We had been looking forward to this session for some time. Yoni had spotted a piano downstairs in Eighth Day Cafe and decided to perform this version of ‘Half a Person’ by Manchester’s own, The Smiths. Anyone who was at WHY?’s sellout show at The Deaf Institute later that night will agree it was an incredible gig. Nice one Yoni Lad.
WHY? is a trio of handsome Cincinnati-born men who fiddle with skins, strings, bells and microphones and present their findings to the listening public. Singer Yoni Wolf grew up the second son to an art book editor and a rabbi. He got his start recording bad poems and sloppy beats on the family synagogue’s 4-track. In junior high he discovered hip-hop. At art school, he learned how to drop out. Yoni’s brother Josiah played drums at Rabbi Wolf’s worship service as a kid, became a band geek as a teen, and fell in love with Thelonious Monk on his way to study music at University of Cincinnati. Doug McDiarmid would eventually get expelled from that same school for carrying a stun gun, but first he was raised by two French teachers and taught piano while in kindergarten. He also went to high school with the Wolfs, where he played in Steve Miller cover bands.
Finally WHY? covers The Smiths, I thought it might never happen.
beautifully haunting- WHY? is amazing!