Sideshow Fez is a concert video recorded August 15, 2003 in Portland, Oregon by the Asylum Street Spankers, an Austin, Texas based band that somehow has previously escaped my notice.
Appears that Junior Samples somehow escaped from Kornfield County, got some education, joined an acoustic jazz band and turned it all into a vaudeville sideshow.
First off, this is one kick ass band. They have a lot of flavor- all acoustic, eschewing "the demon electricity." You can pick out little strains of all kinds of mostly pre-WWII musical styles. There are several different flavors of jazz involved, some country. Not knowing anything about the band going in, my first guess would have been that they were from New Orleans.
Some of the New Orleans flavor comes from the obviously revered old man in the group, Stanley Smith, and his clarinet. Besides being a hipster, and a singer, he can do some mean scatting on "Mah Na Mah Na" as does Wammo- the aforementioned Junior Samples character.
Dave Marsh once famously criticized the Grateful Dead for making bluegrass and the blues sound the same. The Asylum Street Spankers would precisely not be accused of any such. They maintain distinctive marks of numerous types of music. You can pick out the vaudevillian ukelele and banjo from the torch song from the scatting from the Skynyrd quotes.
They haven't rounded the edges off the different musical traditions, but skillfully meshed them together to make a fairly distinctive sound of their own.
At least one music site has the band listed under "comedy/novelty." That doesn't do the band any kind of justice. Weird Al Yankovic is a comedy/novelty act. Frank Zappa, on the other hand, was a serious musician with frequently humorous intent. The Spankers go more in that group.
Indeed, they're good enough musicians that they make stuff work that shouldn't work. Like the makers of Tropicana Twister, the Asylum Street Spankers are creating flavors nature never intended. "Hick Hop" for example fuses, as Wammo puts it, country murder ballads and gangster rap- and makes it work musically. They're playing instruments, and creating an honest groove. And Korey scratches a mean dobro. Besides the posing and stage moves that really add to the presentation, there's at least minimally enough of an actual song to significantly support the schtick.
Christina Marrs is one singing bitch. She has a big enough voice to absolutely sing the bejesus out of the B-52s classic "Dance This Mess Around." Kate Pierson couldn't have done it stronger or better. This would doubtless sound good on a CD, but watching big ol' Wammo in his cowboy hat demonstrating all 16 dances really adds to the experience.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
reminds me a little of Hayseed Dixie.
2 - Al Barger
There may be a bit of spiritual connection between the humorous acoustic music of ASS and Hayseed Dixie, but they don't actually sound much alike. Hayseed Dixie is pretty much specifically a bluegrass act.
ASS could certainly do bluegrass, but I didn't see much that would qualify as such on this video.
Now, I like Hayseed Dixie, but they seem to be a somewhat limited joke. ASS are considerably more musically ambitious.
3 - Mark Saleski
yea, i'd agree with that. these guys seem to lean more to country swing rather than straight bluegrass.
and i've got to be in the mood for the jokey aspect of it (like when i pull out my copy of Luther Wright & the Wrongs doing the bluegrassy version of Floyd's The Wall)
4 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Al! and don't forget the Chickasaw Mud Puppies or the Gourds.
5 - Al Barger
Mark- After I suggested that ASS doesn't do much with bluegrass, I started listening to this excellent bluegrass cover of "1999."