{"id":1346150,"date":"2018-08-23T09:17:38","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/?p=1346150"},"modified":"2018-08-23T09:17:38","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:17:38","slug":"alivefive-straight-up-tribal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/2018\/08\/23\/alivefive-straight-up-tribal\/","title":{"rendered":"Alive@Five: Straight Up Tribal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mOV_i_UEyac?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Straight Up Tribal doesn\u2019t practice. Their songs don\u2019t have set lyrics. And the band was formed from a drum circle at the University of Maryland \u2013 Baltimore County that eventually took on a life of its own. It\u2019s all very on-brand for a group that describes itself with terms like \u201cgrassroots rhythm\u201d and \u201crevolutionary tunes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe played around with the title \u2018world funk,\u2019 but I like to think we\u2019re even more open than that,\u201d said 32-year-old frontman Abhik Saha. \u201cIt\u2019s like an improvisational funk\/rock\/reggae sound with a little bit of an operatic flair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like three quarters of the band\u2019s current lineup, Saha joined Straight Up Tribal before the group had a formal name. At first, it was just a drum circle founded by Steven McAlpine, a UMBC instructor who joined the faculty in 2006.<\/p>\n<p>McAlpine, 57, had played percussion since third grade and wanted to foster an \u201cout-of-classroom\u201d space, he said. And he was interested in the communality of drumming, as well as its flexibility. Years ago, he auditioned for Stomp, a performance group that uses ordinary objects to create percussive beats. In 2000, he attended the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival and was invited to perform onstage with his friend, Paul Reisler, on the hammer dulcimer. McAlpine didn\u2019t have his drum kit, but he improvised by foraging for a five-gallon water drum and bringing it onstage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the moment I realized these everyday objects can be viable musical instruments,\u201d he said. For his drum circle at UMBC, he brought along extra djembes \u2014 a traditional African drum \u2014 and invited all sorts of performers to join in: bucket drummers, singers, even dancers and hula-hoopers.<\/p>\n<p>Trey Kulp, the band\u2019s guitarist, was one of the first UMBC students to join the drum circle when McAlpine set up outside the school\u2019s University Center. But the impromptu performances gained more of a structure when Saha joined the drum circle and began singing over the beats, improvising the words every time he joined in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had no idea Abhik was such a talented improviser,\u201d McAlpine said. Saha, for his part, said his parents were classically trained as Indian musicians, a tradition that incorporates a wide degree of extemporaneous performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I grew up with my parents singing and making music,\u201d Saha said. \u201cFor me, I would say that it has a lot to do with meditation and mindfulness. In the sense that I believe we\u2019re all capable of making up incredible things on the spot, we just have to get out of our own way and allow it to come out of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kulp even credits Saha with coming up with the name for the band.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt kind of came out of a joke because Abhik would start yelling out \u2018Straight up tribal!\u2019 in between songs,\u201d Kulp said. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Dude, that\u2019s our name.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Straight Up Tribal solidified in 2010 when Stephen Mitchell \u2014 Kulp\u2019s friend and former classmate at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick \u2014 joined the band as a bass player. For four years, the group had a regular monthly gig at Teavolve, a caf\u00e9 and lounge in Baltimore. They\u2019ve also performed in Frederick, on First Saturdays in front of the Velvet Lounge, and at several previous Alive @ 5 concerts.<\/p>\n<p>For McAlpine, though, the group\u2019s most meaningful performances have been at events that reflect their own values and beliefs. In 2011, the band performed at the Occupy D.C. demonstration in McPherson Square. And in 2015, Straight Up Tribal performed at Artscape in Baltimore as part of an exhibit made entirely out of recycled plastic and discarded materials. McAlpine crafted two drum tables and a kit made entirely from found objects for the performance \u2014 and still uses the recycled kit for 95 percent of the band\u2019s performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe band really exists to raise awareness, so it\u2019s thinking about where we want to perform,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the money. It\u2019s about connecting with people and co-creating the world we want to live in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The band also still relies on improvisation. According to Kulp, most of their songs have a few set chord progressions and an overall theme, but the rhythm and lyrics still change from performance to performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it brings a rawness to the shows,\u201d he added. \u201cThe moment is special because it\u2019s different every time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Straight Up Tribal doesn\u2019t practice. Their songs don\u2019t have set lyrics. And the band was formed from a drum circle at the University of Maryland \u2013 Baltimore County that eventually&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1346151,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1346150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alivefive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1346151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1346150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}