I spent most of the past week over in Switzerland in the presence of white people who have stolen the real black blues and are stomping up and down on its corpse. Wow! I wasn't aware of the so-called "trash blues" (or "blues trash") movement until now, but it's definitely on my screen. And I just don't know what to think. [Edited to add: I do hope that the tongue-in-cheek overstatement of my first sentence above is evident to all. I'm not being literal.]
Part of me thinks that the black side of this particular white blues guy (i.e., me) is offended by what the REALLY lowdown raw irreverent white folks are doing with the blues. These are definitely NOT followers of Rod Piazza and Ronnie Earl, much less Muddy Waters and B. B. King. They come from the place where Elvis Presley is sucking down six-packs of Billy Beer (for those of you who remember the embarrassment of Billy Carter). These folks are NOT interested in listening to Blind Boy Paxton replicate Blind Blake.
Another part of me thinks that they're adding something genuinely original to the mix. Maybe we're all just old farts and they're in touch with the deep, house-rockin' roots
You tell me.
Bob Log III and Molly Gene One Whoaman Band might be a good place to start:
I don't know, I think it's more punk than blues, at least the first one is. It's a "look at me, I'm playing American music" kind of a thing. It doesn't matter how well it's played, it's a retro cool kind of a fad. We see it here too. To us it seems disrespectful or hokey, I wonder how well it is received there. I don't think it is much different than a young player who jumps up on stage and starts blowing harp and it's obvious to harp players he doesn't have a clue how to play and we're wondering how to get Gus offstage but the crowd of his peers thinks he's the best in the world.
Last Edited by on May 29, 2012 7:37 PM
Doesn't do it for me, but good luck to them; they are original. Probably fantastic for a room full of highly charged, testosterone fuelled,drunken youths.
Disrespectful? Only if they get promoted as Blues acts. ---------- Lucky Lester
things have a tendency to mutate as they are spread around. i think probably RJ, Skip, Minnie, and a host of others would want to shoot a lot of us over our interpretations of what is or isn't blues these days. true, to me those 2 videos go a lot further from the tree. but still, some of what i do i doubt would qualify with the founders of blues. every era finds people using different yard sticks to measure validity and truth in art. this era is no different.
lately i have been honored to play with a guy who is closer in to the delta and hill country sound than most i have played with or heard around here. we bill as authentic 50's blues. he plays cbg's and vintage guitars and writes inspired by R.L. and Junior and others. does this make us valid? i like to think so to some degree, but it's always up to the audience in part too. and by that measure, those 2 in the videos may be just as valid. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
The way the first one falls off the beat and falls apart and just sort of sits there and reconstructs itself is strange and almost hypnotic. Tight beat... tight beat... tight beat... total collapse... and now for something totally different, but somehow the same. It's Monty Python meets Andy Kaufman doing Mighty Mouse, meets Derrida. It makes me smile, but I have no idea why. The second one I actually like. The vocal reminds me a bit of Tracy Bonham with some Nirvana thrown in.
Well, I don't think that comes from the place where Elvis is sucking down whatever kind of beer he may be sucking down. Personally I didn't like Billy Beer and I also didn't like that music, but to each his own. ---------- Wisdom does not always come with old age. Sometimes old age arrives alone.
Last Edited by on May 29, 2012 8:30 PM
Adam - are you yanking our collective chains? I found it very difficult to listen all the way through either of those videos. I generally try to be a positive, glass half full type of guy but I am really struggling to find kind words to describe this ?music? if you can call it that. But here goes my best effort. If I gave my 9 year old an electric guitar and a drum set for his birthday and turned him loose he might stumble across a few chords and a rhythm that sounded pretty good for a few minutes. For a few minutes. So if these two musicians are just beginners then they deserve credit for having the guts to put themselves out in public and risk humiliation and ridicule. With persistence, practice and a little direction they might start putting out something resembling music. But if this is the intentional finished product of their art form, no thanks. I'll take a pass. Ahead of the times? I don't think so. ---------- ">
I had to respond to this thread. Crazy young white kids messing with the blues? Older folk getting their knickers in a twist over it? Last time that happened they called it ROCK AND ROLL. Bob Log used to live in Tucson and is a lovely bloke and one of the hardest working musicians I know, lives in Australia now . Listen to that guitar closely...... three words - Mississippi Fred McDowell. Its as traditional as it comes but pepped up in Glam Rock Hellfire clothes. I did the first ever Blackhouse session in Nantes , France in 2009. All lovely folks, a lot of those young uns are, they are just having fun playing or dancing to music.
If she was wearing a short skirt playing like that....I'd pay to see her. Just kiddin' I'm an old fart but i like what she is doing..Punk, Blues it is what it is.Party Music..R L Burnside, T Ford and the rest of them were doing it 40 years ago in the Juke joints on payday. Play on Molly.
I agree totally with DevonTom here on this one. This is nothing new here that either of these people are doing. From my own musical experience, I've discovered older, more traditional types of music because I've caught a taste thrown out by this type of stuff. Two examples are traditional blues and bluegrass. The Molly Gene video reminds me a lot of Jack White, which is very much not blues a lot of the time, but sometimes he's very bluesy, although with a twisted, modern feel. I think the only way to be turned off by this type of stuff is if they were booked on a "Blues" bill, because they are not. A wooden house is very often built on a stone foundation.
I kind of like it for what it is,As far as listening to it for my listening pleasure ,Most times I would pass it up and listen to something else,But sometimes it could hit the spot.If the mood is write and Im enjoying some game day beer(3$ a six pack) and my favorite pipe tobacco,who knows Ive listened to, wrote and played worse;-) ---------- Hobostubs
Last Edited by on May 29, 2012 11:34 PM
I'm at work right now, cannot look at any video ; but I know Bob Log III for a long time and have seen him live several times. He's american, far from a beginner, and in control of what he does. He has a lot of fans here in Europe.
He is not exactly playing "blues", but in a sense I think he's close to what the old guys were doing (at least some of them), he aims at entertaining the audience and his shows are really funny.
And those "trash blues" bands (we have a lot of them in Belgium too) are not very different from Howlin'Wolf, R.L. Burnside, that kind of blues.
I can't see how it could be "disrespectful" of anything. And if they want to call it blues, what's the problem ? Music is an evolutive thing, if you put fences and limits around a genre, it's like freezing it.
Son House used to say that what people called "blues" was really not, because blues shouldn't involve "jumping" rythms or dancing ; in his acception, Howlin'wolf was not playing blues for instance ; if he had heard Satan & Adam, he would have considered it "soul" or "funk" or whatever, but blues surely not.
Hey Adam, glad to hear your thoughts on the festival – and even happier that I finally got the chance to meet you. (We shared the stage in Switzerland, I was there with Ataturk).
I rarely use the word "mindblowing", but for me Molly Gene One Whoaman Band was just that. I have never seen or heard anything like that. It was the best act in the festival for me, no contest. I tried to marry her after the show, but we ended up just drinking 3 bottles of Jack and doing acrobatics.
Blues? Didn't even cross my mind to call it that, although it probably gave me goosebumps because she actually sounded like she really HAD the blues. There are so many players out there who are just PLAYING the blues, at least in Europe. She really had her soul in it.
As for the musical style, I heard more Slayer than Son House in her set.
I can't knock it because I sounded like Molly Gene starting out. I was young, had no idea of what I was doing but had to do it. I opened for the dead kennedys with such a sound/energy. Listen to my stuff now. I think it has progressed. IMO when you are starting out you sound like these people but in time you will get a more defined groove without so much teen hormones. RL Burnside despite his rawness defined his sound with his years on earth. What I can't handle is people that try to live in the teen years all their lives and teens trying to sound like they are 60. Teens have raw crazy energy. Let it out and let it mature over the years. You are only young once so enjoy without controlling it-that is how an artist evolves! Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
I'm glad that this thread has provoked open disagreement. That was my hope.
I'm not yanking anybody's chain. I'm genuinely unsure of what I think and feel about this music. And I LIKE music that makes me unsure of my categories of judgment.
Because Vincent and Thomas, the two visionary promoters who organized the Blues Rules Festival in Crissier, Switzerland, felt that I should be a part of the festivities, I ended up being exposed to a world of blues-tinged music outside the bounds of what would generally show up at an American blues festival. But actually even that's not true: at the end of July I'm playing at the Deep Blues Festival in Bayport, MN, and two of the acts at Blues Rules will be there: Molly Gene and Possessed by Paul James (he's a wonderful foot-stomping fiddle player), along with Ben Prestage, a heck of a guitarist OMB and somebody whom the traditionalists here would applaud.
The point is, the blues world is somewhat bigger and more adventurous than you might think. The trash-blues movement is real, and it's not even that new; I saw Bob Log III once back in 2002 when he came through Oxford. (I should also clarify: He played Crisser last year, not this year. But he's considered one of the big names in the trash-blues field.) We're talking about a movement, a variant or offshoot of the blues, at least ten years in the making if not more.
Molly Gene's "blues" aesthetics, at least vocally, aren't mine. The way she sings is much more Patti Smith than Denise Lasalle. But then again, as I stood there in the L'Appart Bar in Reims, where she and her boyfriend/soundman had driven us from Paris, and watched her do her thing, I had great admiration for the way she worked her footdrums and also the total conception. I'm not a narcissist; I don't demand that the world around me consist of a series of reflections of what I like and do. I'm impressed when one musician can create as much joyful noise as Molly Gene does. She's completely unaffected, at age 24; she's living the life of a full-time musician, living in a van and sleeping outside gig-venues, and....well, she's rockin' it. In some ways she's using the music precisely as Honeyboy Edwards, Johnny Shines, and the other black country bluesmen did: to escape the constricted small-town rural southern life that she might otherwise be living, to have some fun, to express herself mightily, to see a bit of the world.
My wife, who prefers jazz (as do I) sat at my desk last night and watched most of Molly's video when I asked her to take a look. She was bobbing her head to the music. Molly's got something.
Not all blues is break-your-heart blues, or highly stylized stuff. There's a long hokum tradition, a mess-around-with-it tradition, a it's-just-a-kazoo-buzzing-joke tradition, a bang-and-beat-on-it tradition. I think that Bob Log III and Molly Gene derive their blues roots partly from that part of the tradition.
Here's what I most admire about these two artists: although their debt to the real black blues (if you will: a polemical phrase) is evident in a certain kind of ringing guitar chord and stomping beat, they are also entirely unafraid of what you might call their weird whiteness, their white-trash rudeness. Both these artists are intent on MESSING WITH the blues, rather than hewing closely to a familiar set of codified moves that would decisively mark them as fit inheritors of a black tradition. If Kim Wilson (in his current blues-elder guise, not his butt-rocking bandanna wearing T-birds guise), Rod Piazza, and John Nemeth stand collectively at one extreme of white blues performance (along with Anson Funderburgh)--fully acculturated into the great tradition--then these two youngsters stand at the other extreme. They just aren't interested in making the familiar blues moves, dancing the familiar dance.
Then again, maybe they're working with a deep current of raw energy--a whole lot more knees and elbows--that the other white traditionalist players don't dare to conjure with, energetic as those other players are. And maybe, just maybe, that places them in an interesting, productive relationship with the African American blues tradition, or the transracial southern music tradition. Early rock and roll? You might argue that Bob and Molly are both channeling early Elvis while doing their best to avoid THAT hokey "riding with the King" stylization, too--the Elvis schtick. No Vegas/Elvis impersonators here. But a lot of the same raw, restless, irreverent energy that drove early Elvis.
We should not forget that George "Harmonica" Smith was a wildman. He and these white kids have something in common. There was also once a young-at-heart man named Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee who kicked and stomped on a bunch of wood and metal in a way that bears a noticeable resemblance to Molly Gene's approach. How could I not be intrigued by what this young woman is doing?
Big shout-out to J-Sin (Jantso), with who I spent some quality time over in Switzerland. I think he and I see this much the same way. His duo, Anatolia Beat, is a very energetic, talented, and witty contraption and I greatly enjoyed their show. I missed Molly Gene's show, but I gather that she completely blew away the crowd, and I'm not surprised.
For those who are curious about her music, I'll urge you to attend the Deep Blues Festival. I will be there, beer in hand. I'm playing the indoor stage on Sunday at 2 PM; Molly Gene is playing the same stage at 4 PM.
Last Edited by on May 30, 2012 5:19 AM
a hundred players and a hundred interpatations,i still feel a lot of people missed the boat when Jimmi Hendrix took blues well past the stratosphere to neptune and beyond. also, the stuff with the most trash i`ve ever seen was Hound dog Taylor mixin` it up with Brewer phillips no need for a bass with two guitars full tilt as loud as can bee ! buzzin`
Last Edited by on May 30, 2012 5:37 AM
This type of music has a certain raw energy that can be very appealing depending on the artist playing it. It's nothing new. Used to be called 'psychobilly' back in the 80s. A kind of mix of punk, blues, rockabilly with demented-type lyrics. The Gun Club, the Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are good examples (the latter do a great version of Black Betty).
I would also put a lot of the garage bands from the 60s in this tradition. The godfather of it all is probably Hazel Adkins, a West Virginia one-man band musician who started recording back in the 50s and epitomized this kind of "white trash" weirdness.
@lynn: You're exactly right about Hasil Adkins: He's definitely the godfather of this stuff. When Satan & Adam first gained public notice in the early 1990s, several people compared Sterling to Adkins.
Captain Beefheart - looks like the OG of this shit to me. OK - so he was technically a pre-punk hippie - who cares? Bet these 'kids' listen to him - and even more likely to Tom Waits - who's done it all along too - though the Blues aint his only or even main influence.
My girlfriend Linda has a theory that she calls "bone harmonics" (don't ask me to explain, but you get the idea) referring to someone's resonating with certain songs or music. I would hate to think that my musical tastes are so ground in old stone that I have lost my open mind, but aside from Tom WalBank and maybe Molly Gene, the other stuff doesn't do it for me, not even to hear for free. Nevertheless, I appreciate Adam posting this stuff so we can see and hear stuff from around the globe.
here is one people that like this stuff might like. Fast Floyd played guitar in my band back in the bay area. He was a blues fanatic but his energy put him in the punk genere. Floyd played with Mink DeVille and The Spiders as well as Fast Floyd and the Famous Firebirds. Prior to that he hit Chicago as 15 year old in the 60's and played with Howling Wolf and the like. He was a big inspiration to me because I finally met someone who had energy going like I did that loved blues. We had some pretty high energy going back then with him on guitar and his younger brother Doug(we have played together on and off for 35 years)on second guitar, me on harp/vocals, and a real bassist and real drummer. Doyle Brahmall (guitarist for Clapton) use to play rhythm guitar in Dougs band. They were some fun days and sadly Floyd is no longer with us. People that know me via the net think I am a slow down player. In my younger days I was best friends with evan johns (known for his crazyness) and joey ramone. I could throw down with them all night. I feel this same honest energy in me today but it has matured to a less frantic pedal to the metal sound. Live I still tear into to it but in bursts as they hit. That is gowing up IMO and what I saw the old blues guys do in their later years. People often forget the old blues guys were wild in their younger days. I have a cassette tape with floyd playing a live gig. If I find a cassette player I want to transfer it to cd so I can listen to it again. Walter
this song is the sound we had going back then and we played blues clubs believe it or not!
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Not my cup of bourbon. But the Blackhouse session stuff did get my attention. It's definitely funny (helmet with telephone). This to me seems like a fusion between blues meets punk rock meets grunge meets the avante guard meets I'm gonna just play like an angry asshole. Not blues and I don't think it is intended to be blues. It's "blues-punk-grunge-hole", to coin an expression.
@Devon Tom Yeah family emigrated to NZ when i was five. Janner? That explains why Dad was always called Jan! (and heres me thinking it was 'cos maybe he was Gay ;-)
My brother emigrated back to Plymouth,I'd tell him to try and catch your act but the only thing that would get him off of his ass musicwise would be if Dolly Parton was playing topless in 'his' pub two houses up the road.
Nice rack harp on the vid.Hope the kids liked your stuff.
Last Edited by on May 30, 2012 9:01 PM
@ Jehosaphat, yup- Plymouth people = Janners. Tourists= Grockles Wasps= Jaspers. Thanks mate, I am living in Tucson, Arizona now, so your brother gets Dolly all to himself!
billy_shines "Pastimes of old washed out harmonica players" One of the funniest comments I have seen here. I appreciate the energy of some of those youngsters but generally like my music to be a bit "notier". I'm sure they would be great live...
if it keeps the blues alive- god bless them. many people didnt have much of a clue about blues until bands like led zeppelin made the scene with their blatant rip off of the old school blues players. but if it touches you, you start doing some research. this is sometimes how the past gets carried on.
adam is a good example, i think. if i am correct, he started out in his bedroom listening to canned heat over and over. he probably didnt know who sonny boy williamson or slim harpo or little walter or sonny terry were. but one thing leads to another. and now adam is out on the net preaching the word and passing on what he has learned. there is a good chance that one of the new wave of blues players heard adam and will follow him to this site where he can begin to get in touch with the roots.
Again I go to the younger days. Check out this lp by Lightning Hopkins. It has parts of what he ended his life with and parts real raw and pre rock and roll. I prefer this stuff over the new raw stuff. Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Whether it's "Punk Blues", "Trash Blues" or "Psychobilly", for me music has to pass the "15 second test": if, after 15 seconds, I still want to listen to it then it's worth it.
The Bob Log stuff didn't pass the test but I listened to all of the Molly Gene vids straight through. Sure, she's not a polished, proven, technically sound musician but who cares? She made my feet tap and had me looking for more vids of her. The girl can rock. I hear a little Jack White in her playing and singing and, maybe more importantly, in her energy.
Here is a video I found from the end of Lightning Hopkins life. This was the era I played with him. He still had that funky raw energy to the end. You can't buy this, you simply have to live it. Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
i would have never attempted to play guitar without the influence of po lightnin. i just recently found out jimi hendrix dad was a hopkins fan and hopkins, peter gunn, and love is strange (mickey&sylvia with bo diddley on guitar) were his major early influences on one string uke. when you hear hendrix live doing those sad blues instrumental encores? THATS PURE LIGHTNIN!
Great vid Walter. I'm the same age (youth) as you billy. "future deathbed" My kids went to a book signing by Lemony Snicket and he dedicated them to "future orphans". I am hanging out with more 20-somethings now than I did when I was 20-something. Go figure. I may be in denial of my decline but I don't care 'cause I'm having fun. Everyone is my teacher. Maybe I'm in too close congress with my sanity but I'm going to steal some of those young folks' energy next time I'm out playing. I think that's what kudzurunner does when he's thumping the drums stompin' his foot and wailing on the harp. Tap into that force even though I'm not crazy like I used to be.
yeah i know what you mean. call me a scumbag but im engaged to a 25 year old. yeah i dont wear berets or porkpie hats. i do wear wrap around perscription shades (not raybans) though always have since 75 when i saw this 50s cover band called rocks gang. everyone called me insect man i picked up the harp 3 years later as i was gettin nowhere with guitar. (a decca exactly like hound dog taylors) yeah i was wearing holes in the knees of my jeans too like in 77? nobody heard of the ramones down here until 1980. yeah so it was alot of shave that stupid goatbeard insect man and sew some patches on those jeans blah blah. but these crust punk folkies are full of godamn shit. i know them. they wanna be traveling hobos with scabies but they really have the finest equipment there is. sunny war has a sponsor with gibson guitars. those footdrums aint cheap. a real hobo plays homemade crap like deak harp and seasick steve. yeah its like if the memphis jubang played gold plated jugs made by gibson etc etc. someone who dresses like shit smells like shit sleeps under a truck and slices their amp speaker with a razor to get distortion i respect. but if you claim to be a hobo and you got a cell phone, a van and the finest equipment there is then cut the shit and buy designer clothes from milan as well. yeah thats another thing and pete seger started this shit rich kids have to wear jeans and big overhalls and join the communist party to look less rich. and no white guy can wear suits until hes a old fat imobile blob of shit then he can wear suits hats and grow a beard and sit down and play because hes finally earned the right not to dress in jeans and look poor. pftttttt. yeah im doing it man these damned kids today blah blah lol.
@Billy "Those footdrums aint cheap" I was thinking the same thing...couple of grand there maybe? Sorta reminds me a bit of the late sixties when all the Lawyers sons grew their hair long and dropped out while us blue collar guys had a living to earn. Now those same hippies,or a lot of them, are now Lawyers(and their kids are 'Art students' Ha! "The more things change the more they stay the same"
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