Emancipation liberated the music of the slaves and the blues were set free. In a nutshell the rest is history and over one hundred years later people are still picking up guitars, protesting against injustice and transmuting their emotions into music. Whilst there is nothing to prohibit anyone playing this stuff it always sounds better when it smells authentic. The likes of Eric Clapton might occasionally turn out some mean blues but when he’s chauffeured home to his mansion afterwards and plays at being Lord of the manor it falls short of integrity. That sense of hunger and anger has been replaced by the bourgeois comfort of coiffure and manicure.
Stomphouse Sauce delivers a sound which is still attached to the afterbirth. Amniotic fluid remains stuck to their skin and they clearly aren’t worried about whether they might get a knighthood or if the new swimming pool will be completed on time. They are still paying their dues in time-honoured fashion and although their music might lack the polish of big studio backing it has the sheen of sweat, and that makes it glister brighter than any fading star.
There is a barn-dance thrash to some of their stuff but the roots are evident. This isn’t music designed to be played on cutting edge technology in an acoustically perfect room. This is meant to be played on a cramped stage in the beer-swill of chatter and gloom. The world is obsessed with packaging nowadays. The contents are secondary, as long as the wrapper looks good. The same is true of music. Production values have reached unbelievable levels and yet so much of what is being manufactured is sewage. Stomphouse Sauce isn’t trussed up like a Christmas turkey that’s full of water yet devoid of taste. They are very, very tasty. They are David McHarg on guitar, Kevin Fisher on drums and John Mackay on vocal, harmonica, fiddle and guitar.
John’s vocals are sometimes more of a growl, in the vein of Nick Cave or Tom Waits, sweet with menace and mayhem, and clearly he gargles with tin tacks before a gig. Some tracks, such as ‘Death comes a creeping’ owe a debt of gratitude to long forgotten stalwarts such as Blind lemon Jefferson , Charlie Patton, Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson, from way back in the first decades of the twentieth century. The music has acid in its belly. Fire and brimstone greases its pistons. The threat of eternal damnation being hurled from the pulpit is a serious threat. It’s time to lock up your daughters.
A track like ‘Preachin’ Blues’ has an air of Alabama 3 about it, a bit of hokum, a bit of country, a bit of gospel. Who cares about purity? There is a certain incestuous blood link to them all anyway so it’s never surprising to find them all in bed together. Enjoy the romp. The guitars show all the mercy of a guillotine blade and Kevin’s drum-kit is like the engine of a muscle car, shaking the whole damn thing with petrol consuming thirst. ‘Set me free’ and ‘Aint no good for me’ sees that car heading down the track with no respect for health and safety, just a remorseless joyride of energy. This isn’t simply toe-tapping music; this lends itself to totally sinuous convulsion.
And of course John’s harmonica whoops and hollers on most tracks with a louche lissomness. No coincidence that an instrument played with the mouth can mange to pout and pucker its lips in lithe seduction. Music like this has always had a saltiness about it that acts like a grounding rod for the electrostatic atmosphere generated by their overloaded amps. There’s a maxim as old as the blues itself - what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Stomphouse Sauce - apply liberally and feast well.
Review by Peter Heydon
Check out Stomphouse Sauce!
No comments:
Post a Comment