Saturday night Drunken Barn Dance played an acoustic set in a Clinton Hill backyard space called “The 50/50.” Drunken Barn Dance is Scott Sellwood, a singer-songwriter who, after eight years of sharing bills with the rest of Michigan’s fertile folk community, has escaped to New York. In Michigan, Sellwood most notably befriended then-labelmate Fred Thomas (of City Center), eventually touring and recording extensively with Thomas’s (now dormant) Saturday Looks Good To Me.
Drunken Barn Dance has been working on recording their new full-length album (with a full band!) in Michigan and the “coming home” show at the 50/50 was the perfect space to house Sellwood’s tunes. Sellwood told stories of following girls with friends from California to Alaska, and of firefly counts in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and wove them into rich ballads that rang through the humid Brooklyn night hopefully and honestly. Joe Scott of White Pines (previously of Canada) joined Sellwood with nostalgic harmonies which brought me straight back to growing up in Michigan.
You can catch Sellwood play again with White Pines, This is Deer Country, Due Diligence, and Dorit at Sidewalk Café this Saturday, July 25.
