The Wrong Trousers

The Wrong Trousers’ music doesn’t fall into any specific style but the three band members define it as acoustic/folk/rock. Their music has bluegrass, jazz, classical, and indie-pop influences. Band members Kelsea Little, 17, Joseph Lorge, 16, and Brendan Fitzgerald, 15, are Coronado School of the Arts (CoSA) students who practice three times a week and Saturday mornings. Kelsea and Joseph, who have been friends for years, had played informally together before forming The Wrong Trousers with Mack Leighton. After Leighton graduated last May they took on Brendan.

The trio is versed in a variety of instruments. After hearing the band Nickel Creek, Joseph was inspired to pick up the mandolin last year and taught himself the instrument. Kelsea plays the harp in the band and she is self-taught in piano and flute. She commutes to school from Alpine, a 70-mile round trio, and said she is too busy to get a license right now. She and Joseph write their own songs and arrangements. Brendan, who play the upright bass in the band, started with the trumpet and in eighth grade he took up the bass.

Who do The Wrong Trousers draw their inspiration from? “Mainly stuff from the younger generation musicians. The stuff we listen to we want to play, we change it around and make it our own,” said Kelsea. The group has performed at the Coronado Library, Balboa Park, various CoSA shows and the last Coronado Flower Show. “They are a charismatic group. When they play it’s evident [the listeners] enjoy it,” said CoSA Director of Music Dr. Carl Hammond about The Wrong Trousers. “They work together as a group, they work well together and have a musical vision.”

The band is looking at performance venues like coffeehouses both in and outside Coronado.

The three musicians are grateful for CoSA’s programs. “CoSA is very open to your personal goals. You have the freedom to play any kind of music and form groups apart from classes. There’s no limit,” explained Joseph.

They hope to make music a career beyond college. Brendan hopes to learn jazz and classical pieces. His goal is to get good grades so that he can fall back on his education if the music career doesn’t work out. Joseph’s idea is to work as a record producer and would like to pursue a major in recorded music in college. He started playing piano when he was in third grade and he feels that it was a good basis for learning the guitar.

When Kelsea writes music she does it on the piano. “When I’m playing music I’m in a transcendent state. It’s a perfect feeling. I can’t find the words,” she said.

“One thing that excites me about music is that no matter how long you play there’s always something you’ve never done, never played before,” said Joseph.

Brendan feels that musicians can relate better to other people. “They are kinder, they are more in touch with their surroundings,” he said.

Recently they were practicing in the high school quad by the big tree. They are the type of kids that ask for instruments for their birthday or accessories that go with their instruments. “You have to have a sponsor. Right now it’s our parents,” said Brendan. The trio is well-spoken and mature for their age.

Kelsea writes poetry and feels that her forte is writing lyrics. “I read a lot of poetry and most of it is based on happiness and feeling good. I like to write about things I find beautiful and things that make me feel good. I want to mix writing and music in college,” she said.
- Coronado Magazine

The Wrong Trousers can often be found on weekends in Balboa Park, performing the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" on mandolin, standup bass, and full-sized concert harp. "On our best days at Balboa Park, we make about $300," says 17-year-old harpist Kelsea Rae Little. "Low ends for a set are about $20 to $30. It all depends on the weather and the size of the crowd."

Park rangers distribute ten free music permits on the first Saturday of each month. "This permit allows you priority to one spot," says Little. "We usually set up across from the train museum."

Mackenzie Leighton, 19, plays standup bass ("His playing comes from his strong jazz background") while 16-year-old Joseph Lorge plays mandolin ("He's only played for two years"). The band's set list is split between offbeat originals and covers of acts such as the Traveling Wilburys and Joanna Newsom.

"Our most popular cover to date is 'Such Great Heights' by the Postal Service," according to Little. "It won us our Coronado High School talent show."

The Wrong Trousers are recording a CD with local jazz mainstay Peter Sprague, whom they met while recording tracks for a mutual friend at his studio. Two original songs from those sessions posted on MySpace have been played around 20,000 times.

"We actually get stopped in the streets of San Diego by people who recognize us from the park, MySpace, or YouTube," says Little. "People are nicer in person than they are on the Internet."

Go to www.youtube.com/
watch?v=VSUX9byu6NY to see their video. -- Jay Allen Sanford
- The Reader

Già è difficile prendere sul serio un gruppo che si chiama "i pantaloni sbagliati". Poi li vedi: un ragazzino con l'acne da adolescente al contrabbasso, un tipo corpulento e con gli occhiali al banjo, e la ragazza dai capelli rossi cosa suona? Ma l'arpa, è chiaro.
La più improbabile delle popband, si ritrova in un cortile a suonare nientemeno che "Video Killed the radio star" in una versione forse un po' stonata ma incredibilmente convincente - date le premesse - davanti ad un inconsapevole videoamatore, che si trasforma in amatore e basta e pubblica il tutto nella sua adorabile improbabilità su youtube.

Non che dopo questa piccola meraviglia si sappia molto altro sui Wrong Trousers: vengono da Coronado sulla Baia di San Diego, e nell'obbligatoria pagina myspace citano tra le loro influenze il poeta inglese Alfred Tennyson, Joni Mitchell e Salvador Dali con una nonchalance che vuole rivelare un certo livello di erudizione classica.
Eppure c'è evidentemente more than meets the eye in questo terzetto (che dai tempi del video ha cambiato il ragazzino con un capellone dandy, sempre al contrabbasso), perché i due pezzi messi su myspace in fretta e furia sono altrettanti piccoli gioielli sospesi tra pop e folk, sottoarrangiati con gusto e cantati da Kelsea con la pulizia della voce esperta; perché dal vivo usano melodica ed arpa per coverizzare Joanna Newsum (e chi sennò?) e i Flaming Lips di Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, e possiedono la levità del (chi lo sa?) genio in embrione, quello che riesce a rendere fresco ed essenziale persino un traditional folk, anche se registrato in mezz'ora e dinamicamente fiacco.

Il blog è uno sbuffo di entusiasmo adolescenziale, il demo di due soli pezzi li ha visti in completa soggezione del produttore jazz Peter Sprague, suonano ai Folk and Roots Festival di paese ed agli open mic locali e sospetto che quel magnifico nome twee sia preso da una storia di Wallace & Gromit. Ecco cosa sono i Wrong Trousers: tre fantastici nerds che stanno per avere la loro rivincita. E magari nemmeno sanno di doversela prendere.



Salvatore
- indiepop.it

If YouTube ever (Google forbid) gets a TV channel, let's hope they play this first. The Buggles' prescient 1979 single "Video Killed the Radio Star" has had more than its share of covers-- why, Presidents of the United States of America?-- but this bright, well-crafted version by the Wrong Trousers reminds us why the song was so fun in the first place. Busking in Balboa Park, Calif., high-school students Mack Leighton, Kelsea Little, and Joseph Lorge cleverly and carefully adapt Trevor Horn's tune for upright bass, mandolin, and harp. They even get the lyrics right-- "VTR," not "VCR"-- and Little's harp solo is a lovely surprise.

Sometimes it can seem like YouTube privileges silly gimmicks over musical excellence (I am not linking to OK Go), but this is the reason we need it, after all. Thanks to Said the Gramophone's Sean Michaels for giving us, as he puts it, "a 'Yea-ah!' that says: I can't believe how much that music was fucking great."
- Pitchfork