Jug Band Jubilee: the good and the bad

Recently I went to Louisville to the Jug Band Jubilee. It was my second time there, and almost everything was different this year. It was earlier (last year it was in Oct.) which meant it was much, much hotter. It was also all outside. The Carolina Chocolate Drops were not there. It was one day rather than a weekend, but the upside of that was this year it was FREE. I like free.

The common thread was the majestically cool Sule Greg Wilson. No one I've ever met makes being so smart look like so much fun.

This is Sule last year:

The thing that struck me, was the vast difference in the bands that I saw. Admittedly, this type of music (string band, jug band, and the like) isn't the most diverse sounding stuff to the general public. The difference between the bands I liked and didn't like was like the choice between Obama and McCain. The difference can be boiled down to one of aesthetics. The bands I didn't like (to be polite about it - really they turn my stomach and give jug bands a bad name) were the aged hippy, self-congratulatory, unfunny bands of dudes like The Juggernaut Jug Band and the Cincinnati Dancing Pigs.

And I think most of what I hate about this band can be wrapped up by this guy:


I mean, that's a gallon jug of weaksauce.

Their humor is tired. Their playing lackluster, their attitude cutesy and, like I said, self-congratulatory, like they actually thought their well-worn jokes were still funny. "We're the dancing Pigs and that's not just our name but also our faces." ha... ha... ha... shoot myself!
They're not so much revivalists of the jug band music I love (Cannon's Jug Stompers, Memphis Jug Band) but of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band and other 1960s revivalists.

Then there were these guys, Escape the Floodwater.



I was really excited because at first I thought they were a Mennonite Jug Band, until my sister-in-law Kate pointed out that she didn't think Mennonites have tattoos.


Not only are they adorable (I've pretty much fallen in love with the banjo player), but they're everything the aforementioned geezers aren't: fun, high energy, funny, cool, hip, and they show a great respect for the originators of the music, infusing the songs of Earl McDonald, Gus Cannon and Will Shade with a dose of the energy and attitude of Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Nirvana.

They got people dancing, they challenged every jug player at the place to compete in a "jug-off" which is just funny in and of itself. Plus they have a up-tempo songs about how hard it is being in a jug band: you know, the fame, the money, the women.... oh it's all so hard!

Is it age? Not entirely, though I think that has something to do with it. It's attitude, and how you let that attitude come through in the music, how it influence what songs you play, and how you play them, which creates aesthetic.

The Jake Leg Stompers are not kids. They've got their fair share of grey and missing hairs. But they commit to their brand of roarin' twenties aesthetic, visually and musically, and get a general thumbs up in my book. But they didn't seem to be as big a hit as the Dancing Pigs or inevitably, the Juggernaut Jug Band (I'm not even touching those guys because the vitriol runs deep.) That's what I don't get. Why do people like boring music? Which isn't limited to this small jug band festival, but can be seen on MTV, American Idol, your local bar, your "local" Clear Channel radio station.

And when I say boring, while sounding like a matter of taste, isn't meant to be. I don't like Radiohead, Arvo Part, Tricky, M'shell Ndegeocello, but none of them are boring. That's a matter of taste.

These are the things I'm thinking about.