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Urban
folk band the garden verge was created twenty years
ago when a second-grade teacher in Princeton Junction, New
Jersey sat Tammy Greenstein and Doris Muramatsu next
to each other, certain that they would never speak to one another.
Instead, they became best friends.
Their
musical partnership began just a few years later when Tammy
took up the guitar and Doris began to spontaneously sing harmonies.
Though they are now only in their twenties, Doris and Tammy
have been collaborating for two decades; today, as the garden
verge, they stand out amidst the sea of solo acts in the
contemporary folk market.
With
intelligent songs and daring vocal harmonies, the garden
verge has raised the bar for two women with acoustic guitars.
Vocally, they have been compared to The Story and disappear
Fear, but the garden verge's sound breaks new ground. "Doris
has a certain genius about harmony-writing," says Tammy. "Some
of her ideas seem to come from...elsewhere." Tammy's alto
is forceful and passionate, and the resulting vocal blend is
astonishing.
Their
songwriting reflects influences from Simon and Garfunkel to George
Michael to the Indigo Girls. But, as Tammy puts
it, "We write this stuff because we've always wanted to
sing it - we wanted to create something that hadn't been done
before." Their songs range in topic from innocent crushes
to chronic indecision to natural disasters. A song called "Amaze
Me," written in response to the events of September 11th,
manages to be poignant yet unpretentious: "Let's dig up
the map and / Let's leave while we're happy / I wanna see Tucson
/ Before it's all gone."
In
addition, Doris and Tammy are both classically trained guitarists
whose playing is fierce (think Ani DiFranco)
and intricate (think Shawn Colvin). Often Tammy, whose
sense of rhythm is apparent in her guitar work, will put down
her Guild acoustic and pick up a large djembe, which she plays "more
like a drumset than a djembe."
the
garden verge performs at prestigious rooms such as The
Bitter End and The Living Room in New York and Club
Passim in Boston; in addition, the duo was chosen to
showcase at last year's Atlantis Music Conference in
Atlanta, GA. Under the auspices of the Auburn Moon Agency,
the nation's premier college talent agency, the garden
verge is fast becoming a favorite on the national college
circuit. Shadow of a Habit, the debut release
featuring David Hamburger (Jess Klein, Li'l Mo & the
Monicats), Barbara Morillo (The Roches),
and others, was released on Clever Shark Records in
April, 2001. The New York Blade calls it "a
stunning charmer...[the garden verge's] blend is beautifully
complete, their harmonies seductive and complex."
In
recent performances, the two women have welcomed their good
friend Nate Borofsky, recipient of the 2001 Boston
Music Award for Outstanding Singer-Songwriter, into the
fold. Nate, dubbed "Folk Lord" in Boston Magazine's Best
of Boston 2001 issue, adds his own quirky songwriting and
graceful tenor to the mix. He also sports a sparkling silver
Danelectro baritone guitar, which he plays "more like
a bass than a baritone."
The
resulting trio's musicality is rock-solid and its enthusiasm
infectious. "I've seen lots of songwriters get up on stage
and play on each other's stuff," Club Passim manager Matt
Smith exclaimed recently, "but you guys sound like a real band!"
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