Beaverdale Babies bring unique sound to local music scene

By Willis Patenaude | Times-Register

Inside a living room on Carter Street, a guitar and ukulele are playing, while vocals are being softly delivered into a nearby microphone. A cat is purring on the couch, listening to the lyrics from an original song like “I Miss Your Face” about a love lost or the Americana ballad “Busted” about a broken heart. 

It is the sound of folk, indie and bluegrass all fused together with a touch of jazz and outlaw country that is unique to the Beaverdale Babies, who have performed on the lively and colorful stage at Deb’s Brewtopia a few times these last few months. But before the eclectic guitar riffs of Josh Gorman put sound behind the affecting lyrics of Alexandra Bomhoff, the two were just juniors in high school. 

From that point, a confluence of events led to the birth of a relationship and the band, starting with a chance meeting at a small venue concert in Des Moines, where Josh took Alexandra’s entrance fee and marked the back of her hand with a sharpie, while simultaneously taking her “breath away.” But for whatever reason, words were not exchanged. 

The effect the “tall teenage Josh” had, though, didn’t disappear like a fleeting lyric that’s never written down. A few years later, with the help of some dating websites, the pair eventually met on New Year’s Eve as the clocks turned from 2017 to 2018. 

That event led to the next, but the Babies were still a year or so away, as Josh played guitar for a New Orleans-style jazz band that toured Iowa until the “Covid Dark Times,” as Alexandra termed it, descended across the country. There was no more touring, but it opened the door to something else when, in the middle of folding laundry, Alexandra shared a song she wrote with Josh. It was the first time they had played music together. 

As the Babies developed, so did other pandemic projects, to occupy the time and maintain their “mutual mental health,” like the state parks quest. They’d spend their time on the sofa in the living room developing songs together, with Alexandra furnishing the lyrics and Josh arranging music. Then they’d travel across the state on a quest to visit every state park in Iowa. It was a way to stay busy and active, and the solitude of it all influenced the emotional tone of the lyrics.

Naming the group happened in January 2020, in a brick house in the neighborhood of Beaverdale, when the duo first started making music together and were new to the community. In essence, they were “babies,” they said. More to the point, Beaverdale Babies was also the name of Alexandra’s store on Etsy, where she was attempting to sell crocheted and quilted baby blankets. The name just kind of stuck, like the pictures of afghan blankets and quilts from the early days of the Instagram feed. 

Inspiring the sound and lyrics are a host of influences. As far as songwriting goes, Alexandra listed Jim Lauderdale and the Game Changers, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, The Beatles, Paul Simon, Michael Bolton and Dolly Parton, among several others. On guitar, Josh cited Charlie Christian, Robert Cray, Les Paul, Joe Pass and Glen Campbell. The diversity of influences is one reason behind the band’s main sound that is Americana, a genre they said “is a fusion of all American music styles that fits” with their diverse musical tastes.

Constructing the original songs, many of which are available on YouTube, starts as an independent process with Alexandra working alone with a guitar or ukulele, putting together chord progressions and sets of lines related to a title or concept she wants to explore in the song. 

“I may brainstorm couplets of words with meaning or imagery related to that concept, and then put together the rhyming patterns and lines like a puzzle that fits with the chord progression I came up with,” she said. 

Once complete, she brings it to Josh, who does what Alexandra referred to as “his dooly-doo.” Put another way, his “virtuosic improvisational guitar solos.” Then Josh simply takes the chords Alexandra used and comes up with different ways to play them until they have an arrangement that suits them both. 

This process provides some of the joy about being in the band for both of them. For Alexandra, the joy comes from, “writing the songs and seeing how Josh embellishes them,” and for Josh, it’s being able to take the original music and find creative ways to put his own spin on the songs. 

“We also enjoy having each performance be unique because of the improvisational guitar solos,” they said. 

After the Covid Dark Times, the Beaverdale Babies had their first live performance together around a fire pit in their backyard in Beaverdale for a few friends in the summer of 2023. They performed some original songs and were nervous, even among friends. 

“Being a mostly acoustic duo, they are intimate performances, where it can feel like the audience is listening in on us the same way we used to play at our home in Beaverdale,” Alexandra said. 

Perhaps the intimate nature of the performances also stems from the themes of the song lyrics, which are almost universally about a sense of longing. 

“They were composed during the Covid Dark Times, a time when I think a lot of people were longing for connection with their fellow humans [and] a time of deep longing for the loved ones we missed terribly. Songs like ‘I Can’t Bear It’ and ‘A Certain Place’ are quintessential examples of this theme,” Alexandra explained. 

Those are two of their favorite songs to perform. In fact, “I Can’t Bear It” is the first song specifically written for the band. They also enjoy playing “Busted,” a country ballad of sorts, as of course, they love a cover, especially deep cuts like “Don’t Go” by Fascinoma, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” by The Flaming Lips and “Lucky Devil” by Meschiya Lake.

While Alexandra has sung on occasion as an alto with the Chancel Choir at Peace United Church of Christ in Elkader and Josh has been teaching monthly ukulele instruction program at the Elkader Public Library, they recently started performing on the stage at Deb’s Brewtopia, including a New Year’s Eve show opening for Joseph and Micah Minor’s band “Before I Met You” and headlined their own show in February. 

“It is exciting to be in front of a crowd. We like picking out familiar, friendly faces and meeting new friends through our music,” they said. “We are developing our live set now and are planning to perform more often in the future.”

The next live set is actually right around the corner, when the Beaverdale Babies will open for Mike Munson at Deb’s Brewtopia on March 23. It’s a long way from performing karaoke at Billy Joe’s Lounge in West Des Moines for Alexandra or the Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival in Davenport for Josh. 

It started with a touch on the hand and continues inside a living room and on the local stage, where the creative process brings songs to life and where the unique sound of the Beaverdale Babies adds to the tapestry of the local music scene. 

“Music is a way of bringing people together. A strong local music scene is a sign of a strong community. It creates a network of friendships, increasing community resilience. There is something about making music with the ones we love that is special and fosters community,” the band said.