Biography:
In January of 2001, a group of four men known as THE BOGGS began appearing on Brooklyn street corners and subway platforms thrashing away at a raw and intense brand of rural American music that they termed 'the new-standards'. Rock and Roll stripped to its very foundation.
The group is led by songwriter, singer, and guitarist Jason Friedman. Jason had been writing songs in this peculiar idiom for several months before meeting up with slide guitarist Zeke Healy, drummer Brad Conroy, and Banjo player Phil Roebuck on various subway platforms that December. In February, they began to take their set indoors to an appreciative audience raised on no-wave and post punk.
Their insistence on performing their music outside of its expected context-accompanying bands like Calla, On Air Library, and Grand Mal-has lead many to new understanding of what this music is. Connections between the oldest forms of Americana and the latest in experimentation began to thrive and suddenly, what seemed to belong only to hillbillies and hippies, belongs with the vanguard of New York rock. Arena Rock signed the band after they played New York's Mercury Lounge in late March, and in July, THE BOGGS climbed a hill for a couple of days to record their debut album.
THE BOGGS perform music outside of time, from the zero hour. They turn over a dirty underbelly of folk forgotten and neglected by countless soft renderings. Like the early British blues movement, THE BOGGS have gone in search of sounds heard in old recordings and their search has uncovered an original music. It is at times loud and fast; a massive churning of strings with a back beat thundering beneath. At other times, it is quiet and dark; the eerie phrasing of voice and instrument sung from somewhere in those dark corners where fate and fortune co-mingle. |
