RAGGED BUT RIGHT….THE RUM DRUM RAMBLERS  

You could say I’ve heard a lot of blues. Vintage Vinyl always reflected the blues-loving tastes of its two owners since we slung crates of LPs into cars and sold out of a fruit stand in Soulard Farmer’s market. So, because we have such a history going on, you can imagine how many recordings of blues come our way. From everywhere: people send us stuff left and right. Bucket loads come our way, of someone’s take on ‘blues music’ …forgive us if we become blasé. In part, because there’s so much of this music played in St. Louis by those we enjoy, we have developed a ‘nothing but the best, later for the garbage’ attitude. And, there’s a whole lot of what is called blues but really isn’t; too much showing someone who may play well but will never move beyond their obvious role-model.  Do we ever need to hear anyone record that BB King or Elmore James song every lazy bar band can knock out in a slow walk?  Yes, we have had so much heaped on our heads, in the name of blues, but so damn little that’s original and shows players using the form to drive nails in the head and heart.  Well, let me tell you. In late 2008, The Rum Drum Ramblers have a 7 (actually 8, with the unlisted selection) song disc called HEYLORDYMAMAMAGETUPANDGO ,priced at 6.99. It’s a bracing no-frills laughing slap to what I just described, as well as my preconceptions.  
 
This easily goes into my top 5 blues releases for the year, hey maybe even top 3.  Here’s how I would try to describe this trio, who’ve been taking every gig they could long enough that it shows in their musical walk. Better than just virtuosos, the RDRs are working on that rarest of things these days----making an original group sound, for playing their original material, with feeling and intensity.        
 
Here’s a sketch of how this set and band sounds: Stone acoustic/raw electric -for-the-most-part blues that all sounds as if it could have been recorded no latter than 1950, and easily much earlier---maybe before World War Two. Ragged, but right. No big drum sound, but the singer/harp player has a tambourine under the control of his fore-foot.  Vocals are agreeably over the top and head-shaking off-center---as if perhaps alcohol was involved.  Yes, this would sound most appropriate in a bar that is packed out with 30 people, not so appropriate as background music for any polite function of quiet folks.  There’s the kind of tone on the guitar that comes from (almost always) cheap guitars, electric and otherwise, and small cheap amplifiers beaten unmercifully in a rhythmic and driving manner. RDR would be an ideal trio busking streets if it came to that---they sound like young impatient men who’ve somehow come under the spell of pre-war country blues songs, and the performers who cut those records in places like St. Louis in 1931, when beer was served in buckets and blues players were known for their loud and rude party music.
 
The songs?  Right out of that trench I just described, in the tradition you might say, but still flashing inspiration---who knew their guitarist could invoke Jimmie Rogers so sweetly when yodeling on ‘Warm Atlanta Day’, in memory of a friend? Or on the song right before that (‘Ain’t Happy With You Baby’) they blow chunks of punk-ish energy so that the tiny speakers (being overdriven by harmonica and a hollow body electric guitar that was on the lower end of the Pawn Shop Special in 1959) melt together like one spoon of lard and one of butter on the same hot grill?  Juke Joint music, served up well by guys I’m sure were listening to bands such as the Misfits in another century (literally), but now know more about real blues than an entire audience coming off the gambling boat for Buddy Guy… Good music for drinking and loud conversation, as you keep time with your foot as well as the Lord and inebriation allows you to. 
 
RumDrumRamblers indeed.  I was very surprised. 

VINTAGE VINYL WINS IN 2008 POLLS!!!

photo credit - Annie Zaleski/Riverfront Times

In this year of national elections, debates, polls and general all-round Pundit Pud-Pulling, IT’S OFFICAL: VINTAGE VINYL CONTINUES ITS DECADE-LONG SWEEP OF ‘BEST RECORD STORE’ by the Readers of the Riverfront Times weekly publication.
 
Yes, it is the stated opinion of readers polled in the ‘Best Of St. Louis’ sweepstakes for the RFT that your Musical Mother-Ship on the Delmar Loop is AGAIN # 1 IN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, BEST IN-STORES, BEST SELECTION, AND BEST OVERALL MUSICAL VIBES in the city of St. Louis.
 
Our customers get it, and we get our customers---in these times, as fools go down in flames and the world rolls its worried shoulders, Vintage Vinyl is about making sure our musical friends and the world of music are on the one and doing the second line strut down Delmar. 
 
We’re in our 29^th year of being the St. Louis choice for the intelligent music listener, and we wish to thank the readers of the RFT letting us know once more we are taking care of the music and our customers, as our customers and the music makes it all possible.   
 
REMEMBER: ALL OTHER STORES PALIN COMPARISON

Rick Wood's Concert Diary - Vol. 73

10/3/08 Dale Watson, House Concert.  Another max capacity house concert…Dale could easily draw two or three times as many people, but somehow he ended up playing at our house for about 85 happy people…many newcomers to the house concert thing; lots of hard-core DW fans who found out about this show via Dale’s website.  There was a contingent of motorcycle riding cops who made the trip down from Chicago. 
 
Dale’s good friends Brian and Lisa showed up with dinner at around 5:30, but (true to their pattern) the band didn’t show up for another hour and a half.  They parked their forty foot tour bus right in front of our house and made pretty quick work of setting up “onstage” and chowing down on bar-b-q.  I grabbed a quick bite aboard the tour bus…it was pimped out pretty good, with couches, TV/DVD, comput

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