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Review of Jug Fusion's “Box Set”

by DAVE X at http://startlingmoniker.wordpress.com/

As STARTLING MONIKER readers can probably tell by now, I don’t do a whole lot of broadcasting or reviewing outside the world of experimental music. This isn’t a reflection of my personal taste, as much as it is a choice to focus on one thing, and attempt to do it well. There’s so much music– even among the limited-run, cdr-friendly fringe world experimental works inhabit– that I rarely have the feeling of being constrained. Every now and then, though, I take a week or two to broadcast my “vacation” shows. These are where I allow myself the freedom to play from any genre, any style, and share all sorts of unheard music with my listeners. It’s truly surprising what sorts of things are unheard, or underrepresented on radio– you can hear a “classic” Aerosmith cut on practically any part of the dial, but their recent blues album “Honkin’ on Bobo” barely got played. To hear radio tell it, Aerosmith disbanded after “Love in an Elevator,” but reformed to record the Armageddon theme “I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing.”

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with all this.

My main point is that normal radio sucks. I’d say “corporate” radio, but even the little not-for-profit community station I volunteer for is part of some sort of corporation, so clearly, this word doesn’t mean much. Normal radio not only misses out on handfuls of decent albums by gigantic bands, but has never even heard of the thousands of fantastic albums released by ordinary folks. One example is the Jug Fusion “Box Set” album currently sitting in front of me. Released by cigar box guitar fanatic (and National Cigar Box Guitar Museum curator) Shane Speal’s Insurrection Records label; the album is an amazing construction of blues, rock, surf, and the kitchen sink– er, washtub. It has also been one of the most exciting albums I’ve heard in a long time.

I need to frame this statement a bit. You see, I’m incredibly picky about what blues I listen to. I’ve read enough books and liner notes to know who I’m supposed to like, but the trouble is that I just can’t seem to get with that program. I always end up enjoying the dirtiest, oldest, scariest, most raw things I can find. Son House, Robert Johnson, RL Burnside, and Blind Willie Johnson thrill me to death– but if BB King showed up on my porch, I’d be more interested in his blood sugar than hearing him play another beautiful solo. Honestly, what do you expect from a Merzbow fan?

Anyhow, the first thing I see on this disc is a cover of “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” the Blind Willie Johnson song so amazing it is now floating outside the solar system on the Voyager spacecraft record. Then I spy a medley with Miserlou in it, and since Dick Dale will forever be the king of surf rock– well, let’s just say I was pleased. Don’t even get me started on the instrumentation. Cigarbox guitars, paint-bucket drumsets, Hammond organ, sitar, megaphones, and blown amps are just a handful of the fine instruments; hence the back cover promise: “sounds like the Fat Albert Gang on acid!” Indeed.

And what a mighty blues freakout it is! A well-recorded thick sound of raw slide guitar, walloping drums, lazer sounds, you name it– these are the relatives Jack and Meg White hide from at the holidays, too ashamed to meet their steely gaze. I can see it now: “We had paint buckets and and torn-up Kustom amps. You had a million bucks. How come your last album sucked so bad?”

Well, I did say I was picky. So, instead of flaming me about your love for Jack and Meg’s latest feed-the-hipster colored vinyl EP, get on over to Insurrection Records and educate yourself.

Update: Jug Fusion’s “Box Set” album (and merch) are currently available online through Dark Holler Mailorder. Pick up a Uton album while you’re there for a freakout of a different order.

Jug Fusion
Published: May 2005
Story: Jeff Royer
Photo: press photo

FLY MAGAZINE (Lancaster/York PA)

“The last thing I want to be is a usual bar band,” says Jug Fusion frontman Shane Speal.

Then I’ve got really good news, buddy. You’re a regular freak show.

Jug Fusion’s music is the sound of a spurned lover dragging a body in a sack through the swamp under a full moon. It’s sinister, earthy and wound up like a top, with a gut-shaking twang that makes you want to throw back a shot of whiskey and get yourself to the confessional on the double.

Speal has his own name for it: prim-rock.

“Prim stands for ‘primitive’ or ‘primal,’” he explains, “but Jug Fusion is a rock band. We play some old blues, but we play some modern ass-kickers. I want to create something new.”

The star of Jug Fusion’s show is Speal’s homemade “cigar box guitar,” a truly curious little creation that basically boils down to two or three guitar strings stretched over a stick anchored onto a wooden cigar-box body. The end result looks more like a crude weapon from “Gangs of New York” than a musical instrument. It sounds like it could do you some harm too, all growling and menacing like a bear in its cave.

“When you’re banging away on three strings – and I use a sparkplug socket for a slide – when you just have a homemade cigar box guitar and you’re just beating on it, that’s the sound that comes out,” Speal says proudly.

Speal’s got tons of ’em. He’s a cigar box guitar collector (he’s got about 50 in his possession right now, some of which date back to 1884), a cigar box guitar maker (he’s made hundreds of them since he began in 1993), and probably the world’s biggest advocate for one of the world’s smallest music niches.

As the leader of Jug Fusion, he’s also the world’s most famous prim-rock guitarist, although that isn’t saying a whole lot. The genre, he admits, is still in its infancy.

“If you listen to old recordings from the ’20s and ’30s, that music was upbeat. In fact, a lot of the jug band stuff was risqué. It was party music. It was just having a great time,” he says. “Now, Jug Fusion, we’re a little bit more spooky. But it’s still just rocking it. I want to look like Angus Young with a cigar box guitar.”

Joining Speal in Jug Fusion are Muddog, a heavy metal addict who rocks out on a two-string cigar box bass, and Gus Aguirre, who triggers the drums with his feet while playing a guitar of his own.

It probably goes without saying that the band is quite the spectacle live. A trashcan full of guitars, a drum set made out of plastic tubs, a PA system that looks like it’s been through a World War – this isn’t your grandfather’s jug band.

“What are you gonna see? You’re gonna see something you would see on a street corner in New Orleans, except more demented,” Speal chuckles. “It’s the Fat Albert gang on acid.

“We’re working up a medley of songs dedicated to this street preacher that comes to downtown York, and he clutches an eight-foot-high cross and he stands in the middle of town. His name is Reverend Jim,” he adds maniacally. “When the neo-Nazis came to downtown York two years ago, he showed up with his own mini PA system and drowned them out with preaching, spitting hellfire and damnation to ’em. That’s the sound we want – a street preacher in a little ratty PA system.”

Speal is aware that Jug Fusion seems a little sensational. He recognizes the novelty in playing guitars made of cigar boxes and growling out swampy blues tracks about Jesus. Regardless, he takes his avocation very seriously. In addition to founding the National Cigar Box Guitar Museum (currently located in West Virginia), Speal has founded an online forum and participated in the inaugural Cigar Box Guitar Festival in Carrollton, Kentucky. He’s made cigar box guitars for B.B. King, Ted Nugent and Jethro Tull, contributed music to Paris Hilton’s TV show, “The Simple Life,” and jammed onstage with the Presidents of the United States of America.

“I take it so seriously, I need to step back every once and a while and realize how absurd it is to walk out onstage with only three strings, a cigar box and a stick,” he laughs.

Jug Fusion has been on hiatus for a while (having babies will do that to a band), but will return in a big way this summer with a weekly gig at the White Rose Bar & Grill.

“People should show up and just have a ball when they see us. In fact, we’re going to keep a couple plastic buckets to the side for people to join in with the band,” Speal says. “We want to pull the people into this. We want everybody to get involved. This is something different. Let’s all have fun for once. Let’s make music fun again.”

If you really want to get involved, you can pick up your very own acoustic/electric cigar box guitar at the show for $150. Less enthusiastic concert-goers can grab a copy of Jug Fusion’s album, Box Set, or Speal’s new solo album, Surreal, which just happens to contain a song named after the White Rose itself.

“The first place I ever took my wife for a date was the White Rose Bar & Grill,” Speal grins.

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	Enter supporting content here Welcome to the all new Cigarboxguitar.com, a website built and maintained by Shane Speal. Thanks to Ivan Sucharski for the domain donation and fantastic how-to plans. Cigar Box Guitars: Join the Revolution.