It has been a whirlwind year for A Hawk And A Hacksaw. 2006 saw the recording of The Way The Wind Blows (with contributions from Romanian gypsy group Fanfare Ciocarlia and members of Beirut), which saw the band finally getting the respect they deserve, gaining many new friends to boot. Tours with the likes of Calexico and Beirut saw the band reaching bigger and new audiences. The likes of as Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and The Cinematic Orchestra, amongst others, have popped out of the woodwork as fans.
This special performance sees the core duo of Jeremy Barnes (accordion, drums, vocals) and Heather Trost (violin, vocals) augmented by the talents of two renowned Hungarian virtuosi, Ferenc Kovács (violin, trumpet) and Balazs Unger (cymbalom).
AHAAH began life as the solo project of Jeremy Barnes of Albuquerque, New Mexico. With a hopeful spirit of adventure, in hot pursuit of music, Barnes began travelling in France, living in New York and Chicago (where he played drums for the cult group Neutral Milk Hotel), and finally settled in Leicester, England at the turn of the millennium. There he became a postman. This unlikely turn of events (“It was horrible, but I’m still proud to have the Royal Mail uniform”) resulted in Jeremy briefly drumming for Broadcast during their HaHa Sound period, while secretly tinkering away on what would blossom into AHAAH.
Arriving in 2002 with a self-titled debut recorded in France, accordion, piano and bursts of drunken chorus recalled Kurt Weill orchestrations and the whimsical side of Tom Waits, with a flourish of PT Barnum deceits and backwoods carnivals, top hats and curly moustaches. Essentially a one-man band, Barnes was toe-dipping in waters that would soon run much deeper.
While delivering the mail in Leicester, every Sunday Barnes would volunteer at the local refugee centre. “In a run down cafeteria there were people from China, Iraq, Iran, Roma from Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria. There were Africans, Pole and Kurds. I mostly played with Iraqis and Kurds; the Roma kept to themselves. I thought there was some sort of unapproachable barrier between me and these people whom I so admired. But there wasn't.”
The experience was a revelation. Throwing in his postman’s hat, Jeremy set off on a journey that would lead him all the way home to Albuquerque.
After a stint in Prague, where the celebrated follow-up Darkness at Noon (released in 2005) was composed in its entirety, Jeremy moved back to his hometown, after some 10 years absence. Almost immediately, he met his paramour, the violinist Heather Trost, whose immeasurable influence on AHAAH can be seen in the intense stage rapport the duo have live, and a visceral sense of joy that rarely leaves an audience unaffected.
The duo relocated from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Budapest, Hungary, in early 2007, where an EP was recorded with The Hun Hangár Ensemble, a group of virtuoso Hungarian musicians who all had connections to the musical epicentre of Hungary, Fonó.
(Biography Last updated 14 April 2004)
