Strung Out takes on ‘Unplugged’ feel

There are few things sweeter than the sound of four voices singing in perfect harmony to the accompaniment of well-played acoustic guitars.

And creating such musical magic is the challenge members of Strung Out happily take on every Saturday evening at Texas Station's South Padre lounge.

Strung Out -- that's the band; their show is called The Strung Out Sessions -- is made up of Patrick Genovese, Rick Duarte, Nathan Thomas and Nick Mattera. All are veteran guitarists, singers and performers who have played a variety of venues around town.

Most recently, for instance, Genovese was doing a solo gig at The Draft House when, he recalls, Texas Station entertainment representatives invited him to enlist a few more guitarists for a show "along the lines of 'MTV Unplugged' or 'VH1 Storytellers.' "

"The long story short of it is the four of us have been playing together for a couple of months," Genovese says, and officially premiered The Strung Out Sessions just a few weeks ago.

The quartet's repertoire includes songs by everybody from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to Styx to Pearl Jam to Kings of Leon. The idea, Genovese says, is to find songs that are "vocally rich and try to put together thoughtful arrangements."

"I think people are kind of intrigued," Genovese says. "This is not a new concept, but it's kind of a new concept in Vegas. We mix in mandolin and dobro and shakers and 12-strings and all kinds of different instrumentation to keep it fresh and keep it sonically interesting, so to speak.

"We just have so much fun with it, and I think that translates to the audience."

The best thing about the show, Genovese says, is that "when people come in, they're going to see four guys up there who genuinely dig each other. We're buddies, and we'd be the same way if we were sitting in our living room."

Strung Out plays at 8 p.m. Saturdays in the South Padre lounge at Texas Station, 2101 Texas Star Lane.