So Long, Jamey Hamm

June 6, 2016June 6, 2016 / jodycallahan / Leave a comment

Empty Stage_edited 2

It seems an apt tune as I reboot this little blog o’ mine. And, so, my apologies to the two or three of you that read this. Since the last time I wrote in these pages, Brooklyn has lost some good folks. It began with Matt “Cracked” Frye who’s down North Carolina way now. Then ol’ Alex Mallett wandered west to Kansas City. Trisha Ivy went on back to Tennessee. Now it’s Jamey “Brother” Hamm’s turn. He, his wife, and their brood have pulled up stakes, and as of this writing they are currently ‘Bama bound. Everybody’s going home, it feels like.

Jamey “Brother” Hamm

While these folks were making their exits, I was working a lot at the shitty day job, keeping up with a nice gal, and trying to write a book. The blog fell to the side. There wasn’t any time for checking out bands, then writing, then editing, then putting together a multimedia post. Then the nice gal fell by the side. We hired new help at the day job, and I’m working less. So, now I’m in danger of having too much time on my hands. In the interim, I was sad to watch these musicians go. And, yeah, sad about the nice gal, too. It felt like the life I had built myself through TRS was dissipating. I suppose in actuality it was. I accept it, though. Not just because I have to, but because I understand it. The people of your life, they are a river. It’s like when ol’ Vonnegut wrote those three little words that sum up the whole of our personal experience in this world. You remember. He wrote, “So it goes.”

Celebratin’ Brother Hamm

I’ll miss the music of those fine singers and players. And the conversation. But Jamey’s going home is a big one. His band Barefoot & Bankside got this blog started. On May 29^th, a Sunday, he had himself a farewell show at Littlefield in Gowanus. It was, like most solidifying moments, bittersweet. Brother Hamm had been here for almost a decade, and in that time had made a substantial mark on the Brooklyn Americana music scene. Literally everyone I’ve written about in these pages can be traced back to having met Jamey “Brother” Hamm at his coffee shop, Roots Café, in South Slope, which he made a nexus of southern/Americana culture in Brooklyn.

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His farewell show was itself a musical history of Brother Hamm’s Brooklyn tenure. Beginning with a gospel duo he had started upon first moving here, he went on to fill the stage a la Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” with many of the performers he’d worked with through the years. It was, in short, a kickass night. A good way to see him off, as he’d picked the most appropriate way to see us off. I’ll miss him. I’ll miss all of them. So it goes.

Amanda of Barefoot & Bankside, and soon to be Amanda of just Amanda (She’s playing Threes Brewing June 22^nd in a solo capacity.), now owns Roots Café with her husband. It’s where I do most of my writing, and I get to watch her welcome new folks to the neighborhood, to Brooklyn, to NYC. She makes them feel welcome. That’s a thing that doesn’t really happen to most of those fresh off the bus.

Possessed By Paul James

And wouldn’t you know it, as I was wondering if I should restart this blog, a friend let me know that Possessed By Paul James is in town. I found this musical entity when I first started this blog and fell in love with his album “There Will Be Nights When I’m Lonely.” He’s out of Texas. And he don’t get much out of the Texas area, but for one night he was in Brooklyn. And I went to go to see him. And once again I was happy to see and hear an artist representing the absolute best of the South. I found myself back on that road home, that road that is home. It’s like when ol’ Robert Frost said those three little words that sum up the whole of human life. He said, “It goes on.”

Y’all have a good’n!

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IVY. BECK. NEILL. DESK (THAT IS TINY).

January 20, 2015January 20, 2015 / jodycallahan / Leave a comment

Last week The Road Southern was honored, thrilled and prouder’n all hell to shoot Ivy, Beck, and Neill’s Tiny Desk Contest entry! Well, intrepid photog Andreea shot the video expertly. I just held the stick that had a magical pointy-looky machine on top, but I did it like a goddamn demon warrior hell bent on saving the whole friggin’ world from its ugly self is all!

Behold, y’all!

And stay tuned (can you say that on the internet? Stay bookmarked?), because TRS has a kickass interview with that “Cracked” Mother Fucker Matt Frye a’coming!

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A Young Lady Sings The Blues

November 10, 2014 / jodycallahan / 5 Comments

The first time I saw Mary-Elaine Jenkins walk on stage I almost balked. TRS was at Goodbye Blue Monday to see Matt Frye. His set had ended, and I was starving. I ordered a cheap beer and a cheap burger. Intrepid photog, Andreea, and I shot the shit with Mr. Frye and his wife Rivka. Andreea snapped my favorite pic of me. It is a testament to her ability that she makes me and a junk store/bar look like a couple of class acts. Believe me, GBM is no swanky joint, and I am not that well put together.

Andreea makes me look not dumb looking.

The intrepid photog leaves. Matt and Rivka depart. I am alone with the burger I neglected to eat while chatting. Just off stage I notice a young blonde woman and a guitar strapped to her back. Cute, attractive, young—have I said young, yet? A few of her girlfriends pony up to the bar. All young, all pretty. I’m getting a sorority-sister vibe. I try to finish my burger before her set begins. To brace myself before she goes on I Google her. Blues singer. And, yes, this inevitable thought runs through my mind, “So, this pretty little white girl is going to attempt the blues.” I decide to stay for the first song so that I might have a funny little anecdote to add to my dinner party repertoire.

The first note of the first song… There came from her a smoky voice, a depth that belied her winsome face. But for that youthful angelic visage I had to turn my gaze. I stared down at my shoes for the length of her set, and did what you’re supposed to do with music. I listened. Her original songs were good; studied, deeply felt, and honest. Mary-Elaine did not put on airs. She announced her next tune as a Tom Waits cover. I thought, “Ok, little girl, you’re good, but let’s not overstep.” She sang Chocolate Jesus, and she sang it true. She found the soulful rhythms, and she found the dry, yet tongue-in-cheek humor. She succeeded in the one aspect of Tom Waits covering that many other talented professional and wannabe musicians fail at. She made no more of the song than what it is.

After her set, I gave her my card. After I left, I felt like a fool.

Mary-Elaine did not overcome the obstacle of being young, or being pretty to prove to me or whoever that she is a legit musician. She is talented. She is soulful as any, because any can be. “Pretty little white girl.” That was not the platform from which she ascended. That was me being an ass, me being a pretentious fuck who, if I’m being honest, thinks, though “believing” otherwise, that gender, race, and age cannot be transcended through music, or art. I am an ass, a pretentious fuck, which is what I would call any who told me I’m just some little white trash boy from the trailer park, and that my ability to speak well, or write well is but a cute trick of luck.

In some email exchanges Ms. Jenkins let me know she comes by her music, which she called spooky-sultry (which I like), from living in Savannah, Ga and hanging around the local guitar shop. That’ll do it. She told me some of her influences are Lucinda Williams, Bonnie Raitt, and Cat Power. I believe it.

After the first set, I knew I wanted to write about her (However, I didn’t think it’d turn into an apology), but I wanted to see a second show. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t wrong in thinking all the “more than a pretty young face” is worth the time it takes to write these posts (They take me longer than you‘d think. Because, I’m dumb, but a hard worker.). We saw her at Strong Place in Cobble Hill. I was nervous, nervous that Andreea would give me a queer look when the young, pretty singer walked in. I was, despite all the above well intentioned admittance and righteous self-deprecation, worried that I might have been entranced by beauty, and merely wishful in her merits as a songstress. Learning doesn’t always mean growing, folks. She came in with her guitar strapped to her back. Kindly, she said, hi, to myself and Andreea, and thanked us for coming. Some boys bellied up to the bar nearer to her. Andreea took her camera and flitted about the performer as she’s wont to do. I’m looking at the pretty, young girl thinking all the dumb thoughts from the night at GBM, not seeing her. She sings her song. I avert my eyes, gaze at my shoes, and listen. That’s her. And I am right about how good she is, and I am right about how dumb and unfair I can be, and I am grateful for the music and the lesson by the young woman and her you-done-me-wrong songs.

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Cracked Out

September 29, 2014 / jodycallahan / 3 Comments

I have been hoping to see a Matt “Cracked” Frye show since I first saw his short set at Roots Family Reunion. TRS finally caught up to him at Goodbye Blue Monday. GBM is an old stomping ground of mine from my early, miserable days in Brooklyn. I lived a few stops down on the J train from the eclectic venue near the Halsey Station, the east side of Bushwick. Back then all of B-wick was hood. I laid in a tiny room I was renting terrified that I would never find a job. Sometimes I think I heard gun shots. If I left my building after midnight there’d be drug dealers posted on the street corners, and prostitutes displaying themselves along Broadway. One time a thick, busty lady of the night was trickin’ out in the rain in a next-to-nothing tube top and skirt. To would-be johns she called out, “I’m already wet, baby, let’s have a good time!” She politely refused my umbrella.

In winter, at our nation’s brokest time I was standing in job lines next to Harvard grads, and ex-Wall Street employees. We were all waiting in the freezing cold, the snow and slush for some janitorial type job. All of us turned down for some congenial 20-something. Disappointed and crestfallen, I’d return home to that little more than a closet of a bedroom and despair over the possibility of having to return to my home in Georgia and move back in with my mama. Survival in this economically bullying city seemed an impossibility. There were many nights of distress.

Five-six years later, I’m back in Bushwick enjoying the hell out of a Matt Frye show. A good quality beer in my hand, at the joint that used to be my haven for free entertainment and $3 PBR on tap. I arrived a little late because GBM is now out of the way of my new digs where I’ve yet to hear a gunshot in the night. Andreea, intrepid photographer, was already snapping away at Matt. Mr. Frye stuck out like a sore thumb at the Roots Family Reunion show, but there amid GBM’s antique junk, bad art, and random curios he looked more in his element.

I have described his music before, here. So, give that a look over and/or give a listen to the music posted here.

Matt is from North Carolina. Charlotte. I was surprised to learn he started out in electronic music down there, which knowing how the majority of southern folks are, I’m sure it was in some way a “fuck you” to his surroundings, to his culture. My culture. Our culture. Then he moved to NYC, and out came the Americana, the Appalachian folkie with the Woody Guthrie “trick” in his voice. Back home, my home, his home, shoddy lip-serviced tradition and commonality are shoveled upon one in heaps. It is no wonder we slide into our punk states of mind. A lot of who I am is because looking at my trailer park neighbors then, I only had one image of myself in mind for the future. Anyone but them.

That’s why books and Leonard Cohen instead of football and Garth Brooks. That’s why rap music and dressing gangsta—until that became socially acceptable to the rednecks who wanted nothing to do with black people as individuals, but would steal and appropriate, as ever, their culture. After that that’s why I wore chokers, and long hair. Because, wild aimless expression over agreement, over broken polite-society. I wonder what that proto-Jody would think of me now as I have succeeded in making it out of that town and into NYC only to seek out southern/country culture. I would tell him whether he realizes it or not, (he didn’t) he was seeded by those things he swore himself against. He could let those seeds germinate and take root in that place of lip-serviced tradition and broken polite-society, and become just another. He didn’t. Or, he could hold them close instead, buck the trends and traditions, give himself to the wind and see what new things can come of old seeds in other worlds. He can cull from the old a new purpose, new point of view, unhindered by tradition, un-buffered by commonality.

Of course, Matt “Cracked” Frye chose that old folkie sound. Maybe he heard it as a babe, or a young man, but knew that it was America’s original “fuck you” music. They were bucking against government, and social norms/injustice well before rap, rock and roll, and even country western music. Of course, he imbued it with a modern urban punk sensibility. Of course he stuck out like a sore thumb before that crowd that came to Roots Family Reunion to hear that traditional old-timey music with their friends from church. He’s an intelligent, kind and funny man, but he’s also one cracked motherfucker. What the hell else was he gonna do?

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Roots Family Pictorialathonarama!

August 2, 2014August 2, 2014 / jodycallahan / 1 Comment

A Night of Song and Feast and Miller High Lifes

Pics by badass rad assassin Andreea Radulescu

Join us, won’t you?

Roots Family Reunion is a night of celebration for the tight knit community of South Slope (and beyond) musicians, artists and proprietors. These photos are from the 4th annual iteration, and The Road Southern was damn happy bear witness to it!

God and Country!

Even God made an appearance to show support! But, then got way too drunk, way too early. I mean, He was ok. He didn’t do anything terrible, per se. It was just weird, I guess. A little too rowdy for the room, maybe.

Bambarger, Hair products for your face!

Bambarger‘s beard products looked so fine that despite having shaved that morning, I forced out a beard on the spot. Hurt like a son of a bitch, but thanks to them, I have the finest beard in Brooklyn. Go get your beard did!

Moon Shine

That Moon in full shine.

They have write ups in New York Mag, and Time Out New York and everything, y’all!

Flirt Boutique. I was hoping this was a kissing booth.

The Cornell Bros.

Write your parents. They’re worried. They only know Brooklyn from the movies.

A little Ryan Hamm of the Barnyard Brothers, and Justin Kilburn surprising the hell out of me on steel guitar. (pictured right)

Ladies and gents, Gypsy George!

Matt Frye, whose music tickles my soul, and Chris Q Murphy who may become my Virgil through BK Country.

Barefoot & Bankside. Jamey Hamm is the man who puts Roots Family Reunion together. Thank ‘im when you see ‘im.

Kinda feeling like I should be paying my photographer.

And Miss Trisha Ivy. I swear, I never would have thought a voice could be caught on camera.

A Little Closer To Home

July 29, 2014August 1, 2014 / jodycallahan / 2 Comments

Inside it reads, “Helluva show! It was right dumb of you not to be here. Love, TRS”

I enjoyed very much the Roots Family Reunion, and soon will be posting a pictorial w/ links and all the trimmings so you can have a sit down, sip your whiskey, and fall to pieces when you realize what a great show you missed.

While that’s in the works, I want to write about a very excellent find in the musical stylings of Matt Frye. He came on stage in sneakers, shorts, t-shirt and a raccoon hat. He looked like a dork, and the audience at large seemed to deem him off-putting, and it appeared as though they deemed him so throughout. I loved him. His music is better suited to venues like Goodbye Blue Monday (a refuge in my early, miserable Brooklyn days) than ones filled with more earnest country singers, bluegrass pickers, and southern rockers. Not to say that musically he had no place. I hear Hank in him, and Woody, and more personal to me, David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. There’s a seeming jackass on stage. Like early Ween, he gives the appearance that he doesn’t take any of this seriously when in fact his music is quite skillful, and his lyrics are more carefully worded and meted out than their humor and cheekiness let on.

He also achieves something that I hope these others in BK Country will see to follow suit. He allows Brooklyn to influence his roots music directly. There was nothing wrong with the rest of the lineup, but in this BK Country scene it is as though these musicians mean to steadfastly preserve the sound and conventions of their roots music. They give a spirited exhibition of proficiency and exactitude when some recklessness and a sense of fuck-all could get the crowd closer to the stage. And I get it. It’s the sound and music of their home. It’s who they were growing up, and is engrained in their identity as well as who they see themselves to be. If this wannabe writer who cannot play any instrument or carry a tune in a bucket could impart some advice, it would be this. Brooklyn happened on your way to country greatness. Your lives here are made unique in regards to your stay-at-home counterparts. You have trains, taxis, and every walk of life at your door step. You gave up pick-up trucks and porch sittin’, and all those easy “simple times” to grind and hustle, to be met with every form of rejection both personal and professional in order to earn some hard won breath catching moments. Open up them big ol’ hearts to Brooklyn, she’ll only love you for it.

matt frye LIVE _ livin’ at joann’s from Hilo Media on Vimeo.

But, anyway.

Matt Frye’s music made me remember sitting in front of our tv as a kid, that big ol’ glass tube encased in finished wood. Cable finally became affordable to us trailer park dwellers. On MTV a man named Dr. Demento had a music video program that showcased all the smart asses and goofballs of the music world. Some novelties, like the Fish Heads song. Others were musical geniuses that the world was not then ready for and so relegated to the weirdo bin. I discovered Weird Al Yankovic, They Might Be Giants, The Dead Milkmen, Camper Van Beethoven, and mother fucking DEVO. I discovered that I was a weirdo, too. It was good to know we had anthems. It’s like Leonard Cohen sang, “Clenching your fist for the ones like us, who are oppressed by the figures of beauty. You fixed yourself, you said ‘Well, never mind. We are ugly, but we have the music.’” So, I’m glad Matt Frye is out there reminding us to fuck the norm.

And here’s a little bonus music.

	Emily Windham on The Real Thing
	P.W. on Spaghetti del Alma
	P.W. on Down With The Sickness
	Spaghetti del Alma \|… on The Monster & Mary-El…
	The Monster & Ma… on A Young Lady Sings The Bl…

The Road Southern

A Trek Into Brooklyn's Southern Culture

matt cracked frye

So Long, Jamey Hamm

IVY. BECK. NEILL. DESK (THAT IS TINY).

A Young Lady Sings The Blues

Cracked Out

Roots Family Pictorialathonarama!

A Night of Song and Feast and Miller High Lifes

Pics by badass rad assassin Andreea Radulescu

A Little Closer To Home