His two brothers also were classically trained (violin and piano) and still play. He acknowledges that the ear training and orchestral playing were valuable skills. Although he didn’t love it, it wasn’t until high school that he stopped lessons. At his mother’s urging, Auyon’s classical training (Suzuki method) on the violin began at age 3.
They briefly considered the name “Darling-cide” (e.g., homicide, fratricide), but decided it was too morbid thus, it became “Darlingside.”Īuyon Mukharji (pronounced Oy-on Muk-ahr-gee) was born in Richmond,Va., in 1986 and grew up Prairie Village, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City. There, at her urging, they were taught to “kill your darlings,” those lyrics that come too easily, are too facile or “clever,” that get in the way of the forward movement of the piece. The band’s sound, combining contemporary folk, chamber music, a cappella and rock ’n’ roll, permeates the atmosphere with a charged, electric quality, like an approaching storm.Īll four members met at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., having sung together in one of the school’s eight a cappella groups, the Octet, and at different times having taken the same songwriting course given by the esteemed Bernice Lewis. While we like to think all the performers that appear on these pages present a blast of fresh air, Darlingside is exceptional. A long-practiced head-swiveling vigilance is the only thing that saves me from an express bus as it blows past me through the caution light at the 15th Street intersection. There’s a chorus that sounds like angels giving their benediction to insurrection. The steady, metronomic snare beat and driving electric guitar strum crank up my heart rate and provoke ecstasy. Locked into air guitar, air fiddle, air harmony, listening to “Blow the House Down” from their full-length CD, Pilot Machines. Crossing Sixth Avenue, gym-bound at 5:30 a.m., Darlingside in the headphones from the iPod.