Smith & Tegio // Barna Howard (duo)
Event Details
Austin and Mark met through a mutual friend in their late teens in San Diego, CA. Their friend owned a skate shop where they would skateboard out back during the day and play music and share songs at night. These years were filled with musical exploration for the two. By introducing each other to singer-songwriters such as Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley and Tom Waits, among many others, they laid the groundwork for what was to come. And although these years were formative, it wasn’t until years later that the two truly started to mesh musically and find their own voices as guitar players and lyricists.
Barna’s self-titled debut chronicled these moves as he struggled with the contrast between his small town upbringing and these big city wanderings. The album was met with critical acclaim and underground success, partly thanks to an opportunely placed song in the hit indie film, Drinking Buddies. One critic even likened him to some “lost genius of the 60s.”
The songs on Barna Howard’s second album, Quite a Feelin’, ruminate on his relationship with home. Now entrenched in Portland, Oregon, many of the album’s tracks immortalize and reflect on the Eureka he once knew, while others focus on the relationships that define his new home out west. Small town life has long been celebrated in country and folk music, but Barna’s knack for capturing his own deeply personal nostalgia resonates in a rarely universal way.