The Lansing indie-folk trio chats with Local Spins about its latest singles ahead of their annual holiday showcase at UrbanBeat in Lansing. Listen to the new tracks, too.
A Holiday Song and a Holiday Showcase: The Dangling Participles (Courtesy Photo)
SCROLL DOWN TO LISTEN TO ‘CHRISTMAS WALTZ’
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Austin Kaufmann didn’t expect Christmas 2020 to be a relaxing one.
The pandemic had kept the East Lansing musician and his immediate family from seeing loved ones out of state during the holidays.
Instead, they had spent Christmas at home and relished a chance to slow down.
“I have family in Indiana, and my wife has family in Ohio,” said Kaufmann, a co-lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist with The Dangling Participles.
“We usually travel and spend two days in Indiana and two days in Ohio. We’re always traveling, and we’re never home on Christmas with our immediate family. The silver lining in not being able to see [extended] family was that we could wake up in our own house and just relax.”
Kaufmann decided to capture that sentiment on the Lansing indie-folk trio’s latest holiday single, “Christmas Waltz.”
The song celebrates being home for Christmas and features serene harmonica from Kaufmann and comforting pedal steel guitar by Drew Howard.
Kaufmann sings, “This Christmas morning, in a year like no other / We’ve had a chance to slow down / Our own celebrations, with few obligations / Didn’t even have to leave town.”
“It was the calmest and most relaxing Christmas we’ve ever had because of that,” said Kaufmann, who records and performs with bandmates Tamiko May and Tim Patterson in The Dangling Participles. “And it was hard [not seeing extended family], but we got by with Zoom.”
“Christmas Waltz” also indirectly pays tribute to holiday traditions Kaufmann and May enjoy with their own families each year.
Kaufmann and his extended family have a fondue dinner and sing Christmas carols on Christmas Eve. May and her family also sing Christmas carols, but in multiple languages.
“Both of my husband’s parents emigrated from Germany, and they love the German songs at Christmas,” said May, the band’s co-lead vocalist, cornetist, and ukulelist.
“My brother married a Brazilian woman, so we sing ‘Jingle Bells’ in Portuguese and in Czech. [My husband’s brother] married a woman from [Czechia]. We have multilingual song sheets [for Christmas].”
LISTEN: Dangling Participles, “Christmas Waltz”
A TRIBUTE TO WOMEN IN THE ARTS & AN UPCOMING 10th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
“Christmas Waltz” isn’t the only new single The Dangling Participles have released this year. In October, the band shared “She Will Rise,” an anthemic single that honors the perseverance of women working in the arts and music industry. (Scroll down to listen to the track.)
May sings, “Baptized in fire, she’s felt the burn / But what’s one more scar? / As far as she’s concerned / It’s just a token of a lesson learned / From the ashes, she will rise … she will rise.”
“Part of it was inspired by my wife because she’s a visual artist as well as a writer,” said Kaufmann, who wrote the song.
“For a long time, she was trying to piece together doing portraits and art, trying to write novels, and raising kids, so a lot of it comes from that.”
Celebrating the Season: The Dangling Participles will be joined by Pinter Whitnick on Saturday. (Courtesy Photo)
Kaufmann also took inspiration from past conversations with women folk artists about the challenges of working in music.
“One woman was talking about how she wasn’t always taken seriously when she went to venues,” he said. “I recently had another conversation with [another woman artist] about how often it is that they’re not taken seriously, and that they have to prove themselves doubly just to be considered and accepted into the community sometimes.”
To bring its latest singles to life, The Dangling Participles worked with Corey DeRushia, head engineer and owner of Troubadour Recording Studios in Lansing.
Both tracks feature vocalist-bassist-pianist Tim Patterson and drummer-percussionist Dan Moreno, who amicably parted ways with the band in November. The band announced this week that Noah Cameron is their new drummer.
Outside of the studio, The Dangling Participles will share new material and other favorites at their second annual holiday showcase on Saturday (Dec. 13) at UrbanBeat in Lansing, with Pinter Whitnick opening the concert. Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. show start at $17 and are available online here.
“It will be some originals that aren’t Christmas songs or holiday songs, and then probably half of our set will be some holiday songs,” said May, who will perform with Kaufmann, Patterson and Cameron.
“We also have another duo, Pinter Whitnick, that’s gonna open that show. We’re going to do a bunch of songs that we’re going to collaborate with them on.”
After the holiday showcase, The Dangling Participles will focus on new material and celebrate May’s 10th anniversary as a band in February.
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