Saturday Matinee – The Pogues, The Rumjacks & Rory Gallagher

The Pogues‘ (late) frontman Shane McGowan took Waxies’ Dargle, an Irish traditional, and made it incomprehensible. The lyrics are not obscene.

The Rumjacks are a Celtic punk band, formed in Sydney Australia in 2008, relocated to Europe in 2016.  An Irish Pub Song (2010) was in the top 5 of the “Most Popular St Patricks Day” songs on YouTube for the years 2016 through 2019 according to Billboard Magazine.

Rory Gallagher, live at the Cork Opera House, Cork, Ireland, 1987. Another master guitar slinger who died way before his time.

Saint Patrick’s Day weekend has begun, and I imagine a lot of you green ale guzzlers will give Monday morning a pass. Meanwhile, we’ll be on porch watch. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – Alien / Super 8 Daze, Shannon McNally, Tom Jones & George Thorogood

Hamptons in Space
“This one stars grown-ups, but it was still directed/edited/animated by a ’70s Kid with a Super 8 camera in Hyannis, MA in 1979. Sound added decades later after he reluctantly grew up. Check out the award-winning documentary on the making of all his films at super8daze.com.”

Shannon McNallyAudley Freed, Eric Deaton and Cedric Burnside make for a tight combo.

Tom Jones does mighty fine work with the blues. From the Utoobage comments: “He walked on stage, didn’t say a word, and laid this down. Absolutely killed the audience with the first song.”

George Thorogood covered a lot of blues classics in his own style, including this one by  Howlin’ Wolf.

Kinda glad this week is over and done with because I have a porch to take care of tomorrow. See you there.

 

Saturday Matinee – Don Bryant & The Bo-Keys, Caffeinated Rock&Roll, and The Guy Forsyth Blues Band

Don BryantThe Bo-Keys. In 1998, bassist Scott Bomar wanted to preserve the Memphis Sound and formed the Bo-Keys. The group’s name is a hat-tip to the session groups The Bar-Kays and The Mar-Keys.

Caffeinated Rock&Roll is a one-man band and  skateboarder from Buchs, Switzerland, with very little info available online aside from his Utoobage channel.

The Guy Forsyth Blues Band out of Austin, Texas, sounds a bit like early Fabulous Thunderbirds to me, and I like it. Forsyth’s earlier collaborations include The Asylum Street Spankers and The Hot Nut Riveters.

Not sure where all the days are going, and I’m about to rip up my calendar for lying. Have a great weekend, see you back here tomorrow for some uncomplicated porch time.

Saturday Matinee – Wendy Saddington & Copperwine, Dutch Tilders & The Blues Club, and The Lachy Doley Group

Wendy Saddington with Jeff St. John & Copperwine ca. 1971. From the Utoobage comments: “I dislike it when people say that she was ‘Australia’s Janis’ or ‘Australia’s Aretha’ – she was Wendy, a one of a kind and no imitation of an imported product.”

Matthew ‘Dutch’ Tilders, dubbed the Godfather of Australian Blues, was born in the Netherlands in 1941. His family moved to Oz in 1955 when he was 14, just in time for the rock and roll era and the resurgence of American blues. Self-taught on guitar, by 1960 he was playing original songs in the local coffee houses.

Lachy Doley channels Jimi Hendrix on his Hammond C3.

All Australian blues for this edition of the Saturday Matinee [h/t Archie]. It’s a mystery to me why these musicians got so little exposure in the US.

Time is getting compressed and the days are speeding past again, at least for me. Have a great weekend – we have some serious porch sitting to do tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Hans Theessink & Terry Evans, JJ Grey & Mofro, and Mad Guz & the Mojos

Hans Theessink & Terry Evans (with Arnold McCuller and Willie Greene Jr. provide backing vocals) doing some gospel-style Delta blues. Ry Cooder is lurking somewhere in the background.

JJ Grey describes his music as funkified rock and front porch Southern soul music, a style he calls Mofro, hence the band name JJ Grey and Mofro. Based in Jacksonville, Florida, Grey writes, produces, sings and plays all instruments for demo tracks before bringing the band into the studio.

Mad Guz & the Mojos is a heavy rockabilly-influenced blues band from somewhere in Germany, and consists of Mad Guz (vocals, sax, guitar), Isi Mojo (double bass), Tim Mojo (drums, vocals) and Spike Mojo (lead guitar, vocals).

Yep. Another busy week is out of the way,  and after Tet, Superbowl Sunday, Lincoln’s Birthday, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and a couple other holidays I don’t remember, I’m declaring tomorrow to be National Porch Day. Be there or be somewhere else.

Saturday Matinee – There I Ruined It, Matteo Mancuso, 8 Ball Aiken & The Gary Hoey Band

In Memory of Country Music: Every fake accent 2-part harmony bro country song crammed into 1-1/2 minutes of ear torture from There, I Ruined It. The comments on the Utoobage vid are fun, and if that’s not enough for you, there’s this mashup.

Django Reinhardt and Les Paul meet Weather Report: Italian guitar prodigy Matteo Mancuso plays cool jazz fusion blues and more.

8 Ball Aiken is an Australian singer and songwriter from Brisbane, plays blues, swamp-rock, alternative country, and Americana music. At one of his early gigs in a rough pub, a fight broke out over a pool table. The 8 ball landed on stage and his bandmates gave him the nickname.

Underrated guitar thrasher Gary Hoey shreds the blues. He’s been compared to Robin Trower, early Clapton, SRV and others.

So there you go, and no, I’m not going to apologize for the first one. It’s like an aural vaccine so you never have to listen to country pop again. Have a great weekend, see you tomorrow, porch time is noonish.

Saturday Matinee – Vox Americana, Micke Bhorklo & Blue Strip, and Gary Clark Jr.

Vox Americana is a group of musicians from Staffordshire UK, with American singer/songwriter Helen Walford. They revisited the murder ballad The Knoxville Girl and wrote Knoxville Town from the perspective of the victim.

Finnish bluesrock band Micke Bhorklo & Blue Strip takes their turn on Robert Johnson’s They’re Red Hot (1936).

Gary Clark Jr. cranks up the blues in studio, December 2011.

I think I’m just gonna sit and watch the weather tomorrow. On the porch. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – The Young@Heart Chorus, The Linda Krieg Trio, The Hacklers & La Perra Blanco

What started out in 1982 at a Western Massachusetts elderly housing project to joyfully pass the time instead of passing before your time has developed into the stereotype-defying, generation-crossing musical extravaganza better known as The Young@Heart Chorus

Linda Krieg is one of the few prominent blues harp players in Germany and a fixture in the Rhine-Main blues scene. Her trio includes Dominik Krauss (guitar) and Klaas Wendling (bass); she also tours with her guitarist husband Oliver Hell as Mrs. Krieg & Mr. Hell.

The Hacklers are an Irish Ska band based in Kildare. They formed in 2014 and “developed their own distinguished sound, a mix of Ska and Reggae blended with their own unique ‘Extra Stout’ Irish flavour.”

Alba Blanco, aka La Perra Blanco, is a blues/rockabilly guitarist from Cádiz, Spain, and has been performing since the age of 14. This video highlights her stage act, kind of over the top with the mugging, but her talent shines.

Another long week gone in no time, and it’s already the weekend. We have big plans for tomorrow, or maybe we don’t. See you on the porch noonish.

Saturday Matinee – Gogol Bordello, S.M.N. & GJS

“It’s one of the very few songs I wrote for a girl. I just moved in with my girlfriend in New York. We had a neighbour: an old woman who was always dressed in purple head to toe. She was clearly bonkers. So whenever my girlfriend and I had an argument and she would start screaming at me, I would say: you might as well start wearing purple now”. – Eugene Hütz

Gogol Bordello, fronted by Ukranian-born Eugene Hütz, is a multinational American punk band from Manhattan, known for gypsy/romani/punk theater.  More about them here.

Formed in 2001 in Fukuoka, Japan,  S.M.N. (Slackers Make Noise) consists of high school classmates Hiroaki Yokoyama / guitar, Mah-bou / drums, Kosuke Nishimura / bass.

Here’s something to cool your eardrums. Gentry-Jones is Nil Jones and Tony Gentry, here with Mr. Sam (Sam Fallie) in 2014. Old soul line dancing at its smoothest. More on GJS here.

Whoop, look what time it is. Gotta go, got an appointment with the porch tomorrow. See you there.

Saturday Matinee – Tuba Skinny, Lucky Chops, Timo Gross & Skatune Network

Tuba Skinny, featuring bandleader Shaye Cohn on cornet. Although we were in NOLA last May, I didn’t get a chance to see them because I was too busy chillin’ on a balcony with the dogs.

Formed in 2016, Lucky Chops  began as a group of subway buskers from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, New York City, and now they perform world-wide.

German bluesman Timo Gross  has been around for a while but he’s relatively unknown in the US; I had to run his Wikipedia entry through Google Translate.

One man ska band JER / Skatune Network rang in the New Year in 2016 and somehow I missed it. Turnitup!

Yep, it’s almost time to turn the calendar ahead again, but before we do, we have a porch that needs sitting on. See you there.