Saintseneca: Tiny Desk Concert... LISTEN HERE
One of the many instruments you may hear Saintseneca play — beyond the banjo, baglama, bulbul, balalaika, bowed banjo, baritone ukulele, bass and bouzouki — is a stomp box. Basically, it's a roughly 2'x2' plywood floorboard meant for pounding the beat. At a show just before this Tiny Desk Concert, craftily bearded singer Zac Little put his boot right through that floorboard.
Saintseneca had its beginnings in the heart of a small Appalachian town in Ohio, and the band grew up at college in Columbus. This year's Dark Arc is a pastiche of gentle lyrical moments and punk anthems, often within the same tune and often with that aforementioned stomp, straight from a small wooden porch.
After Saintseneca left the Tiny Desk, I pointed the band to a hardware store to replace its broken floorboard — only to get a note a while later telling me that the new board had been destroyed within weeks. Here's a good sampling of what the group does best, though you should be sure to see Saintseneca in concert, where its fierceness is afoot.
Set List
"Happy Alone"
"Fed Up With Hunger"
"Blood Bath"