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The Lynch Bros: Duane Carleton and Tim Lynch make up a dynamic duo with their musical infuences and styles.
The Lynch Bros are the new act at Moguls Sports Pub every Thursday night at 9 p.m. One of the Bros you all may know, Mr. Duane Carleton a.k.a. The Human Jukebox. The other bro you should get to know is Tim Lynch. The two together bring a unique show. The normal lineup is Carleton on guitar and Lynch on keyboard but this duo is anything but normal. They will trade places from time to time and bring new instruments like the mandolin, melodica and maybe even the accordion. All this mixed together is a fresh new sound in town.
Lynch and Carleton have known each other for 20 years. They’ve played gigs together at the Killington base lodges and some clubs in New York State, where Lynch resides. Besides playing together, Lynch knows Carleton’s music better than anyone since he has produced many of Duane’s records at his recording studio in New York called The Recording Company.
“The thing about the duo is we have a history together,” Lynch said. “We both play a lot of instruments so we’re trying to make this acoustic duo a little extra special. We’re picking tunes from a wide variety, from the 60s to modern. As we go through the winter, we’re going to incorporate different instruments. We want to take this acoustic duo, push it to the extreme and see how far we can go.”
Carleton added, “In an effort to make something that is unique, that isn’t something that everybody has seen before. People that go see me do locals night, this is something different. We’re trying to set the musical bar really high. Just the other night I played piano, which a lot of people probably don’t know that I play.” (Author’s note: I did not know he played piano and I’ve known Duane for 15 years!)
The fact that they are keyboard and guitar makes their duo unique; most other duos are either two guitars or guitar and drums. What is also great is that they both sing and take lead, and that leads to sweet harmonies.
They both know so many tunes. Each show will differ from the next. Lynch said, “We might be playing a lot of tunes by familiar artists but they might not be the number one hit by the artist. Duane is able to go into his archives and pick songs from famous groups and grab something out of left field that a lot of people probably wouldn’t do.”
Carleton might pull out a song that Lynch hasn’t heard for 30 years but he finds that challenging and likes that he’s learning new tunes every week. They decided that they’re going to throw songs at each other to challenge themselves. Lynch said there is nothing wrong with playing the popular tunes, but sometimes those get oversaturated and they just want to keep it fresh. The music they play really spans the decades. Carleton likes pulling out the deeper, older tracks and Lynch loves the 90s and can play more current music. Carleton said, “It works both ways. I might be pulling out a tune on him but he does the same to me.”
They both play music fulltime and Lynch said it’s hard not to get burned out.
“You don’t expand musical abilities by staying in the same place. Learning new tracks and challenging yourselves is what makes it work. This is opening both of us up and reinventing songs we used to play,” Carleton added. “This keeps it interesting on a whole lot of different levels. Our focus is definitely to create something unique. We’re playing tunes that you won’t see me play somewhere else. We joked around about doing some old Genesis and that definitely is something nobody else is doing.”
Lynch started playing piano at age five, so his early influences are 70s era piano music and lounge music. The era he attaches to the most is the 90s. He said, interestingly, “I’m kind of backwards. I started playing in a lounge type of environment, doing 40s through 60s music and then I hopped right to the 90s so that’s why you’ll here me play Stone Temple Pilots on the piano.”
Carleton’s influences as a kid all started with 60s stuff like the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. He also loves Neil Young and now he draws influences from all types of music. Carleton has been performing professionally for 36 years and Lynch, 30. They played in some rock bands together in the late 90s but this duo has been together for about a decade. Lynch thoroughly enjoys playing in this duo with Duane. He said, “I wouldn’t be driving two and a half hours unless I was having a good time.”
Carleton threw in, “That’s one way by the way, he’s doing five hours round trip.” Lynch added, “We’re always evolving, the two of us. We don’t necessarily have an idea where our target is. We don’t know where we’re going to go. We let the crowd and we let ourselves kind of determine where this thing drifts in a weird way.”
Lynch has the best of both worlds. He owns a studio and produces music all the time but also gets to play it live.
He said, “The number one thing is the feeling that you’re kind of on the live wire. There isn’t a retake. Everything just happens right in the moment. Everything is going on at the same time. You’re playing, you’re playing with each other and playing with the crowd. You’re picking up their looks and the vibe of what’s happening. I just like that instant feedback. You can’t go back and fix it. I’ve been recording for 25 years and I love it but sometimes when people spend forever fixing a record, they’re not making the record fresh. When we perform live, it’s just a reminder that we can play our instruments and not lean on technology too much. What I love about live performance is we’re walking on a live wire.”
Carleton added, “I’ll take it one step further, that when we play together it’s actually live music. We’re not using samples, loops or harmonizers. It’s actually the two of us playing together and being able to stretch out a tune and take it in a different direction or segue from one tune to another. It’s nice having those options and not be hampered by having to stick to a script because I’m using something electronically to enhance my performance.”
These guys don’t have a set list, nor are you going to hear the same songs over and over. Every week they add new songs. It will be a constantly expanding project. It’s not a static sound. Just in the course of an evening, the sound will change and evolve. The instrumentation will change from song to song. Some will be keyboard/guitar, some guitar/guitar and soon they will be adding mandolin and melodica combinations. Carleton picked up an accordion recently and said, “Who knows, maybe I’ll get brave enough to do an accordion tune before the winter is out.”a
