PORT ANGELES — These two men promise one wild ride, for audience and band.
The band is banjo man Danny Barnes and multi-instrumentalist Matt Sircely, two North Olympic Peninsula residents who crave travel — musical and otherwise — and are headed next to Studio Bob for a show at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $10 only at the door of Bob’s, the upstairs event space at 118½ E. Front St.
Barnes and Sircely are making some of the most innovative acoustic music heard in this country, noted Dan Maguire, executive director of the Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts, presenter of Saturday’s concert.
While Barnes seeks to redefine the banjo, Sircely is known for his work with the jazz group Hot Club Sandwich and the roots band New Forge, and for sitting in with a variety of artists when they swing through Port Townsend.
Sircely and Barnes have been friends for a decade now, playing together in Barnes’ kitchen and recording on Barnes’ Minner Bucket label.
In concert, Barnes and Sircely swap original songs and showcase their love of many music forms — both roots-oriented and forward-thinking.
Saturday, they will bring copies of their new “Sircely and Barnes Live” album, recorded in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, and mix its songs with some from Barnes’ new project “Shri 108.”
The Studio Bob show will be the last of 2013 for the duo, both of whom live in east Jefferson County.
And besides being the winter solstice, Saturday is Barnes’ 52nd birthday.
Barnes and Sircely were at Studio Bob around this time last year. Now as then, it was Sircely who did the talking for the two of them.
When asked whether anything special is planned for his musical partner’s birthday, Sircely said that whenever he and Barnes perform together, they spend all day focusing on “feeling centered and playing well.
“So whenever the music is good, it’s the greatest gift of all,” he quipped.
“Getting Danny’s 1973 state-of-the-art Shure Vocal Master [amplifier} dialed in perfectly would make it a perfect day.”
The Studio Bob performance is “a rare and special show to catch,” Sircely said.
Barnes is in demand around the country, “so I’m always grateful when he’s available to play close to home.
“There are a lot of elements to what we do that are truly new,” he added. “And the songs are so diverse . . . For me, it’s truly exhilarating.”
To hear more from the artists, see www.DannyBarnes.com and www.MattSircely.com; to find out more about the Juan de Fuca Foundation and its presentations, visit www.JFFA.org or phone 360-457-5411.