The Haymarket Squares

Relevant excerpt:

"Thanks to Trampled by Turtles for opening up for us," went the announcement from the local stage as the Haymarket Squares played to the biggest crowd of the day on this side of the park. If a wristband holder was allergic to banjo, the sequencing of Squares after Trampled would seem like an unfortunate lack of planning but no one else seemed to mind, as Haymarket's milieu of humorous political songs like "Gateway Drug" and "Let's Start a Riot" contrasted nicely to Trampled's survival homilies. They also made Pink Floyd's "Hey You" into square-dance fodder for which I am eternally grateful. Ending the set, the Squares really took a grass roots approach by performing a last song on the green with no amplification. - azcentral.com

Relevant excerpt:

After Trampled by Turtles, the Haymarket Squares took their turn on the local stage for what was very likely the best-attended local stage set of the entire festival. It looked like the Squares had a crowd nearing 200 people in front of the stage as well as a contingent of nearly 40 milling about the fence on the outside.

All of the downtown Phoenix-based five-piece's songs seemed well received, from the heavily political "Revolt, Resists, Rebel" to the upbeat and fun "Let's Get Fucked Up." They even had the early evening crowd of hippies singing along to "Let's Start a Riot."

The Squares are another act who I would rank as a favorite for locals taking a main stage in 2016 following their Sunday set. - Phoenix New Times

Marc Oxborrow's voice is shot. The night before was he was scheduled to be interviewed by the Tucson Weekly, the upright bass player and vocalist for the Phoenix-based punkgrass and folk band The Haymarket Squares strained his voice at a Planned Parenthood benefit in Yuma.

"We did two sets last night, and because of a mediocre sound system, I did a lot of yelling to hear myself over the rest of the band," Oxborrow says.

But he'll have to recover soon because The Haymarket Squares are playing another gig later that night and still another the next day. The current flurry of activity is unusual for a band that plays maybe twice a week while most of its members hold down day jobs, he says.

The Yuma incident is indicative of The Haymarket Squares' collective nature in two ways. Their normal modus operandi is to play loud and fast and passionately, and they often throw their support behind organizations on the left end of the political spectrum.

"I think there's a natural affinity between the type of music we play and lot of progressive causes," Oxborrow says. "We have played at benefits for groups like the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), Food Not Bombs and No More Deaths, to name a few. We've played a number of protests and rallies and that sort of thing, particularly around the time the state passed SB1070."

And although the band is based in the Valley of the Sun, its members enjoy playing Tucson as much as they can, having appeared several times in the Old Pueblo at such venues at Plush, the Surly Wench Pub, the Rialto Theatre and the now-defunct Dry River Collective.

The Haymarket Squares are returning to Tucson to perform at the inaugural Wild Wild West Fest this weekend. The music and arts festival, which is being organized by members of the Tucson band 8 Minutes to Burn, will last three days and occupy the Harmony & Health Ranch, just west of Tucson.

The event will feature overnight camping in a natural environment, art installations, exhibits about sustainability, a yoga pavilion and, of course, dozens of musical artists. Among the bill's headliners will be Stanley Jordan, Melvin Seals and the JGB, the Mystic Roots Band and The Magic Beans. For more information, see azwildwildwestfest.com.

The Haymarket Squares will play two sets at the Wild Wild West Fest. They'll start at about 6 p.m. Friday, April 25, Oxborrow says.

The Wild Wild West Fest is part of a new effort for the band. "It's our goal to start trying to get involved in more festivals from now and into 2015. It's going to take a little more planning on our part because most of them require you to think about your schedule at least nine months in advance, and we just have to adjust our way of thinking. We've done a fair amount of touring as a band, but most of us don't do this as a full-time thing."

To make ends meet, Oxborrow is a graphic designer, while mandolin and piano player Mark Sunman is a yoga instructor. Guitarist John Luther Norris is a food server, and slide guitarist Mark Allred is studying to be a luthier. Drummer Aaron Hjalmarson makes his living primarily through playing (with a wide variety of groups) and teaching music.

In The Haymarket Squares, Oxborrow and Sunman usually alternate singing lead, depending on which of them wrote the tune, but one of the most striking elements of the group's music is their four-part vocal harmonies, which range from pretty to rowdy and back again.

"We work hard in advance to work those parts out," Oxborrow says, because even though the group plays with oodles of rambunctiousness, their vocals sound clean and professional.

The aggressive bluegrass attack of The Haymarket Squares inspired them to create their own genre. "We've been calling it 'punkgrass' because we have bluegrass instrumentation and harmonies and the kind of energy, humor and anger associated with punk rock."

Observant listeners also will hear echoes in the band's sound of the protest folk of a half a century ago.

"We've had more than one person, usually people of the age that remember that stuff, tell us 'You remind me of the Weavers, or the folk music from the '60s.' I think it must be that combination of a sound and the drive and the statement that reminds them of that time."

The Haymarket Squares - whose members range in age from 21 to 50 - have made three independent albums, the most recent of which is Righteous Ruckus, which was released in 2013.

Although their songs include such topical ruminations as "Revolt Resist Rebel," "Buy My Vote" "Radical" and "Sheriff Joe" (about Phoenix's infamous lawman Joe Arpaio), the group also don't mind a fevered romp such as "Let's Get Fucked Up," the occasional Pink Floyd cover ("Hey You") or their tongue-in-cheek, propaganda-baiting cannabis anthem, "Gateway Drug," which is the subject of a wonderful video you can see on YouTube.

Oxborrow says he and the rest of The Haymarket Squares don't consider themselves anachronistic. They may be playing old-timey folk and bluegrass that harks to a time that pre-dates most of their births, but their music feels contemporary to them.

"Possibly it's because we are actually embarrassingly ignorant of the bluegrass tradition. Last night, someone came up to us and asked us to play something from the O Brother, Where Are Thou soundtrack, and we don't know that stuff. I'm probably the closest thing to a genuine bluegrass fan in the band and but I only really know the obvious stuff, like the Louvin Brothers and the Stanley Brothers and stuff."

The Haymarket Squares aren't copping from or trying to revive the styles of an earlier era; they're fully in the 21st century.

"We're not borrowing from the older musicians. We're creating something new we are passionate about, and what could be more timeless than getting together with your friends and playing cool music?" - Tucson Weekly

Supposedly, there are three things you never talk about in polite company: sex, religion, and politics.

It would seem no one passed that memo on to local "punkgrass" band Haymarket Squares, who formed in 2009 and immediately became a fixture on the downtown arts scene, playing in coffeehouses, bars, and at activist events. Their second album, 2010's Dancing in the Street, explicitly nails at least two of those taboos.

The trio, comprising guitarist and banjo player John Luther Norris, Marc Oxborrow on bass, and Mark Sunman on mandolin, accordion, and guitar (all three members sing), laugh when I share the axiom about screwing, God, and the democratic process with them.

"We need to write more sex songs," Sunman says with a smile.

Other than that one sticking point, the boys have the rest of the ground covered. Songs like "The Rapture" lampoon topics such as the day all Christians will be whisked away, just as all those billboards popping up everywhere seem to be describing — and how much they enjoy the concept. "Bullet Catcher," "Burn It Down," and "Sheriff Joe" all tackle political issues. Along the way, the band makes room for an "anti-fast food jingle" called "Down on the Farm" and a scathing indictment of Phoenix called, appropriately enough, "I Hate This City."

"I like my friends here, we seem to get a lot of shows, we all have good jobs, and property is cheap. There are a lot of things that keep you here, despite the fact that it's a lifeless hellhole that no one should live in, let alone 7 million people who are trying to siphon water from the Colorado River just so they can survive here," Sunman says.

"We could live anywhere and still make fun of it," Norris adds.

"When we play 'I Hate This City' — and we played it all over the West [on tour] — everyone felt like it was about them. Part of it is just universal complaining, which is fun to do as a human. God knows Phoenix is an easy target," Sunman says.

Despite the subject matter, Haymarket Squares are careful how they deliver their diatribes. The band calls what they do "punkgrass," a style that combines the speed and visceral energy of punk rock with acoustic elements of bluegrass. The result is fun to listen to, and it's easy to miss the more aggressive statements beneath the melodies.

It's no accident.

"I think it helps that we package it all in stuff that is pleasing to hear, and a lot of it is in song structure that is traditional," Sunman says. "A lot of it is three chords, and there's a familiarity to it. If the sound of what we were playing was a lot more abrasive, a lot more confrontational, we'd lose a lot more people, but . . . you can enjoy our music as just music."

The Haymarket Squares sing mostly about what pisses them off, but to have a beer with the guys, you would hardly expect it. The three members speak with distinct civility and laid-back charm: Norris, who's originally from Ohio, has an enthusiastic stoner's drawl; Oxborrow, a transplant to the Valley from Michigan, speaks with a measured grace; and Sunman says everything with matter-of-fact plainness.

The band doesn't deny it makes inherently divisive music, but it also don't particularly care.

"Whatever makes you tick is going to come through in your art," Sunman says. "It's easy to do here. It's easy to have that anger, but when there's all this oppression out there, how can it not be reflected in your art?"

"We were interviewed by someone who was like, 'Your songs are so political, and you write anti-war songs,'" Oxborrow says. "Our answer was like, 'I can't believe there aren't more of them!' How come there aren't a thousand songs about this? It's the stuff that is happening all day, every day around us. And yet 95 percent of the songs are about love or getting wasted, or stupid shit."

"We have a song about getting wasted," Norris adds.

"It's not that we're opposed to that, but that's not the only subject matter that is fair game for a pop song," Oxborrow says.

Just as the band explores a variety of topics in their lyrics, they draw inspiration from a variety of sources. Though the Haymarket Squares have a bygone "old-timey" feel, Sunman, Oxborrow, and Norris are far from bluegrass purists. "I don't even to listen to bluegrass," Sunman says.

"The thing that got me into 'punkgrass' was acoustic punk. I started getting into stuff from the Plan-It-X label, like This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb and Defiance, Ohio, and I bought a mandolin and started writing punk songs on that. It sounded 'grassy,' and I just kind of went with it," Sunman says.

The band's sound quickly earned them comparisons to local acoustic rockers Andrew Jackson Jihad, which, Norris says, is "awesome." The band counts the AJJ crew as friends, but isn't quick to lump its music into the same category, though it shares AJJ's freedom of being able to play sans electricity, turning any space into a performance space.

"I'm a fan of pop music," Oxborrow says. "I like songs you can sing along to; I like hooky choruses and harmonies."

When Haymarket Squares toured last year, they realized that the pop-friendly approach allowed them to take their message into some unlikely places. Playing a park in New Mexico, they were surprised to see the reaction of the audience.

"[It] felt like a redneck saloon," Norris says. "All these kids in the crowd and cowboy hats, and we thought some of these songs were going to get us strangled."

But even as the band played "Bullet Catcher," one of the trio's most blunt songs about war, they found the crowd on their side.

"The kids were dancing. They paid for our speeding ticket. They got us this hotel room on the creek," Sunman says. "It was awesome."

The band isn't always as lucky. Sometimes, they can't help pissing folks off, like the time they played an Irish bar in San Francisco.

"Presumably, there were a lot of Catholics in the bar," Sunman says. "We played the song 'The Rapture,' and they didn't take kindly to that kind of song, something making fun of Christians. But we don't care."

The theme of religion comes up often in the band's music, and Sunman and Oxborrow both come from religious households, having grown up in Baptist and Mormon homes, respectively.

"I wrote a song that says I wish there was a God," Oxborrow says. "It would be awesome if there was someone to sort it all out — some cosmic being — but there isn't."

Norris, the group's resident agnostic, didn't grow up religious and admits that the band tries to leave some room for differing opinions, even when their own beliefs are resolute.

"You find yourself with all this pent-up rage toward the system, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it that is effective. But you can make a piece of art about it, and say, 'This is how I feel,'" Sunman says.

"We don't have an agenda. We're a musical group. We're not a political party; we're not a corporation. We're guys who play music for fun. We play music because we enjoy doing it. We're not trying to accomplish anything. We just play what we do, and say what we want to say," Sunman says.

Even if the things they want to say piss you off. Religion, politics — turns out, you can get away with it all, as long as you have a catchy tune. - Phoenix New Times

Give a hearty high-five to the members of the Haymarket Squares the next time you see them around town or performing at Lost Leaf, as the punkgrass/alt-folk act emerged victorious during the Train Tracks Grand Finale this past weekend.

More than 2,000 people attended the First Friday battle of the bands held at the Phoenix Art Museum, which served as the final round in a year-long competition between the most popular bands/musicians featured on the Train Tracks online video series.

The Haymarket Squares (consisting of strummers Mark Sunman, John Luther Norris, and Marc Oxborrow) received the majority of the votes of those in attendance, besting fellow finalists Matthew Reveles and Fancy Cloud, Dust Jacket, and Dry River Yacht Club.

And to the victors go the spoils, in this case a gig performing onstage at the McDowell Mountain Music Festival in a few weeks.

The band have been crowing about the triumph on the Facebook page ever since learning of ther good fortune:

"Guess which band of scrappy punkgrass hoodlums is playing at the McDowell Mountain Music Festival? That's right, thanks to your support, the Haymarket Squares are going to be playing with the big boys and girls in April."

Originally, the prize was for a similar spot at Tempe Music Fest, but was obviously updated after that concert went kaput last month. In some respects, said changeover is a boon to the Haymarket Squares, as their leftist, rabble-rousing Americana agit-prop will fit in nicely with all the dreadheads and granola munchers who constitute the annual audience of the MMMF.

It's certainly better than getting hit in the head with a beer bottle while performing, which is probably would've happened when TMF's increasingly fratboy-filled crowd caught whiff of one of the Haymarket's old-timey protest songs. - Phoenix New Times

All the Haymarket Squares cofounders Marc Oxborrow and Mark Sunman were trying to do seven years ago was start a band so that they could perform at local watering holes for their friends. Now, they are on the cusp of releasing their fourth full-length record, Light It Up, and playing the main stage at one of Arizona's biggest festivals, McDowell Mountain Music Festival.

They call their music "punkgrass," often falling in line with folk punk. But unlike the legion of guitar-strumming long-hairs out there, the Haymarket Squares bring their heavily political songs to the masses with precision and talent. They blend so effortlessly with one another that it's hard to pinpoint what's more impressive: the four-part harmonies or seamless playing.

"People say we will 'never get big because our music is too political' like it's a bad thing, or like that was one of our goals we won't reach," says Sunman, who has been known to rock mandolin, keyboard, accordion, and banjo on stage. "But getting huge is not one of our goals. We just want to make good music and see how far we can push this thing. We don't want greater popularity. We just want to do the thing we like to do, and we seem to be good at."

In fact, the group thinks the political nature of its tunes may be what resonates so strongly with its fan base. The Squares are successful because of their left-leaning politics, not despite them.

"The people who think our music is too political are probably people who disagree with us," rhythm guitarist John Luther says. "But they don't have to like it. It's not for everyone."

In the past, the Haymarket Squares turned heads with radical tracks like the anti-religion hymn "We'll Always Have Religion" from debut record Punkgrass for the People, the anti-military anthem "Bullet Catcher" from sophomore album Dancing in the Streets, and an ode to debauchery, "Let's Get Fucked Up," off Righteous Ruckus, the band's third release.

With Light It Up, the band goes even further left, with tracks like album opener "Heaven," a battle cry for unity with migrants "Horrible Inventions," and anarchist anti-work politics with "Let's Start a Riot," the album's first single.

"The political culture of Arizona and Phoenix is a good place to produce the kind of songs the Haymarket Squares write," Luther says. "The political climate makes the squares pissed off enough to write political songs."

Sunman adds: "In downtown Phoenix, you might be surrounded by a bunch of conservatives in any direction at any time, and you want to feel like you're not alone."

However, just because the music and harmonies go together doesn't mean that the individual members' political opinions are equally harmonious. Politics is one of the most important ingredients of the band's musical recipe, but, according to the band members, they don't always agree with the messages. Still, to the Squares, it's always music over politics.

"Our attitude has always been to serve a good song, and if it's a good song, we are willing to overlook a little bit of this and that in what we are saying and the way we do things," lead guitarist Mark Allred says.

He runs more conservative than comrades Sunman and Luther, but it's fiddle player Jayson James who is the true black sheep of the group and occasionally the voice of reason when it comes to when the Squares should spare audiences some of the band's more incendiary tracks.

Still, even James, who doesn't always agree with his bandmates' social and political commentary, cannot deny the astounding measure of flair and expertise that goes along with just about every Squares tune. The fiddler was actually so enamored of the band's musical prowess that even though he didn't agree with its politics, he still approached Oxborrow and Sunman after the Squares' November 2013 gig with Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band to offer his services on the fiddle.

It was nearly two years later that the conservative-leaning Christian actually would join the band. But despite the political differences, he knew he wanted to be part of one of the most talented groups playing in metro Phoenix.

"We never changed lyrics because it was something we disagree with," Allred says. "We are okay with little disagreements here and there . . . But no matter your views politically, you have to put up with disagreements just trying to get the ship to sail in the general course of action. If you get bogged down in disagreements, it just becomes not fun anymore."

Even their producer, Bob Hoag, who's made records with local bands ranging from the Ataris to the Gin Blossoms to the Format, couldn't deny the otherworldly musical abilities of the Valley's best protest band.

"Halfway through recording, I asked Bob if he considered himself a producer or an engineer," Sunman says. "He said, 'I consider myself a producer when I work with bands.' He takes an active role, so halfway through, I asked if he feels like he's producing the album . . . [He said,] 'You guys just haven't needed the kind of work and intervention that other bands have required.' The songs are good. The arrangements are good; he did contribute percussion. But the songs themselves were pretty well rehearsed and the arrangements were really solid. We both welcomed his input, but it was an ego boost to have him say we didn't need as much as some other folks he worked with."

When Oxborrow answered a Craigslist ad looking for a "punkgrass bass player," he didn't realize it would turn into a project as enduring as the Haymarket Squares.

"I didn't think it would go this far, but the longer we have done this, the farther I believed it can go," he says.

"I didn't think it would last this long, either. I didn't see it going seven-plus years. But here we are," Sunman says. - Phoenix New Times

1. Haymarket Squares, “Let’s Start a Riot”

Marc Oxborrow’s performance here puts the “insane” in “just insanely brilliant” – an unhinged portrait of a disaffected office worker who takes a lighter to his desk and sits there laughing in the flames, a crazed expression on his face. There’s also a scene of him smashing a printer with a baseball bat. There are plenty of other people in the video but Matty Steinkamp, the director, wisely keeps returning to that office with the burning desk.

As Oxborrow explains: “The video extends the song’s theme of worker alienation across a whole slew of industries. We started with grand ideas of showing entire workplaces rising up and taking to the streets, but decided to leave the ‘cast of thousands’ stuff to Captain Squeegee and go with a simpler approach that focuses on disaffected individuals.”

Good call. And those flames are as real as they look. They had friends standing by with water buckets and blankets, just in case. “The flames were fueled by rubber cement, suggested by our former fiddle player who, in another life, was a stuntman,” Oxborrow says. “We had to repeatedly open the rolling doors of the Tempe studio to let the toxic black fumes escape.”1. Haymarket Squares, “Let’s Start a Riot”

Marc Oxborrow’s performance here puts the “insane” in “just insanely brilliant” – an unhinged portrait of a disaffected office worker who takes a lighter to his desk and sits there laughing in the flames, a crazed expression on his face. There’s also a scene of him smashing a printer with a baseball bat. There are plenty of other people in the video but Matty Steinkamp, the director, wisely keeps returning to that office with the burning desk.

As Oxborrow explains: “The video extends the song’s theme of worker alienation across a whole slew of industries. We started with grand ideas of showing entire workplaces rising up and taking to the streets, but decided to leave the ‘cast of thousands’ stuff to Captain Squeegee and go with a simpler approach that focuses on disaffected individuals.”

Good call. And those flames are as real as they look. They had friends standing by with water buckets and blankets, just in case. “The flames were fueled by rubber cement, suggested by our former fiddle player who, in another life, was a stuntman,” Oxborrow says. “We had to repeatedly open the rolling doors of the Tempe studio to let the toxic black fumes escape.” - azcentral.com

The Haymarket Squares, “Light It Up”

These guys like to call their music punkgrass. But the punk comes through more in the attitude and spirit than the sound. That’s where the ’grass comes in, although it’s probably closer in spirit to the protest folk of Woody Guthrie — satirical messages served with both righteous indignation and a wicked sense of gallows humor. Highlights range from “Light It Up” and the Talking Heads-referencing working-class warfare of “Working Reward” to the gloomy blues lament “Let’s Start a Riot.” “Horrible Inventions” takes a stand on immigration that would not sit well with Donald Trump supporters (“We like to think that it’s an awful crime / To risk your life to find a place to thrive / Don’t ask how many of them had to die / Because they crossed the line / That’s only in your mind”). On “No Such Agency,” they spoof the NSA’s invasion of our privacy ("If you ever feel like there’s no one to lend you an ear / Never fear / I’m right here”). And on “Part of the Problem,” they wonder if writing satirical folks songs is enough (“I want to inspire / Not preach to the choir”). There’s also a stomping bluegrass reinvention of “Fortunate Son,” the CCR song. Are they preaching to the choir? Maybe. But the choir should be thankful for so many great — and inspirational — new songs to sing. - azcentral.com

The shocking rate of Black incarceration in the US doesn't escape even white artists. The country's world-beating jailing rates are one of the many topics illuminated by radical Phoenix "punkgrass" band The Haymarket Squares on their new album, Light It Up, which somehow manages to be fun as well as angry. The incendiary, but humorous, murder ballad "Let's Start A Riot" puts the call out to worker drones everywhere with the words: "Sitting at a cubicle, staring at a screen, playing with the lighter in the pocket of my jeans, let's start a riot, let's start a riot. I'm tired of trading hours for so little in return, don't want to take a sick day, man, I want to watch it burn, let's start a riot, let's start a riot." As up to 40 per cent of jobs look set to be wiped out by robots, there were renewed calls this month for a universal basic income, whether people work or not. No doubt it will take more than a few riots to get that happening. - Shorthand Social