MAIN STORY |ENHANCED CD | MULTIMEDIA | TAKE THE QUIZ

Don't fence them in

Squirrel Nut Zippers defy labels with 'Perennial Favorites'

Web posted on: Tuesday, August 04, 1998 6:01:48 PM EDT

From CNN Interactive Writer Jamie Allen

PITTSBORO, North Carolina (CNN) -- The aim of the interview, when you get right down to it, is to whittle down the style of music of that North Carolina enigma, Squirrel Nut Zippers (SNZ), to two words.

After all, the seven-member band has been labeled everything from swing to jazz to lounge to pop, and the style of their new CD, "Perennial Favorites" (released August 4 by Mammoth Records) is such an eclectically interwoven quilt of early 20th century American music, a fabric of zany swing horns and haunting violins and jive guitars and country banjos and snappy melodies and fresh lyrics and, above all, Katherine Whalen, that the issue of what kind of music SNZ plays seems now more elusive than ever.

So, in keeping with the theme of that famously rhetorical lollipop commercial of yesteryear ("How many licks does it take to get to the center of a brand name lollipop? The world may never know"), is it possible to pare down the Squirrel Nut Zippers to two words?

CONTINUE!

MAIN STORY | ENHANCED CD | MULTIMEDIA | TAKE THE QUIZ