Copious Notes

The members of Too Many Drummers include multi-instrumentalist Josh Dahm, lead singer and guitarist David Abbott and drummer Collin Berner. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Too Many Drummers likes to play coffee shops, but there is one little problem: the drums.

“One of the challenges we have is Collin and I like to play loud - too loud for coffee shops,” lead singer and guitarist David Abbott says of himself and the band’s drummer, Collin Berner. “There’s this thing about drummers: They kind of set the ceiling for a band’s sound, so however loud he plays, we all have to be that loud to be heard.”

Bassist Erik Rishel performs with Too Many Drummers on the opening day of the 40th annual Ichthus Festival.

And when you’re in a relatively small room like a coffee shop, and it starts getting loud, “That’s no fun for anyone,” multi-instrumentalist Josh Dahm says.

Fortunately for the seemingly aptly-named band, small rooms have not been a big issue lately.

Too Many Drummers recently spent a few days playing at the Ichthus Festival in Wilmore. The opening day, the group was one of nine acts in the Ascenxion Scout Competition. Then, on the festival’s closing day, the band took the main stage as a reward for winning another competition prior to Ichthus.

July 11, a month in the spotlight will continue for Too Many Drummers as the group opens for Sanctus Real and Tenth Avenue North at the Summer Slam concert at Winchester’s George Rogers Clark High School.

For the band, events like Ichthus and Summer Slam are chances to get in front of audiences that otherwise might not hear them, or anyone like them.

The men in Too Many Drummers describe their sound as, “melodic art rock.”

To a newcomer, it can sound kind of jam-band oriented, as they launch into things like the Reckless Love Trilogy, which the group played at the Ascenxion competition.

But, the band members point out, most of TMD’s music is written, much of it by Dahm, a classically-trained musician who studied at Asbury College and is now the music director at Mt. Freedom Baptist Church in Wilmore.

The group started at Asbury, but is by no means a college band. Abbott and Dahm initially got together at Asbury in 2002, played together for a while, and then reunited years later.

“We were playing coffee shops and praying for a bass player and a drummer,” Abbott says.

They met Berner to form a trio in January 2008. With the addition of bassist Erik Rishel, an old Asbury friend, in the spring, Too Many Drummers’ current lineup was complete.

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Wilmore-based Rookie is Landon Cunningham, Abe Parker and Grant Ebright. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

WILMORE — The trio Rookie did a lot of the right things when they started performing together.

They picked bandmates they liked hanging out with. They defined a sort of jazzy edge to their sound that they say makes them different from most other Christian rock acts. They jettisoned a meaningless name, Auburn, for one that said something: Rookie, they say, is a commentary on the clumsiness with which most people go about their faith.

And they got the director of the Ichthus Festival to come see their show.

OK, that last element isn’t necessarily part of the prescription for most bands. And a few years ago, it might not have yielded much.

Kevin Young of Disciple performs on the main stage at Ichthus on the festival.

But, while Ichthus’ calling card is still chart-topping international Christian bands such as Skillet and Family Force 5, Kentucky musicians have had a growing role in the festival, whether it’s competitors in the fest’s 3-year-old battle of the bands, local rockers invited to perform on secondary stages, area church leaders playing during late-afternoon worship sessions, or the occasional national artist who resides right here in the Bluegrass.

“My family got to come out,” Disciple frontman and Central Kentucky resident Kevin Young said of the band’s Thursday main-stage set. “That’s why I like Ichthus a lot, because I actually get to do this and my family is close by. My daughter is 81/2 months old, and yesterday was her first Disciple concert. I didn’t get to see her face, but my wife said she was kicking a lot, so apparently she liked the music.”

The biggest concentration of local talent was earlier that day on the worship stage where bands competed in the third annual Ascenxion Scout Competition. The first year of the competition, three bands were selected in an online competition to play Ichthus stages. The past two years, the competition’s finals have been live the opening morning of the festival, meaning even if they don’t advance, all the competitors can say they played Ichthus.

They included 16-year-old Radfordville resident Allison Stafford, who said when she saw Christian rocker’s BarlowGirl at Ichthus two years ago, “I decided I wanted to do that.”

Playing a festival like Ichthus gives local acts, as well as other less familiar bands, a chance for people to run across their music as opposed to concerts or club dates, where a lot of people who come are already familiar with the band.

“We got a really good crowd response,” Landon Cunningham, Rookie’s drummer, said the day after their Friday set on the Edge Stage. “It’s great that they are providing this kind of opportunity to local bands,” he added, noting some other area acts such as Wilmore’s Shane Tracy Project also got moments in the spotlight.

A few locals even got main-stage shots: The Lee Roessler Band, which won the Ascenxion Scout Competition, and Lexington’s Too Many Drummers, which got there via another competition.

But possibly the most prominent local musicians on the Ichthus stage this year were area worship leaders who led devotional times late each afternoon.

Amaris Blevins sang with the worship "all-star team," at Ichthus on June 12.

A group from Quest Community Church and then a worship “all-star team” — comprising musicians from churches such as Southland Christian, Centenary United Methodist and Southern Acres — took the stage in the evenings, where nationally known artists used to play.

“It’s different from church,” said Amaris Blevins, a singer at Southland who was part of the team. “It was a lot more people and a different energy from church.”

And while the worship all-star team isn’t looking for a recording contract the way bands might, the musicians did appreciate the opportunity.

“I like that they’re getting more locals involved,” Jonathan Mckeowen, a guitarist with the group, said. “It used to be kind of hard to get in here.”

Mat Kearney. Photo courtesy of Columbia Records.

Review: Mat Kearney — City of Black & White

Mat Kearney approaches sophomore album pressure in a different way: He sings about it . . . in the opening lines of the opening track of his sophomore album.

Here we go at it three years later
Will you help me to dream it all up again?
Tired of the same song everyone’s singing
Rather be lost with you instead

Kearney’s 2006 Columbia Records debut, Nothing Left to Lose, was a mainstream hit and also found the artist embraced by Christian listeners for his faith and songs that certainly had faith-based underpinnings. Now, the aforementioned three years later, Kearney is back with a new album that should reaffirm the Christian market’s faith in him as well as his status as one of the leaders in the current singer-songrwriter ranks that includes Jason Mraz and Gavin DeGraw.

City of Black & White has some ambition, clocking in with 14 tracks that run around an hour. It also finds Kearney diversifying his sound and subject matter. The unity of the album is a steady echo, as if we are always navigating concrete and glass towers in an urban jungle. That best resolves in the title track, which ends in lonely threads that sound like dulcimer and slide guitar.

The lyrical content is empathetic, individualistic stories and portraits, Annie being the most immediate and memorable. Most of the songs have a spiritual interpretation, if not an overt message. With City of Black & White, Kearney has cleared the sophomore hurdle, and his future is sounding good.

The Ichthus Battle is set: Get your coffee, kids, because the Ichthus Festival’s Battle of the Bands will get started at 9 a.m. June 11, the first full day of the fest. Nine bands will be vying for a spot on the Ichthus Main Stage during the festival, and that winner will advance to a national competition between bands that win battles at other fests during the summer, with the possibility of a Word Records deal being the big prize.

The contendah’s are:

Eyesuponus of Versailles, which won a secondary stage spot in Ichthus’ first band battle in 2007.

7:13 of Paintsville

Crosslife of Owingsville

Too Many Drummers of Lexington

The Lee Roessler Band of Alexandria

Allison Stafford of Bradfordsville

Chasing Canaan of Shreveport, La.

Calling Glory of Athens, Tenn.

Those seven acts got in through online voting in the Ascenxion Scout Competition. Two additional bands made it through preliminary competitions.

Wisdom’s Call of Elizabethtown won a competition in Tennessee.

Divine Day, which was an Ichthus winner last year, won an Ohio competition.

The whole festival, numero 40 for the fish, is now under two weeks away. Keep checking in here and on my Twitter page for updates, stories and info. At Twitter, we use the hashtag #ichthus.

Review: Newsboys, In the Hands of God

Out of the weirdness that has been the Newsboys of recent months comes a new album — a new album with the old guy on lead vocals. Or is he the old guy, or just the singer who will no longer travel with the group? It’s a murky picture, but what we do know is the Aussie group has released its first album since frontman Peter Furler announced he would not be touring with the band anymore and former dc talk member Michael Tait took over the mike.

In the Hands of God was recorded before that, and it is unmistakably Newsboys in sound and tone. You get the feel of an act wanting to take one last sweep through its current state before everything changes, such as the late-90s humor in The Way we Roll and the more recent worshipful nature of the title track. Problem is it all sounds like classic Newsboys, but nothing is quite as compelling as the best of the band’s catalog. Maybe it was time for a change.

Review: Sarah Reeves, Sweet Sweet Sound

Sarah Reeves could have titled her debut album “Getting to Know You,” if she didn’t have a nice little title tune to bing off of. Her short debut — maybe EP most accurately describes this offering — is a sextet of nice personal songs co-written by Reeves that leave a strong impression of a young woman very devoted to worship and looking for direction in how to use her gifts.

While none of the tunes are terribly distinctive or instant classics, the 19-year-old Alabamian had a pretty cool opportunity to write with longtime hitmakers Ed Cash and Matt Brownlee. And the voice we hear is young, earnest and full of hope. With Sweet Sweet Sound, we can say we’ve been introduced to Sarah Reeves, and we hope to hear more from her.

Ichthus tick-tock: Time is running out on two things you can act on with Ichthus.

1. The latest ticket-price increase is being held off until May 22. So, until then, full weekend tickets are $98, single-day tickets are $53, single evening tickets are $56 and children ages 7-10 are $57 for the weekend and $37 for a day. After the 22nd, the weekend adult tickets pop up to $108 and all other tickets increase too. You can order tickets at the festival website or by calling (859) 858-3001. Ichthus is also advertising payment plans for tickets.

2. There are only a few days left in voting for the Ascenxion Scout Competition. The Top 5 acts will be on the Deep End Stage the first day of the festival, and the top act, as chosen by judges during those performances, will get to play Ichthus’ Main Stage July 12 and the Deep End July 13.

The 8 Kentucky acts in the 13-band competition are:

Versailles’ Eyesuponus

Paintsville’s 7:13

Owingsville’s Crosslife

Paintsville’s Battlelion

Bradfordsville’s Allison Stafford

Alexandria’s The Lee Roessler Band

Wilmore’s The Shane Tracy Project

Lexington’s Too Many Drummers

Voting ends May 15.