#bootleg boogie

[hokkaidossoul12]

These sketches were hard to fit on the page which is why the quality isn't as great as the other sketches.

(This has already been uploaded to my DeviantArt)

[liveinthenownow]

Bootleg Boogie with Crimson House Blues + The Bone Collectors + The Ratrod Cats at Mercury (28 July)

There is nothing not awesome about Saturday’s Bootleg Boogie at Mercury.  It was the all-around good feeling hipshaking kind of night that could turn a crazed house music lover into the most devoted rock & roll enthusiast.  Its hard not to have a soft spot in your goodtimes seeking heart for every single band that helped to turn Mercury into the good vibes of the 1950’s USA that night.  Each act brought a quirkily hard not to like flavour of boogying.  But even more awesome than their natural lovability, it was as if each player of melodies this particular gig had signed a deal with the music gods to put every little bit of their soul into the tunes; in return the music god’d deliver a night of nonstop swinging and shaking (which they oh so funkily did).  

A few minutes behind schedule, my stroll into Mercury quickly turned into a strut.  The Ratrod Cats brought carefree swinging to Zonnebloem like a greaser-packed bowling alley.  With the first rock & roll inspired twirl, rockabilly had won me over.  Any time The Bone Collectors are scheduled to take the stage you know its going to be a great night.  This time without Rob Scher and his fervour with a saxophone, the Bones had lost much of their funk and soul; but nonetheless, fun was most definitely not lost.  In the place of the absentee blues came an exploration of rockier and rolling roots.  All about originality in the name of good times, the Bone Collectors have come up with (and mastered) a style of rock & roll that is entirely their own.  This time I picked up on something 90’s SoCal about Roland, a quality of radness-spreading that makes him the perfect frontman to lead the anything goes tactic of letting loose which the Bones have made their own.  I had heard that the Crimson House Blues would be bringing the hillbilly fill of the night, but I had no idea the  blues get heavier than Trampled By Turtles and Elliott Brood.  My ears always perk up when I hear a banjo, but this was something else; this was banjo punk prompted fists in the air chaoticness.  Redeye Riaan puts his soul into the tunes like this is a guitar-slinging showdown with his life at stake.  But if this was a showdown, I don’t foresee anyone capable of taking down such in-the-zone musical mastery.  A large enough allstar cast of Capetonian bluesmanship had taken the stage at one point to get every mojo workin’ in all of the Western Cape.  A crowd pleasing epitomizing set ended with not one, but three calls for encores.  The night ended in the coolest of fashions with Redeye Riaan’s spontaneous post-sweaty breakout of ‘Grinnin’ on Your Face’.  As if I wasn’t conflicted about returning home before (less than 2 weeks!), the pure awesomeness of the night left me more bummed than ever about leaving a music scene capable of putting on hoedowns like this, and yet proud to originate where the land of the Bootleg Boogie came from.