With a slow start and few people in the bar, the band Far Out West took it easy with their first few songs at John’s Alley Tavern on Nov. 1. But as the night went on the number of people went up along with the energy levels of the music.
A set of drums and a bass guitar set the rhythm and pace. An electric mandolin and guitar strummed and picked the melody. Songs started mildly, and gradually waxed and waned as the band continued to play.
The beginning of the songs were soft and quiet, with only a couple of the instruments playing with each other. As these instruments started to pick up the pace in a flurry of well-structured improvisations, the other musicians would join in on the action and build around each other.
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Anticipation from the audience grew with the rising volume and complexity of the musical interactions. Everyone was waiting for the song to break back out and explode like a powder keg back into the chorus. The lead vocalist’s powerful yet soothing voice was able to whisk the audience away into dance.
The band playing seemed like a happy family on stage, and the audience felt as if they were a part of it.
Far Out West is from Portland, Oregon. Liz Chibucos is on electric guitar and vocals, Forest Carter on drums, Chad Kimbler on electroacoustic mandolin and a substitute bass player fills the gap between their old full time bassist and their new one. Chibucos and Kimbler are originally from Ohio, and used to play in a blue grass band before Far Out West.
The band formed around three years ago. Kimbler and Chibucos met the other band mates through the Portland music scene. They would play in different bands during the same night, and then hang out at bars afterward.
Chibucos said their music is a fusion of rock, funk and Americana.
“I kind of stay away from the jam band descriptor, just because that can mean a lot of different things,” Chibucos said. “I’d rather describe the sound than say we jam, because that doesn’t really describe the sound.”
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Jam band is a sort of lazy label that describes bands who have lengthy improvisations during their live musical performances. A band that does fit the jam band label is The Grateful Dead. Jerry Garcia on guitar and vocals is one of Chibucos’s influences. She likes him because he brings together bluegrass and rock, which is something that Far Out West also does. Some of her other influences are John Scofield, Grant Green, Susan Tudeschi and Derek Trucks.
While Far Out West features a lot of improvisation, they resist the term and prefer not to use it to describe themselves. When they are improvising, they usually signal to each other with cues that take form in musical signaling, vocalization between band members and other visual cues when a band member wants to go on a tangent.
The band likes it when people are out on the dance floor and rocking out with them. Chibucos hopes their music connects with people on some level, allowing each audience member to take away their own meaning from the performance. A lot of their song lyrics are silly, but a lot of them are also socially conscious as well.
Their song “The Good Fight” in particular has a political and social resonance to it. Chibucos wrote the song the night after the 2016 presidential election. She said she got emotional and remembered thinking things were about to go downhill in America, saying the next years would also show people’s “true colors”.
“The chorus of the good fight is like, ‘Tomorrow I’ll see if I’m up for fighting the good fight, you win this time,’ is kind of the hook at the end of the chorus,” Chibucos said. “It’s like, ‘Alright I’ll give you that one, you won, but watch out for me tomorrow because I’m coming back.”
Far Out West currently has a four song EP on Spotify that features “The Good Fight,” and a new album is in the works. Once they rotate their new bassist into the band, they’re getting back into the studio in the next month or two and have a goal set to have the album out next year.
Sam Bruce can be reached at [email protected]