So what do you do when your wife doesn’t light up at the suggestion of dinner and a show with White Dynomite/Triple Thick/Township at the ME up for you birthday? Head north. There is something about the Rhumb Line. It’s a small, U-shaped, no cover, local watering hole. It has a Monday night open jam, Dave Sagg’s Thursday rockin blues jam with a rotating list of excellent guest (look for Willie and Billy Loosigian) and a crazy cast of hard drinking, boogielistic locals. Throw Kingsley Flood into the toe to toe mix and this local hang lights up like rescue flares at midnight on the bay.

The Flood crew make their music with relatively cleans sounds from the bs, dr, electric and acoustic gtr, violin, keys lineup. They are way more Band than Seeds or Pistols with a twist of punk pop and a hint of first line and hoedown. These guys have a sound in their collective head. They want share their sound with you and they want you to like it – a lot. No tongues in cheeks. No arched eyebrows.

Leader Naseem Khuri brings the songs. The lyrics are solid and the choruses drag you, willing, or kicking and screaming, to the party. He has a fine voice and works the crowd like a natural – no condescending, nothing canned. The group is breaking in a new violinist. Regulars will miss Jenee Morgan Force’s contributions on vocals, violin, sax and attitude. She’s having a baby and has decided to put all of her energies into that full time gig. The new gal, Eva Walsh played some decent if tentative violin. She has a sweet voice and the harmonies and fiddle on display showed ample promise. The rhythm section rides the dynamics – yes dynamics - and the keys and occasional trumpet add spice. Local, go-to guitarist, George Hall handles all the music’s twists with style and restraint - a little whammy, a bit of distortion, some wah wah. His intermittent guitar rave ups crank and push the crowd’s energy higher and further. A couple of strategically placed covers by The Clash, The Waterboys and the Buzzcocks increase the heat and pressure.

Gloucester has quite the hopping music scene (Joanne Silva is one person who keeps track – find her writing about it out there on the internet spaceways). Don’t forget to look to the north, especially if you hear that Kingsley Flood is rockin’ up the Rhumb Line.

BGN caught up with Kingsley Flood guitarist George Hall after the gig.

What's up with the Kickstarter campaign?

We’re actually working with something called “Pledge,” which we used for our last record. It’s a little different from Kickstarter. Unlike the last time, we’re doing it for an entire year, sort of like what labels used to do for bands, back when labels used to do things for bands (assuming you were in a band that had a label, of course!). Stuff like providing some tour support, so we can get out and play more places that we can’t usually afford, fixing the van, revamping and updating the website, some personal expenses for when we’re touring as an opener (which is generally low paying), as well as recording, release and distribution costs. Producers like to get paid too, we’ve noticed.

You can link to Pledge through our website (http://kingsleyflood.com/), where you can find the different levels of support, from just preordering the next release (due in January) to… lots of stuff, including exclusive unreleased songs, videos, and all kinds of stuff - last year we did a cookbook, playlists that ended up as essays, etc.

How do you think about the band's roots?

When (singer) Naseem first started the band, his idea was sort of the Clash meets the Band, and a lot of his earlier songs were along those lines. But other influences start to creep in, between other bandmates and their particular approaches, and general evolution – we listen to all kinds of things, the Kinks, Radiohead, R&B, Krautrock, loud rock, various ethnic and world musics etc.

As far as personal roots, we’re kind of split between native Massholes and out-of-staters, folkies, rockers, etc. Naseem’s parents are originally Palestinians who emigrated from Lebanon, and while his dad was a major Pete Seeger fan, there are other influences that come up. The rest of us are more like classic American music nerds, starting with whatever was on the radio and moving further outward and inward as we’d hear more exotic stuff on one hand, and more rootsy stuff on the other. Like, I love a lot of Country music, but my “country roots” are really more from watching “Hee Haw” with Buck Owens & Roy Clark on TV when I was a kid, and then hearing the Byrds’ “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” in high school. No horses, no cattle.

Gloucester has quite the hopping music scene (Joanne Silva is one person who keeps track – find her writing about it out there on the internet spaceways). Don’t forget to look to the north, especially if you hear that Kingsley Flood is rockin’ up the Rhumb Line.

How does it feel to play in a band that has a little national buzz?

Kind of weird. I’d been in other bands that got some national attention before (Dogzilla, Seks Bomba), but while I love both of those bands and many others I’ve played in, none of them had the same sort of broad populism I hear in Kingsley. Which is kind of great, because the music is still satisfyingly diverse, and allows room for us to play like ourselves while challenging us to figure out ways to work that into different contexts (even at our rootsiest, when I first joined, it was ok to get a little abstract and noisy). There are just more people paying attention. Of course, it’s a lot of pressure, and taking the last shift on a non-stop drive from Wisconsin can make you occasionally question things, but – I mean, I got to play on the main stage at last year’s Newport Folk Festival, and what’s not to love about that?

Gloucester has quite the hopping music scene (Joanne Silva is one person who keeps track – find her writing about it out there on the internet spaceways). Don’t forget to look to the north, especially if you hear that Kingsley Flood is rockin’ up the Rhumb Line.

What's your take on the state of the current local music scene? The Gloucester music scene?

Boston has always produced a ton of amazing bands, from the Lyres to Mission of Burma, Think Tree, Tigerman WOAH!... that’s off the top of my head, I have to stop there or this could take a while… (Oh wait, I forgot the Zulus! And Willie Alexander! Either Orchestra, Ghost Box Orchestra, Giant Kings, STOP ME BEFORE I NAME ANOTHER BAND!!). While there are more distractions competing with live music now, there are still plenty of great and adequate bars and music rooms to support a pretty great music scene. Or scenes, I should say, since things are more diverse than I remember in the Old Days.

I’ve lived in Gloucester for 11 years or so, and love the scene up there. I’ve met and played with all kinds of great musicians on Mondays at the Rhumb Line’s open jam, from older guys who used to play more, to younger kids who completely kick my ass. I sat in with Willie Alexander once (!!), played a Who cover with Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, etc.) doing his best Keith Moon, while thinking “this guy actually saw those guys in places not much bigger than this!” There’s music 7 nights a week, mostly walkable and generally great.

Gloucester has quite the hopping music scene (Joanne Silva is one person who keeps track – find her writing about it out there on the internet spaceways). Don’t forget to look to the north, especially if you hear that Kingsley Flood is rockin’ up the Rhumb Line.

The band and the Rhumb Line seem to have a special affinity. Does the band enjoy playing there?

When I joined the band, I naturally wanted to bring them to Gloucester – they’d been playing for maybe a year or so before that, but from the first moment we played there, it really felt like we’d established a connection that we hadn’t felt anywhere else. We still love it, and even though we mainly play larger venues in Boston, we love to come back, play all night, take chances and get drinks spilled on us from close quarters (it’s a lot harder to accidentally spill stuff on the band in the larger venues – you need to really aim and get some velocity going).

You guys have a new violin player. How did that come about?

Jenée Morgan Force, our previous violinist, decided to leave the band to start a family and posted a letter last week on our website that explains where she's at right now. Playing with Jenée was always great, and while she could never be replaced as herself, we’ve recently started playing with Eva Walsh, who brings her own set of talents. The Rhumb Line show was only her second gig with us (following one practice), but she’s great and we’re pretty excited to see where this thing is going.

Is there anything you want to talk about that I didn't ask?

Probably.