PORT ANGELES — There is no substitute for chemistry.
Kim Trenerry and Jason Mogi have been demonstrating that for a few decades now, ever since they crossed the country and put down their Southern acoustic roots on the North Olympic Peninsula. As the duo known as Deadwood Revival, they’ve brought rhythm, melody and their own brand of chemistry to all manner of venues.
Now they’re headed for Field Arts & Events Hall.
“An Evening with Deadwood Revival” is set for 7 p.m. Saturday at Field Hall, 201 W. Front St., with tickets ranging from $25 to $35 at fieldhallevents.org.
The show, which will include a full set of Deadwood Revival originals, a few choice interpretations of old-time classics and live on-stage painting by artist Jeff Tocher, also will feature Trenerry and Mogi’s newest musical project.
They’re an acoustic duo, a married couple, best friends over many roads traveled. And Mogi and Trenerry — Kim and Jason to their friends and fans — are perennial seekers of new energy. They find it at their gigs, among their fellow musicians and in their own songwriting at home in Port Angeles.
“Kim and I have always found a way to groove together,” said Mogi, who met his partner in Atlanta in the 1990s.
She was a professional singer and dancer in musical theater while he was a drummer in the blues, folk and jam-band scene. Somehow they found themselves in the same band one day; next came some hanging out between gigs, playing guitars and singing. Neil Young tunes were involved.
Like so many who have migrated to this part of the world, Trenerry and Mogi came to the Pacific Northwest to do something new with their lives. In Port Angeles, they formed a band called Tongue & Groove. They went electric, they got popular, they released three CDs, and they played local festivals and bars.
But Tongue & Groove’s schedule got too busy for some of the band members who had full-time day jobs, Trenerry said, so the group was laid to rest.
The pair, as the new Deadwood Revival, embraced the old-time sound. They revved up traditional songs and wrote their own, such as “Ain’t the Buyin’ Kind,” “Ginny Aphrodite” and ”Passenger Side.” Also in the mix are Deadwood-revived versions of Bob Dylan and Beatles songs.
On came the cavalcade of performances: from local bars to festivals such as Wintergrass in Seattle, the Northwest String Summit, Dead on the Creek and High Sierra in California, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco, the Darrington bluegrass festival. There were hundreds of gigs and three CDs: a self-titled album, a record called “This Old World” and the live “Sat 7:30.”
In 2012, Mogi began forming a new band, Joy in Mudville, to later include Trenerry plus bassist Paul Stehr-Green and drummer Terry Smith. This group brought its funk and rock to more local festivals, barn dances and clubs.
Yet Mogi and Trenerry missed the simplicity of the Deadwood Revival duo and wanted the opportunity to play smaller, more intimate venues. The pair began toying with the idea of bringing back that old configuration.
A few years ago, Deadwood Revival was reborn.
Trenerry and Mogi have been writing new songs, spicing covers such as Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic,” and pouring their hearts into recording an album to be released later this year.
At a recent performance in Port Townsend, the dance floor was full, people were cheering and Deadwood Revival was dishing out its signature harmonies.
There are moments, Trenerry said, when the pure joy happens.
“I look over at Jason in the middle of a song,” she said, when “he smiles at me, sometimes only with his eyes. And I know he is saying, ‘I love you and I love playing music with you.’”
Sometimes, Trenerry added, she and her man hit a harmony so powerful “even I am moved by it,” after all these years.
True to their history, the Deadwood Revival duo has formed yet another new band. It’s called Mars Garden, a foursome to offer their brand of country-funk-and-something-else at Saturday’s Field Hall concert. With Mogi on guitars and vocals, Trenerry singing and playing bass — a relatively new instrument for her — plus drummer Robb Hoffman and keyboardist Ken Lykes, Mars Garden will play the second half of the evening.
“We still, after all these years, get nervous,” Trenerry admitted.
But then that frisson returns.
Mogi has felt it many times alongside his life partner, on stage with their fellow musicians, with their fans.
“When the whole band is grooving together and connecting,” he said, “you can look at each other and say, ‘That was cool!’ And that extends to the audience. If somebody is there who might feel alone in a crowd, all of the sudden they feel like they are part of a family … people experiencing the magic; some togetherness, right here, right now. That’s really special.”
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
