Skimask's "Cute Mutant" twelve-inch provides a gelatinous mass of pummeling percussion and aggressive caveman synth that was surely written to provide the boombox soundtrack for a strutting Mechagodzilla on a malt drunk bender.
I'm led to believe from what literature I have read of this Boston (i think?) based trio that there are no guitars involved, although the screaming distorted electronics that are generated on this recording have the genetic disposition at times of a bass-heavy stringed instrument being punched into the red.
To make this digestible in a treatable palate for locals in Louisville, there are definitely fingerings of two legends here: The Touched's fuck you to the map of punk rock, including Brad Bell's orchestrated clubfooting of electronics during the sloppy Stooges-esque destructo-rock that surrounded him + Ultra Pulverize's godsend kraut-amid-video-game wrestling match of punk and techno.
"Candy Cane" splits your headache open in a Love666 ballistic feed that hurts the southern oceans of the bowels. This can be a primitive zero time hurt that is not just a diarrhea of tiles and heat that produces a spray of shit in a can that breaks the toilet, but rather a lap through the abyssal plains of deconstructed rock n roll. "Shark Week" makes me think of a party-time Suicide song.
"Temperpedic Mattress" is grating electro punk; the vocalist sounds like he is holding mooring onto sanity with a thin line of distorted mutters. This album never repeats itself; it's nothing but prong-horned bliss that stabs itself with it's own distorted atlantean conclusions, all of which are loud and eventually breaking things down to logs, earth, brush, marrow and rocks, albeit through electronic pampered mania. And it's completely welcome. Good break-up music.
Nicely recommended. Hysteria through brokered chaos.
He also pounds Hell out of snare drums with his booted foot and writes punk/garage tunes that he performs with the sound of a full band whilst alone with a guitar, amps, drum pieces and some strange vocal contraption that he wears on his neck. He's been playing guitar, writing and singing original music in a variety of bands since 1988 between Kentucky and West Virginia, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of music that often puts my brain to shame. He moved to Lexington and it's been good to have him as a neighbor.
I first saw him perform at the 2006 Good Folk Fest in Louisville. My two-piece band The Smacks! had been asked to perform and we quickly realized we were one of the black sheep acts of the weekend based solely on our volume that first year, until Marinelli took the stage. With an agitated stomp at his floored snare, I took immediate notice of this attack he delivers as a live performer. His songs had elements of the country/hillbilly styles that can come with many OMBs, but leaned heavier into a garagish sound that came across in such a tight deliverance.
It wasn't just the presentation of a one-man-band that intrigued me, but this style that was on mark always, and at the same time would flick back and forth with a loose nature that allowed for noisy ruminations into what would almost seem improvised. Then with a slammed hand onto a cymbal, he would reign it all in and continue down roads with songs that at one moment convey an aggressive aneuristic punch in the gut and in the next rip your heart out with an earnestness in both the lyrics and the melody.
J., who goes by James when teaching the English language, is also prolific, producing at least eight cassettes, records, or CDs since going solo in 2005. And they just seem to get better and better as they come out. I picked his Pre-Emptive Skankery Sessions as one of my favorite albums of 2011, despite it coming out in October of 2010, because it was that fucking good (and I got my hands on it late). And I'll still stand by my claim that his tune "Lying in State" off of 2007's Keep It Fake is one of the greatest songs ever written in the histories of this slop we call rock n roll.
Young Spillers was released as a seven-inch and includes three tunes, all of which demonstrate James' bangily clangily style that slides slightly into the red, sounding like he's pushing all he's got through his drums, guitar and throat. "Doves and Vultures" is fast-tempoed, "20 Class A Cigarette Burns" slips into distorted acoustic settings and "You Are Dismissed" sums up J. the best to me. Mid-tempo that doesn't defer into any tin-plate genre descriptions, "Dismissed" almost seems to procrastinate in deciding if it's angry, saddened or just annoyed, hovering over all three like it's waiting for a dam to crack, ready to spew some pent-up shit, but holds back the just enough tears, bile and maybe laughs to keep the song CATCHY AS FUCK.
This is where I admire James' songs the most. His songs can be described as a noisy, DIY garage-punk. There is a lo-fi state that permeates most of them, though not necessarily dodging cleaner production based on lack of technology, but rather because it serves the song. Listening to music, we hear, rate, take away and project all of our own shit, upending lyrics and appraising the meanings with our own viewpoints, creativity and whatever else is popping through our brains at the moment we listen to a song. (This is why I think its ludicrous to try and review music; we all hear something different, and I think anyone who feels they have an "expert" opinion on music and makes "declarative" statements is full of themselves and lame amounts of shit...but hey its fun talking about it.) We may not even know what all the lyrics are, but we apply the vocal sounds to our rounds of living, and make them fit. And that's when you know you're into some good shit.
All that being said, Marinelli's songs speak to me with what sounds like a heartfelt frustration that can either lean into an aggressive punch of rage, a pop of joyous exclamation, or a break into some waves of tear-jobbing sentiment, sometimes teetering between all. I feel like that's what drives some of the best singer-songwriters in punk/rock/garage/what-have-you, and it's that element that fosters people to make connections with such songwriters/bands as Mike Ness, Mike Watt, Blake Schwarzenbach/Jawbreaker/Jets to Brazil, Jeff Mangum/Neutral Milk Hotel, The Pixies, The Muffs, Roky Erikson, Dead Moon, newer bands like The Gaslight Anthem and Titus Andronicus. Thin Lizzy. Johnny Cash. Whatever. There are a million of them, going far back in time. Jesus, I'm sounding ridiculous. But this glass of wine tastes good.
Am I gushing? A little. But its because I've been into Marinelli's songs for seven years, and I always think everyone else should know who the hell I'm talking about when I mention him. His split with The Elsinores features another nine pieces that can range in head-nodding from the distorted ladybugged groove or head-nodding in that 3am emphatic "shit, I've been there" tell-all. And he manages to break this news to you mostly under two and have minutes every time. And what the hell he does with the guitar on "Post Up" makes no sense to me. I can't tell if he manipulated the tapes or is actually bending the guitar in half. His bizarre take on what the guitar can do reminds me of Link Wray and Hasil Adkins being smashed to pieces in Fred Cole's studio.
So, I finally started just talking to J. about his shit. It became an interview. Conversations edited became this:
brine: So, I saw you and first became of aware of you at Good Folk Fest several
years ago. Your set blew up my brains, being that you were A) a one man
band, a set-up which I am fond of based on my love for Hasil Adkins;
and you rocked loud and hard. I think I could add B) that I've seen many
different one-man bands, but you approached it with a different feel,
playing almost a tight punk/garage sound that has its one thing going
on. The way you play your snare with a pedal, and the distinctive guitar
style you have. Your songs range from abrasive loud bangers to insanely
singable tunes that get stuck in my head forever after I hear them. You
definitely stood out at all the Good Folk Fests, and I always looked
forward to your sets...
So my first question is this...knowing you from that context
originally, I need to understand where you came from. I know West
Virginia, and I know you have a big history playing with other bands in
the past...Let's break this down to some simple one liner questions:1) Where are you from?
J. Marinelli: I grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia, a nice, liberal college town in north central WV.
b: When did you start playing? Always guitar? When did you start singing/writing original stuff?
J: I started playing drums in the 6th grade, continued throughout high
school (I quit the Morgantown High School marching band to concentrate
playing drums in the punk band I was in at the time, and to participate
more actively in the bourgeoning all-ages punk/hardcore scene that was
brewing. (http://www.myspace.co /thedarbyswv)
I
started singing,playing guitar, and writing original music in 1988 with
this band called Vegetable Man (to my knowledge, no recordings exist,
which is no loss, as we were pretty terrible). VM represented a shift
toward a more 'pop' approach (and it coincided with a late-adolescent
discovery of LSD and my older friends' Syd Barrett and Velvet
Underground records).
To back up a few years, the advent of
all-ages shows in Morgantown began when a very generous and bright lady
by the name of Marsha Ferber began booking all-ages gigs at her venue,
the Underground Railroad. So, from 1984 to Ferber's mysterious
disappearance in 1989, Morgantown played host to Black Flag, Dead
Kennedys, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr (when they were still "Dinosaur"),
Pixies, and scores of other important bands. More significantly,
all-ages branch of the UGRR (called "The Dry House" because no alcohol
was permitted in that room) helped build a great local scene, and as a
young person, I was profoundly inspired by all of this creativity going on around me.
So, to recap... First bands were the Darbys (late '70s style punk rock),
then Vegetable Man (more of a psychedelic garage band - basically, four
18-year-olds ripping off the Jesus and Mary Chain, and not doing it
very well, either).
b: What led you to experiment with the one-man band style? Basically, what's your life story up until that GoodFolk Fest when I met you/saw you play the first time?
J: What led me to experiment with a one-man band format? Definitely
necessity above all else. By early 2005 I was fairly frustrated with
playing music with other people (dealing with musical differences,
conflicts regarding practicing and touring, etc.), and decided to make a
go of it.
By February 2005 I played an open-mic at 123 Pleasant Street (the same
building that once housed the Underground Railroad). I think it took me
about 18 months before I figured out how to keep my snare drum stand
from tipping over.
It probably sounds dickish, but not many other one-man bands interest
me. Perhaps if they spent less time getting wild with the costumes,
personae, and stage names and spent more time getting wild (read:
creative/original) with the beats, melodies, and lyrics, I'd have more
time for them. Ironically, I've found that I've been lumped in with that
scene; in fact, there's even an entry on me in Dave Harris's OMB
encyclopedia "Heads, Hands, and Feet" (http://onemanbandbook.blogspot.com/2012/02/head-hands-feet-book-of-one-man-bands.html), which I do not own, as I don't have an extra $55 to spend on buying it.
While I appreciate the fact that the author (curator?) included me, I
can't help but see the silliness in it - after all, I've never heard of
an encyclopedia of two-piece bands, or, y'know, "The Big Book of Power
Trios." And while I understand that the instrumentation of the OMB draws
attention to itself (people simply aren't used to seeing person play
three or four instruments at once), I take the creative process too
seriously to be considered a novelty. I'd like to be appreciated for
the songs I write, and the earnestness and sincerity of their delivery,
rather than be thought of as a spectacle. Maybe that's why I've been
entertaining the idea of (a) saying "fuck it" and playing acoustic
shows, and (b) finding a drummer who will put up with me.
That said, there are
a few people in that realm whose music I enjoy. My good friend the
Limbs (née John Mazzucco) from Denver, CO; Evan Mitchell from St. Louis;
and especially Lord Vapid from Lansing, MI.
b: ...I hear you about being grouped or seen as a novelty, and that's the
thing I love about your stuff...the live shows are awesome, but the
songwriting is really what sucks me into your stuff...Alright, well, the next question then definitely leads me to the some of
the bands that you were in during that gap before you made the decision
to do the OMB deal. And how some of those bands that played UGRR/Dy
House were getting in your head, and how maybe some of the bands you
were in during that time period influenced the songs that would be used
in the OMB setting. I mean, I recognize some influences/connections in
my own head, and we're basically the same age, but I know you have a
more comprehensive knowledge of certain styles of punk/garage/DIY bands
than I have. I'm a little more scattered when it comes to certain eras,
and still am learning some of the bands and their albums that might have
caught your attention at during The Gap (which I'm designating between
your bands and OMB). I came from a metal background during the 80s, and
moved into surf/garage/punk/indie more into the 90s, but we share an
appreciation for the same aesthetics of music and sound. Just curious
how it all fleshed out throughout the band histories you were in. Feel
free to expand as much or little as you want.
J: From '90 to '93, I was involved with a few bands, most namely Swiss Army
Tractor (despite our releasing a 7" and being on a compilation, nothing
seems to exist online, which is too bad), who were very much like a
noisy Husker Du/Dinosaur Jr dealio. One notable thing about SAT is that
we opened for both Yo La Tengo and Sebadoh. During this time, the
Underground Railroad changed hands a few times, and eventually became
rechristened the Nyabinghi Dance Hall by these two reggae dudes who
bought the space at 123 Pleasant Street.
Around October of 1993, I got a call from my friend Jay Demko, who had
been in one of my favorite Morgantown bands (Lincoln), and had since
movedto State College, Pennsylvania. Jay was looking for a second guitar
player to round out this band he was playing with. So, after selling
some gear and saving enough dough for a Marshall half-stack, I moved to
SC and joined Jay's band -- Glendale. We released one 7" on a label
called Art Monk Construction, the Slint-meets-post hardcore "Matchbox
Martyr", "Brown Recluse" 7", and played up and down the east coast
several times before splitting up in early '94.
After Glendale broke up, I joined a band called Samuel, who ended up
being very active, in terms of touring -- unfortunately, we broke up
before we could record the first LP. However, we did manage to release
two 7"s of our own and. Split with our friends and tour mates Texas is
the Reason, who went on to subsequent fame and fortune. Here's a clip of
us in 1995, in Andy Tinsley's (manager of the hardcore band Endpoint)
basement, Louisville, KY:
Here's our side of the Texas split:
One the notable things about that band was that collectively, our
musical tastes were all over the map. At any given time you could hear
anything from Guided by Voices to Government Issue to the Flying Burrito
Brothers playing on the cassette player in our van. It should be noted
that right around this time I started discovering traditional folk and
country music. In my mind, Woody Guthrie and the Louvin Brothers were
(are) just as emotionally intense as Black Flag.
...which leads me to the discussion of where my current (2005 until now)
sound comes from... As I suggested earlier... The angularity and
aggression of punk, hardcore, and post-punk, and the tunefulness (and
chording) of country, folk, and ('80s and '90s) indie/lo-fi. I guess
it's something I've been developing since Samuel broke up in early 1996
(after moving to Washington, DC as a band), through basement/4-track
recording, and a band I was in from 1997-2006 (after moving back to
Morgantown, spring '97) called the Braille Drivers.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here... I was in a band, in Arlington,
Va, called Les Trois Malheures, in which I played drums (and sang a
bit). Check out this page (Carcrash Records) and scroll down... http://www.carcrashrecords.com/02releases.php#l3m
L3M were a weird-ass band... Garagey post-punk mistakenly played on 45
instead of 33. Unfortunately, I moved back to Morgantown after playing
only three shows with them. However, I'm still very close with
singer-guitarist Jonathan Krienik (who travels the globe as a sound
engineer for the Rapture, the Gossip, Le Tigre, etc.), and a reunion is
imminent.
...and I left out a
crucial piece of the Marinelli equation, which would be garage rock of
the mid-'60s variety. When every high school kid had a cheap hollow body
guitar and a shambolic, gnarly rock and roll band.
I can trace my weird obsession with garage rock to seeing Pittsburgh's THE CYNICS at the Dry House in 1986-ish, then then later picking up a copy of the Nuggets compilation on cassette
about six months later... Then more compilations (the various Nuggets,
Pebbles, and Back From the Grave series of '60s garage rock rarities)...
What had begun as a curious search in 1987 had developed into a
full-blown obsession by 1990...
...couple this with a teenage discovery of the New York Dolls, Stooges,
and especially the Velvet Underground, and you have the roots of what
I'm doing now.
b: Your solo material is definitely a mash of indie rock AND pop, mixed
with lo fi garage. I think the thing that kicks my ass with your songs
is how melodic they are, and I've never put my finger on the
country/folk influence. I completely agree with you as far as stating
that the right country/hillbilly and/or folk tunes can slay you just as
much as the best punk rock. When I first saw you play at GFF, I was struck by how aggressive and
rockin' you were, and the fact that most OMBs mine that country aspect a
lot. I mean, even Hasil's rock n roll came from the history of
combining blues and country music and turning up and playing faster...it
had a Sun Records style, which is all based on his influences. You come
from a punk/garage/lo-fi/indie world combined with the country music,
and it gives you a completely different style/sound. Your songs can be
abrasive as shit, but even the most abrasive ones have this sweet melody
that comes through that makes me sing along, or rips my heart out, or
dance.
J: I am playing at the Green Lantern with the Blackfoot Gypsies on the 24th of November. I have a WRFL show
scheduled for December (5th I think) that I think I'll play acoustic
for. Sorry for the bad grammar and shit.
Thanks for the kind words
regarding my songwriting - though I'm not sure if I've answered your
question(s) about it adequately...
------------------------------------
End of Line.
There you have it. J. Marinelli will be performing at Green Lantern on Nov 24 with Blackfoot Gypsies, and live performance on WRFL, which you peoples can stream. Also, look and buy stuff from him at his bandcamp.
"i really like production tricks/they really pile 'em on/a world inside my headphones to which i've already gone/make me want to make music too/it's what i'm gonna do/oh, how i want to live that life."
Plastic Bubblemakes good on that lyric with their debut recording Treble Treasure Chest (Carpathian Cassettes), which will be showcased at their release party Friday night, Nov 16 at Solidarity on Bardstown Rd. Louisville profits from several amazing pop-oriented bands rooted here. Full-lengths, cassettes and seven-inches in the last couple of years from such groups as Whistle Peak, The Deloreans, Adventure, Second Story Man, Toothpicks for Robots and others have proven that original, lo-fi, hi-fi and all around inventive and creative independent pop thrives here. Plastic Bubble can easily swing into that swell, and in fact, are definitely a band that jumps up and down in twee territory, a place I enjoy.
The band has roots tracing back to the mid-1990s when singer-songwriter Matt Taylor formed Blastic Pubble, a project centered on his psychedelic-based home recordings. That lasted until he relocated to Louisville in 2004 and formed The Genius File, a band that proctored some attention, especially with the 2009 release of their debut Some New Invention. However, the band quickly dissolved after the release of that recording. Taylor continued experimenting with home-recordings, adding bits and pieces here and there with a superabundance of other musicians, tracking the recordings at a variety of home studios between Louisville and Russellville, Ky.
Plastic Bubble was born from this amalgamation of talent and styles. The core of the band is Taylor, Jason Dudgeon and Elisa McCabe, each acting as multi-instrumentalists that all also hold the band together as a live formation. However, Treble Treasure Chest itself is a lo-fi orchestration of a variety of instruments from glockenspiels to saws to modulated rolling pins to peculiar circuit-bent toys and a wild population of handclaps performed by a large picking of musicians, just a few of them including Stephen Shoemaker (Venus Trap, Madame Machine); Jeremy Perry (The Deloreans); Susan Crocker (Lucky Pineapple); Mike Snowden (Whistle Peak); and Jared Busch (Ultra-Pulverize). And that really (no, I mean really) barely scratches the surface of that list. [FULL DISCLOSURE: I added a brief section of guitar at the end of one tune.]
Plastic Bubble: Matt Taylor, Elisa McCabe, Jason Dudgeon
I throw lo-fi at the record based on its organic construction. That term can sometimes construe a certain generalized sound in people's minds. While the techniques may have been lo-fi, the overall sound of Treble Treasure Chest can range through several spectrums, oftimes landing somewhere in a plush space that breathes and exhales all that can exist in psychedelic-pop music. Like the opening quote, a lyric from the opening song "In Love with a Band" (a music nerd's ode to the obvious), this album was almost made to listen to through the enclosure of headphones while the sounds swim through. The music is completely layered, packed with small effects that whisper past your ears as choruses that sound like choirs shout their familial lungs out. Buzzes and twinkling vibes drop in and out of the mix. This is definitely Taylor and the band's dive into sonic experimento-pop, and the results are impressive. The album was produced by Taylor, Dudgeon and Craig Morris using some of the vintage analog gear used to record Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea," and the entire project was mastered by Jason Nesmith (Caspar and the Cookies), who has been involved in the Elephant Six Collective.
The songs themselves are tiny textbooks on the construction of pop tunes, each laying eggs that hatch and run around your brain, allowing you to almost sing the choruses before they end, until the next track starts, repeating the process with a different agriculture of addictive melodies, while all the while remaining unpredictive in structure. Taylor's voice reminds me a bit of John Linnell's, and sometimes the sing-songy nature of Plastic Bubbles' tracks make me think a bit of They Might Be Giants. However, the album never stays in the same place, as interesting instrumentals are inserted between tracks here and there and instrumentation sometimes reminds me of psych-synth experimentation of The Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips, or even at times Yo La Tengo.
Matt Taylor
I'm reminded of this on "Certificate of Achievement" even more by the intriguing and catchy verse/chorus that suddenly left turns in a la-la horn/xylophone-landthat leads into an even more addictive chorus section. The use of the friendly chorus is perfectly placed again on "Under the Snow." And the memorability of "Instant Crush" should make it receive airplay from someone immediately.
Recommended.
Plastic Bubble will release the Treble Treasure Chest cassette at Solidarity (1609 Bardstown Rd, Louisville) on Friday, November 16.This will also represent the final show at Solidarity, and will feature guests She Might Bite, Egret and a special set from Jeremy Perry and Loren Pilcher of The Deloreans. $5.
Good Folk Fest was started in 2006 and held three times until 2008 at the Mellwood Arts Center here in Louisville. Invented, birthed, coordinated, and protected by artist/musician/renaissance man Scott Scarboro, the event focused on the obscure and sometimes mysterious Outsider art, which can range far in style and aesthetics. Definitions fly around this moniker, with some of the most common debates settling on artists who pursue a style of folk art that can be described as homegrown or rustic. But the Outsider idea can vary to such a wide degree; its main pursuit is one of art that does not subscribe to a mainstream philosophy. Scarboro's focus has always been to combine music and visuals that marry newer materials and techniques with older traditions. The descriptor I always adhere to is "raw."
Joining the ranks of such long-running and celebrated festivals as NYC's Outsider Art Fair and the Doo-Nanny Fair in Alabama, Good Folk Fest summons and reigns in outsider/folk art and musical acts from across the country and rounds them up into one spot for a weekend. In 2009, Scarboro had to search for a new venue and found it three years later with the newly opened Kentucky Center for African American Heritage. Good Folk already had a genuine reputation for bringing some of the most interesting acts to play Louisville; with the KCAA the festival has the opportunity to be larger than previous years.
The dates set for this year's GFF are November 2-4. I wanted to present some shotgun-style brief previews of the music featured at this year's fest. The lineup curated by Scarboro becomes an adventure due to the amount variety throughout the entire weekend. You have no idea what the next act will bring to the stage. And with three stages, the diversity is upped even more. So, starting with Saturday's folks, on we proceed....
The headlining act this year is the fringe singer-songwriter Baby Gramps, who has been performing a creative mish-mosh of blues, rag-time, jazz and folk since the mid 1960s. Baby Gramps has pretty distinctive guitar, singing and arranging styles, and hangs in the echelon of underground performers reserved for such legends as Hasil Adkins, Jandek and other Outsider musicians. Baby Gramps will be performing a special invite-only opening ceremony on Friday night, as well as on Saturday at 3pm.
The 10am hour will be filled with a variety of sounds on Saturday, with Stage B hosting the acoustic-based story-book music of The Mack, led by singer-songerwriter and GFF veteran Jeff Shelton, whose 2009 album Lazy Bones is a pretty fine writ of tunes. Stage C will also see singer-songwriter Ben Traughber perform, whom I've seen appearing as a guest guitarists in several bands lately. His solo songs and their arrangements are primely captivating and original.
Ninnie Nu is another GFF veteran that will be returning at 11am this year. Ninnie is the musical alter-ego of performance/visual artist Cynthia Norton. She will be performing music from her CD "Freedom Rings from Within," a collection of sparse, haunting dulcimer-led songs that was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and reviewed here. Ninnie's shows can range in presentation from minimalist to a full band, and always sees her utilize found and reconstructed instruments. This year she will be playing a homemade seven foot dulcimer.
Ninnie...not my photo.
11:30am, Stage C: Nashville's Grandpa Egg is led by singer-songwriter Jeb who sometimes performs solo or with various accompaniment that can be loose in its arrangement. The ancestor of this style seems to be rooted somewhere in the vortex of Syd Barrett's material being framed by nicely diverse acoustic-based tunes as can be heard on the 2011 recording "Songs for My Cat."
At noon on A, Viola Buck will present junkabilly in its finest forms and as a family band. Led by Scarboro and his son Harlan, the band follows Scarboro's ideas and philosophies about Outsider art and music, as well progressing musical visions he pursued with his band Monkey Boy for many years. Homemade instruments that boils the ideas of garage rock-rockabilly-country and western psychedelic hillbilly music in a beaker in some underground laboratory in Scarboro's basement somewheres.
At 12:30, another GFF veteran will perform, the one-man-band Slate Dump. Returning from West Virginia, home of possibly one of the most famous of all one-man bands Hasil Adkins, Slate Dump will be the first of a few one-man-bands that bless the fest this year.
One-personed-bands offer as much variance as any other configuration and
can never be stereotyped. There is a primitive bluesiness that can bloom within a blink into a prickly punk rock in Slate Dump's sounds.
Slate Dump...not my photo.
Roll the abacus about and count as one-man-band number two, Bowling Green's Patson, will perform at 1pm on A, bringing a loud country caucus in what he calls his stag rock that references The Stooges into a monstrous pot of redneck garage punk.
At 1pm on B, the noise duo No Copper is scheduled. These two have released split materials with Louisville gnashers Tropical Trash. They're sounds range from drone to pure noise. Sometimes on their recordings it sounds like a someone taking a bath in motor oil while wearing a suit of lavaliers. Definitely interested in seeing this band's live performance.
When Scarboro announced the revival of GFF, one of the first thoughts that entered my brain was NYC's Brownbird Rudy Relic. Performing a mix of pre-war country blues blended with real rhythm and blues and doo wop and boogie woogie, Relic stands out for the amount of toned-up energy that he takes over his live shows. He sits and plays a guitar and sings into a mic in front of his mouth BARELY. By the time the song is nearing its end, he's nearly falling over, stomping out of the perimeters of the performance, despite whether its a ballad or a rug-cutter. People will swoon. Brownbird's at 2 on B. No missing this guy.
Following up Brownbird will be Baby Gramps for his 3pm Saturday performance.
Miami's Los Bastardos Magnificos follow Gramps with their dark C and W jug bandness on Stage A. I fully expect a border draw of moonshine from behind a longcoat during this show. Los Bastardos Magnificos draws on dance-party-til-dawn corn liquor ruminations that flow through a collective of banjo, mandolin, washboard, fiddles and spoons. Dark murder ballades and boughten skip melodies galore.
At 4:30 on C enter Louisville's softcheque, a treasure of creative bizarre ladled up properly. Led by opera singer-keyboardist Dane Waters and including a family of River City visionaries, this group is completely unpredictable, swaying between dark and bloody synth music that explores pictorial alleys soft and loud.
Saturday closes with Lexington's trio The Asylum Gypsies Surf Band. Led by guitarist-singer-visual artist El To Po and prize-courting vocalist El Gitano, this is real pure bent surf rock taken from some era undetermined, bellied into a hurricane of lo-fi wrangling that all leads to the fact that their drummer is actually a horse named Alien Bill. Mexican wrestling masks and insanity.
Asylum Gypsies Surf Ban
Enter Sunday. Garner the coffee, dust out the sleep, and Day Two of Good Folk begins at the crack of 10am with the manic hillbilly music of The Kentucky City Boys. Based out of Louisville, I've actually not yet seen this group perform before. Although from what I can gather, they seem like a string-based gang that exhales some humor into their honky tonk and may very well be spiking their coffee with rotgut that morning. Plus I really dig their live recording aesthetics. Reminds me of the recording techniques employed by the aforementioned Hasil Adkins and/or early Daniel Johnston. Press [PLAY] and its LIVE:
The earthly and traveled folk of singer-songwriter Sarah Elizabeth Burkey will be on Stage C at 10am, as well. Burkey tours extensively, is as well-known an author as a musician, and has collaborated with the likes of Barrie Barlow of Jethro Tull and Jean Ritchie. Burkey will be followed at 11am on A by The Man, a Louisville free jazz collective. The last show I saw The Man perform they took the room into space for a little while, so I'm interested in seeing this performance in this space.
Also at 11am is singer-songwriter Derrick Wade Manley, performing on Stage B. Full disclosure: He's my brother. I've had to make that disclosure a few times here, being I've reviewed both his solo performances, as well his work with his bands The Fuckmunkys and The Bottom Sop. Despite being related to him and knowing him all my life, I'm a big fan of his music. I believe for this set, Derrick is playing solo, levering his steer into the realms of honky tonk, country and folkish byways. There's always some rock n roll involved, as well. Derrick always delivers entertaining shows with enough charisma you have to wipe it off your pants afterwards, and I'll always contend he's one of the best songwriters in the world. Don't take his brother's opinion for it; come out to GFF and check him out. He may not be around Louisville for too much longer.
Derrick Wade Manley
At 11:30am in Stage A the return of Juanita, the all-girl Louisville garage-noise punk band that has roots in the 90s and has been playing a slew of shows recently, which can only be a good thing. Also at 11:30 on C local singer-songwriter Tyrone Cotton performing his mix of blues, gospel, jazz and folk.
Sunday's noon set on A features another GFF vet, one-man-band J. Marinelli. I remember during the first GFF taking immediate notice of Marinelli. While there elements of blues and country in Marinelli's style, what set him apart from other one-man-bands was the fact that he leaned more in the direction of chiefly punk and older indie rock, and that he was one of the loudest acts at the fest, nearly sticking his heel through the craw of his snare. He's a prolific writer and seems to crank out a couple of albums a year, each better than the last, splaying his lo-fi crunch and wail for all to hear. It's garagey and loose, yet has a secure catchiness woven inside of it all that is hard to describe. Look for a full length interview with the man himself here in a week or so on this blog, including a review of several of his last releases.
J. Marinelli
12:30pm on B is Sir Salamander, an instrument builder who is currently living in here in Louisville. Salamander, also known as Jason Rubino, is a singer-songwriter who combines a variety of genres and styles from around the world, as well as from popular forms in the US, and meshes everything together, creating a sound that fastens itself to unpredictability. Soon following, at 1pm on C, legendary local country music singer-songwriter Scott Mertz will perform. I've seen Mertz several times and always enjoy his music.
The Smacks! will reunite at 1:30pm on A. Full disclosure: I'm in this band, so I excuse myself from talking about it in some gesture of trustworthy blog-reporting. ("reporting"?)
J. Glenn performs at 2:30 on B. One of the first performers I met and watched upon moving back to Louisville almost seven years ago, Glenn has performed in a variety of bands over the years. I've always been a big fan of his solo material, and reviewed his latest release "Magick Eagle Ate the Magic Snake" released last year. For years he performed as a one-man-band, although I think that since he has expanded into a bigger project, always experimenting with his sound. J. Glenn pours out an industriously vigorous rustic rock that is blessed with some domed country from inside his guts. Purty and rough.
J. Glenn
On Stage B at 2:30 there will be local singer-songwriter Joel Henderson who just released his album "Locked Doors and Pretty Fences" in April of 2012, a recording of a mix of country, blues and pop that features members of Over the Rhine and John Prine's band.
Closing the day and the fest out will be North Carolina's The Mad Tea at 3pm, a duo that links back to 60s garage and surf rock. The group consists of Ami Worthen performing electric ukelele and guitar while Jason Krekel maintains both guitar and drums one-man-band style. They have a seven inch EP out called "Rock n Roll Ghoul" that was produced by Greg Cartwright of The Oblivions. Some punkabilly wildness will do nicely to close out the Good Folk weekend.
From one-man bands, scrawlish hillybilly music, seven foot dulcimers, Louisville prog, punk and garage, homemade surf and junkabilly, and all varieties of songsters, the fest offers a diverse ringaround the idea of Outsider music. And oh yeah, there's art, too. I'll let someone more qualified than me preview that.
you rocked loud and hard. I think I could add B) that I've seen many
different one-man bands, but you approached it with a different feel,
playing almost a tight punk/garage sound that has its one thing going
on. The way you play your snare with a pedal, and the distinctive guitar
style you have. Your songs range from abrasive loud bangers to insanely
singable tunes that get stuck in my head forever after I hear them. You
definitely stood out at all the Good Folk Fests, and I always looked
forward to your sets...
