San Francisco Voice

As I sat down to write what I wanted to write about The Brothers Lekas, I kept wanting to refer to them as “the band” and I kept having to correct myself.  Because technically, these guys aren’t a “band”, they’re a duo comprised of – you guessed it – two brothers.  But between the two of them, Mark and Erik Lekas play so many instruments that they create a full, rich sound that makes it seem as if they have a whole band behind them instead of just the talents of the two of them creating that music.  Their genre is a folk rock flavor that’s more rock than folk in terms of multi-instrumental energy but more folk than rock in the sense that they use instruments heard regularly in country and bluegrass music.

The Brothers Lekas play acoustic music which makes use of their years of training in guitar, bass, cello, mandolin, piano and even bouzouki.  Their first CD, It Ain’t Free, was released at the end of 2006.  It’s a ten-track album which takes reflective lyrics sung mostly by Erik (although Mark’s voice rings clear on “Song of My Own”) and pairs them with observations about life in general and the bigger picture of nature to create a story which is woven from song to song.  If the lyrics are the story, the instrumentals are the pictures which help the listener to better understand the words being shared.  So, when you hear that “it’s been weeks and not days” (“Quicksand”), you know that time has passed but when you hear the lines punctuated with the piano, you really understand the impact of the emotion being described. One could stand alone without the other but each contributes to the total experience.  Incidentally, the songs I’ve mentioned here, which happen to be my favorites off of the CD, aren’t on their MySpace page but the four songs that are (“Forgiveness”, “Wishing You Around”, “Walking In Circles” and the title track) all exhibit this same combination of strong lyrics fused with impressive instrumentals.

The Brothers Lekas play next in San Francisco on May 12th at Cafe International in The Haight.  The show is free and all ages.  In addition to this work that they’re doing together, they play with Steve Strehler in the psychedelic jam band In Rare Form which has been part of the San Francisco music scene since the turn of the milennium.

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