The Hector Qirko Band

The days of the house band seem, in general, to be well behind us, which is part of what makes the Hector Qirko Band’s semi-regular happy-hour residency at Manhattan’s over the last three years so remarkable. Since the spring of 2007, the long-running blues-and-more quartet has played two hour-long sets just about every other Friday, starting at the entirely reasonable hour of 6 p.m. (“It’s nice not to be packing your gear at 2 o’clock in the morning,” Qirko says.)
Another remarkable thing about the run is the band itself. There’s not much question that the HQ Band features some of Knoxville’s finest musicians—Qirko on guitar and vocals, Jim Williams on bass, Dirk Weddington on sax, and Steve Brown on drums—but the band’s wide-ranging taste and curiosity is as distinctive a characteristic as its members’ individual prowess. During its run, the HQ Band has stretched to encompass jazz, country, rock, and Latin music, without ever straying too far from its Chicago-style blues roots; the group’s most recent disc, 2008’s Old School, is a quiet marvel of straight-up electric blues, hard-edged (“Sister Kate”) and lyrical (“Singing the Blues”).
These happy hour shows are a chance to see the band at its most freewheeling. “If we have new material, we can try it out then, or if we want to recast some old material, we can do that then,” Qirko says. “It feels like the audience wants us to do that. A lot of them are regulars, and they don’t want to hear the same thing every time. It’s like a laboratory—if they like it we know we’re on the right track.”
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the HQ Band is that it’s nearing its 25th anniversary. The group first got together in the summer of 1985 at a Pick ’n’ Grin jam session; they’ve been playing together ever since.
“It’s amazing to me, that the same four guys have been able to stay together for this long and still enjoy playing together,” Qirko says. “It’s not easy. People get different interests or get tired of playing the same thing all the time. But we keep recasting ourselves. And we’re lucky not to have had any hits, so we don’t have to play those all the time.” (Matthew Everett)