Nice Interview with R. Crumb, mandolin player

[BradKlein]

It occurs to me that R. Crumb doesn't get many mentions on the Cafe, in spite of being one of the most widely known folks to pick and 8-string. There's a nice new interview with him

>>>HERE<<< (http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/robert-crumb-interview)

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which contains this nice YT video


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxm6EaWPC-A

which contains a shout out to the great Elmer Bird… a mandolin player who, to be honest, I've never heard of before. I guess I have some learnin' to do.

[Astro]

Thanks, I enjoyed that. Not sure why. Reminds me too of how much I miss my old albums, LPs, and those delicious stereophonic empty quiet spaces of the record player. And just the right amount of noodling around and fuss for your music. Now that its pervasive and so easy, spending time with music sometimes seems cheaper and less special somehow.

Then again, how nice to surf the net for what you want to hear. I want my nostalgia and future too.

[Larry S Sherman]

He has a new album (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Robert-Crumb-Jerry-Zolten-New-CD-R-Crumb-cover-Chimpin-The-Blues-/261329284223) coming out.

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NFI

Larry

[OldSausage]

I don't like that stuff at all, but I still find it fascinating.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Don Julin wrote a tune "Mr. Natural" inspired by an R. Crumb character...

GTELGGT7JTI#t=20

[JeffD]

I have a few Cheap Suit Serenaders LPs in the stack somewhere.

I like how he praised that straight forward mandolin style. Playing to play the music.

[Paul Busman]

R. Crumb....I think I'm havin' a flashback, man....

Neat interview, and a whole other side of Crumb I never knew about.

[BradKlein]

I had to look up the word, atavism.

1. a : recurrence in an organism of a trait or character typical of an ancestral form and usually due to genetic recombination
b : recurrence of or reversion to a past style, manner, outlook, approach, or activity <architectural atavism>

[bmac]

Crumbs work sends a shot of adrenalin shooting through me. He surrounds himself with energy whether his own or other peoples. Kind of always on the edge, never or rarely in the center.

But I wish he would stop talking about me.

[David Lewis]

His book on country, blues and jazz heroes is essential.

[ides1056]

Never get tired of hearing Mike on the mandocello, particularly in such illustrious company. Fine. Very.

[stevedenver]

I like Robert Crumb, his art, and, this appreciation of the more esoteric side of old time , 20's and pre-tin pan alley.

There is the fact that his art and his musical interests reflect the common and something so everyman, so familiar, and highlights the details of it, raw, human, vulgar (in the latin origins of the word sense) and plain out in the open , is great.

It is also unusual that given his age, his generation (and mine for that matter) this is a interesting link to the past, that is no longer as readily available for others to be exposed to in the regular course of cultural media (ie old movies on TV, etc), as he mentions, (old Laurel and Hardy, little Rascals, and other Hollywood movies that depicted the US and it culture in the twenties and thirties).

[bmac]

I think his work strikes a chord in a lot of people, certainly his vintage records, and I would think his own playing of vintage as well. Certainly he (and others) lifted the comic strip up to a kind of "art" form, designed to confront rather than "please". If a person is interested in art as a soothing past time they are knocking at the wrong door. A very interesting person.... I think an artist in the best sense.

[Bernie Daniel]

I don't like that stuff at all, but I still find it fascinating.

I kind of agree with you on that. Two other mandolinists who are really into tracking all that old music down and cataloging it, in addition to this guy Crumb, (who, heretofore, I was not familiar with) is the old Taterbug hisownself, Mike Compton, his buddy and David Long. They really know and collect this music.

[bjewell]

Robert and I are old housemates. I remember December 1968 when he wrote up "Snatch" comics -- a small quickie. I collated and stapled a quick 500 copies and took them around Frisco and sold them, mostly to porn shops. "Freezing their butts off but what do they care..."

[Glassweb]

I'll trade my Loar for some original vintage Crumb if anyone out there is a collector...

[bjewell]

I'll trade my Loar for some original vintage Crumb if anyone out there is a collector...

You should contact Robert...

[Jim Garber]

Back in the 1980s, Crumb gave a talk at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. After the lecture we all went to the cafeteria where The Cheap Suit Serenaders gave a concert. Great stuff...

[stevedenver]

I fell in love first, ile others with the Big Brother Cheap Thrills album cover, and then I was exposed to a huge number of the original snatch, zap, Fritz, mr natural and others. Besides general and delightful purient and outrageous comedy, and the sheer weird fantasy, there was the ability to observe and comment on it via the comics. Up until then, there was nothing like it. A great reflection of the times and SF street culture.

Ah, adolescence. Anything that was shocking, for its own sake, and so completely 'anti' was in itself a treat, not unlike an underage beer or smoke.

[JeffD]

Its up to us to resurrect it.

[Randy Smith]

Recommended (and inexpensive) if you haven't seen them: Crumb's three sets of playing cards of old-time, blues, and jazz musicians.

[stevedenver]

Don Julin's piece Mr Natural is superb, and , indeed fitting for the old Sage his ownsef

thank you mr Sheen for posting, and thanks to Mr Julin and friends- I really enjoyed it.

and in "Crumb speak"

thas the biggest ol' f style mandocello ah ever seen

this thread inspired me to buy a book of R Crumbs album artwork, which is pretty wonderful, as are the collector playing cards (I have the blues set)

[Glassweb]

You should contact Robert...

From what I hear he's not into this type of mandolin. He likes 'em funky. Also he's long ago traded all of his classic, vintage stuff. But hell, if you have a contact for him please let him know.