Show Reviews: SALT House Concert

Now that I'm moving into the SALT House in Harrisburg, it may seem a little late to cover these as an outsider, but since I was supposed to run audio in both cases it doesn't make much difference. My friend Phil Wilmot, formerly of hardcore act Judges as well as folkies The Legacy of Joseph-Michel Montgolfier [reviewed here], used some contacts in the underground house-show scene to get touring bands to drop by on their way to more important places in exchange for a place to crash.

The first show I was involved in warmed up with acoustic sets by Kyle Rictor, Nathan Leigh, and local Trunks & Tales in an apartment before moving downstairs for the sonic assault of punks Run, Forever and post-rockers Deadhorse.

Rictor, a Messiah dropout based out of Nashville, performs with backing vocals by his wife Kelsey in an intimate style perfectly suited to the small room. Their intertwining voices mesmerized the small group that gathered with gentle guitar accompaniment that belied his imposing frame. His songs have since been regularly featured on The Fox and the Hound Show, and will soon make it onto a mixtape for my girlfriend.


Nathan Leigh is Brooklyn to the core, splitting time between indie-pop outfit Super Mirage and Latin post-punk band A Thousand Ships. With day jobs designing sound both for musical theater and Keroscene Records, his sheer output of work is incredible. Though on record much of his solo work is electronic-inflected, Leigh live is an engaging acoustic act, filled with anecdotes about his songs peppered with a biting wit. He has also received some airplay from my radio show, and "Letters, Postcards, Telegrams" will be on the aforementioned mixtape. Letters, Postcards, Telegrams by nathanleigh

Trunks & Tales, once a duo, is now the solo project of Daniel Anderson, whose negative songs about touring are only matched by willingness to play shows. His most recent effort is an album of covers of everything from Further Seems Forever to Counting Crows, which, like the rest of his music, is available at whatever price you choose to name on Bandcamp.

[insert reference to previous Monty Python reference and how much more appropriate it would be here if I hadn't already used it in the previous show review]

I actually did run sound for Run, Forever, putting my 1100 watts to use to make the vocal audible over their guitar and bass amps and drum kit in the tiny space of the SALT House lobby. After a brief but enthusiastic set, my task switched to making a keyboard audible over the wail of postrock guitars being put out by Deadhorse. Since their enormous amps and proclivity for walls of distortion made this virtually impossible, it did not surprise me when we were shut down after a song or two due to noise ordinances of some kind. I probably would have been more impressed with both acts in a larger room, but in such close quarters their emphasis on noise and disregard for my equipment began to make me feel like an old man.