Midtown Dickens

• MySpace: myspace.com/midtowndickens

If you've ever impulsively left in the middle of the night to drive north and spent the way up the coast answering all of your life's questions by means of scanning the radio dials, you might have a taste for how Midtown Dickens began their ongoing tour. Only in addition to the radio dials, they use a well-thumbed version of Charles Dickens Hard Times to answer the more essential questions, such as which way they should go Kym Register and Catherine Edgerton, the anti-folk denizens behind Midtown Dickens, carry their front-porch-music habits with them on their backs. Kym and Catherine began their musical career on the parking decks, roofs, and streets of Durham and Chapel Hill. They soon left their hometown to venture across the country and picked up plenty of orphaned instruments on the way, unbiased to their quirkiness or condition.

Thus, the raw folk roots that had originally sprouted the band quickly grew to feed it with a punchy minimalist humor that compliments bold lyrics and ethereal harmonies. Upon their return to North Carolina, Midtown Dickens stumbled upon their indie-rock influence. To top off their style, they strung together the found and scavenged instruments (banjo, accordian, musical saw, drums, tambourine, trumpet, trombone, harmonica) with a sparkly blue danelectro guitar. The result of all this: A sweet and savvy duo with enough presence and energy to make you doubt that its a two piece. Midtown Dickens harbors an honesty too often absent from modern music, and the panache to pull off a broad spectrum of original songs from solid instrumentals, to escapist ballads, to a catchy tune about Tetris.

Performed with artists such as: Bellafea, The Moaners, Willy Mason, The Robot Ate me, The Future Kings of Nowhere and Robo Sapien at venues including: The Cats Cradle and Local 506 in Chapel Hill; The Duke Coffeehouse and Centerfest in Durham; and CBGB's in New York. They are currently working on their second album, and they have a rooster. Midtown Dickens picks you.