YoniGordon & The Goods

By Nadav Carmel | Photo by Scott Eisenberg

The music of Yoni Gordon and the Goods is about making connections. It has to be, as the three band members and good friends only get together a few weeks throughout the year. Gordon and bassist Faisal Aswat both live in Boston, with the former planning a potential move and the latter married and working fulltime. Drummer Scott Eisenberg tours as a sound engineer for bands like The Bravery and Damone. And all three play in other projects.

“I usually have a couple shows or recording dates lined up, and for that two-week period we become a band again,” Gordon says. “There’s got to be something to the lineup of this band and to the kind of momentum that we can build in just the two weeks that we get out of every year to play together. We’re able to get a lot of work done, and it’s really fulfilling work that represents the best of our capabilities as musicians.”

“The creative dynamic the three of us have is as strong if not stronger than anything else I’ve ever been in,” Aswat says.

The briefly-reunited trio sat down to talk during a break from the early recording sessions for their fifth release, following last year’s exceptional Buried in the Basement. The LP, recorded in a day, garnered positive reviews and a spot opening for Ted Leo in the band’s birthplace of Worcester, MA.

“I really like the new batch of songs we have. I’d be really excited to get to play them night after night after night,” says Gordon. “And I think other people would be, too, though I can’t speak for those other people-”

“Oh no, I would,” interjects Eisenberg. “I could speak for those other people — they would enjoy it.”

Inspired by Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie, and the Clash, the trio has been playing their insistent stomp on and off since 2000, the longest any of the three have played in any band. They tour when they can, playing both basements and clubs, and Gordon plays solo at least a few times each month. The goal of every show, Gordon says, is to reach the point “where an audience is working, we’re working, and there’s a community that comes together in that moment.”

“Every show we play we do as much as we can to see if we can meet the audience. And those situations where the audience decides to meet us back — that’s the point where it’s really fun,” says Aswat.

“I feel like we interact so well at that point with an audience. There’s such a give and take in a community where everybody works off of each other. It’s amazing,” Eisenberg adds.

The truly amazing thing, though, is that more often than not this is what seeing Yoni Gordon and the Goods is like — an open invitation to meet the band halfway. It’s obvious on their albums, but the stage is where the band pushes each other the most. When asked about the “spiritually rejuvenating properties of punk rock” as mentioned in his official bio, Gordon responds, “I very much believe that you can go to a show and leave it in a better state than you were in when you arrived. Might be silly to say, but I believe it.”

Such passion might seem silly to the cynical, but most are familiar with the transformative power of music. Otherwise, why listen or read about it? All it takes is one concert, one song on the radio, and one lyric from a great record. The sentiment is what drives the band and is best summed up in a line from Buried in the Basement’s title track “In this basement, in this crowd / Something so sacred, something so proud / This ain’t no church, but this is holy ground.”

www.yonigordon.com