Recently I was at an event where the Outlaw Sippin Band and the Sawdust Band performed.  I have watched Outlaw Sippin play at Alive @ 5, First On First, Buffalo Gap, and the High Plains Cultural Center.  I think that they are a good band and I have written about them several times in this blog.  I have seen the Sawdust Band play several times, and they are pretty good, but they don’t have Emil Anheluk playing accordion and fiddle.

I believe that I have seen every performer at Alive @ 5, and First On First in Dickinson 2014, 2015, and 2016.  I recognize and acknowledge that Gwen Sebastian and Kat Perkins are very talented and well liked.  I also like the two sisters with their band Tigir Lily.  The first time I heard the Zeona Road Band from South Dakota, I was very impressed, and I thought that they have a very good chance to be as well known, well liked, and as commercially successful as Miranda Lambert, somebody like that.

When I was at this recent event with Outlaw Sippin and Sawdust, I didn’t expect to see anything new or different.  Beni Paulson was playing the drums, which I had never seen him do before, that I can remember.  He did good, didn’t seem too uncomfortable, but I don’t think this is his favorite thing.  When Sawdust was going to play, Beni got up from the drums and let this small girl take his place.

This girl was in her early twenties, about 5′-4″, 110 pounds, medium length black hair, she was cute.  She seemed a little timid at first and through the first couple of songs.  She kept the beat O.K. , but was lighter and softer on the drums than a guy would have been.  After maybe about ten to fifteen minutes, she sang lead vocals.

She has a very good soft voice. I was trying to think of who to compare her voice to, and I think that it is most like Belinda Carlisle, but as I listened and paid attention, I think that her voice is better than Belinda Carlisle’s voice.  I would also compare her voice to Natalie Merchant in its niceness and smoothness.  I think that she would sound great singing Belinda Carlisle or Natalie Merchant songs, not mimicking them, but singing just as her own voice is.

I was thinking that she would also sound good singing Blondie songs.  As I was considering these things, I realized that she was more into her drumming now, probably because she had warmed up and had loosened up.  She was a good drummer.  She sounded different than male drummers.  I could hear it in my head before I could figure out why she sounded different.  Guys have heavier arms, shoulders, and hands, and I am thinking that their drum sticks come off the drum milliseconds later than her. You can hear it especially when she is working on just one drum, her sticks are getting off the surface quicker and you can hear the difference, it is clearer and sharper.

I was thinking that this quick, sharp, lighter handed beating, was something that a rabbit would do.  She drums like a rabbit with rabbit paws and feet.  My favorite drummer looks like a gargoyle, plays drums like a gargoyle, and is the most recognizable drummer that I have seen.  I like the band he is in, because of him.  This girl is cute, pretty, has a very good voice, plays drums well, and like a rabbit, you can hear the difference.  I will go to see Sawdust, just because of her.

I went and asked people who she was, and they told me her name was KC.  I said that she has a very good voice, and everyone agreed, and added, “She looks good too.”  I wanted to tell her after she got done playing that she sounded very good, but when she got off her stool, she was gone, and out of there.

I looked up the Sawdust Band on the internet when I got home.  Her name is Kaycee Hutzenbiler, and she is from Belfield.  From the little that there is to read about her, I am worried and concerned that she has been overlooked, and her talent not recognized locally.

Back in the 1980s, the band the GoGos became popular and successful just because of their good sound, I don’t think that any of the GoGos had years of training, they just went out and played, and everybody liked them.  That is exactly what Kaycee needs to do now, just get out and perform.  Now, don’t wait!

I did some research about rabbits playing drums, and there was a 2011 movie about a rabbit who plays the drums who moves to Los Angeles to be in a band, the name of the movie is “Hop”.  This is a good name for Kaycee, “Hop”.