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< Music ~ MUST read interview. |
| kg |
 Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:38 pm |
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*Data Miner*
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 3427
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http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=386986
Old school
Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor takes on modern times
By Michael Kuker
BUSKING IN THE GLORY
Old Crow Medicine Show gets back to its roots.
It's been quite a journey for the members of Old Crow Medicine Show. The band coalesced in 1998 during a legendary trek across Canada, where the members busked and barnstormed for gas money and food whenever they could. Such a tour has destroyed many a lesser band, but once they got back to the States, the boys in Old Crow holed up together in a mountaintop farmhouse in North Carolina, where they worked the farm, brewed corn liquor and learned traditionals from the locals. It was there that they were discovered by bluegrass legend Doc Watson and his daughter Nancy, which led to gigs at Watson's annual MerleFest, the Grand Ole Opry, and an appearance on A Prairie Home Companion. The CN&R recently talked with Ketch Secor (vocals, fiddle, harmonica), who considered himself an odd kid ("I had an early appreciation for things much older than myself"), about the past, present and future of Old Crow Medicine Show.
How has the band changed since the days of the Canada barnstorming tour?
We definitely became a working band pretty shortly after that, and our whole ideology changed. Our fire became focused. We directed it toward the audience; because they wanted us to—they've been calling for it all along. They're looking for a great time ... for some answers. The music is very much about the listeners and the appreciation of it. There wouldn't be any of this if it weren't for [them]; we'd still be on the street corner.
What do you think of the current state of the music industry?
Presently, I think it's just a torrent of lackluster artistry. Everybody's got a record, everybody's a pro, everybody's got a show on Friday night, and everybody's got a link to tell you about it ... I think you can look at the computer and the "interweb" as being a very liberating force, but if it isn't leading to live music being performed then it's doing nothing. It's all about selling something. I'm more [for] digging the ferocity of instrumentation, being real, and being present and linked to the artists. There it is, all happening before you. It's the genuine article with all of its history and all of its bastard children standing around the cabin. There it is! Look at it! Go up to it, knock on the door—it'll scare the hell out of you, but do it just to feel something.
How would you describe your show for someone who hasn't seen it?
It's a high-energy atmosphere and oftentimes it feels like a revival—but not like a folk revival, like a tent revival. Like a snake-handlin', venom-spittin', strychnine-drinkin' tent revival. There's a lot of passion, there's a lot of fire, there's a lot of emotion. So it's all those things, but it's also important to recognize that it's an acoustic show and a rockin' show.
Where would you like to be in another 10 years?
Oh, disappeared in Oregon somewhere, up some logging road.
Still playing though?
[Laughs] Ten years from now? I don't know what's going to be where. I don't really feel that I can trust 10 years from now in the way that people from before could. I just think that the rate of change and growth and destruction is spiraling out of control, and I fear for 10 years.
Speaking of which, this show is going to be a benefit for a sustainability fund. What are your thoughts on sustainability?
You couldn't pick a better band to represent the value of sustainability: Here we are, playing the music that has been played on this continent for 200 years. We're also adding to it to make it appropriate to the present; we're enriching it. When you think about sustainability, it's using the environment you've been given, and finding the natural resources that exist freely within it and harnessing them instead of extracting them, destroying them and burning them. The thing about Old Crow is that we have this ability to sing the old songs for people; the songs are healing and the songs are part of who we all are. They're voices that have strength today and have resonance today. So singing them, it's a very natural thing.
Preview:
Old Crow Medicine Show performs Sat., Aug. 18, at the Paradise Performing Arts Center. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. Partial proceeds go to the Paul Persons Memorial Fund with the goal of embedding sustainability principles in university curriculum statewide. More info: www.chicotickets.com |
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| gwrap |
| Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:34 pm |
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Charlie
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 925
Location: Stankonia, GA
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| Sounds like Ketch thinks armageddon is upon us... |
_________________
When you wake up you're all weak
Throwing your life away
Someday, sorry coming home
Sorry snail
Down in my heart |
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| cfMC |
| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:00 am |
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Old Crow
Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 412
Location: SF CA USA
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| it fits with the remote off grid nature of folk in Paradise CA I tell you what. I wish I coulda made it up for that show but I got family in from out of town today |
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| kg |
| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:07 pm |
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*Data Miner*
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 3427
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Another fine article from Chico, California:
http://www.chicoer.com/entertainment/ci_6636011
Music Preview: Old Crow Medicine Show prefers streets to nightclubs
By PHIL RESER - The Buzz
They call themselves the Old Crow Medicine Show in honor of the traveling variety shows, or medicine shows, that used to roam the United States a century ago.
They play songs from some of the earliest folk traditions of American music, combining jug band sounds with southern Appalachian string music and Memphis blues.
Ketch Secor sings, and plays fiddle and harmonica with the five-member string band that is scheduled to perform Saturday night at the Paradise Performing Arts Center, courtesy of North Valley Productions.
Ask what he thinks is the most unique qualities of Old Crow, Secor says, "Our band's evolution is the most unique thing about us. Then I would say, it our harmony and vocalization, the strength of our three voices. As soon as I heard our three voices together for the first time — myself, Willie and Critter — I knew something was going to happen.
"Hearing Willie sing, I recognized, he had a special voice and as soon as I heard Critter and I sing together, I knew that our vocals were some of the best I had heard. The way we came together and how we stay together as a band is pretty different from the way a lot of groups come together and stay together. We went with a sort of different layout or plan, much more focused on learning, going out and making it happen for ourselves then it was on following any specific rules."
As Secor says, it was the summer of 1998 when he joined up with guitarist Willie Watson, banjoist Chris "Critter" Fuqua, "guit-joist" Kevin Hayes and doghouse bassist Morgan Jahnig. He left upstate New York and traveled 10,000 miles in three months in a van, playing on countless street corners, theaters, schools and honky-tonks, and ended up on the western shores of Canada.
As Secor explains, "The street corner was really our gym or track where we could go out and just run and get our endurance and measure our strength against all of the forces out there from cops to drunks to people that steal from you. To be king of the street corner as a musician is a wonderful thing to strive to be. I never have felt in the clubs that there was anything that quite measures or compares to drawing a crowd on the street and how you work them with your music"
The band then took its music to the Southern Appalachians, the birthplace of old-time string music. In the mountains they had a truly "hands-on" experience, learning old ways of music making and playing with some of the finest old-time musicians.
Secor says, "The history is alive out there in these rural and mountain areas, but people don't know it exists. And this living history is what makes our country's music so rich. It's what makes the voice of American music so powerful, that it belongs to all of these people; it belongs to all of us and is all of us. And that old-time music is still being sung and that music is still important. Like us in our travels, anyone can still have these experiences out there and hear this old music, if you just get off of the interstate. There are people out there having genuine folk music experiences in their backyard, passing on ancient language to their children who are inheriting this. Our band is here to spur it on, to pour it on and to keep it alive."
They eventually settled for a year in North Carolina. It was there, that they ran into a bit of good luck while playing in front of a local pharmacy to an impressed Doc Watson who scheduled the band to play at his MerleFest.
They relocated to Nashville and found themselves gracing the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. They caught the attention of Nettwerk Records in 2003 and signed with the company to release their 2004 debut album "O.C.M.S.," working with producer/guitarist David Rawlings.
In August 2006, Rawlings produced his second work with Old Crow, "Big Iron World," which combined traditional American standards and the band's originals — a blend of American roots, folk, blues, gospel, bluegrass and a little bit of rock.
According to Secor, "We have no illusions that we're rediscovering old American music. But by reinterpreting and reintroducing this music to new generations, we're feeding a deep cultural hunger."
In other words, Old Crow's assets go far deeper than the songs themselves, they have an unbridled spirit and a voice that's entirely their own.
Old Crow Medicine Show will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Paradise Performing Arts Center, 777 Nunneley Road, Paradise. It is a partial benefit for the Sustainability Fund in memory of late Chico State professor Paul Persons. (A guitar donated by the Music Connection will be raffled off with proceeds going to the Sustainable Fund.) Tickets, $24, are available in advance at www.chicotickets.com, Diamond W Western Wear, Lyon Books and Music Connection in Chico, Country Touch and the box office in Paradise (ticket surcharge may apply). Add $3 at the door. Call 872-8454.
I really admire the boys' take on music ... and Ketch is certainly a fine spokesperson. |
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