a following.

The project is a collaborative effort of many singers-songwriters from the Wabash Valley. It’s composed of Brad Lone, Jimmy Rinehart, Jon DaCosta, Jessica DaCosta, Christina Blust, John Murray, David Goodier, Eric Rasley, Travis Dillon and Michael Coffey, just to name a few of the Valley artists who participate. They began in 2009 as a group of friends playing together with the goal of forming harmonies, writing songs and having fun. There isn’t a specific lead singer per se, but Jon DaCosta and Goodier provide the base of the male vocals, with Blust accompanying as a female counterpart.

“This whole thing came about because we all love acoustic music,” said Terre Haute South and Indiana State University music grad Brad Lone. Lone said he draws personal inspiration from a love for acoustic blues, but different members of the group bring different influences to the table. Lone’s vocals often seem more troubled than any 20-something’s voice should, but that’s the blues for you.

The band states, according to its MySpace page, that they sound “like 35 years ago,” with influences of “folk, sunshine, rainy days.” The folk influence is instantly recognizable, but there’s more to the sound with hints of jam bands and blues. Nearly 20 Yearbook Committee tracks are available on the Internet and they range from the bouncy, retrospective “We Let Our Grades Slip” to the calming harmonies of “Don’t Hide.”

Most of the members of the group are from the Terre Haute area, and they’re more than happy to help grow a new musical scene from the grassroots up.

South graduate Jimmy Rinehart, who studied music performance at ISU, said he’s been tinkering with one instrument or another since he began playing guitar as a 10-year-old at his grandfather’s church in Sullivan. Also a member of the Terre Haute-based group Nativemind, Rinehart sees Yearbook Committee as a chance for himself and the others to work on a softer side of music.

“We got into this just to work on writing songs,” Rinehart said. “We started writing songs together with a big basis on harmony singing and more of a folkie sound. … With Cuba and Nativemind, those other bands get a little rocky. So it’s kind of nice to flex the other [acoustic] muscle.”

When it comes to spreading the word about a band these days, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are supplementing, if not taking over for, printed fliers on telephone poles. Yearbook Committee is no stranger to the changing ways, but they also rely heavily on word of mouth and a fan base that started as “mostly our friends,” Lone said.

Yearbook Committee’s new media efforts are also tied to the drive-by musical experiences of sorts known as Folked Up! (in Terre Haute!). The project is described on its Facebook page as “a video series of local musicians performing folk on the streets of Terre Haute.” It serves as an online showcase for Valley bands. Groups might pop up at a barber shop or a school and play a song which is filmed and posted on YouTube and Facebook. It’s another way of getting your music out in the 21st century.

When they’re not jamming at impromptu locations, Yearbook Committee is spreading its live wings at Terre Haute locations. They’ve made the rounds lately: The Verve, Moggers, on the street to help open an Arts Illiana gallery show as well as lending their tunes to Terre Foods Cooperative Market and Downtown Terre Haute Inc., at the Blueberry Fest on Thursday. They’re certainly a local band giving back to the community. Their next gig is at 8 p.m. Saturday in Coffee Grounds on Wabash.

During Yearbook Committee’s live show, six or more people take the stage and the audience is offered a glimpse of how those early sessions evolved from DaCosta’s garage. They keep things interesting in the live environment and might pair an accordion or a banjo to go with multiple guitars and percussion.

Band members have also been known to pass out what they call “whirligigs” to anyone willing to swing one. Once the “whirligigs” — dollar-store purchases that have surely paid for themselves many times over — start rolling out tones in the key of C-minor, the audience gets to join in on the collaboration.

The band’s set list relies heavily on original material as well as covers that can go anywhere from a marching Coldplay song to a folk version of the hip-hop hit “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley.

What’s in store for the band is a chapter that hasn’t been written yet.

“Predicting the future is kind of a tough thing to do,” Lone said. “I think we’ll let this thing go as far as the legs will take it. We enjoy it. We have no real expectations now. We’re just having fun.”

With tempered expectations, the band hopes to branch out to other cities while sticking to the Terre Haute base they’ve established.

“For the most part, we’ve been playing around town. We’re going to try to go down to Bloomington or over to Indianapolis, but right now we’re solely a Terre Haute band,” Lone said.

The band also wants to promote the music scene in the Wabash Valley.

“There’s a lot of diversity in Terre Haute that people might not even realize,” he continued. “We’re trying to make Terre Haute as fun as it can be. There are a lot of people who are down on the city and we’re trying to show that’s not the case.

“The idea that there’s nothing to do in Terre Haute just isn’t true anymore.”

If things keep going the way they are, Yearbook Committee won’t be sharing its music only with Terre Haute. But for now, it’s a good place to start.



Kyle McCall can be reached at kyle.mccall@tribstar.com or (812)231-4222.

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