Funk band Dirty Revival to ring in the New Year at The Temporary

The hard-touring funk band Dirty Revival is making its third trip through the Roaring Fork Valley in 2018 to ring in the New Year at The Temporary at Willits.

The big New Year’s show follows the Portland-based band’s February show at the midvalley club and a July set at Belly Up Aspen. With a reputation for electrifying live sets, the band has found a loyal following in the ski country and around the U.S.

“We were totally blown away by the number of people that came out to support our band wearing T-shirts and hats,” the band’s singer Sarah Clarke recalled of the summer concert in a recent phone interview. “We had no idea.”

The seven-piece band plays a fiery, brass-infused and road-tested dance rock that seems custom-made for New Year’s Eve. It’s a result of both talent and tight creative relationships. Clarke and two of her bandmates have been friends since high school.

“We are insanely close friends,” she said. “It’s more of a family dynamic in so many ways than it is a working relationship.”

While Dirty Revival has earned a reputation as a fantastic live band, Clarke said 2019 is going to bring a new focus on putting more recorded music into the world.

The band’s been touring for five years and has released two exuberant and soulful studio records — a self-titled 2015 full-length and the 2018 seven-inch EP “So Cold” — but has spent a lot more time on stage than in the studio.

“One thing we’re just in the throes of understanding is the importance of music production and balancing that with an active tour schedule,” she said. “We got so gung-ho about being on the road and doing that. … We have to also make sure we’re creating more music to share with people.”

The band’s drummer Terry Drysdale recently tallied 20 songs that Dirt Revival has written and put into their live rotation. The band is now at work making recorded versions.

Their live sets are focused on their original music, but Dirty Revival peppers its sets with some brilliant and unconventional covers. They play ingenious soul rock arrangements of hard rock songs like Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” and Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up.”

The band often weaves some activism and power-to-the people messaging into their performances — check out their YouTube for a powerful, brass-scored speech from Clarke before playing Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” at a recent festival — but she said they dial that back a bit for a party-centric New Year’s show.

“We’re not a political band by any means but we want people to be nice to each other and care about each other in the world,” she said. “The goal of the New Year’s show is mostly to get people on the dance floor and celebrating the year that we just had and the next one that’s coming,”

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via:: The Aspen Times