THE MOHICAN SCOUTS are Parker Hobson and Rebecca Crenshaw and are “probably not the sort of people you’d want to cheat at Jenga against.” We’re also a band, currently a fingerstyle guitar and a voice (Hobson) and a violin and sometimes another voice (Crenshaw).
The idea is to be an acoustic act that’s not bound by traditional conceptions of What That Usually Means. So we draw a whole lot from the modern-day singer-songwriter tradition, but combine it with a degree of playfulness and experimentation, both sonic and compositional: songs that tell stories are sung with a throaty, spastic urgency; soaring violin hooks fade into swirls of feedback; a gangly dude with a beard jumps and spazzes around while a lady with a violin and a quiet elegance stoically saws a hell of a story stage right.
THE BAND began life at Davidson College in North Carolina, where our first full-length album, Flat-Footed Ghost, was self- recorded and and produced. The album expands the scope of the live acoustic act to include drums, basses, banjos, distorted banjos, distorted strats, feedback loops, delay pedals, run-on sentences, and samples (which range from a depression-era choir singing “God’s / Gonna Set This World On Fire” to a wax cylinder recording of a dirty joke about Grover Cleveland).
The act that we’re touring with this summer is a different animal both instrumentally and texturally than the record (let’s call them siblings who are living in different cities right now but stay in touch fairly frequently and drink a lot of beer together whenever they can), using sparser arrangements and a live, raw energy to highlight the songwriting and musicianship where the record relies on texture and production.
We’re also currently based out of New Orleans, Louisiana, a city that exists outside of time, space, and sanity.
what they’re saying about the band
“Songwriter Parker Hobson plays nylon-string guitar with fiery precision and is not afraid to abuse his instrument when necessary. He also brings a unique and powerful vocal presence … Violinist Rebecca Crenshaw is Hobson’s perfect counterpart- her sweet and melodic (but in no way gutless) playing creates a great balance with the guitarist’s grittier style.” – Mark LaMaire, WWOZ 90.7 FM – New Orleans (http://www.wwoz.org/blog/80963)
“This is such a cool type of music.”-Chriss Knight, ABC 26-New Orleans
“It’s great to be here.” -Hugh Lawrie (tv’s Dr. House), after a Mohican Scouts show in which we opened for Jon Cleary. He probably did not come to see us and most likely was not even talking about us directly, but he said it to us and we’ll take it.
“The Mohican Scouts are like what would have happened had Satchel Paige and J Mascis met accidentally at a smoky Mississippi bar on an Indian Summer’s Night in late October when the leaves have already turned but there is by some strange magic one more night of warmth and life before the dark, Southern winter eats us all for Sunday Brunch.” -Kilgore Trout (did Kilgore Trout actually write this? Probably not.).
