Riding a trend whether they meant to or not, Hot Day at the Zoo get plenty of college and public radio exposure in the Northeast and down into the Carolinas and out as far west as Colorado, areas they’ve covered in their treks to clubs and festivals over the past few years. And their local audiences have continued to swell. There’s no shortage of girls in bandanas and skirts and guys in bib overalls, and there’s always some spin-dancing, the dervishy stuff you’d see at a Dead show or a Phish reunion. And there’s beer. A lot of beer. Massive quantities of beer get consumed. Add in the camaraderie and the increasing instrumental prowess that Dion, Cleaves, bassist Jed Rosen, and banjoist and dobro slinger Jon Cumming display on stage in the current four-man line-up and a Hot Day at the Zoo show amounts to a damn good time.
They got their name during the first rehearsal. Cleaves: “We had been practicing for about six hours in a back room at Mike’s dad’s house, and somebody said, ‘It smells like a hot day at the zoo back here.’ ”
And even as they celebrate the release of their second EP, which follows the 2005 album Cool As Tuesday, they’re at work on another full-length. “We think the songs we’re recording are capturing the band at a higher level,” Cleaves notes, “but we know we’re still going to grow as musicians and songwriters. We’ve just started to come into our own. We’re able to execute better solos than we were a few years ago and really stretch out live, so even the songs that are three or four minutes on a CD get to be nine or 10 minutes long on stage. And that gets the audience really into it. They have more time to dance, and they really like it when somebody takes a solo that really goes for it.”
The new EP, which a week before the Lizard gig was still looking for a name, does show a creative leap from Cool As Tuesday, which explored themes of loss and loneliness triggered by the death of Dion’s mother. The sound is more diverse, and the arrangements are more tightly meshed. “Gypsy Moon (The Raven)” blends a theme of wanderlust with the supernatural inspiration of Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic masterpiece. Cleaves’s clip-clopping mandolin rhythm drives the story at a speedy, precise trot, and Dion’s vocal and harmonica nod toward the Minnesotan nicknamed Jack Frost. “Outside Looking In” is similarly Dylanesque, though it sounds as if moonshine were also a factor in its ragged-but-right performance. Cumming’s banjo comes to the fore in “The Wheel,” a road song that seems like an Appalachian version of the Buddhist cycle of life and death — though with, yes, a considerable helping of whiskey. And then there’s “Lost,” an up-tempo yarn of “a life gone wrong” that has the peppery spirit of an Irish drinking song.
Well, boozy insouciance does seem to be a quality Hot Day at the Zoo and their audience share. And the band’s plans call for more sharing. After the Lizard show, they’ve got a passel of shows in New England and New York State scheduled. You can find them all at myspace.com/hotdayatthezoo.
HOT DAY AT THE ZOO | Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge | January 26 | 617.547.0759
