3 Track Mind Gives Folk A New, Fresher Meaning

Who are the members of 3 Track Mind? Kristi Gamble, guitar, vocals Kevin Jones, guitar, vocals Jennifer Todd, guitar, vocals, mandolin Paul Gabrielson, bass Steve Smith, drums, hand percussion They leapt, they twirled, they hopped around, they laughed. Even though it was raining after a week of 90-degree heat and a two-forked slash of lightning scared everyone into thinking "electrocution!" of the band, the audience enjoyed itself enough to forgo another piece of barbecued corn to stay around and dance under gray skies on wet grass.

If your band plays many gigs outside you may be more accustomed to the downsides of summer performances: crummy accoustics, children screaming in the middle of a heartfelt solo, planes flying overhead, and so on. And 3 Track Mind, as loose a group as one could ever hang with, turned out a tight set of groovy, heartfelt, progressive folk despite playing an outdoor stage late on a stormy Sunday afternoon.

"It consistently rains when we do outdoor gigs," laughed Smith, "But there'll be a lot of people there. But when we play outdoors and it's really hot, and nobody's there!"

"So we always make sure we play when it's raining," added Jones.

With the cool, sweet harmonies of Jones, Todd and Gamble, and a luminous jazzy-funk sound that shimmers in between, 3 Track Mind may just be the band to remove the plodding stigma from the "folk" music label. Todd describes the band as "progressive folk-rock." Smith suggests "organic rock," and the others seem to agree with both.

Together for the past three years, the group's nucleus is Todd and Jones, who had previously been a duo act for about 10 years. Bassist Paul Gabrielson also plays with folk gods The Kingston Trio, Jones knew Smith from playing together in college bands, and Gamble is Jones' sister-in-law - certainly not the only reason she's in the band, but a good illustration of the group's close-knit family feeling.

Is this a hard-working group of musicians or the Cleaver Clan?

The band has "messages in the songs about being nice to people," said Jones about the self-described "family-oriented" lyrics of 3 Track Mind's original songs. "And messages about living life the way it should be lived, and that's fairly."

One gets the sense that Jones means family in the larger sense of friends and community, as well as the Mom-Dad-kids definition. It's apparent not only in the almost intuitive way their music flows together, but in how the band members obviously know each other very well and genuinely seem to like one another.

And like a family, they're in this together for the long haul. They've been trying to get their music out.

"We all know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who's related to somebody who's a record producer," said Gamble with a laugh. The concept of day jobs is alluded to, and the band members admit they have "other ways" of keeping themselves fed, but all have found ways to do it musically. Smith teaches percussion at his own studio, Jones does some solo performing, and Todd and Gamble sing for weddings as well as funerals.

"But I don't think we could actually be considered as salivating over the prospect of getting a record deal," said Smith. "We're making steady progress, and the CD has really helped a lot."

The band self-released a CD last December, and sold 1,000 copies in five months. The T-shirts and CDs they have for sale after most gigs go quickly. What is normally a band's nightmare - self-merchandising - has proven not too difficult for the Cleavers of locally-grown organic rock.

So what could possibly cause a headache for 3 Track Mind?

"Waking up and finding we're all married to each other," said Todd with a shudder.

Where to hear 3 Track Mind: Fenix Underground, 323 2nd Ave. S., on Aug. 2; 343-7740. Opening for Joan Baez at Bumbershoot Sept. 3.