Congratulations, Denton gypsy music band, samples multiple genres

by Melissa Crowe of of North Texas Daily

Clinton Lynch/NT Daily

Congratulations drummer Alan Eckert jams out during their set Saturday night at The Boiler Room.

They're excessive, humorous and surprisingly confusing, all while stirring up emotions both visually and audibly.

Dressed in drag, beach gear, a cowboy getup and some sort of child in a propeller hat, Congratulations knows how to put on an entertaining show. Witty lyrics, intricate harmonies and roaring guitar solos accented by dreaded heads and hippie garb made the performance Saturday night at The Boiler Room a sight to see.

"Everything's been done before; it's just how you take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and make something new," said Gaah(n), the band's pianist, organist and vocalist.

The shows depend on an energy exchange between the band and the audience for each song to reach its full capacity, said guitarist and vocalist Brian Felker, an UNT alumnus. Half of the show is created "in the moment."

"The improvisation aspect is common in Denton," Gaah(n) said. "We've expanded on a well-defined set of tunes."

Influences pulled from Frank Zappa, Wings, Phish and Igor Stravinsky will soon make Congratulations a perfect fit on the festival circuit as members of the gypsy music culture.

Clinton Lynch/NT Daily

Congratulations bass player Mike Beall, guitarist Brian Felker, and drummer Alan Eckert jam out Saturday night at The Boiler Room.

"Denton's music scene is a lot like what we do," Gaah(n) said. "We're a fringe jam band, not a jam band. It is something we incorporate, but not who we are."

Alan Eckert, drummer and a former UNT student, said the group has played nearly every style of music the members can imagine.

"We play every song differently each time and manipulate the form," he said. "We go from dance party to metal, polka to bluegrass or to songs that are a conglomerate of many different styles."

For Felker, Congratulations is about more than creating music for the sake of creating music.

"We can take something original and make statements with it, aside from just beautiful music," he said.

Congratulations teamed up with the nonprofit organization HeadCount to help register and inform voters about issues and candidates for Tuesday's election.

"We really encourage action over apathy," Eckert said.

Clinton Lynch/NT Daily

Congratulations, a local funk-rock jam band from Denton, plays at The Boiler Room Saturday November 1st, in support of their recently released new album "It's a Band."

Along the politically active side of Congratulations, the guys recently converted a 20-year-old, 44-passenger BlueBird bus to biofuel.

"Everyone has really solid environmental ethics," Felker said. "We're just trying to make our carbon footprint smaller."

The band has plans to start touring across the country, playing 200 to 300 gigs a year.

The bus runs on vegetable oil and makes travel cheaper and more environmentally friendly, Eckert said.

"We try to be experimental, but not the genre scene," Felker said. "We want to do something new and break new ground."

The members worked with Nick Moon as their production engineer on "It's a Band," their new album, released in June 2008. The band's next Denton show is Dec. 4 at The Boiler Room.

Congratulations accomplished the band's goals within the first six months of its creation; the members graduated, recorded an album, traveled out of state and toured across the lower United States. Now, two years later, new ambitions and determinations keep the band motivated and looking for new terrain.