– Honky Tonk Chamber Music –
THE BUBBADINOS: Mark Weaver – tuba | Stefan Dill – flamenco guitar, ‘59 Strat, trumpet | Bubba D – lap steel, bass flute, piano, drums | Mark Weber – vocals, guitar, violin, harmonica | Ken Keppeler – violin, mandolin, banjo, accordion, harmonica.
Recorded by Manny Rettinger. Mixed by DQW. Mastered at Quincy Adams Productions. All done during 1998 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“The quiet before the storm. Lonesome whippoorwill. My grandfather used to call me up and say, “Mark, when’re we gonna make some music?” and I’d haul over to his place and we’d make some. Will the rappers someday be able to call their grandkids and ask the same?” — Mark Weber
Tracklist: 1. Lone Prairie (1:25)Download 2. Fading Into The Sunset (Johnny Mercer) (3:53) 3. Nuevo Sukiyaki (Nakamura/Rokusuke) (1:22) 4. 11 Months & 29 Days (Paychcck/Sherrill) (3:31) 5. John Fahey’s Last Bottle (1:58) 6. Walking the Floors Over You (Ernest Tubb) (3:42) 7. Cherokee Hawkin’s Fear Song (1:37) 8. Autumn Going Away (4:32) 9. Walking By Myself (Jimmy Rogers) (2:16) 10. Procrastinator’s Interlude (1:12) 11. O Bury Me Not/On the Trail (trad./Grofe) (6:03) 12. Rusty Cars (Weber/Weaver) (2:29) 13. My Blue-Eyed Jane (Jimmie Rodgers) (2:56)Download 14. Dimestore Wrangler Blues (:46) 15. Love Song of the Starved & Broke (2:29) 16. Gothic Interlude (1:19) 17. Nothin Happenin (1:37) 18. Pastoral in Open D (4:59) 19. Call It What You Want (1:56)Download 20. Albuquerque Nocturne (8:01) ZERX 014
I intentionally kept a very primitive (punk rock) relationship with the instrument over the life of the band (which is allot harder than one might think). I tried to come at the instrument at each session with a complete lack of technique, full on energy and all ears. The theory was “if you just keep the bar moving, you’re bound to be close to something that’s gonna work”. Of course this also meant that I couldn’t really reproduce anything I played which I think really drove Weber a little crazy at the time, but it had to be done. At recording sessions when Quincy would ask “who wants dino in the headphones”, there would be a resounding “NO”. J.A. Deane
Download
This download consists of one 85.40MB zip file containing the complete track list in 192kbps MP3 format along with album art in high resolution JPG format.
Sku: Zerx014
…… The Bubbadinos call what they do “honky tonk music,” but don’t expect ragtime here. This isn’t the music of the honky tonk brothels of the deep south, or even music of the city at all, but deliberately rural, “pure American” redneck music which intends to make you squeal like a piglet. “It’s ‘bad’ awful,” explains The Bubbadinos’ Mark Weber in his helpful sleeve notes. “Seriously, if you’ve got a jones for correctness, such as metrical rhythms, proper intonation, western ideas about harmony, then this band is definitely not for you.”
Well, that might be going a bit far. These boys — Mark Weaver (tuba), Stefan Dill (guitar, trumpet), Bubba D (lap steel, bass flute, piano, drums), Mark Weber (covals, guitar, violin, harmonica) and Ken Keppeler (violin, mandolin, banjo, accordion, harmonica) — know the chords to old songs like “Oh Bury Me Not On The Trail,” and not-so-old ones like “Fading Into The Sunset,” they do indeed mostly have nice 4/4 metrical rhythms and Weber’s voice is pure moonshine. What they do manage to do is create something very special within those parameters.
Their songs seem to struggle with a wall of reverberating, slightly dissonant violins and feedbacked weirdness, and the recognizable world of blues and cowboy songs is delicately balanced against the band’s tendency towards strange textures and noisy outbursts. Far from a what-will-they-do-next experience, however, listening to this disc has a satisfying gestalt quality which is not at all easy to achieve.
Don’t believe a word of their appeals to “front porch style” music, and certainly not “the blood songs of the American working class” (thirteen of the twenty tracks are original compositions). This is a highly electrified, very contemporary band creating an image of America which is extremely sophisticated but which isn’t to be taken for the real thing, which it rather self-evidently isn’t, and which is all the better for it. One of the most puzzling and fascinating of recent releases, this is also very enjoyable, and can even be played at parties (the sedate sort where you can get away with Tom Waits, I mean).
– Rambles Magazine
This oddly magnificent curio, while helpfully categorized on its back cover as “Honky Tonk Chamber Music,” actually defies — and quite possibly defiles — such handy self-categorization. From no less than its very opening benediction (“Lone Prairie” –Residents-style, that is) through its continuous wilding loops from surprise (Ernest Tubb meets Leon Redbone) into sonic surprise (Johnny Paycheck by way of the circa 1972 Magic Band even!), these here Bubbadinos have concocted nothing short of a carnival-glass journey through the deepest, dankest reaches of the Far, FAR West, yet in doing so never ever fail to keep the ear both interested and fascinated — despite all notions to the contrary, it sometimes seems.
Its twenty tracks sequentially sliced ‘n’ diced in all the right places by composer Mark Weber’s delightfully whacked li’l Uneasy Listening interludes (with Mark Weaver’s ubiquitous tuba employed more sparingly — and thus effectively — than a whole posse of Brave Combos), it’s a danger at times to pass off these here entire proceedings as nothing more than mere Zappaesque gut-bucket novelty. But one listen to the oddly luscious “Pastoral In Open D” (which scouts uncharted territories even the “Aereo Plain”-era John Hartford passed by) and especially the truly magnum “Albuquerque Nocturne” (like some cruelly cast-off “Smile” experiment, it’s no less than “Cabinessence” times Ten, I kid you not!), “We’re Really Making Music Now” certainly demonstrates there’s some, uh, serious music-making — and genre-breaking — going on within the Bubbadinos’ ranks.
Hopefully, these merry mavericks are at this moment busy stirring up their next hour’s worth of digital wonder. They should also “seriously” consider getting their marvelous work either out there on the road and/or up into the nearest Cronenberg film score as soon as is humanly possible. Okay, guys?
By Gary “Pig” Gold , In Music We Trust