the hum / By Bob Doran

Take Something Old

Hillstomp’s bucket and slide blues, g’Earl power, David Jacobs-Strain

(Oct. 11, 2007)  A sticker on the new live CD byHillstomp describes them as a “bucket and slide duo,” a phrase that might be confusing, unless you’ve seen them play. Guitarist Henry Christian bars chords with a slide made from a metal tube. Drummer Johnny “Buckets” Johnson has a kit made mostly from plastic buckets, the kind you find in a restaurant kitchen. As the two musicians explained in a call from the front porch of Henry’s place in NE Portland, the band’s history goes back about five years to when Henry figured out how to reproduce the raw blues style he heard on some records he’d discovered by the late great Mississippi Fred McDowell.

“Once I realized he was playing in an open tuning with a slide, it got easier,” said Henry. And that’s when Johnny joined the fun playing buckets he appropriated from the seafood joint where they were both tending bar. The result was a rollicking, raucous sound they initially called “punk blues,” and eventually the pleasure of quitting their day jobs to become full-time musicians.

Hillstomp’s new live CD

GALLERY >

The After Two But Before Five album mixes blues classics like “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and “Stewball” with original neo-old-time blues like “NE Portland 3 a.m.,” where the singer is “running from the ghosts again,” and finding there’s “nothing sweeter in this world, than a blue-eyed Carolina girl.” Distortion in the mic furthers the impression that the music comes from some ancient source rather than a couple of modern young guys.

Their aim? “First and foremost we’re trying to show people a good time,” says John. “We make people feel good dancing their asses off so they can go home happy — but there’s more to it. We’re trying to take something old and make it new again in terms of music, in terms of the crap we play on and all that.”

Last time Hillstomp hit town it was opening for Devil Makes Three at the Jambalaya. This Sunday, Oct. 14, the Oregonian duo returns to the Jam as the headliner. Local honky tonk heroes Rooster McClintock open.

Also in the business of taking old music and making it new: Uncle Earl . The red-hot all g’Earl old timey/bluegrass band returns to HSU Tuesday, Oct. 16, for a show in the Kate Buchanan Room that will probably highlight tunes from their latest, Waterloo, Tennessee , named for a metaphoric town that may or may not exist. Local faves Huckleberry Flint open.

Another sort of duo, Gutpuppet , plays Thursday, Oct. 11, at Muddy’s Hot Cup. The two guys from L.A. describe themselves as an “Indo-swami-bluegrass-gypsy-raga-country-blues experiment.” Translation: Scot Ray plays Indian-style rags on various slide guitars, including one with 22 strings, while Bill Barrett adds color with his chromatic harmonica.

The music/dance review called Swing Night at the Blue Light pairs the dance troupe Rhythmically Challenged (the kids you’ve seen executing impressive swing-era dance moves) with the jazzy local band Magnolia . While the band learned seven tunes from the R.C. dance repertoire, the dancers choreographed seven of Magnolia’s original songs for the Thursday, Oct. 11, show at the Arkley Center. Sound like fun? It’s for a good cause: Making Headway’s work on prevention and treatment of traumatic brain injury.

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