Sunday – August 22, 2010
Songbird Festival Presents | Early Show
Amnesia
853 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
6-9 Early Show $8-10 Cover
Sunday – August 22, 2010
Amnesia
853 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
9:30 -Close – $8-10 Cover
9-Close – $8-10 Cover
In The Press – at Straight.com
“Kit “Stymee†Stovepipe fell in love with early-20th-century American jug-band music after dabbling in Swedish metal and crusty punk. And who among us hasn’t done that?
“It was ’99 or 2000,†the guitarist recalls, from his home in Port Townsend, Washington, “and I saw a busker, an older guy playing an old, beat-up National steel guitar, doing all these old obscure songs. Some went back to the 1890s, and there were a lot from the ’20s and ’30s, and he was doing music from old cartoons. And I was like, ‘Who is this guy? He’s amazing.’ â€
The guy was Seattle’s Baby Gramps, a long-bearded outsider legend who’s been carrying the torch for pre-electric Americana for almost 50 years. For Stovepipe, a brand-new obsession was born, and he makes the leap from Carnal Forge and Aus-Rotten to Charley Patton and washboards sound almost rational.
“The thing was,†he relates, “when I saw this guy, I went, ‘Oh, my God, what he’s doing is insanely technical.’ That’s what I liked in all those metal bands. I liked all the technical stuff. And I liked how raw and aggressive it was. It was like the same thing, but Baby Gramps was ancient and doing it. And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s sustainable.’ It’s a different style, but it’s the same thing.â€
The dusty ephemera of old weird America has sustained Stovepipe and his life and musical partner, Caliope Kane, for some three years now, since the two hooked up to form the Crow Quill Night Owls. Stovepipe handles the National steel guitar and Kane pilots the tenor banjo, and the duo will be joined by washtub bassist Devin Champlin and Lucas Hicks on a suitcase contraption kit when the Night Owls shuffle like some real-life Max Fleischer cartoon up to Vancouver for this year’s Under the Volcano Festival of Art and Social Change.
They might not be sitting in the most crowded field with their brand of music, but the Owls swing hard enough that no less than Maria Muldaur tapped Stovepipe, Champlin, and Hicks when she was putting together her Garden of Joy Jug Band for a two-month tour in 2009. Moreover, the outfit’s 2008 album, Mechanical Unicorn, is a great primer for newbies, with sterling covers of obscurities like Arnold and Irene Wiley’s “This Sweet Reedie Brown†(1931), and slightly more familiar material in the shape of the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Jake Leg Bluesâ€.
But as enchanting as Mechanical Unicorn is, it bothers Stovepipe that his country’s musical history still occupies the margins for most of his compatriots. “There’s a small and dedicated group that are way into it, and maybe it’ll gain more recognition one day,†he says, “but most Americans aren’t aware of the rich musical and cultural heritage, and it’s very sad. ’Cause this stuff rocks.†……..†from straight.com
