Maybe August

Aug. 16, 2006

True or False: Bands playing local nightclubs don’t have a chance with picky audiences unless they play top-40 hits and cover tunes.
Answer? False. Although many musicians believe they must play cover tunes to “make it” with audiences, if you check out the most popular bands in Northern Michigan you’ll find that most play their own original tunes.
Maybe August is among the select few bands -- including the likes of Steppin’ In It, Domestic Problems and The Dopes -- which have a large base of fans, yet play mostly originals.
In fact, that creative impulse is what brought Maybe August together, says harmonica player Rosco Selley.
“We started out about four years ago with four of us original members who had been playing with other bands around mid-Michigan,” Roscoe recalls. “All of us knew of each other and knew we were interested in being in a band that would play original music. We were at the point where we didn’t want to become rock stars, but we did want to play original music.”

MAKING THE SWITCH
Making the switch to a mostly-originals band was a bit riskier on the band’s home turf of the Tri-Cities area of Bay City, Saginaw and Midland where top-40 sounds tend to rule local nightclubs. Yet today, Selley, along with bassist Keith Carolan, drummer Paul Hughes, acoustic guitarist/vocalist Scott Robertson and guitarist/mandolinist/vocalist Michael Robertson, have created a strong following outside the Tri-Cities, in places such as Northern Michigan and Chicago.
Many in Northern Michigan will perhaps recall the Robertson brothers as being the former Michael Scott Band
which performed as a popular duo here several years ago. The brothers were noted for their fresh sound and crisp musicianship: qualities that have transcended to Maybe August.
The band blends a danceable acoustic rock sound with an offbeat romantic ballad vibe that makes them out-of-the-ordinary standouts on the music scene. Perhaps their bio information says it best: “Like most of the great new bands coming up, Maybe August is hard to pigeonhole. Are they a jam band? Are they sensitive singer songwriters? Are they radio-pop? Are they wanker virtuosos? Yes... yes they are. All of that stuff.”
But even with that mixed bag of offerings, it’s no cakewalk for the band trying to navigate the latest club trends.
“This isn’t a good time for new original music,” Selley notes. “People who go to clubs are in their 20s and 30s and the fashion is towards electronica and DJ music. We’re fortunate that there are places like Union Street Station in Traverse City that are still around and will never go away for people who like live music.”

NEW DISC
Currently, the band is celebrating the release of their second CD, “Based on Actual Events,” a collection of 10 songs which they’re debuting at release parties across the state.
“It takes a long time to create,” Selley says of the recording process. “The songwriting bar is set pretty high in our band and we like to road-test all of our songs with audiences before we take them into the studio. Something happens when you go live with a song: you find out what what goes well and what goes wrong. Playing live adds a whole different aspect to the music.”
Asked the inevitable question of what bands Maybe August most resembles, Selley notes that their music is often compared to that of the Dave Matthews Band, Barenaked Ladies and Blues Traveler. “The quality of the musicians in this band is just freaking good,” he says.
Audience reaction supports that claim: on their last swing through TC, Maybe August packed Union Street Station for the weekend and had the crowd up and dancing through their entire show.
But there’s also a quiet side to the band that many fans miss out on: on a follow-up night in town, three members of Maybe August played an acoustic set to less than half-a-dozen listeners, performing ballads of an intense density for the joy of playing. A haunting harmonica solo by Rosco Selley on the Allman Brothers’ tune, “Melissa,” wove its spell for several minutes in a rare, inspired piece of musicianship that stamped the band with the imprimatur of top-blend performers.

THE NAME GAME
Why the name, Maybe August?
Selley alludes to a legal scuffle with film star Halle Barry’s peeps over the band’s original name.
“There’s the legend, the semi truth and the boring truth on how we got our name,” he recalls. “We’re not allowed to talk about the legend anymore because Halle Barry’s lawyer said they’d sue us if we did, so we sat around for five or six months trying to come up with a new name, but it was always something stupid. Finally, we had to come up with something and someone said: ‘How about August?’ That turned into Maybe August.”
What next for the band?
“We want to open for Coldplay,” Selley says, adding that each member of the band is also self-employed, giving them the flexibility to go with the flow if something big turns up. “But more realistically, we want to keep doing what we’re doing and play places where we’re appreciated.”

Maybe August performs unplugged at Union Street Station this Thursday, Aug. 17, followed by a CD release party with electric sets on Aug. 18-19.