Spittoon:
We Got Great Expectorations
by John Krajicek
"So I started this damn country band, 'cause punk rock is too hard
to sing."
--- Whiskeytown's "Faithless Street"
Howdy, folks, and greetings from Bryan/College Station, Texas, a serious
contender in the "Ditto, Rush!" bumper sticker race; where country
music is generally more Branson than western; where Garth Brooks is more
popular than Jesus--no wait, that's not true--we're smack dab in the middle
of the Bible girdle--but Garth's arena-huge here. Where Lyle Lovett and
Robert Earl Keen were college roomates (at Texas A&M). Folks around
these parts do seem right proud of Lyle, but then they don't much listen
to his records here. Probably for the some of the same reasons that when
David Lynch films come to town, they leave quicker than Julia Roberts. On
the other hand, if Robert Earl threw his cowboy hat into the ring of local
political fire, he could defeat George W. Bush in a landslide. Go figure.
But Bryan/College Station isn't all that bad. After all, it's the home of
Spittoon.
Imagine you are in a smoky, crowded little
bar, and a band is playing (a scene so readily imagined by us all that it
seems almost archetypal). In fact, imagine that you are on stage... you're
the lead singer in the band. You're covering the Violent Femmes' "Blister
in the Sun," and the crowd, of course, screams every word along with
you. The place is pulsating with energy. A young girl is dancing provocatively
in front of the stage... she's liable to take her shirt off any second.
You glance to your left, to your banjo player, and to your right, to your
mandolin player, and.... WAIT! What? Banjo. Mandolin. Violent Femmes? Well,
hell yes... this here's Spittoon we're talking about!
Spittoon can certainly pass as bluegrass. Our instrumentation is the standard
bluegrass fare--banjo (Chris "Roscoe" Holcomb), mandolin (Jimmie
"Sensitive New Age Guy with a blackbelt" Killingsworth), acoustic
guitar (Jim "biological son of both Paul McCartney and Ricky Skaggs"
Baker), and upright bass (Ron "exploding bass" Rushing). We cover
many of the bluegrass standards, such as "How Mountain Girls Can Love,"
"Blue Ridge Mountain Blues," "Whoa Mule," "Blue
Night," and, with enough encouragement from the crowd, even the theme
from Deliverance. But we also do tunes no other self-respecting hillbilly
band would dream of playing. In addition to a growing list of originals,
such as "Piedmont Blues," "Los Angeles Has Moved to Austin,"
and "Faded Love With Booze - Opus 21," we cover AC/DC's "You
Shook Me All Night Long," the Police's "Next to You," several
Beatles songs, "Suspicious Minds" (our Vegas Elvis moment), and,
yep, "Blister in the Sun." And though we make those tunes our
own, so to speak, we don't just remake them into bluegrass numbers. We like
to think we rock across genres. (Who knows, we might just try bluegrass
rap--then again, maybe not).
Does this make us alternative? Well, hell, I don't know. In this postmodern
time of fluid labels and empty signifiers, I really don't know what that
term means anymore. But, well, yeah, I guess so. It's a matter of perspective.
Steve Earle claims that "bluegrass is the original alternative country
music" (No Depression #20, March-Aprill 1999). And hardcore
Bluegrass fans would certainly think that any band that plays punk, whether
they do bluegrass standards or not, is most definitely alternative (in addition
to being lead singer, I also handle percussion duties, which in our case,
means little egg "shakers"--when we played a live a radio spot
on the local bluegrass show recently, the d.j. said something to the effect
of "I ain't never seen one of them little egg things before").
Maybe it's an inbreeding thing--we're just trying to expand the gene pool
a bit. And I suppose our fans who listen to alternative radio stations (how
can a station with a set playlist be alternative?), who wouldn't know Lester
Flatt from Buck Owens, see us as alternative. Maybe we're alternative to
alternative.
But we don't really think too much in terms of genre. Our banjo player Chris
calls bluegrass "punkrock for hillbillies." When I asked him to
offer his vision of Spittoon, he said "What I see linking all the diverse
music we perform is energy. When I think of the songs that I'm drawn to,
I don't think in established categories or genres, but in energy....what
makes my foot stomp. Even though I'm a banjo player, there's alot of bluegrass
music that (while I can respect it) I don't like all that much. Alison Kraus,
for instance, and New-Grassy sounding stuff. They've polished all the rough
edges off the music. It's too smooth, too tame. Give me the Stanley Brothers
over them any day. If Ralph Stanley (that is, Ralph Stanley in his prime)
showed up at a punk rock club with his banjo and started playing, I guarantee
you there'd be a mosh pit and stage diving."
Ron "exploding bass" Rushing, author of my favorite Spittoon lines
--"she wants a man who's suave and rich, good looks combined with tallness;
all I've got is athlete's feet and male-pattern baldness"--likes to
point out the simplicity of Spittoon's acoustic approach: "If we really
wanted to, we could play all of our music on a street corner unplugged...
we aren't totally dependent on amplification, or distortion, or fuzzy wah-wahs,
to do our songs. Since acoustic music doesn't have the crutch of electronic
affects, then musicianship supercedes electronic gadgetry."
Amen. So whatever you call us, bluegrass or hyperbilly or punkgrass or alternative,
it's straightforward musicianship, simplicity, and energy that we're after.
I feel very lucky indeed to be singing for these experienced alternative
mountain boys (who, frighteningly, educate America's youth when they're
not playing music--four of us teach English at Texas A&M University,
and one teaches at a local middle school). These boys're serious pickers
who appreciate all forms of music. The energy they create is addictive as
hell. And by the way, in case you're wondering where we got our name, I'll
tell you. It came in a vision--a guy named Jethro appeared on a flaming
frito pie and said unto us "From this day on you are Spittoon."
John Krajicek (with a little help from his loogie brothers)
jck1754@acs.tamu.edu
(Editor's note: the other members of Spittoon would like to
add that John "the Rooster" Krajicek "screams out the vocals,
stomps, and shakes his vittles like a tornado ablaze").
For more information about Spittoon (and to hear one of their tunes), visit
their website at:
http://acs.tamu.edu/~jab8056/spittoon/index.html