> Husband, wife let influences shine in music
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Melissa Rodenbeek and Hiram Lucke were married in April. They make up the Lawrence-based Harvey Girls who will play Saturday.
JJ DUNCAN/ROCKKANSAS.COM
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Some musicians happily let their influences shine through in what they create.
Lawrence duo the Harvey Girls is one example.
In fact, Hiram Lucke and Melissa Rodenbeek openly celebrate their influences.
Their late 2003 EP "The Biggest Book You'll Never Read" drew a great deal of influence from the book "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewsi.
The couple's upcoming album, "Blabber and Smoke," features a collection of songs that all sample the song "Blabber and Smoke" by Captain Beefheart.
The two have discussed working out a double album of songs written about specific places, Lucke said.
"We're thinking about doing an album based on a town or some place so that all the stories relate to each other," he said. "We've thought about 'Bensonhurst 1984' because Melissa grew up in Bensonhurst outside Brooklyn. We want to have Bensonhurst on one side and Kansas on the other.
"It's funny because it's taken us a year to make another CD, so it could take us 10 years, but at this point it doesn't really matter."
Those are lofty aspirations for a married couple that has so far pursued music mostly as a hobby and will be playing its first live show Saturday at the Eighth Street Taproom in Lawrence. Lucke has had years of experience in the local music scene with his former band the Teriyakis, but Rodenbeek's musical experience is limited to community theater.
The two blend ambient computer and synth-based sounds with samples and melodic vocal parts. To fill out the sound live, Lucke said he has recruited his friends Brent Piepergerdes to play drums and Jon Tveite as a utility musician playing keyboard, guitar and trombone among other things.
The two started to work together more closely with the last song on the EP, "The Rose of Sharon" which was written by Rodenbeek before Lucke started working on it.
"He started with a guitar line and that didn't sound right to me so we moved to a keyboard line," Rodenbeek said. "It was more back and forth with both of us. More of our songs have been like that since."
The two said they balance each other out when they work together.
"I have a tendency to put in the really noisy weird things and Melissa always cuts those down. Melissa is more of the pop person," Lucke said.
"I guess I restrain the experimentation," she said. "I like it, I just don't..."
" ... want to listen it," Lucke jokingly added.
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"No, I just don't want it to run amok," she said.
The two agree that the music project doesn't strain their relationship or vice versa. Lucke said it's better for the two of them than just sitting around watching TV.
"I've worked with different people writing songs over the years," Lucke said. "And it's been nice with Melissa because it seems a lot easier. I don't have to worry about crushing anyone's hopes and dreams by saying I don't like a part in a song. I don't have to tip-toe around things."
"We don't bust each other's chops either, and I think part of it is that we're getting older," Rodenbeek said.
JJ Duncan can be reached at (785) 295-1100 or jj.duncan@cjonline.com.
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