Tinpanic Steel Band to perform Friday at the Festival de Joie.
AUBURN – A cowbell picked up the beat from an electronic rhythm machine. A voice in the back of the barn hollered, “One, two, three and four!”
Steel drums erupted from the century-old barn. Standing in three rows, the musicians swayed in place on thick rubber mats, like cooks in a kitchen.
The plunk-plunk music of the 12 steel drums synchronized with the cowbell, which was wrapped in duct tape to mute its sound and keep it from breaking.
The song, a laid-back Pete Seeger tune, lazily continued. Meanwhile, everybody – from the pan players in the band to the chocolate Lab sweeping the stale barn air with his tail – seemed to be smiling.
“It’s a happy sound,” explained Janice Marston. “It’s fun and simple.”
To the members of the Tinpanic Steel Band – made up of locals with daytime jobs and family pressures – fun and simplicity is all the music needs.
That’s why they practice and perform.
“We’re not doing it to make any money,” Marston said. “We don’t want to be famous.”
Most of the band members had never even played the steel drums when they decided to form a band.
“It’s irrational,” said Diane Mawhinney, the Auburn pan player who hosts the rehearsals. “Love is irrational.”
At first, the band was Marston’s idea.
A sailing enthusiast, she fell in love with steel drum music while vacationing in the Caribbean. She liked the complex rhythms. The music seemed to blend perfectly with the gentle breezes and native rum.
When she returned home, she forgot the music. Then, she heard another steel band here in Maine, the Blue Hill-based Flash in the Pans.
One need not be in the Caribbean to play its music, she learned. So, she went on a mission. She began calling friends, mostly professionals who also vacation in the Caribbean. Together, they hired a teacher.
“Jan just did it,” said Peter Garcia, one of the friends who joined. “In a matter of weeks, it was all done.”
There was no quibbling about whether people could read music. In fact, few could. Nor was there hesitation about whether anyone had the aptitude.
“Meet Ms. Audacity,” Garcia said, waving at Marston.
After the first two-hour rehearsal, held in August 2002, they’d learned a single song, “Mary Ann,” by rote.
By the next May, they performed three songs in front of an audience.
“We were terrified,” said Marston. The Yarmouth audience was made up of steel drum fans from around the region, members of the Pan New England.
They liked Tinpanic, whose three songs were the band’s entire repertoire. People cheered. Someone in the audience shouted, “Bravo!”
“We were pretty good,” Marston said. “They liked us and that gave us a lot of momentum.”
As they learned their instruments, they learned more songs. Practices averaged about two hours a night.
Bonita Nicolas of Auburn began to arrange their music, bringing in styles from classical to pop.
“If we can hear it, we can play it,” Garcia said.
Most of the playing happens in rehearsal, though. Scheduling performances and getting to the gigs can be a hassle. They have performed at friends’ weddings but refuse to make a business of it.
Instead, they do select shows. Among them is this weekend’s Festival de Joie in Lewiston’s Railroad Park.
They are scheduled to perform at 6:30 p.m. on Friday evening.
The band likes performing in front of people, Mawhinney said, daring anyone to stand still when the music starts.
In the rehearsal in her barn, the band members all seem to have a good time.
The band slides into a version of Van Morrison’s “Moondance” as Nicolas begins clanging her cowbell.
“I’ve broken about eight of these,” she said.
Mawhinney smiles from behind her alto pan, decorated like a bathtub with adhesive fish on its side. Then Nicolas speeds up the tempo while looking at Mawhinney and Marston, standing side by side.
“Kick it up, girls,” she said.
Festival de Joie
Today
5:30 p.m. Prelude begins in Lewiston
6 p.m. Opening ceremonies
7 p.m. Parade. Starts at VIP on Lisbon Street, Lewiston, and ends at Kennedy Park
Thursday
7 p.m. Just Us concert, Railroad Park, Lewiston
Friday
7 a.m. C’est Si Bon Cafe opens. No admission to cafe.
5 p.m. Festival de Joie entertainment begins on three stages, Railroad Park, Oxford Street, Lewiston
Saturday
7 a.m. C’est Si Bon Cafe opens
Noon: Entertainment begins, Railroad Park
Sunday
7 a.m. C’est Si Bon Cafe opens
8:30 p.m. Catholic Mass
Noon: Entertainment begins, Railroad Park
5 p.m. Closing Ceremonies
Admission is $12 in advance and $14 at the door for a weekend button. A daylong button is $9. Children 12 and under are free if accompanied by an adult.
More information is available at www.festivaldejoie.org.
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