MICHAEL MERENDA
Michael Merenda is a wordsmith, vocalist and guitarist who has long recognized that a good song has the ability to improve the world. On both an intensely personal and universal level Merenda’s work strives to entertain as well as illuminate. His early fascination with the socially conscious writings of Bob Marley and Bob Dylan met head-on with the arrival of young, smart, outspoken artists such as Ani Difranco and Dan Bern, furthering the young writer’s blossoming ideology that politics need not be polarizing and dry, but alive, vibrant and inspiring.
Merenda’s inventive approach to songmaking has been described as “zen.” He’s not one to premeditate a song or to fish stories out of newspapers, but rather he hoists his antenna and dials in frequencies already alive inside himself and the atmosphere. As a result, there are plenty of catchy hooks and memorable lines, but they come at you like approaching headlights on a dark, two-lane highway.
His travels with internationally acclaimed string-band, The Mammals, have made Merenda exceedingly comfortable on stage. His signature breathy voice has hints of Nick Drake and Paul Simon and in performance this soft delivery works like a magnet. Familiar yet enigmatic, Michael Merenda is a talent to watch in this songwriting renaissance of the 21st century.
MIKE AND RUTHY
An Americana songwriting duo with a growing following on the acoustic folk scene, Mike & Ruthy are writing, recording and touring clubs and festivals. With a repertoire of old-timey twang, topical folk, and just plain love songs, their heartfelt vocal duets intertwine with lively fiddle & banjo.
biography:
Mike and Ruthy are a couple whose love was forged in New York City amidst a swirl of rock, anti-folk, and Americana enthusiasm. They harmonized from the first night they met, bringing smiles to their friends faces with original songs and layering raspy fiddle over pop-strummed guitar. It was 1999, and their band, Rhinegold, played to pre-trucker-hat hipsters in the East Village and then gathered to play more songs around the cluttered coffeetable at someones apartment. Richard Buckner played low on the small bedside stereo as these young, nocturnal band-mates got some early morning sleep.
It is true that Mike was originally recruited by his college to play hockey and Ruth had gone to school for acting, but now they began a new path together, crafting songs and recordings and touring the world. Ten years later, Mike and Ruthy are married and living upstate with their new son, William Puck. With 7 years of touring under their belts with folk band The Mammals, they have begun a new chapter, one that still incorporates the best sounds and textures that old-timey and rock music can offer.
Their 2008 duo CD, The Honeymoon Agenda, has been well received by fans and critics alike. "When most newlyweds take their honeymoons, they jet off to some sunny, all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean. This young couple opted to spend their postnuptials at home in West Hurley making their first album as a duo. 'The Honeymoon Agenda' is a 40-minute expression of love. Heres hoping their anniversaries yield more records this good." - Hudson Valley Chronogram
"Waltz of the Chickadee" is the brand new 2009 recording which they have just released on their own Humble Abode Music label. With a few guest appearances by their family and friends, the record is full of great new lyrical journeys surrounded by moody mountain sounds and lively twang.
On the heels of the roots-based "Chickadee" session, Mike & Ruthy began collaborating with their friend Craig Santiago whose graceful drumming has already inspired another CD's worth of original folk-rock material. With bassist/producer Jose Ayerve on board, this project, tentatively titled "Rise," will be available in 2010.
Mike and Ruthy love writing, recording and playing shows and music festivals as a duo or 4-piece band. The added joy and demands of parenthood have given them a new appreciation for the power of good music and the fine community of people they have connected with across the country and the world. Enjoying the beauty of the moment is their shared goal, and you can hear it in every song they sing.
When Mike and Ruthy met in New York City in 1998 Ruth was a young actress with a family background in folk music and Mike was a fledgeling playwright and songwriter with a family background in New England ice hockey. Within a month they were performing together in the basket houses of New York’s Lower East Side.
“Ungar is the daughter of Jay Ungar and Lyn Hardy, two musicians who have kept American folk traditions stoked. Ungar spent her childhood amidst all manner of string instruments and the visitations of members of New York’s Jewgrass gang. She met songwriter Michael Merenda in the late 90’s and, after hearing him perform an original tune, asked him to play it again, whereupon she promptly sang a part in perfect harmony. Thus began a professional and romantic relationship . . . Ungar is a sensational singer . . . Merenda is one of the best songwriters of his generation - literate, political, melodic, alternately angry and satirical and sensual.” - Michael Simmons, High Times
The year 2000 found the duo moving from the high rents of the city to Western Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley where they met Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and formed a subversive, acoustic, all-timey stringband called The Mammals. For 6 years, they have toured concert halls and music festivals in America, Canada, Australia, and Europe including a 40 date tour in 2005 with Arlo Guthrie which culminated at the world renowned Carnegie Hall.
“Every decade has its state-of-the-art folk-rock band. This decade's is The Mammals, most often noted for featuring Pete Seeger's grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and fiddler Jay Ungar's daughter Ruth. But the band's secret threat is songwriter Michael Merenda, seemingly descended not just from one famous folkie, but the entire folk tradition itself. His songs range from sensitive, breathy ballads to audibly grinning political broadsides.”
- Jeff Rosenberg, Willamette Week
Mike and Ruthy got married on October 28, 2006 and with nearly a decade of touring experience, three Mammals studio records (Evolver, Rock that Babe, Departure), three Mike solo records (Trapped in the Valley, Election Day, Quiver) and one solo Ruth record (Jukebox) under their belts, the two hit the studio in January 2007 to record The Honeymoon Agenda, their first recording as husband and wife.
Theirs is a natural collaboration that reminds many listeners of Simon & Garfunkle or Richard and Mimi Farinía (perhaps because of the lyrical and blended vocal duets.) Mike & Ruthy accompany their voices with guitars, banjo, ukulele, glockenspiel, and often a kick drum (Mike began his musical journey as a drummer!) Mike gets the Dylan comparison a lot, not just for his left-leaning, Guthrie-esque song stylings, but also for his large, brown, curly hairstyle. Ungar’s singing talent is often likened to that of a Billie Holiday or Norah Jones although, ultimately, both of these young artists defy simple comparisons. The duo lives and records in their Catskill Mountain home just outside of Woodstock, NY.
THE STORY OF MIKE
Michael Merenda grew up in the small University town of Durham, NH. He spent his youth playing drums and guitar in several Northeastern rock/punk/reggae outfits before heading to NYC after graduating with a creative writing degree from Bowdoin College in Maine.
In New York Mike found himself at home at the Lower East Side’s Sidewalk Cafe, home of the burgeoning “anti-folk” scene. It was while living in New York that Mike met fiddler/singer Ruth Ungar who instantly began harmonizing to Merenda’s unique, poetic, outspoken songs and introduced the young songwriter to traditional folk music.
After a year spent performing together in New York the two left the high rents of the city for Western Massachusetts where Mike recorded his first album, TRAPPED IN THE VALLEY. Produced by Jose Ayerve (Spouse), “Trapped” unmistakably documents Merenda’s free-form style of writing and propensity towards sonic experimentation interlocking with the more traditional sounds and rhythms he had recently began exploring.
Under Ungar’s influence, Mike picked up old-time banjo and began working at the Fretted Instrument Workshop in Amherst, MA. At Fretted Mike was introduced to Tao Rodriguez-Seeger (Grandson of banjo-virtuoso, Pete Seeger) and, before he knew it, Mike was touring the US and Canada with Rodriguez-Seeger and Ungar under the name The Mammals.
Traditional music, which started out as a fascinating dichotomy to the modern, folk-ish songs Merenda had been intuitively writing, became a main focus. Soon The Mammals were headlining major American folk festivals and were being hired to teach banjo, fiddle and songwriting techniques at music camps and schools.
It was within The Mammals that Merenda evolved into a topical songwriter in the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Not one to leave his original vision behind, however, Mike continued to produce solo records of his darker, "vaguely apocalyptic" material.
In 2004, with the help of The Mammals producer Max Feldman, Merenda released ELECTION DAY a “remarkable . . . musically experimental . . . political album”; a wild amalgamation of political folk, freak folk, anti-folk, rock, pop, country, alternative, underground and emo.
Merenda contributed songs to two more Mammals albums (Rock that Babe, Departure) before hitting the studio in January 2006, again with producer Jose Ayerve, to record QUIVER, a collection of twelve stunning, mysterious folk songs which unfold like a series of skilled poems sung to glimmering musical backdrops.
In 2007 Mike will be touring the US in support of QUIVER in between Mammals tours which will bring the band all over America as well as Australia and Europe. In November 2006 Mike will be supporting one of his favorite new-folk songwriters, Dan Bern, for a string of shows in Oregon and Washington state.