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Seasick Steve
In late 2006 the musician, producer and ex-hobo 'Seasick' Steve Wold released his first solo album, Dog House Music (Bronzerat Records). These rough diamond songs are about his real life experiences after 40 years on the highways and byways of life. The music here is raw but delicate; rocking, punky and soulful, with a large dash of humour in his gritty tales, delivered in a fine, gravelly voice and backed by his own funky guitar-playing.The story started a long time ago. Growing up near 'the tracks' in Oakland, California in the Fifties, Seasick Steve’s greatest ambition was to become a hobo - just like the ones who would come around to the back door and trade stories for food. These were hard bitten men. Men left over from the wars or just those who didn’t fit in.
Already before his fourteenth birthday, Seasick got his wish (being kicked out of his home). There began a number of years 'tramping it' around the country. This was by either hopping freights or hitching rides. And for a young boy, this life of rambling was no holiday camp.
Always returning to the San Francisco bay area, Seasick was lucky enough to be in the 'right place at the right time'. In the later half of the Sixties, during the Folk Blues revival. He fell in with gigs opening for Son House and played with guys like Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Freddie King. After this period, Steve moved into the life of a professional musician and also started to work in studios as a recording engineer. That and the rambling bug, which bit Seasick as a boy, have kept him on the move for the last thirty years. He has lived all over the US, France, Holland, England and, currently, Norway.
Back in the 1990s he produced the first two albums for unlikely superstars Modest Mouse, when he had his studio in Olympia, Washington (Grungeville, USA), and actually toured as a member of the band, long before they took Johnny Marr on to add guitar gravitas. It was in hip Olympia, while supporting Jon Spencer and RL Burnside, that he saw the indie kids going nuts for his no-nonsense brand of the blues. It was, after all, a close relative of the sort of music being made by the likes of he White Stripes and Black Keys, who were rediscovering their blues roots around that time. He decided to start playing again.
After upstaging all-comers on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny at the end of last year with his Mississippi Drum Machine and 3-String Trance Wonder, he’s finally been getting the kind of attention he deserves. Come and see the real deal. This isn’t a wallow in blues past, or a Stevie Ray-style exercise in ‘sports guitar’, this is the blues for the 21st Century.
Steve says…
'Of course it was great to meet all these old legends, like Son House, and that made a big impression on you. But the strongest memories are the characters I met briefly during the rambling years through the mid-west and south. The short moments when someone played a song on a beat-up guitar in a dirty boxcar, or an old guy played the harmonica and told stories, the old fashioned way, the walking folk Blues style. I never saw or heard ‘em again, that never got recorded, it was just there and then.'
Upcoming shows...
12 Aug 2007 Summer Sundae, Leicester
14 Aug 2007 T On The Fringe, Liquid Room
16 Aug 2007 Pukkelpop Festival, Hasselt, Belgium
19 Aug 2007 Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons, UK
25 Aug 2007 Carling Festival, Leeds
26 Aug 2007 Carling Festival, Reading
2 Sep 2007 Connect Festival, Inveraray, Argyill
8 Sep 2007 Bestival, Isle of Wight
16 Sep 2007 End of The Road Festival, Dorset
18 Sep 2007 Dublin Spiegltent, Dublin
30 Sep 2007 Open House Fest, Belfast
15 Oct 2007 Classic Grand, Glasgow
16 Oct 2007 Academy, Manchester
19 Oct 2007 Carling Academy, Oxford
21 Oct 2007 Plug, Sheffield
24 Oct 2007 Carling Academy, Birmingham
26 Oct 2007 Anson Rooms, Bristol
29 Oct 2007 Scala, London
30 Oct 2007 Scala, London
12 Nov 2007 Cockpit, Leeds
13 Nov 2007 Academy, Liverpool
www.seasicksteve.com
www.myspace.com/seasicksteve
www.bronzerat.co.uk
www.seasicksteve.com
Elsewhere on bigchill.net...
Duck reviews Seasick Steve @ Corsica Studios. 26th November 2006
Why Seasick Steve didn't play at The Big Chill 2005
The Big Chill Forum discusses Seasick Steve's performance at The Big Chill 2006
Video
Seasick Steve on Jools Holland's Hootenanny 2006 - Broadcast live on 31/12/2006
Photo: andyhallphoto.com
Written: 16th Mar, 07
Read: 16377 times
