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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, August 31, 2001

Music Scene
Anything goes with Friends of the Bride

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Self-described "jugless jug band" Friends of the Bride may not have a Grammy on its collective shelf to brag about yet, but the group already has a list of folks to thank should it find itself on stage at the Staples Center, being handed a golden gramophone by the likes of P. Diddy and Sting.

Friends of the Bride are, from left, James McCarthy, Derek Farrar, Julia Wescott Myers, Yash Wichman-Walzak and Charley Myers. The band plays assorted instruments in assorted music styles.

Charley Myers

Granted, that's if the Recording Academy ever deems multi-instrument bands (we're talking bands with steel guitar, washtub bass, kazoo, accordion, spoons and clarinet, among other instruments) with "a demented sense of American music" worthy of a competition of their own.

Friends of the Bride — who, according to member/clarinetist Julia Wescott Myers, formed, in part, to find out "what you get if you take a washtub bass and clarinet, an 'ukulele and a couple of guitars and add some percussion and vocals" — plans to take on any darn musical style it feels it can get away with Saturday at The ARTS at Marks Garage. But more on the band's music later.

First on that Grammy list of folks to thank? The close friend whose wedding spawned the band's name.

Still nameless six months after forming in Wescott Myers' back yard in early 1999, the band almost got an entire wedding party kicked out of a Kaua'i hotel after wailing away in their rooms late into the night after a rehearsal dinner, annoying the hotel manager.

Friends of the Bride
 •  8 p.m. Saturday
 •  The ARTS at Marks Garage
 •  $7
 •  521-2903
"The next day, people were asking about the band who almost got the wedding party kicked out," recalls Wescott Myers. No one knew who the band was, "but everyone was saying they were friends of the bride." A brief moment of silence follows before husband Charley Myers assures, "Um, we're still really good friends with the bride."

Second on the thank-you list? Married Friends Wescott Myers and Myers' Maunawili Valley landlord and neighbors who continue to endure the band's raucous weekly rehearsals.

"We have a wonderful landlord that encourages this kind of stuff," says Charley. "And we live on a big piece of property, so our neighbors are kind of far away."

"In other words, the neighbors really don't know where the music is coming from when they hear it," corrects Julia.

Besides the two Myerses, the daytime working stiffs/after hours musicians that make up the Friends are James McCarthy, Derek Farrar and Yash Wichman-Walzak — in all, an educator, family physician, graphic designer, magazine editor and guitar salesman.

The story behind the group's whacked-out choice of instrumentation?

"It's everything we knew how to play," confesses Charley. "It's not like we had a choice. I mean, I'd love to be able to play the trumpet."

The group members share vocal chores and song selection. Sort of.

"Mostly, we just sit around and argue about it," Charley says of the band's set list, which includes everything from Django Reinhardt and Robert Johnson to Stevie Wonder and Irving Berlin, with a few Hawaiian tunes thrown into the mix. The group even has a stable of quirky original folk- and bluegrass-style compositions sporting creative titles such as "The Ballad of Involuntary Nephrectomy." Don't ask.

"I think we could probably slip some Boy George in there in the future, too," says Charley. Sure, but which Friend would handle the singing?

"I don't know," he says. "I think we'd have to thumb wrestle for that one."