East Coast band to bring melting pot of folk music to Port Townsend listeners

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Hailing from upstate New York, The Faux Paws are headed to Port Townsend to bring their melting pot of folk music to local ears.

The trio-band is set for the Palindrome stage at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15. From raging fiddle tunes to saxophone solos and unrequited love songs, the music of The Faux Paws doesn’t fit into the narrow boxes of standard genre descriptions.

The trio of close friends — two of which happen to be brothers — feel a musical kinship transcending any stylistic limitations, with more than a decade of honing their infectious groove and feel-good sound.

In 2021, the bi-coastal group released its self-titled album, “The Faux Paws,” wowing listeners with their wide-ranging and folk-influenced tunes.

The band never had a geographic home base, so it is unsurprising that much of the music on its debut album revolves around traveling the country and experiencing new places. The standout opening track, “Fourth Decade,” showcases the phenomenal and unique fiddle playing of Noah VanNorstrand, accompanied by both Chris Miller and Andrew VanNorstrand on two banjos.

The marriage of rhythm and melody is delicious and addictive to listeners, drawing them in. It may have taken The Faux Paws 10 years to make their debut album, but those years have clearly not gone to waste.  

Brothers Andrew and Noah VanNorstrand grew up playing contra dance tunes with their musician mother as the band Great Bear. The contra band based in upstate New York gained a strong reputation in the niche world of folk-dance music. Touring the country for 18 years, Great Bear released numerous albums and started their own dance festival called The Groove. 

The VanNorstrand brothers met Miller, The Faux Paws’ third member, at a music camp in New York.

“I had never heard of contra dance music before,” Miller said. “But as soon as we began casually jamming together, there was this incredible musical synergy.”

Miller grew up in Florida and was enamored with jazz and bluegrass, studying jazz before going on to play with Grammy-nominated Cajun-country band The Revelers.

“The most important part of my musical background is that it’s all about fitting in and complementing other music. How can I uplift the melody, how can I get different sounds out of whatever instrument I’m playing?” Miller said.

He also plays banjo, dobro, clarinet, and other instruments.

For the VanNorstrand brothers, who’d developed a musical “mind-meld” over nearly two decades of playing together, the addition of Miller brought a welcome interruption of old habits while simultaneously tying together the big picture sounds that they were attempting to reach.

“Chris is somewhat of a musical chameleon, and he can play lots of different instruments. But what he plays is so right in a big picture sense that it’s irrelevant what instrument he ends up picking,” Andrew VanNorstrand said. 

The trio have toured across North America several times since meeting in 2012, sometimes under the name The Faux Paws, sometimes as part of other larger ensembles. Due to their commitments to other bands and musical projects, the timing was never right to focus on making The Faux Paws a priority.

Instead, they took their time learning about different styles of music from one another, finding where their interests and skills could create unexpected and exciting new sounds.

“I love super glossy pop music, and Chris is always pushing more of a jazz influence,” Noah VanNorstrand said, adding, “but we all have a strong background in dance music, so almost everything we do has rhythm and groove, and is based around hook and feel.”

Now, with an experimental but cohesive vision, the trio brings together seemingly unrelated musical elements into one joyful and distinctive collection, deeply rooted in the raw humanity of folk dance and music traditions.

Tickets are $20 each online and $25 at the door. To purchase tickets online, go to ticketstorm.com/e/27493/t.