The scenario: Two siblings from Mobile wind up in New York, in a band that turns their surname into the name of a fictitious Alabama hamlet.
They and their numerous bandmates assume the identities of the imaginary people who populate this nonexistent town, and they take on aliases based on real Alabama towns. They then populate a catalog of songs that mix lush alt-folk arrangements and rich harmonies with a viewpoint that's equal parts Mayberry and Southern gothic. This wins them favorable notice in publications such as The New Yorker, Crawdaddy! and The Village Voice.
Welcome to "Balthrop, Alabama," a village that's coming to pay us a visit next week. A Tuesday night show at The Alabama Music Box, 455 Dauphin St., will be a homecoming for Pascal Balthrop and his younger sister, Lauren Balthrop.
If the name sounds familiar, it's probably on account of Ryan Balthrop, active locally with the Loose Cannons duo and the band The LowDown ThrowDown. (Pascal and Lauren say they have one more sibling who has a pretty voice, "but she's an engineer.")
Onstage Lauren Balthrop is town dreamer Georgiana Starlington, a moniker brilliantly stolen from a single I-65 exit sign. Pascal Balthrop is rabbit farmer Jemison Thorsby. She's credited with vocals and keyboards, he mainly with vocals, guitar and keyboards.
Other members' onstage aliases include Theodore Dawes, Brewton Repton and Clanton "Lake" Mitchell; apparently you don't have to be from Alabama to appreciate the humor, though it probably helps.
They balk at having the band's shows described as "theatrical," though both hint at the idea that they can imagine it evolving into a full-blown musical someday. But they're not pushing that now.
"We don't really try to do anything sequential with the songs onstage," Lauren Balthrop said.
"There are a lot of small town themes," her brother said. "I think the main thing about the songs is that each of them tries to tell a story. And some of the stories tie together."
"We tend to sing a lot of happy songs about people dying."
Pascal Balthrop said the small-town imagery originated with his desire to have some stage dressing, a sense of place, a context for the music. A picket fence, a backdrop and costumes help accomplish that. An illustrator provides real-time graphics on a projection screen.
"There's a lot of folks on stage," he said. The full town has a population of 11, though seven are on the road on this tour.
His main ambitions, he said, include creating pop songs that are accessible, but "re-listenable." That is, that they tell their stories well enough that you want to hear them again even after you know the story.
The process of moving to New York and creating a fictional Southern experience, which the band is now bringing back to Alabama, creates an interesting dynamic. The Balthrops said that past visits to the state have yielded mixed results.
On the one hand, they had a fantastic show at The Flying Monkey in Huntsville, with a room full of people who knew the words to every song.
On the other, they got one of their worst reviews ever from a Birmingham writer.
"He said we had disdain for the Southern experience," said Lauren Balthrop.
"Which is the furthest from the truth," said Pascal Balthrop. "If anything, we've over-sentimentalized it."
Perhaps they're on safer ground with their first-ever Mobile show, where they're hoping to see family and friends.
Either way, they always can take solace in the judgment of the Crawdaddy! reviewer who, in the summer of 2008, judged that "big things seem imminent for the band. ... they seem destined to become indie rock darlings before too long."
Life in a small town: Never dull.
Tuesday's show starts at 9:30 p.m. and will feature Tornado Rider, Rachel Goodrich and The Paper Moons, with Balthrop, Alabama headlining at about 11:30 p.m., according to club management. The cover charge will be $5. For more information, visit www.myspace.com/alabamamusicbox.
For more information on the band, including music samples, visit www.balthropalabama.com.