This article originally appeared as a column in the June issue of the Victory Music Review.

As a musician and a scholar, I’m fascinated by how music is passed on from generation to generation. I learned the fiddle from my father, and grew up around stories of his days busking in the streets of Europe and hanging around his local old-time jam sessions. Having shared the folk revival belief that many traditions were in danger of dying out, I’ve been gratified to see new generations stepping up to the plate to embrace them.

For this month’s column, I interviewed Josh Rabie of the Water Tower Bucket Boys. Josh plays fiddle and guitar, and co-wrote a number of the songs on their new album Sole Kitchen. Banjo player Cory Goldman, mandolin/guitarist Kenny Feinstein, and ex-punk-rocker bassist Walter Spencer round out the group. I work with the Boys professionally, but I’m also a huge fan of their music. Their particular blend of old-time/bluegrass picking mashed up with punk and jazz influences is wild on stage, and the fact that they are first and foremost folk virtuosos has endeared them to me. Josh’s fiddling has been especially influential to me, and I thought he’d have a unique perspective, having discovered folk music and given his life over to it at a fairly young age. I transcribed the interview from an informal phone conversation.

Interview with Josh Rabie of The Water Tower Bucket Boys

Devon Leger: When did you start fiddling? Was that your first instrument, and what led you to the fiddle?

Josh Rabie: Fiddle, started five years ago. First played guitar, started getting into blues and old-time, then I wanted to learn banjo, and then fiddle. Before blues and old-time, I just kind of played pop songs and new-age rock, like Nirvana and Green Day. And Jimi Hendrix. I was really into Jimi Hendrix. I had a shrine to Jimi Hendrix in my room. My parents were going to send me away because of it. They thought it was creepy.
 

DL: What drew you into the old-time music community?

JR: In high school, I was fifteen years old and I heard Sophie Vitells and Gabby McRae playing old-time music in the halls and I wanted to play with them. Actually, the Government Issue Orchestra did a demonstration at our high school. Immediately I was like, “Oh my God!” I started getting into flatpicking bluegrass guitar first and then playing backup for old-time.

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase: Water Tower Bucket Boys

 

DL: How do you think the folk revival generation has accepted this next generation of musicians? Do you feel like your career and your music has been supported by the folk revivalists, or have you hit a lot of walls trying to get through to people?

JR: They’ve been really supportive. Even when we do the crossover stuff, like punk-rock stuff, people are good to us. We want to be able to do a little bit of everything: Cajun, old-time, bluegrass, swing. Kenny has a sitar, we want to do Indian music eventually. I’ve always wanted to start a reggae band. I feel like traditional music has a lot of barriers and rules, and with Water Tower we’ve always been like, “Fuck the rules, let’s just do what we want to do.”

DL: What are your main fiddling influences?

JR: Sammy Lind. The big one. Definitely a lot of bluegrass fiddlers, like Kenny Baker and anyone that played with Bill Monroe. John Ashby. Dewey Balfa. Definitely Courtney Granger. When I first him I almost started bawling, like, “This is what I want to sound like.”

Other people in Portland like Caleb Klauder. I’ve always looked up to him, as far as learning how to sing and learning how to be a competent musician.
 

DL: Do you think it's possible to get the same level of inspiration from a local old-time fiddler in Portland as you could from "source" musicians like Tommy Jarrell?

JR: Oh yeah. I did! What drew me to old-time music was Foghorn Stringband. When I first heard Sammy’s fiddling, I was like, “Oh my God”. I’d never heard anything like that. I got into Tommy Jarrell later. I draw a lot of inspiration from the local old-time fiddlers. A recording is good, but to actually see them or hear them is more valuable.

DL: Old-Time vs. Bluegrass: Gloves-off bare knuckle boxing match... Who wins?

JR: Really, is that the question? Awesome! I go back and forth so much. They both KO each other. I love ’em both. First it was bluegrass, then old-time, then bluegrass, then old-time. I love everything about them. I hate the snob that will only play one. I think you can take elements of both and add to each one to make them better.
 

DL: What are your non-old-time musical influences? How do you incorporate the swagger and attitude of modern rock/pop/hip-hop/punk into your music?

JR: Number one for me is the Velvet Underground. I think they’re my favorite band of all time. And also Bob Dylan, and also Spaceman 3. In Water Tower, we all listen to all kinds of different music and we want to write our own songs based on inspiration from those other genres.

Heaven: Water Tower Bucket Boys (comp. Rabie)

DL: What's your take on old-time/bluegrasss musicians who wear their pop/hip-hop/punk influences on their sleeves? Like the Carolina Chocolate Drops covering Tupac Shakur, or Nickel Creek covering Britney Spears.

JR: I think it’s cool. Why not? Why the fuck not? I don’t have any expectations or rules for anybody or any band. I love covers. We’re starting to do covers of all kinds of songs. Old ’90s songs from Sugar Ray. Punk bands like the Misfits and Rancid. ’Cause really we’re all kind of punk rockers at heart.

Josh’s experiences with old-time music mirror my own. Although I grew up hearing old-time music, I had actually gravitated away from it. Foghorn Stringband brought me back again. I’d never heard that kind of ferocity in old-time music before! Living in such a rich, local old-time scene, it was easy to start learning tunes from great musicians in Seattle. Like Josh, I value the tunes I learned directly from Northwest sources much more than tunes I learn from recordings. That might be the ultimate legacy of the folk revival: the ability to play folk music with good friends in communities far removed from the music’s origins. After all, music transcends borders, and good music is good music no matter where you are.

Read the original article here.
 

Today's theme for the Hearth Music Radio Show was DIRTY SOUTH FOLK MUSIC! Awww yihhh!  Thanks to Cascade Community Radio for giving us the airtime to play some great music!
 

[Song Title/Artist]

----Intro w/ The Haints Old-Time Stringband instrumental-----
Cochon de Lait: Cedric Watson
This Little Light of Mine: A Moment in Time
Cool Down on the Banks of Jordan: Ginny Hawker & Tracy Schwarz
Statesboro Blues: Blind Willie McTell
Roll on Buddy: Tommy Dean
Roll on Buddy: Water Tower Bucket Boys
----Break w/The Canote Brothers instrumental----
Hard Time Killing Floor: R. L. Burnside
Idlewild Blue (Dont'chu Worry 'Bout Me): OutKast
Awnaw: Nappy Roots
Jimmy Mathis: Bubba Sparxxx
Bouncin' Back (Bumpin' Me Against The Wall): Mystikal
Raise Up: Petey Pablo
I'm On A Boat (feat. T-Pain): The Lonely Island
----Break w/Cort Armstrong instrumental----
Jesus Hits Like Tha Atom Bomb: The Sterling Jubilee Singers
Get Right Church: Martha Scanlan
Spoonfull: Howlin' Wolf
Alberta: Eric Clapton
John Hardy: Chris Coole & Ivan Rosenberg
Dying Crapshooter's Blues: Tommy Dean
Wagon Wheel: Old Crow Medicine Show
La Table Ronde: Cedric Watson
-----Break w/Jason Frey & Travis Matte instrumental----
When I Lay My Burden Down: Othar Turner & The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band
Pistol Packin' Papa: Jimmie Rodgers
The Sun Didn't Shine: The Golden Gate Quartet
Sioux Indians: Tracy Schwarz
Out on the Western Plains: The Unwanted
Little Black Train: Foghorn Duo
Billy in the Low Ground: Gordon Tanner and Smokey Joe Miller
Lost Girl: Foghorn Stringband
Hard Times Killin' Floor Blues: Nehemiah "Skip" James

AND Check out our blog on No Depression on Hillbilly Hip-Hop! 
 

Bubba Sparxxx: King of Hillbilly Hip-Hop

Welcome to another regular feature on the Hearth Music Blog: Your New Favorite Artist.  This is where we present one of our favorite artists in the hopes that you'll fall in love with them as well.

 Scott H Biram

In a world of white guys with mustaches singing the "blues," Scott H Biram might at first seem like another slavish imitator. But when you get a listen to his mashed-up country blues/hillbilly singing, you realize that he just might have been born in the wrong century. Like the bluesmen of yore, who copped their songs from radio, 78s, and other singers, Biram has absorbed the songs and spirit of the American South and spits it back to us with all the intensity and rage from whence this music was born.

Don't believe us? Check out Biram channeling Howlin' Wolf on the anthemic Spoonful:

Or have a listen to Biram's take on Blind Willie Johnson's disturbing religious "i-told-you-so" parable Titanic:


While so many blues aficianados are spending their time arguing about whether or not so-and-so bluesman belongs to the Piedmont guitar tradition, Biram skips the intellectual discourse and jumps straight to kicking ass.  Born and raised in Texas, he shares the same love for early country blues and hillbilly music that most musicians in the South, black and white, shared in the 1920s.  And he's not afraid to throw in a yodel or two, a fine aspect of country music that's been largely neglected by the alt-country hipsters. 

Get yer hillbilly on with Biram's bizarre rendition of the classic old-time song, Single Girl:


But Biram's strength is unquestionably in touring and performing. He tours incessantly, playing punk clubs, country bars, and hipster lounges alike. Every Scott H Biram show is like a one-man, junk blues tent revival, full of Southern aggression and Biram's trademark vintage microphone drawl.  Check out this video of his live show:
  

Now Biram's signed to "insurgent country" record label Bloodshot Records and touring with mostly original material. 'Course his original songs still pay homage to the great roots music of the 20th century, but with a pretty strong dose of 21st century attitude. Here's a sick cut from his new album, Something's Wrong/Lost Forever:

Hard Time: Scott H Biram

 

We hope you enjoyed Scott H Biram's music! Go see him when he comes to your town, and yell out a request for an old blues song.  Could be that he blasts into an old Blind Willie McTell number, tapping into the everyman's rage that birthed country and blues in the first place.  Or could be you get your ass kicked for interrupting him!

Special thanks to our little buddy, Michael Chandler, for his extended loan of some early Scott H Biram CDs. We swear we'll give them back soon!

For the past few months we've been using this quote on our email signature:

When we bark, we roar like thunder
     --from an old folk song

It's a great (slightly modified) line from one of our favorite songs, "I Got A Bull Dog".  It seems pretty innocous as a song, talking about a bulldog in the backyard that bites people.  But it dips into the deep well of gangsta folk when you realize that "bulldog" was slang for a snub-nosed revolver in the 1920s.  Now it's a bit more hardcore.

"I've got a bulldog, he cost five hundred
I've got a bulldog, he cost five hundred
I've got a bulldog, he cost five hundred
In my back yard babe in my back yard

When he barks he roars like thunder
When he barks he roars like thunder
When he barks he roars like thunder
He barks at you baby he barks at you babe"

(Photo of Ernest & Hattie Stoneman)

Here's an old 78 of the Sweet Brothers and Ernest Stoneman singing the song: