Whisky Richards Debut EP

Chase Christie, braintrust for the Whisky Richards, gets to have it both ways.   He wants the band to sound good and have fun, and their self-titled EP/CD does just that.

Kicking off with a country-rockin’ working man’s anthem, “Steel Drivin’ Man,” the band fires on all of its six cylinders — drums, bass, rhythm, lead guitar, harmonica and fiddle — to remind us that the workin’ man “don’t get no breakfast in bed.”  Things slow down for “Kentucky Don’t You Know,” an idealized snapshot of the Bluegrass State, then they pick right back up with the easy-rollin’, self-explanatory “Hard Drinking without You,” followed by the instrumental “Curley’s Dream,” and closing with the fifth and final song, another drinkin’ tune called “Bottle Gone Dry.”

This is everything a first EP should be.  It showcases the band’s bopping country side while providing space for a ballad, instrumental and opening rocker.  They can be proud of this calling card.

“Hard Drinking without You” video.

There are 67 bands listed representing western swing, honky-tonk, alt-country and rockabilly, and almost all are within the Sonoma, East Bay, Santa Cruz triangle.  The greater SF Bay Area is second only to Austin in the number of these bands.

Updating the Bands page is never done, and there are still a few more links and bands to add, and to delete since a few of these bands haven’t been playing nor have they officially broken up.  In future we’ll add HWS reviews of their CDs and links to the bands’ Facebook pages.  Fortunately, we got around a bug that had been preventing the Bands page from being updated, but unfortunately we had to get to work and actually update it.  Now band browsing fans can burn some hours getting to know who’s who.

We first heard the Richards — who spell it “whisky” or “whiskey” depending on their mood — back in their 2008 start-up days when it was a challenge just to get through some songs.  We waited as they tried different material and players until they found more traction in 2009.  In 2010 we’re part of the buzz because they were rockin’ the house at Cafe Du Nord during the SF Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival.   Chase Christie is up front on vocals and rhythm guitar, Katy Rexford (Misisipi Rider) sings and fiddles, Adam Roszkiewicz (A.J. Roach) plays lead guitar, Logan Barrier pounds the skins here and in our favorite Austrian-heavy punk band Arnocorps, and multi-instrumentalist Joe Kenny plays Fender bass.  Catch them early on Friday, March 5th, 7PM with Axton Kincaid at the Makeout Room, 3225 22nd SF.

Lady A and her Heel Draggers – and dontcha like the name(?) — turned out to be quite a surprise at the Parkside on the last Sunday in February, even without their fiddle player. They’ve got a few bugs to work out like those long what-do-we-play-next song transitions, but they are a mighty seven-piece with Ayelet Arbuckle who can do the big voice thing without over-playing it, Will Fourt who isn’t shy about sneaking in some jazz licks on guitar, Mitiya Matsuda who is the new secret weapon in the B-Stars on steel, Eric Chaves who got beat up more than anyone in high school for playing both accordion and clarinet, Danny Chaves on stand-up bass, Leif Karlstrom on fiddle and Mike Brilliot from the late, great Joe Buck on traps.  They’ll open for Deke Dickerson with the Modern Sounds at the Hedley Club – Hotel De Anza, 233 W. Santa Clara, San Jose on 3/4.

Charlie Roman and the Teenage Werewolves are looking for a new guitar player.  The Big Paisano wants someone who can play drivin’ rockabilly with a vintage guitar and amp and wants to be a teenage werewolf first and foremost.  That narrows down the field, but there’s got to be one locked in his parents’ basement somewhere.  Charlie’s bassist Jack Spade, also started a new band called the something-or-others.  We might get around to learning its name, but don’t count on it.  Happy Jack starts bands often and kills ‘em fast.

March 4th update: Happy Jack checked in to say his new band Sick Wolf now has members that do the little things like rehearsing and is destined for infinity and beyond.  They’ve got the bookings to prove it.  Follow the link and believe.

Li’l Anne and the Tune Wranglers emerged out of the Sweet ‘n’ Lo’s in 2009, but soon went into hibernation while waiting for a new bass player to appear.  Multi-instrumental Belle from the bluegrass band Belle Monroe and her Brewglass Boys might provide the Tune Wranglers with their bass line.

Eric Embry has confirmed that the fire has gone out of the Burning Embers.  Never the most focused of bands when it came to bookings,  Embry is likely to resurface in a band where he gets to just show up and play.  Tom Armstrong was one of the Burning Embers’ success stories when they pulled him out of retirement to play bass, but with two vocalists already in place, they never really got him into the mix as much as they could have.  Meanwhile, the Ember’s fiddler and singer, Katy Rexford, has joined the Whiskey Richards who spent a good portion of ‘09 stabilizing their line-up and now appear poised to hit it and git it in 2010.

The Lariats of Fire, who were quiet during most of ‘09, have found a replacement for their lost drummer and are back in action again.  And the new and improved five-piece B-Stars have hooked up with the new and improved 23 Club in Brisbane where every Wednesday night is now B-Stars night.  This provides an excellent mid-week opportunity to get your dancin’ shoes on or just sip a few and chill at this venerable club.

In club news, bars everywhere are changing hands as a result of the recession and among them are three Irish bars: the Abbey Tavern and Blarney Stone in SF’s Richmond district and the Blackthorn Tavern in the Sunset.  All of these venues have entertainment licenses, but none have managed to gain much traction with music.  Few, and least of all SF’s Irish community, seem interested in the trad side of Irish music and, with the possible exception of Cullan’s Hound’s, the Bay Area’s many fine alt-Irish bands haven’t been finding enough stages to play.  The real question is where the Abbey, Blarney Stone and Blackthorn are going with “Irish,” since all now have either non-Irish or second or third generation Irish-American owners with little or no connection to the Emerald Isle.  Of the three, the Blackthorn has been the farthest along in booking non-Irish music, but as the economy forces bar owners to seek new markets, we can count these as new opportunities for a wide spectrum of bands.

Shovelman

A marriage between folk and electronica was destined, so if Shovelman hadn’t come along someone would have had to invent him.

Why “Shovelman?”  Well, because he plays a snow shovel rigged to be a combination fret-less guitar and percussion instrument.  Said shovel feeds its sounds into an array of samplers, compressors and other foot-operated gizmos to put the tronic in folktronica.

Every song is mixed from scratch, starting with a simple beat which Shovelman will sample and build upon while layer after layer becomes less folk and more tronic.  The result is an interesting melange of bluesman Robert Johnson, beatnik poetry, no wavers Pere Ubu, Nick Cave and off-beat rapper MC 900′ Jesus.

Hicks with Sticks saw Shovelman at a recent Amnesia show and it was clear that there would be difficulty translating his playing into a sound file because a good part of the entertainment is watching him craft the songs on the spot.  The Dirty West CD would have been helped by a video track.  Come to think of it, this review will make more sense with a video track like “Excavating the Future.”  Come for the folk, stay for the tronic.

Click to watch a grown man play a snow shovel.