Saturday 13 September 2008

Awesome Music: SEASICK STEVE

Hello again everybody, sorry for the lack of updates. Theres more to come I promise!

I used to call this feature Band of the Week, but I'm too lazy and eradic to remember to update it each week. So from now on this feature will be called...

Awesome Music

(it sucks, I know)

SEASICK STEVE



Seasick Steve's music is blues. However, the curious thing about Steve's Blues is that it is happy, uplifting and gloriously stripped down. The lyrical content mainly consists of tales about hobo-ism and the lifestyle it dictates. This includes train hopping, the police, rocking chairs, prison at christmas, sleeping rough and mississippi bound parasites, amoung many other things.

Now, this Gentleman is very interesting indeed. He was a real life train hopping hobo for many years and eventually came around to settling and becoming a record producer and engineer but in a very loose sense, as the engineering seems to mainly consist of creating make-shift instruments, such as the "mississippi drum machine" which is a small box made out of mississippi license plates that Steve thumps his foot on.



He hasn't released much material, but the album "Cheap" with the Swedish band "The Level Devils" which, apart from having some fantastic Blues songs, also has some stories told by Steve about his travels, which are very interesting to listen to.

I personally love this mans work because it is so honest and stripped down. As much as I enjoy alot of complex, multi instrument and electronic based music, it is nice to find something that is stripped down and uncomplicated but fucking awesome. The riffs slay and lift you up straight away, all combined with a lyricism and voice that reminds me of Tom Waits, you cannot really go wrong.






Recently I have been listening to:
Killswitch Engage (oldskooool, hehehe)
Your Demise
Genghis Tron
Between The Buried and Me
Bring Me The Horizon
Skinny Puppy
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Rolo Tomassi

Recently I have Watched:
Prom Night (1980)
Angry Video Game Nerd
Summer Heights High
Evil Dead
Suspiria and Deep Red
Demons

More film related updates soon! I PROMISE!!!!