BLUEGRASS UNLIMITED MAGAZINE CD REVIEW:

Jackass Flats
Purgatory Mountain

Jackass Flats is a five member bluegrass band from Richmond, Va., that has created an exciting compilation of contemporary bluegrass. All 12 titles were composed by bandmembers Travis Rinehart and Stephen Kuester, including "Freedom Song," "At The Mercy," "Murder Ballad," and "Carolina Girl." There is some especially captivating instrumental work on "Quit Trying To Save Me." Jackass Flats has created some magical musical moments that should earn the group an abundance of attention.

SINGER/SONGWRITER RON MARTIN CD REVIEW:

Jackass Flats
Purgatory Mountain

Flats have indeed arrived. After seeing them live last year at Floydfest, I knew then they were on to something. Their musicianship is second to none and their songwriting is superb. This CD is filled with all sorts of songs which; incidentally; could have been played by a rock band or folk band or whatever. They're THAT good ! Although they choose Bluegrass (for which I'm grateful) as the genre in which to pursue their art; these guys I believe could play anything. If you like Americana music, buy this CD, you WON'T be dissappointed.

9x MAGAZINE CD REVIEW, RICHMOND, VA:

Jackass Flats
Purgatory Mountain

Review by J. Holdren
Going on a decade ago, there were a couple of college-aged friends who liked to sit around the Fan and pick bluegrass instruments. They enjoyed playing the Beatles ‘She Came In Through the Bathroom Window’ as much as they liked playing the Seldom Scene’s ‘C&O Canal.’ There were virtually no bounds to the tunes they chose to pluck through and learn, and there was a geniality to the playing and the comradery. Those two guys were Stephen Kuester and Travis Rinehart, now the heart of the highly regarded regional bluegrass band, Jackass Flats. Back then, these were just two fellows with tremendous voices, each his own, who enjoyed music for music’s sake. Well, look at them now.
After gaining a substantial regional following, and playing venues as esteemed as the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Jackass Flats has just released Purgatory Mountain, a driving, dynamic record of all ORIGINAL bluegrass. I cannot overstate how important it is for young bluegrass bands to be writing/releasing new material. Fans of the genre are direly disserved by being forced to listen to another version of ‘Rocky Top,’ ‘John Hardy,’ or the ‘Freebird’ of bluegrass, ‘Orange Blossom Special.’ With Purgatory Mountain, Jackass Flats joins the ranks of King Wilkie, Old School Freight Train, and the Hackensaw Boys (the first two made us proud by playing MerleFest this year) as central Virginia’s up-and-comers on the National bluegrass scene. Each band has a signature style, and Jackass Flats leans on their exceptional vocals, strong fiddle playing by Dennis Elliott (warms my heart!), and diverse songwriting to put them near or AT the head of the pack.
Kuester and Rinehart write all of the band’s material, typically solo, and with their unique talents, each brings a different spice that adds to what becomes a fine aural stew of an album. Vocally and instrumentally, Rinehart (banjo) is the Ralph to Kuester’s (guitar) Carter Stanley. This is not to compare their music to the Stanley’s, but to use the analogy of two opposite voices blending to make a music all it’s own. Rinehart’s is the high lonesome voice that could peel paint, and Ruester’s is the midrangey, warm one (think a gutsy James Taylor). Rinehart wrote the title cut, the wailing instrumental, ‘Purgatory Mountain,’ and Kuester wrote such storytelling standouts as ‘Freedom Song’ and ‘Murder Ballad.’ All told, with nice touches of fiddle, dobro, and a thumping doghouse bass, this young band of mighty marauders blend mountain style and new grass to form a sound that is quite appealing to these ears. Here’s to the success of local music, and here’s hoping that Jackass Flats makes the Ryman stage a standard setting for their shows, for years to come.

DOMINION POST CD REVIEW, MORGANTOWN, WV:

There's no shortage of bluegrass music in the Mountain State, but Jackass Flats, from Richmond, Va., has drawn a sizable fan base for it's unique take on the art form. The group -- four, five or six men, depending on the lineup, and named the 2002 Virginia State Bluegrass Champions -- focuses on plucky, high-energy renditions of its own tunes and traditional pieces. You can get a taste of the group's style, and see why fans love these guys in concert, on their debut, self-titled CD, "Jackass Flats." (The name comes from a once-busy crossroads on Route 60 in Virginia that now has nothing but a sign and an old building.) The opening number, the traditional "I Know You Rider," blazes right into the band's signature, zingy, foot-stomping style. Play it in your car (or SUV, whatever), and you'll be wiggling all over the place. Bass, fiddles, banjo, guitar, dobro -- you'll wonder how fingers can move so fast, and how the players can all blend so smoothly when everyone is flying around the strings. The CD combines six traditional pieces with six composed by band members Stephen Kuester, of Richmond, and Travis Rinehart, a St. Albans native. The two men's compositions don't try to break any new ground; if you didn't know they wrote them, you'd think they were traditional numbers, too. Rinehart's "Make it Through the Rain" is one of the two standout original numbers on the CD. He shows a gift for melody, and his vocal style is pleasing. He has a unique, scratchy kind of voice, and doesn't try too hard to employ that nasal bluegrass form. The fiddle work on this song is simply haunting. Wow. Kuester's best piece is "Jolene," a light-hearted look at a broken romance.You'll want to grab your jug of mountain dew and stamp around the wood stove. Bluegrass has its serious side -- songs of death and despair -- but these guys don't go that route, at least on the CD. They aim for pure fun. Every song is upbeat and charged with life. The closest they come to serious is the sentimental, traditional "Home Sweet Home." It's the prettiest song on the CD, but still plucks along at a good pace. The one mistake the group makes on the CD is closing it with a spiritual, "Wicked Path of Sin." The band's attitude is simply too light for this kind of song (they seem to be mocking it), and the number simply has the wrong tone to wrap up what's come before. Still, if you're a bluegrass fan, or a novice who wants to hear what makes this music tick, you can't go wrong giving this CD a listen. Written by David Beard

9X MAGAZINE RICHMOND, VIRGINIA:

"Don't let the simple black and white cover of this CD fool you. This debut release from local pickers Jackass Flats contains six originals and six covers that are great examples of the kick that the band brings to their live shows. The spectrum of their newgrass-to-truegrass repertoire is evident in the fact that the CD begins with "I Know You Rider," and ends with an acapella version of "Wicked Path of Sin," both of which were performed by traditional bluegrass bands and the Grateful Dead. The core band of Stephen Kuester, Travis Rinehart, Kenny Epps, and Marc Harding are joined by guest players Joe Byrd and Paul Anderson on dobro and fiddle respectively to serve up some serious bluegrass harmonies and breaks. Although some of the covers are not necessarily my favorite tunes in the genre (with the exception of the uncredited Monroe and McCoury tunes) it is the originals that make this disc shine. Stephen's "Devil's Take Me Down" and Travis's "Leave Her Be" are both examples of bluegrass songwriting. Recorded by Mark Daniels and Lewis Miles, and Mastered by Bill McElroy the CD captures the band's live spirit and makes me look forward to the next Jackass Flats project. The boys have been playing hard and often, so look for then at a bar near you." Written by Steve Douglas

Recent Press

NINEVOLT MAGAZINE

Thanks to the fans and their dedication to sending in their votes, Jackass Flats has won a Virginia Music Award!

• "Americana/Jamband Band of the Year"

STYLE WEEKLY ARTICLE

Carrying the Torch: Jackass Flats couples a traditional lineup with original material.
by Ames Arnold, January 28, 2004

Bill Monroe probably took his share of critical hits when he first teamed high lonesome vocals with mandolin and fiddle in 1939 to create the original bluegrass sound. But Monroe’s audacity quickly became the standard and his originality became the norm. The past 30 years or so have found younger players fueled by imagination and rock ‘n’ roll likewise tinkering with the rules. J.D. Crowe and the New South shook the scene up in the ’70s.

New Grass Revival and others put a soulful spin on bluegrass in the ’80s. Now the genre is tweaked again as bands playing off the bluegrass template push the envelope into hippie-jam, punk or jazz directions. These ongoing musical developments are heresy to some. But for bands such as Richmond’s Jackass Flats, evolution and bluegrass go hand in hand. The Flats treat their sound as more of an extension of traditional bluegrass, rather than a different direction. “We don’t want to sound like Bill Monroe,” says Flats guitarist-songwriter-singer Stephen Kuester. “We want to have our own identity, develop our own sound. … Bluegrass is going off into so many different directions.” Kuester means no disrespect to Monroe, but as a player and songwriter, he’s more in tune with a maverick such as Steve Earle who recorded a ’grass album with the revered Del McCoury Band. Rather than relying on a bunch of standards, Earle wrote his own songs.

Jackass Flats’ eponymous first CD was a mix of originals and standards such as “I Know You Rider” and “Freeborn Man.” Now, well into the recording of their second project, Kuester says the five-man unit is doing what he and banjo player Travis Rinehart envisioned when they founded the group in 1999: They’re recording their own songs exclusively. For bands such as Flats, sanctifying the past doesn’t make much sense. “That’s my point with bluegrass,” Kuester says. “It’s not stagnant.” The past few years have also been anything but stagnant for the band as performers, since all the members quit their “real” jobs to concentrate on music.

The group won the Virginia Folk Music Association Bluegrass Championship in 2002 and performs its energetic live show regularly in Richmond. Gigs are also steady across North Carolina and Virginia as well as north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Kuester says they’ve found welcoming crowds in those areas where live bluegrass is not so common, and that part of the fun of the journey is finding a musical community wherever it exists. “We’ve had a lot of success up North,” he says. “We played in Montclair, N.J. They went nuts. That’s one of my favorite parts of playing music. It brings you together with like-minded people.” The band is playing at its most enthusiastic level these days, Kuester says, and, if a recent show at Main Street Beer Co. is any indication, he’s right. They might not get rich doing this, but Kuester, Rinehart, fiddler Dennis Elliott, bass player Eddie Carlton and mandolin player Kenny Epps have a focus as they push their newgrass into 2004 and beyond. “It’s not commercially viable but it’s definitely rich,” Kuester says of bluegrass’s future. “It’s a genre of music that’s alive.”