The Crazy BLUE Stuff

Rob K and Uncle Butcher - AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2007Downtown New York City- The neighborhood that spawned the Fillmore East, Max's Kansas City, CBCG, Coney Island High, and not to mention the dozens of dives that never made it into the history books-Where the ghosts of the rockers that sat on their barstools-That sweated on their stages, still swagger down these streets. This is where I met Rob K. and as fate would have it, where I also met Marco Butcher more than a decade later. Two guys that never met face to face, but drawn by the spirit and the necessity to commune with those who had the same need. Rock N Roll was and is in their bones. For a brief moment in time and not the same time, they both stood on that same dirty sidewalk and we talked. But time moves on. The Fillmore East is a bank and CBGBs has moved to Las Vegas. Rob K. and Marco Butcher live on different continents, but what they have inside is all they need-Not to be confined by time or space. The now-the moment- that's where it's at. That's Rock N Roll- that feeling of the first time, everytime. Livin' in this age of the internet and its immediacy and its ability to remove boundaries, has brought these two kindered spirits together. Even though they've still never met face to face, they make a racket like they were connected at the hip and have been playing together since they were teenagers. With Marco sendin' over that primitive Brazilian beat and wild guitar that only a one man band can conjure up and Rob adding his crazed impromtu storytelling, they've managed to put together a mini strip show soap opera sounding like it's happen' right before your bloodshot eye in Downtown NYC in its glory days of bankruptcy and cheap rent. The fact that they can pull these songs together in 24 hours is a testament to the fact that rockers are born and not made. It's in your blood. You gotta do it, right now! Not for the money, not for the fame, but because you can't sit still and you can't shut up. This is the real thing. Jerry Teel Jan 2007STINKY LOU AND THE GOON MAT - AVAILABLE ALL YEAR - These distinguished gentlemen have a problem: The can never agree whether to drink their way through the liquour cabinet from right to left...or vice versa. In between drinking and eying young ladies the way only the French can, STINKY LOU, THE GOON MAT and LORD BERNARDO are the fiercest Boogie 'n' Roots natural catastrophe going on the European continent. These bois don't open a show and ease into a set, the set the g'damn house on fire the moment they hit the first chord and yell: "Do you want to boogie?" I advise each and everyone of ye to respond: "Hell yeah!" What follows are 90 minutes of adrenaline and alcohol fused primal BOOGIE mayhem. THE GOON MAT is hip to the hypnotic drone that is remiscent of a Junior Kimbrough, STINKY LOU plays the washtub base not unlike a man whose hair is on fire...and LORD BERNARDO...that boi has lost his mind and plays the most demented and groovin' harp I've heard in years. Now all the hip blues punk kids talk like they've been to a jukejoint and we all know that they haven't but I'll be damned if these Boogie fiends wouldn't have stood their ground in Chulahoma or Holy Springs alongside the allmighty R.L. Burnside and T- Model Ford and their whisky guzzlin' bloodshot-eyed chums. Now this ain't cutesy blues...this is testosterone driven, hard hitting drinkin' and dancin' music and it certainly ain't nuthin' for the underaged. I shit you not...these partisan bluesmen are out to raise Cain..and mothers beware of your daughter 'cause these bois have ideas...and they ain't pureGIANT MAT - AVAILABLE ALL YEAR - Unholy tunes are emenating from a dingy cellar bar on a rainy day in a surreal post industrialized wasteland. The sounds are hard to define: Are we listening to crude overdriven blues tales of love gone wrong, or a sonic & hypnotic soundtrack to a seriously deranged film noir? And who in the name of our lord is responsible for this music savage. The answer: GIANT MAT You never got drunk on music? Well brothers & sisters come out of your holes and enter Giant Mat's world and you'll all get drunk like you've never been drunk before...and it doesn't even take a drop of hard liquor. M.A. Littler June 2007