One day when Chris Towne was in wood shop in junior high, a classmate entered playing a jew's harp.
"Before the day was over, I bought one," Towne recalls. "I've been playing it ever since." He and Scanlan were at a mutual friend's birthday party five years ago and jammed. "I didn't become a serious player until I met Dan," Towne says, "We started performing together as Juke and I got more and more serious about the instrument." Today, Towne plays a collection of tuned jew's harps from around the world - Austria, Hungary, Italy and Oregon.
Like Scanlan, Towne is fond of speaking to the history of his musical instrument:
"The name "jew's harp" goes back to 1560, but nobody knows how it got that name. It has no lineage at all that connects it with the Jewish people. The instrument is much older than 1560, however. It's an instrument that goes back not only to the Scandanavian countries but was also found in Indonesia at the same time, fashioned from bamboo. Ancient tribes have used the sound for healing."