Lowdown Shakin’ Chills

Contact Tables

It all started when Telecaster Nick and Bill, old friends who were playin’ some wild garage punk stuff for a rather typical Western Athens districts band in the early eighties, decided to step out from privacy and start it all over again. The year was 2002 and they searched around their native Aegaleo district (once the headquarters of everything underground and sub-culture in Athens) for a bassist and a drummer, and they placed an ad for a rythm guitarist at a newspaper, as well. Elias, an old companion from the eighties, joined with his sweet 70s bass and his cool-cat attitude, and then Makis came along with a stick in each steady hand. At the same time, Low Down Nick - a typical bumpkin who had moved from the Greek countryside to Athens in 1996, was still searching for a job in that usual, widely circulated, specialized newspaper - a process that ended up in the usual weariness that made him look desperate at the musicians announcements, knowing he ain’t any. He spot the boys’ ad, saw it was about a 60s alike garage punk band and picked up the phone. Soon they came together and started rehearsals. Problem was that Low Down Nick was pickin’ a borrowed electric stratocaster like a rake picks hay; his mere musical influences were, in fact, what gave him a place in the band. This and other problems stuck the band for a while around a handful of Kinks-Love-etc. covers and a couple of originals - that, however, couldn’t go far.
Bill eventually took fly to painting, and the rest took it easy for a while. During this time, however, Telecaster and Lowdown were having fun in the former’s basement, foolin’ around with traditional tunes, especially the country blues idioms. Elias joined them at times, playing rythm and bass guitar and helping them believe that it could work. It was so that Low Down Nick jumped behind the microphone and the band became a minimalist instrumental trio plus a raw voice, oriented towards a blending of garage, blues, country and old-timey, with just the appropriate doses of new waveism. Supplementing his detailed pickin’, Telecaster Nick evolved a spartan kind of rythm guitar playing, based on a steady rotation of delicate phrases articulated in a harsh jargon, that would break into just long enough, survivance-over-a-wounded-dignity solos. Low Down Nick would finger-pick an acoustic guitar for one or two numbers, letting Telecaster’s variations free to ride up and down their whole gamut.
At times changes were ventured, both because of a need for a less heavy sound and of musical differences that tended to become clashes. However, the four piece combo remained as such until the story was finished, managing to put together musical differences in styles and hopes into a collage that some people, interestingly, liked. Special compliments go to "Black" George, a jazz drummer and rythm guitar extraordinere from Aegaleo, the fifth Shakin’ Chill, who joined some live performances and was present in many rehearsals and basement gigs, being thus part of a five-piece machine generating ideas. Ideas which, by the way, were moving more and more towards an electrified Naturalism of some kind, with Telecaster sounding at times like Chet Atkins - like in the usual closing number for their lives, "Lonesome Valley".
Well, that’s the story. These tunes here are some kind of basement tapes, with Telecaster Nick and Low Down Nick caressing some of the Low Down Shakin’ Chills standards. We will try to find and upload some of the real stuff, that is, some live performances’ stills - raw and austere, as it used to sound.
Discography:
"Death Don’t Have No Mercy"
Basement Records
Amigos if you want a copy or something message us...it’s for free of ’course WE SHALL OVERCOME...SOME DAYOh, deep in my heart,I do believeWe shall overcome, some day. e-mail: [email protected]
I edited my profile with Thomas’ Myspace Editor V4.4