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PERFORMANCE
REVIEW Edna Gundersen Jazz Fest: Wet and wild captures the spirit in New Orleans |
Even with its staggering diversity of artists, Jazz Fest seldom serves up anyone as eccentric as Bobby Lounge, the singer/pianist who made his third consecutive Jazz Fest appearance before a large, enthusiastic throng. Introducing the reclusive McComb, Miss., resident, toastmaster Calvin Tubbs, said, "I've been paid an amazing amount of money to lend some gravitas to these proceedings." Fat chance. Lounge, wearing feathery wings on his shirt, was wheeled on stage in an iron lung (that's actually an old gym steam chamber with added knobs). He introduces his "closest companion," a primly dressed woman whom he also describes as a lawn jockey, auto mechanic, parole officer, nurse and contortionist who collects Hummel figurines. She sits and reads a book as he launches into a new song about a Barry Manilow statue made of cheese. He hauls out other Southern Gothic boogie-woogie marvels, including I Remember the Night Your Trailer Burned Down and the epic Take Me Back to Abita Springs. The humor is swift, smart, surreal and often salacious, and his piano playing recalls the prime of Jerry Lee Lewis. No words can describe the freak performance piece that entails Lounge galloping on the keys and spinning a yarn about a Sasquatch-like squirrel while a man in a huge squirrel costume chases a woman, clad only in bra and panties, through the audience until his tail falls off. Now that's Southern-fried entertainment. |
Wayne Z.....d, offical SXSW stage manager Bobby Lounge
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I have to tell this like it happened, there is no other way. Bobby Lounge has a whole "act", as it were. When I was advancing this showcase, this is what I was told : "If you like piano players like Jerry Lee Lewis, showmanship like Little Richard, and lyrics like Randy Newman on crack, this is your type of show." If only I'd paid attention. Here's the set-up, and what I had to deal with. There's a toastmaster, Bobby Lounge's beautiful Nurse Gina and then Bobby Lounge in this act. Toastmaster gets on stage, does a four/five minute spiel about Bobby Lounge, then on a pre-arranged signal, the doors to the club open and Bobby Lounge is pushed into the club in an "iron lung" as a spotlight hits him and he is pushed through the house to the stage, with his Nurse in tow. When he reaches the stage, he jumps out of the iron lung and, beer in hand, takes the stage to pound the 88s, whilst his Nurse takes her place on a corner of the stage on a chair and reads a book. Got that? This is what happened when we tried to pull it off. (Keep in mind I'd done this already, earlier in the day at the Continental.) I explained all of the above to my music production crew and the house staff prior to our last slot of the festival at The Continental Club. Everyone got into place and I walked through the club to the street to check on the progress of Mr Lounge's entrance. When I reached the street in front of the club, I learned that Mr Lounge had just taken an open bottle of beer out of the club (in preparation for his entrance). This a major no-no in Texas. NO OPEN CONTAINERS OF BEER/LIQUOR/COFFEE/TEA/WATER IN OR OUT. Period. No argument, it's the law. Plus, he'd disrespected the club employee who caught him and he's now being denied permission to enter the club and he's my bloody headliner. The guy who caught him called the owner of the club (who'd just left the club AT LAST to have some down-time with his friends downtown), and, after a bit of back and forth, was persuaded to drop it and just let the show go on. Fine. Fire is out. I turned on my heel and went back in the club, to give the Toastmaster his cue to start the show, got to the back of the club only to find the Toastmaster has just been busted for doing the SAME D*MN THING: trying to sneak a bottle of liquor in the club!!! He was told NO, you CANNOT bring in an open bottle and he said "fine, no problem, I'll empty it. I'll pour it out" - instead he just pocketed the bottle. So now I had ANOTHER fire to put out at the BACK door. I extinguished this fire somehow and we finally got the showcase started. Bobby Lounge made it easier for all us at that point: he was so bad he cleared the club and we all got to pick up the place and pack up while he prattled on and on and on on the johanna and his Nurse sat in a chair onstage reading a paperback book. I just let him finish and leave with his odd troop. It seemed to me at the time any attempt to impress upon them that a little professionalism would have gone a long way would have fallen on deaf ears. This group was a bunch of dumbass alcoholic cretins living in a dream world of Bobby Lounge Fabulous Entertainer. Let them go crawl back into their swamphole in Missisisippi. (editor's note - the same show is also reviewed below)
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REVIEW
CLICK
HERE TO SEE IT Listen Up column by By
Ken Barnes |
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This week's playlist:
Edna gets eclectic |
Back to the Fest By offBeat Staff |
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.....Imagine the early Tom Waits playing maddened boogie-woogie piano like Jerry Lee Lewis rather than beatnik-jazz piano like Bill Evans. Imagine Waits singing three vivid verses about going to his sexual preference for a “Ten Foot Woman” and then even more vivid verses as the song stretched past seven minutes and the bounds of good taste. Imagine Waits arriving on stage in an iron-lung machine and popping out in a feathered and beaded Mardi Gras shirt only after a blue-uniformed nurse opened the door. Imagine Waits playing a romantic Dixieland piano melody as he sang a convoluted story about an unwise entanglement with a 17-year-old girl “eight weeks pregnant by a hometown married man.” That's Bobby Lounge.—GH The details make
Bobby Lounge’s raunchy songs more than just jokes, and they’re
the common thread in his songwriting. They make “Muddy River,”
his murder ballad compelling and they give his songs texture and a sense
of place. If it seems obscure, it’s probably because no one else
thought to write about life on the Northshore before.—AR |
REVIEW
excerpted from a
column titled:
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......A surprising mob turned out for Lounge, from McComb, Miss. Lounge,
56, steps out of an iron lung before sitting at the piano. He sings
wry and ribald Southern Gothic yarns and plays boogie-rock piano with
the rigor and flamboyance of a young Jerry Lee Lewis..... |
Eccentric Pianist Maintains Alter Ego |
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Jazz
pianist Bobby Lounge's star burst onto the music scene last year at
the rarefied and highly charged New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
His music -- a twisted and highly entertaining blend of Southern Gothic
blues, barrelhouse piano licks and parental-guidance-advisory lyrics
-- caught the critics' attention, the Times-picayune of New Orleans
said. Within days, The New York Times and Rolling Stone were singing
his praises and the region's musical cognoscenti were astir. A star
was born. |
Bobby Lounge Strikes Again by Adam Koob |
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One
of the best things about the weekends during Jazz Fest are all the amazing
live shows that can be seen around town, here is the tale of one…. |
Bobby Lounge |
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Bobby
Lounge is an eccentric, white middle-aged, solo boogie/blues piano player
from the northeastern corner of Louisiana, with a knack for composing
bizarre lyrics and embellishing them with a quite impressive two-fisted
piano accompaniment. The CD title alone is a magnet, not to mention
other song titles like I'll Always Be Better Than You, If
I Had Been Elvis, and Bank of Love, The most amazing track
is Take Me Back To Abita Springs, a brilliant Pete Johnson
influenced item that refers to Siamese twins, preachers from Texas,
bad food in Rio De Janeiro, artisan water, a man tattooed with motorcycle
women and the queen's lingerie! This won't be easy to find outside Louisiana,
but contact abitain.com to order. You won't be disappointed. - JH |
Southern Folkways,
Southern Decadence |
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The
South is often lauded as the last bastion of regional culture within
an increasingly regimented America. Yet many who celebrate the South’s
uniqueness also perceive it as doomed. This viewpoint was recently espoused,
for instance, by the great contemporary Louisiana songwriter Lucinda
Williams, who possesses a rare gift for evoking Southern scenes in just
a few succinct verses. Williams told an interviewer that she moved from
Nashville to Los Angeles because "The ‘New South" is
absolutely horrible. They’re systematically killing off everything
that’s traditional, because they’re ashamed of being Southern.
It’s why I can’t live there anymore." "He traveled
far and wide, searched high and low, These lines are showcased by frenetic, rockabilly ivory-tickling on "Take Me Back To Abita Springs." "I’ll Always Be Better Than You," by contrast, is set to the stately syncopation of a Gospel-music processional: "If I seem
haughty, and I seem distant, Lounge’s
writing reflects no obvious influences. Some songs are linear and logical,
while others carom between non-sequiturs and free association. But for
quick reference, once again, imagine a blend of the adroit wit and articulate
precision of Gilbert and Sullivan, the Southern literary imagery of
Carson McCullers, et al, the beat surrealism of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits,
the sardonic humor of Randy Newman, and the unabashed perversion of
Marquis de Sade.
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CD
REVIEW Bobby
Lounge by Frank-John Hadley |
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Recorded
in some anonymous soul's home, this 50ish mystery man from New Orleans
plays good blues and barrelhouse piano and vocalizes in a sun-bright,
tensile voice aabout happy s&m ("Excuse Me Abuse Me"),
Tipi, the freighter-hopping voodoo priest ("Take Me Back To Abita
Springs") and, among other oddities, weirdball hopes and dreams
("If I Had Been Elvis"). His peculiar charm takes a sleaze
turn at times. |
ARTICLE Meet Bobby
Lounge by Karen Freeman |
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Despite
his best efforts to keep a low profile, bluesy singer-pianist sensation
Bobby Lounge has been unmasked. Lounge,
whose rousing performance in the blues tent at the New Orleans Jazz
and Heritage Festival this spring caught the ears of writers from
Rolling Stone, The New York Times and elsewhere and propelled him
to center stage in regional music circles, is actually McComb artist
Dub Brock.
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REVIEW
CLICK HERE TO SEE IT ONLINE Bobby Lounge
by Billy Thinnes |
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Bobby Lounge is a low-fi Southern Gothic
Elton John shrouded in mystery and secrecy. His first gig in 20 years
was at Jazz Fest several months ago, and he wowed the crowd in the Blues
Tent with his starkly rhythmic piano playing and humorously biting lyrics.
Lounge lives somewhere in rural Mississippi and generally shuns publicity.
At his Jazz Fest gig and his recent Louisiana Music Factory appearance,
he was wheeled on stage in an “iron lung” (some sort of
metallic cabinet with wheels that only reveals his head) by a nurse,
who then sat on the stage next to him reading a cheap paperback. Lounge
is a great storyteller, as evidenced by the songs “I’ll
Always Be Better Than You” and “If I Had Been Elvis,”
and his melodic barrelhouse clanging on the piano provides a nice accompaniment.
It is indeed the undeniably hip thing to like Bobby Lounge and murmur
about his songwriting genius, but don’t let this annoy you. Lounge
for once is a musician worthy of the hype machine. |
FRONT
PAGE REVIEW
CLICK HERE TO SEE IT ONLINE The Bobby
Lounge Buzz |
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If
you consider yourself a member of the music cognoscenti in town -- if
you are in possession of the vital secrets -- when someone asks you
what you've been listening to lately, the answer is: Bobby Lounge. |
HUMAN
INTEREST STORY Elusive Musician Calls Abita Home by Karl Kell |
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Although
he has never physically lived here, musician Bobby Lounge says he has
"artesian water" running through his veins and considers Abita
Springs to be his "emotional home."
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PERFORMANCE/CD
REVIEW I Remember
the Night Your Trailer Burned Down |
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I can't tell you much about mysterious Mississippi spitfire Bobby Lounge other than this: That's not his real name, and he made an unforgettable entrance at this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, wheeled onstage by a nurse in an iron lung (actual a huge steam-room cabinet). Then, chugging beer in obvious perfect health, he turned into Bessie Smith, Jerry Lee Lewis, Flannery O'Conner and Bob Dylan (the lyrical-surrealist edition) all at once, playing blazing barrelhouse piano and belting outrageously vivid blues from the far fringes of Southern life. This debut album has everything I saw a Jazz Fest but the lung, including the twisted recipe of love "I Will" (mix bondage and Popeyes chicken; stir vigorously), and the parade of unnatural wonders in the rolling-boogie epic "Take Me Back to Abita Springs," a kind of "Desolation Row" exploding with Little Richard-style piano and starring, among other things, an infant flamenco dancer, a singing burro and the queen of England's underwear. Lounge has a very high opinion of himself" He closes here with the gospel-piano sunrise of "I'll Always Be Better Than You." But in your heart, you know he's right.
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PERFORMANCE
REVIEW |
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Who or what is Bobby Lounge? The wildness of his metaphors and cover art suggests he's a musical primitive, but his boogie-woogie piano in the Jerry Lee Lewis mode and way with a tall tale give him away as crafty and smart. In the Blues Tent, the ode to his hometown, He was a Louisiana regional phenomenon / women called him Tipi but his name was John / Packed up all the junk he strewed out in his yard / he said I'm going West to become a movie star / Reduced to singing backup with Siamese twins / he cried out “Take me back to Abita Springs”
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PERFORMANCE
REVIEW
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.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New to nearly everyone was Bobby Lounge, a balding, middle-aged eccentric from Mississippi who on Saturday delivered lethally sardonic songs (like "I'll Always Be Better Than You") with a percussive blues-and-barrelhouse piano style. He was wheeled on and off stage in a silver steam cabinet, the kind of thing once used for weight reduction. "I call it the Iron Lung," he said backstage, sipping a beer. "It perpetuates the myth that Bobby's a little infirm." (He keeps his real identity secret, his manager said, so as not to imperil his day job.
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CD
REVIEW I
Remember the Night Your Trailer Burnt Down |
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"We
are offering this disk to the public at the request of the many people
who have heard of the genius of Bobby Lounge, but who may not have had
a chance to see him perform," explain the liner notes, which go
on to point out that the late-baby-boomer-age Lounge performed his witty,
slightly twisted piano tunes in the '70s, mostly at house parties. |
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04/19/05
Gambit Weekly Bobby
Lounge |
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An energetic entertainer in the tradition of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, pianist Bobby Lounge's songwriting has been described as 'Randy Newman with bite.' Influenced by Southern gospel, blues and barrelhouse piano, his first studio recording, I Remember the Night Your Trailer Burned Down, is a blend of humor, grit and hot Southern blues. (See CD reviews in this issue.) |
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