From our old friends Blackwater Jukebox: a video for Heave Away (The Scrimshaw Blues) a grand song about the start of voyage. Once again I wish could crawl inside and attend the show where it was filmed. Even better: there’s another new record coming soon.
Blackwater Jukebox – Heave Away (aka The Scrimshaw Blues) [Official Video]
Our friends in Blackwater Jukebox have a couple of new things: a new video, for Hangman Two-Step, which you can watch below, and also a new website.
Hangman Two-Step purports to hail from Australia’s Barossa Valley, acquired during an encounter with Lazarous Scamp and the Bear Tribe Boys.
I like it because every time I listen to it I remember the first time I heard it: standing on a freezing train platform in Newark, NJ, watching rats scuttle over the tracks, and possessed by a spike of joy of the kind that causes one to do things like abandon pastries and dance in public.
As for the video, it is a fine piece of work by Kenji Christopher Green, even if that rope around Geordie’s neck makes me nervous every time the camera pans over it.
Blackwater Jukebox – Hangman Two-Step (official)
Dearest readers, Blackwater Jukebox (Geordie McElroy and a legion of talented friends) has put out a new, self-titled record, and it is packed full of foot stomping, hip-shaking, grab-your-partner-and-swing-em-around tunes. Some are remixed versions of material from Sleaze of the Reaper and Banjos and Breakbeats; others are new. But they are all great, and worth your time.
To whet your appetite, here is Cleo May, a new tune which I like a lot:
Blackwater Jukebox by Blackwater Jukebox
And also the video for Eastside Girl, featuring Sadie D’Marquez and, you guys, I love it so much I wish I could teleport myself inside it, so I could dance along with the crowd.
Blackwater Jukebox – Eastside Girls feat. Sadie d'Marquez (official)
Geordie McElroy of Blackwater Jukebox is one of my all-time favorite storytellers, and I am super excited to report he has gathered up some of his best tales of ethnomusicology derring-do – previously published in Schlock! webzine – and made them into a book called Song Catcher: Adventures of Blackwater Jukebox.
You can read a sample on the Blackwater Jukebox website.
The book will be available as a free download from Amazon today (January 16) through Saturday (January 18) so be sure to go over and get a copy.
For all of your Halloween party / waiting for trick-or-treaters / quiet evening at home with zombie movie needs: the latest from NTSIB favorites Blackwater Jukebox. I suggest you download it – it’s free! – and then crank it up.
Some of my favorites include Black Rain, from the Restricted Archives of the Smithsonian:
Black Rain by Blackwater Jukebox
And also Harvest Tarantella from the Sicilian highlands:
Harvest Tarantella by Blackwater Jukebox
It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.
In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.
We hold a special place in our hearts for Blackwater Jukebox around here. Partially because, while my co-blogger Jennifer and I are often at odds in our musical tastes, we … Continue reading
And for Thursday, banjos, breakbeats and blasts from the past, from Blackwater Jukebox. What was I just saying about old friends in new clothes? Or in some cases old acquaintances; I have to confess I came to appreciate New Wave in general and Depeche Mode in particular only later in life. Beck, on the other hand, I loved at first listen.
Two songs for flavor; get the rest of them here.
Depeche Motherfucker – Blackwater Jukebox by Blackwater Jukebox
Queen of the Nightmare Hippies – Blackwater Jukebox by Blackwater Jukebox
Blackwater Jukebox, aka Geordie McElroy, originally from Queens, NY but now based in Los Angeles, is the fourth member of a (so far) very exclusive club: bands whose music April and I both like. (Other members: The Felice Brothers, AA Bondy, and We See Lights.)
I won the virtual game of Rock-Paper-Scissors this time, and thus got to sit down with Mr. McElroy for a virtual chat about his tunes and his very diverse resume: he has been a bus driver, a taxidermist’s apprentice, a deejay in Vermont and a field music archivist for the Library of Congress and private collectors.
In the spirit of fair warning: I use way too many exclamation points and there is some discussion of dead bobcats.
So I’ve read your bio, and my first response is HI I AM AN ARCHIVIST TOO!!! (I am, for real, that is my day job!!)
Amazing that you are an archivist! I don’t know what gave you the bug, but for me the turning point was the discovery of Alan Lomax (and all his associated acts/performers – … Continue reading
