Quirky Quarantine Quorum is certainly an offbeat name for a band. This band however has evolved from a single idea of longtime local musician Ken Harris into a unique group that shows how live music can still be enjoyed in the pandemic era. Quirky Quarantine Quorum has just released a live album called Fifth and State. The Boise Beat spoke with Ken about how the Band came to be, their music and the challenges of live shows in the age of COVID-19.
Ken Harris has been playing music around the Boise area for most of his life. He’s played such places as the Sapphire Room at the Riverside Hotel, the Sandbar, Bella Aquila and the Boise Blues Festival. He’s had a Monday night radio show on KRBX, RadioBoise for several years, a once monthly spot on Shades of Blues. Playing with several different groups on keyboards, piano, accordion and melodica, Ken also spends plenty of time in several of those groups with his wife, singer Carmel Crock. When the pandemic reared its head in 2020, Ken found his musical outlet was nonexistent. By late April, Ken explained, “I had decided that I was kind of going stir-crazy. And I needed practice on my accordion. The Pac-Out Drive-In is right down below my house; and that’s been around since 1959. There was this little island that I could sit on with my stool. I would sit there and play for my own pleasure and then people honked and waved”.
George Hadden, a local bass player who has played in several bands with Ken and also participated with him in the Boise Blues Society’s program Blues In The Schools, came down with his electric bass and a portable amp to join Ken. It just so happened when they were playing, a producer for KTVB Channel 7’s 208 local news segment drove by. This turned into KTVB’s story on street-corner music and from there Ken’s idea grew.
The little corner island soon got crowded, as Ken said, “Becky was driving by and she stopped and parked her car. She said, ‘You guys sound great!’ I said, ‘Want to sing a song?’ and she said ‘Sure!’.
Then one day Carmel stopped by to say hi and I asked her if she wanted to sing a song and she said ‘Sure!’. I decided that this thing should be an official band!”. The idea he came up with formed around two concept, the first being a “busking band”; which is an old term used for street-corner musicians, many of whom used to play there, looking for a few coins for payment. The other concept was that the band should be “unplugged”, able to perform any place. This involved an occasional search for battery powered amps and mixers for the vocalists and some instruments.
Ken explained that, “George and I are both in extremely high risk range so cannot play inside because of pandemic. We have a policy that we only play outdoors”. The band consists of Ken Harris on keyboards, accordion, melodica and vocals; George Hadden on Bass; Becky Blake on vocals and kazoo; Carmel Crock on vocals and percussion; Mark Utting on guitar and vocals; Steve McIver on bass drum; Pat Reid on snare drum and shaker; and Dave Simms on sax and bass clarinet. Part field band, part busking band and part blues, jazz and rock band, Ken declared that “I’ve been administrating and organizing and obsessing over bands my whole life—58 years—and this has kept me sane, unlike a lot of my contemporaries who are not playing!”.
The Quirky Quarantine Quorum is not just a one-time creation. Ken feels that it is something he will be involved with, “Going forward, until I drop dead on stage—hopefully between sets. This is a ‘Band of the Future’. It’s nice to have a band like this, for when the situation calls. It takes a certain situation, which is what it has been for the last six months or longer”.
Although some of the instrument setups seem normal and what the audience might expect to see on any stage, the drumming is unique. Ken said, “One of the things I like artistically and aesthetically is that one drummer plays the snare and the shaker instead of a ride cymbal and the other drummer plays a bass drum. It’s a marching bass drum; he Steve played marching bass drum in high school and prefers having the bass role; and if you look at the video of the Idaho Peace Band you might even see Steve playing the bass drum for the Idaho Peace Band. He prefers that. So my recording engineer asked me, ‘would your drummers both want to bring trap sets and you can have two drummers like the Allman Brothers or the Grateful Dead?’. I asked them and they said ‘No, we like carrying just the one drum to the show!’.I think they have jelled into a wonderful working unit; and it sounds like one guy. But it’s two guys who, after all this time playing together, have jelled.”
He added about the uniqueness of the Quirky Quarantine Quorum, “And how often do you hear someone taking an electric kazoo solo?” As for the name, “These are all half a glass full, happy people [in the band]; so when we didn’t have a name, somebody said, ‘Well how about the Quorum?’. Then Becky said, ‘How about the Quarantine Quorum?’. And then Mark, who jumped into the band later, said, ‘Well how about the Quirky Quarantine Quorum?’. So the band name had three different stages of gestation.”
The songs on Fifth and State cover a wide range of styles. One classic rock tune that has stood the test of time is Hush. Ken talked about this and their performance of it. “I have always absolutely loved that song by Deep Purple. Speaking as a Hammond B3 [organ] player, that probably is my favorite rock/blues Hammond B3 organ solo of all time. When I got down to doing the solo accordion thing, I thought, ‘this would be fun to play solo instrumentally.’ The whole solo accordion thing was me developing my solo accordion act, but instrumentally only”.
Ken continued, “I started performing it over before I even got to Hill Street and the riff is doo dooo….so that’s a very easy bass lick for me to play on the left-hand bass buttons of my accordion and for me to jam out on with my right. I don’t know what happened, but Becky showed up and she happened to know the song and had sung it before; and loved singing it. A lot of times, the songs you like, the singer doesn’t like or the guitar player doesn’t like or whatever. But we started playing it and everybody came together, everybody liked it because everybody liked it when it first came out, back in 1968. That’s one of the adages of a band, only do songs that everybody in the band loves. Carmel put in that high harmony there and nailed it. You know that song that everybody knows where it’s a Hammond B3 solo? Well now it’s an accordion solo!”
An equally popular song from an earlier era was Fever. The Quirky Quarantine Quorum changing it for their own need. Ken said, “That Peggy Lee song was very very stripped down. It was George’s idea, or somebody’s idea to have it be stripped, stripped, stripped, stripped down. So we just started doing it and it was a nice change of pace from our regular set. Instead of everybody going full bore all at once it was a change of pace, to make the overall show more interesting and more varied. That was my one and only song on melodica. I like the Little Willie John original version. I did not realize it, but Peggy Lee added some verses. That doesn’t happen very often but it made it an iconic song. To serve the original version and add stuff that was just as good as the original version was—that doesn’t happen very often. But Peggy Lee did; and when Carmel and I do that, when we’re in our duo or one of our bands, we do that version and those lyrics.”
Ken likes another tune on the album, a 60s classic. “Mark sings My Back Pages, the Byrds version of that song; and I think he does a helluva job. He loves the Byrds! He also is a very good lead singer, so we are blessed with three very good lead singers—and I am the fourth lead singer who can sing a raunchy blues thing every now and then. With those three lead singers ahead of me, I personally would rather just do some instrumentals. I like doing instrumentals!”
Playing right in the heart of Boise, Ken said that,“We play when the weather is warm, at the Fifth and State food trucks downtown on Thursdays for lunch. Usually 11:45am to 12:45pm. The reason for that is, that is the busiest time of the week for those food trucks; and that’s when the most food trucks show up.” Capping what happened on the recording day as it should be for someone who grew up here, Ken noted that, “The day we recorded it, one of my high school classmates was there”. Using the Street Food Finder for Boise, it is easy to see which trucks are there.
This album shows not only the creativity of many of Boise’s local musicians, but the resilience of many people in the face of the current pandemic. Each song shows a different side of the band and shares how top-notch music can be created even at a street corner. Until the weather warms up and you can go see the band live in Downtown Boise, it’s recommended to pick up this CD, sit back and put a smile on your face.
The live show and the album has a masterful recording and mix by local audio engineer Don Cunningham. The Quirky Quarantine Forum Fifth and State CD is available at the Record Exchange in Downtown Boise for $5 in the local music section, or by contacting Ken Harris at kjharris1925@yahoo.com and ordering one by mail.
More info can also be obtained on the Quirky Quarantine Quorum by visiting the Quirky Quarant1ne Quorum Facebook Page. (Note the 1 instead of I in Quarantine if you don’t use this link)
