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Contributed Photo Corvallis' own Northstar Gypsies have been playing their entertaining mix of jazz, folk, and rock in the area for almost a year. [Click to enlarge]

The local band Northstar Gypsies has been popping up in bars and coffee houses around Corvallis over the last few months. Once intended as an all-girl endeavor, something happened along the trail to the Northstar Gypsies. Now they are a gypsy-folk rock band with a bright outlook on life and music.

The band, which consists of two couples and a bass player, has been together for around a year.

"We've gained a few, lost a few," vocalist Kate Humiston said. "We started like this, we just basically have a bass player on top of that."

"I wanted to put together a chick band," said Sally Yaich, founder of the band. Yaich is a vocalist and percussionist for Northstar Gypsies.

"I put an ad out that was looking for girls to do a girl band and I found a friend of hers," Yaich said in reference to Humiston.

Some time later, Amoris, the friend that ties Humiston and Yaich together, departed the band. But the chick band idea was scrapped, likely due to both Humiston's husband Brian and Yaich's husband Jason being musicians.

"He and Sally invited Brian and me to dinner and we jammed," Humiston said. "It was magic."

The members of the band are somewhat unsure of the details as to how bassist Sesh Kanury, the last member to join, came to be a Northstar Gypsy. They can pinpoint a few shows around the time he came into the band last June or July, but they can't even say much as to how he joined.

"It wasn't so much his bass as his curry that sold us," Jason Yaich said.

"I think it had something to do with a large plot of land, but that's all I can remember," Kanury said jokingly.

Of all the members of Northstar Gypsies, only Kanury is from the area and involved with other local bands. Local Zeal and Five O'clock Shadow are some of his former bands, and The Coffee Romance is a band he currently plays for.

"Sesh is the whore bass player," Jason Yaich said.

The Yaichs came to Corvallis from the Phoenix area and were involved in other bands there. Neither Kate nor Brian Humiston, however, had ever played in a band before.

"Brian and I have only lived in Corvallis for five years. Brian started playing when he was, like, 17 or 18," Kate Humiston said. "I've always sang, like in the shower and stuff. I sang in choirs in high school."

Unlike many of the newer bands in Corvallis, Northstar Gypsies goes for a bit more mature of an audience. This shouldn't come as a surprise for a band with two married couples in it.

Sally Yaich is a nutrition major at Linn-Benton Community College. Brian Humiston is majoring in food science, and Kanury is unofficially majoring in music performance/recording. Both attend Oregon State University. Kate Humiston is a math tutor, and Jason Yaich is currently employed as a city planner.

"Jay has a real job," Sally Yaich said, of her husband.

Anyone and everyone looking to find out more about the band, wanting to book a show or wanting to employ a math tutor, can contact the band through http://home. comcast.net/~northstargypsies or by e-mailing northstargypsies@comcast.net. Also, if any local drummers are looking for a band to play with or someone has practice space that Northstar Gypsies can use, they can contact the band as well.

Drummers and interested listeners should know that the band plays an interesting blend of music.

"It's gypsy-jam music," Jason Yaich said.

"It's kind of jazzy, too," Kanury said.

"It's pretty diverse," Sally Yaich added. "Jazzy folk with an edge."

The Northstar Gypsies have been playing shows infrequently as of late, and a CD is being made but is not yet near completion. The band is playing soon, though, at the Ward 5 Battle of the Bands. It will be at AJ's on Thursday, April 15.

No matter the outcome, Northstar Gypsies is still working on building up its inventory of songs, and on scheduling shows outside Corvallis city limits.

"We're starting to make our mark," Kanury said.

Robin Canfield is a Diversions writer for The Daily Barometer. He can be reached at canfielr@onid.orst.edu.

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