CAMBRIDGE, MA—February 5 – In June of 2004 I went to the All Asia Café in Cambridge, MA to see Ryan Green and Cameron Hood (collectively known as Ryanhood) perform in a club-type environment. Their aggregate Boston appearances up to this point consisted primarily of performing for strangers at select Subway stations. They had just begun their summer-long residency at the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market Summer Street Performer’s Festival, which was in its embryonic stages at this still pre-summer moment in time.

Ryanhood were actually “guests” of another band called Infinite Frequencies whose current status is unknown to me. They were gracious enough to apportion Ryanhood time for a six-song set which has been chronicled elsewhere on this site (consult the Ryanhood index for more details). Audience attendance was in short supply and in Ryanhood’s case consisted predominantly of those few highly loyal and devoted followers of Ryan’s previous band, the extraordinary Iluminada. It was a remarkable truncated set that would best be filed under “small beginnings.”

Ryanhood returned to the All Asia Café on Saturday, February 5, 2005, and what a difference the ensuing New England summer, fall, and winter has made to this Tucson, Arizona duo. Suddenly, after just eight months, it’s all come together. The advent of the Ryanhood Army in autumn 2004 has reaped enormous rewards already in terms of garnering new fans and getting the word out about Ryanhood. Ryanhood’s extremely successful tenure at the Street Performer’s Festival didn’t hurt either. The same can be said for the regional area college appearances they’ve embarked on recently. The All Asia Café was literally crammed full to capacity. Tardy stragglers such as yours truly were denied any seating accommodations, including the extended bar area. It was a divine site for anyone who has followed this extraordinarily talented duo--and outright vindication for those touting their virtue back in March 2004. Navigating through the crowd was a pleasure on this occasion.

Ryanhood brings a wealth of excellent musical material to their performances, almost all of which is original material. For such a young band they already have two astonishing CDs to draw from which were skillfully produced, recorded, and mixed. Writer and reviewer Rhonda Eudaly has remarked that she has seen bands (acoustic and electric) that were either very talented musicians/songwriters or good with the crowd but has witnessed very few who had both the chops to pull off their music AND the performance technique to pull the audience in and laugh with them, and that she thought that Ryanhood has that whole package. Rhonda further elaborated on how Ryanhood is one of those rare bands that sound equally good live and recorded, and came up with a unique tag to describe their music; to wit, “Acoustic Intelligent Pop with Folk Music overtones.” Rhonda is a gifted young writer who everyone is going to be hearing a lot about before long.

All these elements were in full form during Ryanhood’s return engagement at the All Asia Café. The appeal of Ryanhood’s music cuts across gender and age. They sing as well as they play; many like the harmonies in addition to both players’ guitar technique and the muscular aspects of Ryanhood’s musical presentation. Some appreciate Ryanhood’s folk element; others enjoy the other diverse factors inherent in their music.

Ryanhood’s set offered the audience an evenly distributed mixture of favorites from their first, acoustic-only CD Sad and Happiness (“Invitation,” “Happiness,” Intro to Psychology 101,” “Something That She Saw,” “Sad and Happiness”) and their full-band backed second CD Forward (“Army,” “Separate,” “Welcome You Into My Head,” “Look Love,” “Gardens and the Graves,” “Ivy,” “Helpless Hopeless”), with an as-yet unrecorded favorite, “Rosemary,” the Simon & Garfunkel classic “Mrs. Robinson” and two brand new songs, “Okay” and “Photographs.”

“Look Love,” in my estimation, is one of the standout tracks on the new CD Forward, and was not one I would have thought they’d include in their live set. It is extremely subtle musically, and on record is textured by extraordinary upright bass playing by Boston’s Ben Das with skillful percussion nuances by the masterful Aynsley Powell. I didn’t think Ryan and Cameron could effectively play the song as a two-piece and as is usually the case I was dead wrong. It may have been the evening’s most poignant moment, and I kept looking for bass pedals somewhere that just weren’t there. Ryan managed to make his acoustic guitar sound like two instruments; a guitar and a dobro.

A couple of highlights over and beyond Ryanhood’s typical impeccable execution of their standard material were the two brand new songs. They are the best I’ve heard yet from Ryanhood in terms of instrumental quality and harmony, and bring them to the next level. Nothing is more promising than hearing great new songs and knowing that it’s a harbinger of great things to come from a rare duo still in their relative infancy.

Cameron Hood paid tribute to the innate talent of Ryan Green while introducing one of the songs. He gave the audience food for thought. Cameron provides the duo with excellent and accessible songs that Ryan then masterfully crafts from a musical standpoint. Ryan Green is at once the musical director, arranger, and producer, in addition to fellow player. His musical skills are intrinsic; they can’t be learned, and he always makes the perfect choice about how to most effectively phrase each song, and what textures to apply and what to omit. Just a cursory listen to the Forward CD is ample testimony to his production skills and how expertly he enhanced the songs with additional instrumentation but in a way that wouldn’t make them impossible for an amplified acoustic duo to perform live.

All this was never more evident than at their sensational All Asia Café performance. I, for one, was thrilled to be there. - David D.