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Arts & Music

Gimme Five! Skylar of Skylar Gudasz and the Ugly Girls

It’s a roll of the dice to called your band mates “Ugly Girls” and swear your motto is to make music with “as few people with as many instruments as possible,” but Skylar Gudasz is unfazed. And perhaps that’s because those ugly girls (Paul Fisher, William Taylor, and Elysse Thebner) are packing an awful lot of instruments.

It’s a roll of the dice to called your band mates “Ugly Girls” and swear your motto is to make music with “as few people with as many instruments as possible,” but Skylar Gudasz is unfazed.  And perhaps that’s because those ugly girls (Paul Fisher, William Taylor, and Elysse Thebner) are packing an awful lot of instruments.

With guitars, cello, banjo, keyboard, drums, flute, bass, accordian and anything else they can get their hands this crew of noisemakers carve out a sound that throws four part harmonies on top folk/jazz/rock arrangements. It’s smart pop without the smarm and it’s made by a band that’s shockingly new.  Friday night when they open for David Dondero (who NPR called one of the 10 best living songwriters) at the Nightlight, Skylar Gudasz & the Ugly Girls will be just over two months young.  Most people wouldn’t play for those stakes, but as typical, Gudasz is the gambler.  Give a listen to the tunes, though, and it’s easy to see that really the only one at risk is you if you don’t show up early enough to catch this band before word spreads and the crowds get downright hideous.

And now just you’re typical five question throwdown:

1. If your band were a play, what would it be?
The Full Monty meets Hedda Gabler. Steel workers, nudity, Russia, feminism, show tunes, guns and gunz – pretty much sums us up.

2. When did you decide to start this project?
This project decided to start us in April. The Ugly Girls as they stand now, however, didn’t start doing their thing until around early June, so we feel more like Ugly Babies at this point.

3. Describe what makes the Ugly Girls so ugly.
Unsightly birthmarks. Headgear, bunions. Resemblance to non-mammalian animals. Fungus Acne. Serendipitous Mutations. (which, incidentally, was our other band name choice). Regrettable tattoos in exposed places. Lack of depth perception. Bad Jokes…the list goes on and on.

4. Who/what might be a few inspirations or influences that really surprise people?
Buena Vista Social Club – William Taylor, the guitar player, is classically trained so he can bust out those Havana solos, plus the rhythm in those recordings is astounding – every instrument and voice is exploited percussively. That’s always something I’m trying to work more on. As far as voice goes, I think I’ll stand by the Silver Jews’ assessment that all my favorite singers couldn’t sing – from David Berman himself to late Sacred Harp recordings to Bob Dylan to Tina Turner and so on and so forth, they take the technicality out and let the feel dictate flow. Lyrically and melodically, Joni Mitchell is king, king, king – her songs are like movies I can live inside of for days. Oh, and Sookie Stackhouse is an inspiration to all of us AND a fox.

5. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? (how’d that turn out?)
Then, two of us wanted to be musicians. One of us wanted to be a school bus driver. One of us wanted to be an astronaut, pirate, actress, Peter Pan, or a scientist who lived in Antartica (but especially an astronaut).

Now, four of us are musicians. Three of us are/have been baristas, and one of us is in school getting ready for a Real Job. All of us are pirates.

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Get ugly with Skylar and company this Friday at the Nightlight. And by all means, give Skylar a high five when you see her!