Love Lane Gang: Rollicking New Key West Group

 Love Lane Gang

The kids were insisting, so the Dutch family moved up closer to Schooner Wharf’s bandstand. The four- year- old grabbed her father’s hand and the two began prancing to the Gang’s happy and infectious sound.

The next night a round-faced baby kicked up her heels and her grandma burst out laughing as the stroller rolled up the ramp into the cooling sound of the Love Lane Gang’s gypsy jazz. It was a hot but joyous Friday night at McConnell’s Irish Pub.

The Gang’s burly stand-up bass player grounds the music line; the pretty and willowy washboard player adds rhythmic whimsy; the eclectic mandolin player,  effortlessly spins his magic, passing the lead back and forth between the Gang’s gifted guitar-and-harmonica playing vocalist. Together the four players are mixing up worker ballads, Gang originals and Swing Era favorites from their ever-expanding energetic repertoire.

The Love Lane Gang, currently a four-person bunch of fine musicians and songwriters, are having the time of their lives creating a unique sound painting for the enjoyment of audiences as well as themselves – Jerrod Isaman on guitar, Steve Gibson on mandolin, Stephen LaPierre on bass, and Missy Parker on washboard.

The group is always ready for new friends. Who will show up tonight? It could be a Mallory Square entertainer, a Duval Street percussionist, or some old friends from the vocalist’s freight train riding days. This is clearly a bunch of modern-day radicals, playing old-time radical music.

“They are like nobody else in town. They do roots music,” is how Key West Chris, a singer-songwriter, describes the Love Lang Gang’s style and repertoire. “Everything they do is pretty much in 2/4 or 4/4 time; it gets people moving.”

Like many other local musicians and music lovers, Key West Chris is a  Love Lane Gang groupie, one of a few dozen locals, often with their dogs and parrots, who follow the Gang from venue to venue each week, curious to hear what new or favorite sounds might be created spontaneously at each gig.

One recent Friday night at McConnell’s, those old friends, sporting Depression-era moustaches and overalls, playing banjo and guitar with vocals, joined the group as the Gang’s guitarist grabbed his accordion and slid to the back of the stage. The new mix, led by the duo, took off as the stand-up bass player turned to face the group, merging with this new sound emanating from and around him.

The night before at Schooner, Jeep, the iconic Mallory Square entertainer with his 12 piece washboard, stove pipe hat and medieval pants, joined the Gang, startling the crowd as he whacked his percussive contraption in his own time, honking his Clarabelle horns a few times – at just the most inappropriate moments, Clarabelle style.

“This is a gang, not a band,” insists LaPierre, longtime professional bass player and also one of the best oil painters now working in Key West. Everyone who plays with the band becomes a gang member, and membership is now over two dozen strong. The gang concept allows the group, ranging in age from 24 to 60, to ebb and flow as each person continues to evolve as musicians, entertainers, and individuals with multiple interests and talents.

The Love Lane Gang is running around town throughout August. You can catch up with them this weekend at McConnell’s Irish Pub onFriday night from 8-11pm; at Blue Heaven on Saturday morning, and at Salute On The Beach on Sunday from 5:30 pm – 8:30pm. They are also playing Schooner Wharf on Thursday, August 29th from 7- 11pm. and Sound Check at the Green Parrot this Saturday, August 24th at 5:30 PM   WOW!!!!!