Have You Heard of Eugene Chadbourne?

The title of the blog post is the title of Adam Harper´s piece on Eugene Chadbourne in Dummy (6 April 2014). Read all of it over here.

I have had the pleasure of hearing Chadbourne with Shockabilly in the mid eighties (doing "Purple Rain" on electric rake), as a member of Aki Takase´s band (the Fats Waller project) and one of his solo shows.

He can be pretty wild and outgoing, but the video is an example of how cool he can be playing quite straightforward too. Watch "One more road to cross" with Jimmy Carl Black (dr) and Brian Jackson (piano), and I have to admit I posted it already in 2008 too.

"Chadbourne was described as America’s “only anarcho-paramilitary-electro-folkie-troubadelic-matador”, his music as “gonzo audio journalism” that “pushes traditional music to its edge and makes it jump”".

Eugene Chadbourne

It´s about time we have some Eugene Chadbourne again in this blog!

In the video he is with Mr. King's Delite doing "Gone till November", and if you want party music, please check out Bryan and the Haggards featuring Dr. Eugene Chadbourne: "Merles Just Wanna Have Fun" (Northern Spy 2013). That is if you can take some country-jazz!

The album is a tribute to Merle Haggard, and these fine musicians play: Eugene Chadbourne – vocals, banjo, dobro, Bryan Murray – tenor, soprano, balto! saxophones, talzmer¡, nose whistle, recorder, ocarina, vocals, Jon Irabagon - C melody, soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, penny whistle, Jon Lundbom – guitar, banjo, vocals, Moppa Elliott – bass, vocals and Danny Fischer – drums, vocals.

Eugene Chadbourne and Tatsuya Nakatani

It´s about time for a new visit from Eugene Chadbourne in this blog!

Here is a quite new interview with the man, and some live footage from a concert he did with drummer Tatsuya Nakatani.

I heard Nakatani play a great solo concert in Bergen during the Borealis festival in 2011 (picture).

Arbe Garbe & Eugene Chadbourne

Italian Arbe Garbe brought Eugene Chadbourne along for the Fabrik Free Festival (Milano) 18 June 2011. Must have been some party!
Chadbourne is playing on the band's album "The great prova" (2010).

Sugarcane´s Got The Blues

Yes, I´m pretty late with tis album, but here it is: Don Sugarcane Harris: "Sugarcane´s got the blues", originally released in1972, and now on Promising Music in 2008.
This is quite good blues rock, recorded at the Berlin Jazz Festival in November 1971. The music is recorded over two days, and it just might have been better to remove the talk between the tracks on the album ("we are going to play one more for you", and it´s three more, from two different concerts). I´m still quite happy that they included one track from the second concert, since Terje Rypdal replaced Volker Kriegel on guitar on Horace Silver´s "Song for my father" (not that i mind Kriegel, just being patriotic here!).
The other musicians are Don Harris - electric violin and vocals, Robert Wyatt - drums, Wolfgang Dauner - keyboard and Neville Whitehead - bass.
If you have not heard Sugarcane Harris, check out his violin playing on Mothers of Invention´s fantastic version of "Directly from my heart to you" (Little Richard) on Weasels Ripped My Flesh" (1970).

Eugene Chadbourne is blurbing on the new cover, but we cite from the original cover: "Sideman stardom goes to ex Soft Machine drummer ROBERT WYATT - an unorthodox percussionist who can hardly be allocated to any style. Robert´s flexibility is truly impressive, the whole range of his potentials at hand - giving his tremendously versatile comments to his musical surroundings".

Rock Furore

The Norwegian magazine "Rock Furore" issued 11 CD samplers in the period 1992-1994. Some of the collections were great, and you both got Norwegian artists (Motorpsycho, Biosphere, DePress, Finn Coren etc) and foreigners like Sugarcubes, PJ Harvey, Primal Scream, Nick Cave, Eugene Chadbourne, Rollins Band and Boo Radleys (to name a few).
I seem to remember that we had to write the magazine to get the wild covers, with photos by Per Heimly.
You may find the full CD discography (and some flexi-discs) and most of the covers at Discogs.

Eugene Chadbourne

Eugene Chadbourne performs at Cafe Mono during the Oslo Jazz Festival. Here's a recommendation (and a warning?). You get a recording with Chadbourne and Jimmy Carl Black from The Mothers of Inventions ("the indian of the group") and Brian Jackson on piano. Cool trio! We end this post with some wild country impro. Better be there, if you are in Oslo 13 August.

Autographs

I know it, a lot of musicians and authors don't like being asked for autographs (or at least, that's what they say), but I have to admit I like to get an autograph or a handshake from an artist. The works do not get better or worse, but I get a memory to treasure. Childish? I guess so.
If you have followed the artist for some years, i guess you get a certain feeling, and know if it's OK to ask, and sometimes you have to take a chance. I don't think Terry Riley was particularly interested in being a pop star (at the Borealis-festival in Bergen: ”let me see the records first, OK i’ll sign those”), while Kinky Friedman looked close to happy when you wanted an autograph. Even getting other people to hunt for signatures may be a solution (They Might be Giants), and sometimes a homemade cover may be the prize (Eugene Chadbourne). I guess young and not so famous artists think "what the hell is that old guy doing", and as we can see women (Colleen) draw hearts, men (Pierre Bastien) draw wheels. Some are from Venus, others from Mars.