MUSIC

Childhood buddies are now collaborative duo

They’ve known each other since junior high, and though they’ve been bandmates in the past this time around these two are following their own vision.

Mitch Vanhoose and Chad Conder are the guitar-playing vocalists behind Little Rock band Cosby. The group will play Friday with Isaac Alexander on keyboards, Ryan Hitt on bass and drummer Jordan Trotter rounding out the live lineup at Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack in Little Rock. Opening for San Francisco’s Coo Coo Birds, this will be the band’s fourth outing, following recent gigs in Little Rock, Hot Springs and Russellville.

Vanhoose and Conder are familiar sights on Arkansas stages. Vanhoose currently plays trumpet in Amasa Hines when he’s not in the studio as an engineer or on the road as a sound engineer or road manager for other acts. Conder plays drums for Brother Andy and His BigDamn Mouth with his boyhood pals from Cabot, Andy Warr and Johnny D. He also played in Adam Faucett’s band.

It was Warr who first got Conder and Vanhoose together back when they were all teens.

“Andy moved from Cabot to Russellville,” says Russellville native Vanhoose. “His friends would come visit him and that’s how we met.”

They would eventually all end up in Little Rock playing in an outfit called Global Test, before moving on to other bands and projects.

It was around 2008 or 2009, when Conder and Vanhoose were sharing a Jacksonville duplex, that the idea for Cosby first germinated.

“In our free time, we would get together, have a few beers and write songs,” Vanhoose says. It turned out to be liberating. “We just hit ‘record’ with no expectations of playing live or even finishing anything. It was just for fun.”

Three Cosby songs, “Lonesome,” “Sweet Jesus” and “I Think You’re Cool,” are currently posted at cosbyband.bandcamp.com. Each shows the duo’s range and skill.

“We’re not trying to get into one specific genre,” Vanhoose says. “We just play whatever we’re feeling.”

“Lonesome” is a sweet, sparking pop ode inspired by a pair of early rock stylists.

“We had this idea of it sounding kinda like Elvis,” Conder says, “or Roy Orbison.”

With its layered backing vocals, gentle drums, shimmering guitar and broken-hearted lyrics, the track is all gorgeous, melancholy and deceptively simple pop that makes it one of those songs you end up playing over and over again.

By contrast, “I Think You’re Cool” is a brash rocker with gloriously filthy and fuzzed-out bursts of guitar, while “Sweet Jesus,” with its spooky keyboards, sounds more ominous.

Conder came up with the latter after listening to Randy Newman’s spare, scathing “Sail Away,” and left the track with Vanhoose.

Expecting the final result to be more minimalist, Conder instead found that Vanhoose had “laid 16 vocals tracks on it and it became this huge headphone thing, and I’m a big fan of that.”

It’s not unusual in their process, Vanhoose says. “Chad will have an acoustic version and he’ll leave it with me and I’ll go into the studio and add instrumentation and backing vocals, and then we’ll meet back up.”

And after years of playing in trios, Conder says, having a large, fully produced sound is refreshing. “He’s such a great engineer,” Conder says. “He fills in the song and interprets it.”

Vanhoose promises there will be more tracks available online, and there may be a physical copy of an album in the future.

And as for Friday’s set, expect 50 minutes to an hour of the Cosby show, with perhaps a cover or two - Ho-Hum? Dylan? Sparklehorse? - thrown in.

“I love the set,” Conder says. “It’s a lot of fun, and we’ve got a helluva band.”Coo Coo Birds Opening act: Cosby 9 p.m. Friday, Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 107 River Market Ave., Little Rock Admission: $5 (501) 372-7707

Weekend, Pages 34 on 03/28/2013

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