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Scratch Track.

Milo Jones

Ponies In The Surf

Forget the concept of winter doldrums; musically, 2005 is starting off with a trio of offbeat, innovative musical acts visiting the Island. Each brings a unique sound and performance style from the alternative edge of current music.

Milo Jones

Performing Friday, Jan. 7, 7 pm at Above Ground Records and Saturday, January 7, at Offshore Ale.

It’s hard these days not to sound like somebody else, but Milo Jones comes as close to pulling it off as anyone out there. Defying easy categorization, this avant-garde folk-Americana singer/songwriter plays a 3/4 scale acoustic guitar and sings in a style that’s challenged critics around the nation to describe it. Mike Wolf of Time Out New York called it “an amalgam of Chet Baker, Tom Waits, and Dracula.” Don Bolles of the Parlour Club in Los Angeles labeled it a “super sensitive mix of Lee Hazelwood and Leonard Cohen.” Other names bandied about include Django Reinhardt, Cole Porter, and Caetano Veloso. Jones himself says of his music, “I like to keep songs short, mostly sweet, and hope they make you laugh and cry at the same time...or at least smile and tremble a little.” If you want to hear a melodic original, Jones is one to keep an eye out for.

Ponies In The Surf

Performing Friday, Jan. 7, 7 pm at Above Ground Records and Saturday, Jan. 7, at Offshore Ale.

Ponies In The Surf is the brother/sister duo of Alexander and Camille McGregor harmonizing over an acoustic guitar. Their songs have an understated elegance that is vintage and modern at the same time. The music is delivered in a soothing, breathy, low-fi sound, as though the two intuitively understand that a well-delivered whisper can be as powerful as a scream. Their seven-song EP, “A Demonstration,” highlights their unique musical talents. Traces of Latin rhythms harken back to the McGregor’s childhoods spent in Colombia, while “J T’Aime” evokes Edith Piaf and fin-de-siecle Paris. In Mr. McGregor’s own words, “The sounds I respond to are a cracked lyricism, a rhythmic noisiness, and a classical sparseness. Music is alchemy, and these are the elements I’m attracted to.”

Scratch Track

Performing Friday, Jan. 7 at Offshore Ale.

Scratch Track is an acoustic trio that fuses hip-hop, rock, folk, funk, and gospel into a heady mix augmented by quicksilver lyrics, beat-box vocals, fleet-fingered guitar work, and rich harmonies. The trio is composed of vocalists Will Gray and DJ Lee and guitarist Jason Hamlin. The trio formed in 2000 while the three were attending Union University in Tennessee. Since then, the group has become a national touring outfit that’s performed with Living Colour, Jurassic Five, Jars of Clay, Los Lonely Boys, and others. The group blends streetwise lyrics with socially conscious attitudes. DJ Lee says, “Like the blues, our music is a combination of rural and urban influences, of the street and the church, the north and the south.” The outfit has Island roots; Jason and Will are alumni of the Contemporary Music Center in West Tisbury, and the trio recorded their full-length album “The Simple” here in 2003. DJ Lee says, “We want to make sure that every Vineyarder knows that this community played an important part in the development of Scratch Track.”