Outer Banks Onstage

The Snake Oil Medicine Show is no more. The western North Carolina ensemble, which contracted to appear at the Outer Banks Forum for the Lively Arts, then went into a nova state and flew apart.

However, founder George Pond and fellow Snake-Oilers, brother Andy Pond and drummer Billy Seawell, reunited with a survivor of the late Acoustic Syndicate and revived their band, the Cygnus X-1 Blackhole Bluegrass Boyz, as CX-1.

Any suspicions of eccentric eclecticism that might arise from this little back-story were amply borne out at their Forum concert Saturday evening.

Their set began with the four musicians grouped around a single omni-directional microphone at the front of the Forum stage, while behind them the stage groaned under a full drum kit and an array of electric guitars and basses and amplifiers and mixers aglow with dancing LEDs.

The group, however, played unplugged acoustic instruments in their little circle around the mic. Billy Seawell sat at a single snare drum, George Pond held an acoustic guitar, Jay Sanders stood with an acoustic double bass and Andy Pond had a 5-string banjo.

The Blackhole Bluegrass Boys wore suits and ties, save George, who was dressed in dark shirt, vest and slacks.

Their first song began with a bluegrassy banjo lick, but syncopated; this led into a calypso-flavored toe-tapper with a circular chorus in three-part harmony. The sound was bright, the harmonies spot-on.

The next song was explicit reggae, "Lonely Man," a loping, pretty ballad from the Jamaican band the Overtakers, with whom the late Snake Oil Medicine Show recorded a CD, 'Pon Scenic Isle.

Only in their third song did the Blackhole Bluegrass Boys suit the music to their look with an original bluegrass number, "Creek Come Risin'," from their latest CD, Andy Pond and CX-1.

They also covered, nicely, a Flatt & Scruggs banjo breakdown.

George Pond spoke of the affinity between the mountain music of North Carolina and that of Jamaica; much of the Blackhole Bluegrass Boys' original music was a blend of bluegrass and calypso, reggae and ska. Played expertly, it was toothsome and memorable. Perhaps the ultimate amalgam was "Bluegrasstafari," which began in quick bluegrass mode, switched to reggae for the middle section, and back to 'grass for the feverish finale.

The novelty of seeing an acoustic bluegrass group performing reggae was matched by the quality of the performance.

And so, this was the Blackhole Bluegrass Boys part of the evening; after intermission, the musicians would return as CX-1.

After the break they came out onstage again and spread out to their electric stations: Seawell to the drum kit; George Pond strapped on an electric guitar, Sanders an electric bass-guitar and Andy Pond a slick-looking electric banjo.

They adjusted ear-pods, which replaced onstage monitors; Andy's headset was a pair of chrome ear-pieces. With the LEDs blinking on the amps behind the musicians, the evening took on a new cast.

They resumed with "the progressive part of our roots-fusion program," "Pick It Up," a slow reggae potboiler. Andy Pond took a guitarlike solo with his electric banjo, and Sanders took a nimble bass solo.

Traditional emough, except for the banjo, which nonetheless sounded more like a guitar here. The next song, though, was an exercise in time-signatures (the number of beats to a bar of music), called "Ain't Got Time For Time." George Pond invited guesses as to what time-signature was actually used.

Sure enough, while the piece moved along nicely, it was almost impossible to count out. Very long lines with atmospheric chords played on the banjo through a chorus effect produced spacey music, not unlike Meddle-era Pink Floyd, but with more direction, more like post-Steve Hillage Gong, perhaps (no Pot-Head Pixies here).

The acoustic electronica persona reminded me of the Byrds, actually. Their biggest hits were the folksy "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the futuristic "Eight Miles High." They made both acoustic country music with Gram Parsons (Sweetheart of the Rodeo) and electronic experiments ("Mind Gardens," "2-4-2 Fox Trot: The Lear Jet Song").

The Space-Opera moves seemed to come mainly from George Pond, who rapped surreally between songs and even wore glasses like the Byrds' Roger McGuinn's. Brother Andy's electronic banjo at times evoked McGuinn's guitar solo on "Eight Miles High" (McGuinn is also a banjo-picker).

But the music was all CX-1, and all fascinating. There was no folk-rock, which was the basis of the Byrds' music, and which McGuinn is playing again currently. Instead, old-timey and bluegrass music leads to world- and space-music in the CX-1 canon.

Another musical direction was heard when Sanders traded his bass for an acoustic guitar and George Pond strapped on a bass. Pond had described Sanders as a "spider-fingered jazz guitarist" when he joined the original Cygnus X-1 Blackhole Bluegrass Boyz, who they turned into a "callous-handed bass player."

The subsequent pieces, even with the occasional vocal part, were firmly rooted in jazz, and Sanders' fluid guitar-playing was no less remarkable for being played on an acoustic. Once, he played it through a signal-clipping effect and it sounded like John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra-era Les Paul.

But no doubt, CX-1 is their own band, rooted in the past and pointed to the future, and anybody who cares about music should give a listen.


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