Tonight, on the mystical eve of 11/11/11, our campus will be hit by a blast from the (fairly recent) past: Wordsmith is back, though now under the name of Josh Smith ’11 and the Concert Gs.
As if the triumphant return of the old Wes favorite weren’t enough, many of the Concert Gs will be making a double appearance in the newly-formed Rooks. Pine Street Chapel, another freshly-formed band composed of familiar faces, will be opening.
It’s a concert of champions.
So, what circumstances have conspired to bring Josh Smith back to campus? And why has he dropped the name “Wordsmith?”
“Once I released my debut album last fall I got a cease and desist from this rapper from Maryland who was going by Wordsmith as well,” Smith said. “Although he had not been using it as long as I had, he had been very legally savvy and trademarked it…so I’ve been going by my real name and it feels fine.”
Despite lawyer-ed up rappers, the music is the same: Word—err, Josh—Smith is back at Wesleyan, but it’s not like he and the band have been doing nothing in the real world after graduation. Along with Smith, Louis Russo ’11, Nate Mondschein ’12, Jared Paul ’11, Gabe Gordon ’11, Will Monson ’11, Myles Potter ’12, Spencer Hattendorf ’12, Adam Jaskol ’13, Emma Daniels ’13, and Claire Randall ’12 recently released an album called, “The Reach,” which they recorded this summer.
Their show at Wesleyan may have something to do with promoting their new album (check it out on Josh Smith and the Concert Gs’ bandcamp page). But also, Smith assures, it’s because they love us.
“We haven’t done a show since the album came out, and when I started to think about doing the first show since the release to commemorate that, I was like, ‘I feel like there’s no better place to do that than Wesleyan,’” Smith said. “It felt kind of right to come back home.”
Smith said the concert will be a mix of old favorites and some new material.
“We’re trying to give people a taste of what the good years were,” he said. “But also that we got some new stuff that we’re cooking up as well that we’re really excited about.”
Smith describes their sound as “Hip hop with soul influence.”
“The new Orleans French Quarter had a play date with the darker side of neo-soul, and instead of staying home and playing video games they took a field trip to Brooklyn and learned to rap.”
The Rooks, made up of Garth Taylor ’12, Graham Richman ’11, Gordon, Russo, Hattendorf, and Mondschein, are playing immediately before Josh Smith in their premier as a band. Every band member, excluding Taylor and Richman, are also members of the Concert Gs. In addition, all of the band was part of sorely-missed groove collective Mad Wow. Not to mention they’re all friends.
Mondschein—who is playing with all three bands—said, “The way I usually describe it is some bizarre combination of soul with hip-hop sensibility but also with a lot of pop sort of driving it, and there’s a lot of jazz harmony involved in it.”
“As of right now we’re a little of everything. It’s a nice chopped salad. Lots of carrots,” Taylor clarified. “Our band right now is an animal in a cage. Like someone’s dangling meat in front of us and we’re like, ‘Let us out of the cage,’ and Friday night they’re gonna let us out of the cage and it’s gonna be like—”
“—holy crap this animal is killing everyone,” Mondschein finished. “You might fall in love with some of us. It’s a distinct possibility.”
These two huge bands look like they’re going to be tough acts to precede, but Pine Street Chapel, also playing its first concert together, seems like it’s up to the challenge. The sophomore-heavy band is made up of Ethan Tischler ’14, Sam Long ’12, Jessica Best ’14, Tory Mathieson ’14, Will Fraker ’14, and Mondschein (again!).
Smith said he anticipates that this band will deliver and deliver big.
“[They] are all such talented, talented musicians,” he said. “I was really excited that they had formed a project together finally, and I’m excited to see what they’re gonna do.”
Tischler describes the sound of Pine Street Chapel as “in development.”
“We’re definitely still in the exploratory phase of being more melodic and acoustic on one end and a little bit harder and soulful on the other,” he explained.
There’s one thing that’s for certain: “There will be mind-blowing harmonies,” Mondschein said. “It’ll really screw with your head how many people are singing at once, and you will probably be confused the entire time as to how we’re making as much noise as we are.”
With one up-and-coming band, one new/old band, and Wordsmith’s return, all on a night like 11/11/11, which is also Josh Smith’s birthday, it sounds like the stars have aligned to herald in this event.
And Smith has plans to make it as magical as possible.
“People want to go to a show and forget that there’s a divide between what they’re looking at on stage and themselves,” he said. “I try to get people involved and try to break down that wall that seems to go up sometimes between stage and audience.”
Psi U, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., Josh Smith and the Concert Gs Concert is the place to be this Friday.