On the third Monday of every month, the Ramblin Jug Stompers hold court in the cozy confines of the dining-room-cum-stage of Tess’ Lark Tavern, the old-school saloon in the heart of Albany’s Center Square. There, the Stompers—Wild Bill, Bowtie, Cousin Clyde, and Mr. Eck—dispense timeless old-timey songs with a remarkably fresh approach.
Who are these mysteriously nicknamed folks?
To anyone familiar with the Capital Region music scene, the Stompers’ stage names don’t do much to hide their prominence. Two of the foursome come from one of the most famous homegrown groups of the past 30 years, the renowned band of aliases, Blotto, whose infectious 1980 tune “I Wanna Be a Lifeguard” was on MTV the very first day the station aired, and went on to became a cult classic. Follow-up hit “Metal Head” scored on MTV too, and the band toured with Blue Oyster Cult. To Blotto faithful, the Stompers’ Wild Bill will always be lead singer Sarge Blotto, and Bowtie, guitarist and vocalist Bowtie Blotto.
Today, far from rock-star fame, all of the Stompers hold down day jobs. Wild Bill, when he isn’t wielding vocals, washboard, and harmonica, is Greg Haymes, longtime pop music writer for the Albany Times Union, and conceptual and installation artist G.C. Haymes. As Bowtie, Paul Jossman is the band’s banjo player, vocalist, and resident wise guy; by profession, he’s a computer programmer for MapInfo. Mr. Eck, holder of the jug (along with mandolin and dobro duties), is Michael Eck, a Times Union music and theater critic, and weekday host of “Performance Place” on WAMC/Northeast Public Radio. Eck, who started his musical life in the punk band The Plague, is a singer/songwriter with three solo albums. Finally, there’s guitar and kazoo aficionado Cousin Clyde—Steven Clyde, a computer programmer with his own long musical resume. He’s toured with Commander Cody, Richie Havens, and Eddie Angel, formed the Albany band Rumdummies, and plays bass at reunion gigs for—you guessed it—Blotto.
Haymes, Jossman, and Clyde go back more than 35 years, when they were founding members of the Star Spangled Washboard Band, an early precursor of today’s Jug Stompers. The Washboard Band, which Haymes describes as a “hippie electric comedy bluegrass jug band,” was itself an outgrowth of the 1960s jug-band revival led by Dave Van Ronk and Jim Kweskin. In the 1920s and ’30s, jug bands were rural combos that employed homemade instruments such as (besides the jug, of course) the washboard, washtub bass and gourd guitar. The Ramblin Jug Stompers (the first word of their name has no apostrophe) blend both original and revival styles into a strong cup of joe. Their website, www.jugstompers.com, describes the sound as “78 rpm music for the 21st century.”
The group performs as a true ensemble, with no designated frontman, though Bowtie does tend to introduce most of the songs. Each has his own persona: Eck is the multi-instrumentalist, Bowtie the clever quipster, Clyde the quiet one, Bill the ironic sage. All are willing and able onstage foils, depending on who’s doing the talking. Though less than two years old, the Stompers have quickly created a buzz musically. They’ve been in residency at the Lark Tavern since January 2006, and play often in the region and out. In addition to numerous small festivals, town libraries, and colleges, they’ve played Troy Music Hall, WAMC’s Linda Norris Auditorium, Tulipfest, Larkfest, and Club Helsinki, and often gig more than once in a week. Their live CD, Crooked Songs, was recorded last year at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs.
It was a brisk Monday night at the Lark Tavern when we sat on metal chairs on the sidewalk patio, watching a cop car’s flashing red lights pull someone over directly in front of us. Often the conversation strayed far from the questions, perhaps explaining why they’re called “ramblin.” The spirited exchange was punctuated by frequent interruptions, asides, and diversions, which began even before the first question was asked:
Bowtie: So the name of the band is Bowtie and the Jug Stompers.
David Malachowski (ignoring him): How did you guys get together, and why?
Wild Bill: It was Mr. Eck’s fault, actually.
Silence.
Wild Bill (looking at Mr. Eck with disappointment): When I throw you the set up, you take it! It’s the folksingers’ code!
Mr. Eck: I was hired to produce a Dave Van Ronk tribute [in 2005]. I wanted to pay tribute to the Ragtime Jug Stompers album, which Van Ronk put out in ’63—it was the most punk-rock record you could imagine in jug band music. I thought “who better for a jug band than these guys,” so I called up Wild Bill and said, “Do you think Bowtie would be down with this?” and once they were on board, I said, “What about Cousin Clyde?” That [Van Ronk] show got canceled, [but] we had already booked an art carnival. We had so much fun at that gig that we proceeded.
DM: Some of you have a history of being in other jug bands, don’t you?
Wild Bill: The three of us [gestures to Bowtie and Cousin Clyde] were original members of the Star Spangled Washboard Band.
Bowtie: The famous Star Spangled Washboard Band. It was 1971 when we started.
Mr. Eck: I’d like to point out that I was six.
Bowtie: We auditioned for a gig at Gaslight Village [in Lake George, New York] and decided to change our name from the Blue Jug Grass Band, to something more likely to win favor with Charlie Wood [the owner of the venue].
Cousin Clyde: ’Cause we had a washboard spangled with stars.
Wild Bill: I do believe that we never called ourselves the Blue Jug Grass Band. It was a name under consideration. We thought perhaps it would not play to mainstream Lake George vacationers. So we sold out.
Bowtie: Of course. Whatever it took to play Gaslight Village. Six days a week, four gigs a day.
Wild Bill: We also got to play at the Tiki Lounge with Hurricane Hattie, and Frontier Town, with Wild Windy Bill McKay—Lake George legends.
DM: That wasn’t your only brush with history. Later, you were on the Mike Douglas television show. What happened there?
Wild Bill: Bowtie—this forever will be his moment in show-biz history—kissed Phyllis Diller on national television.
Bowtie: Yes, I did!
Wild Bill: She was wearing a grass skirt and playing a ukulele, and doing the hula as we performed “Ukulele Lady.”
Bowtie: I was singing the song, and Wild Bill and Broadway [Blotto] are singing background, and I was singing “and lips were meant to kiss,” so I look over at Phyllis Diller and give her the showbiz “get ready,” and I go over and she comes in…dry kiss.
Mr. Eck: No tongue?
Bowtie: No. But it was beautiful.
DM: Where did it go from there?
Mr. Eck: To sitting in front of the Lark Tavern!
Bowtie: We’re not talking about the Jug Stompers.
DM: We are now. You’ve seemed to have developed quite a scene. The place is packed, folks come and jam, spontaneity happens. Are you surprised at the success?
Wild Bill: Wait a minute—we’re successful?
Bowtie: People are naturally attracted to a washboard; it’s a magnetic kind of thing.
Wild Bill: You could put magnets on it, kinda like a refrigerator.
Cousin Clyde: First of all, the Lark Tavern is an ideally suited place to perform—lights, an elevated stage.
Mr. Eck: Even more important than that, Tess has created an atmosphere here for things like this to happen, things that have a bit of funkiness to them, a little bit of vibe.
Bowtie: We’ve invited a lot of friends to come sit in, and tried to create an open forum.
Mr. Eck: This is our laboratory.
Bowtie: We’ve had a lot of people sit in with us—you included, Malachowski. Kevin McKrell, Jim Gaudet, Rick Bedrosian, Luke McNamee, Eddie Angel, Frank Jaklitsch, Half-Naked, Almost Awake, Jill Stevenson, Ed Atkeson,
Ryder Cooley, Sarah Pedinotti.
Wild Bill: Actually we have a full page on our website which we call the Medal of Valor. If you step onstage with us, you’re hardy enough for the Medal of Valor.
DM: Between your jamming and all, there seems to be a lot of generosity going on—where you are encouraging others—and interaction, which doesn’t happen as much as it should.
Bowtie: If I may speak.
Mr. Eck: If you may stop! (Laughs.)
Wild Bill: Biggest laugh of the night!
Bowtie (resuming): We like to help the younger folks come up.
Mr. Eck: They’re all younger than Bowtie.
Wild Bill: That includes everyone …
Mr. Eck: … even Pete Seeger.
Cousin Clyde: It’s an opportunity to continue to learn more, and bounce ideas off people. It’s a very creative situation.
Bowtie: It creates community. I guess we’re not as cutthroat, step-on-everybody-on-the-way-up as—I used to be! (Laughs.)
DM: Often folks want attention and accolades, but don’t support others. Here, there seems to be encouragement and interaction. When someone sits in with you, they instantly become an honorary Jug Stomper.
Mr. Eck: That’s really part and parcel of what jug-band music always was, very inclusive, do-it-yourself. It was music anybody could play. There are all these examples of people saying, “If you get too good, it’s not really jug-band music.”
Wild Bill: It’s a jug band—by definition, it’s loose. Whoever joins in has got to become part of the band. The concept of bringing special guests up here at Tess’s is not so much to do a showcase, but to do a number or two and have us back them up, and then have them join in on a number or two of what we do. That’s the raison d’être of what we’re doing here.
Mr. Eck: And ideally, from the first note, the audience is part of the band.
Wild Bill: It’s like the audience is an equal part of this band.
Bowtie: That’s an interesting observation. I guess we envelop them.
Mr. Eck: It’s very inclusive. It’s meant to be fun, and none of the tunes we’re playing are rocket science.
DM: So what’s your favorite part?
Cousin Clyde: The groove. It’s a good groove. It’s not forced.
Wild Bill: The thing about playing with these guys [is], a lot of times I don’t think of it as a band as much as a social club. These are guys I love to hang out with.
Mr. Eck: I spent the majority of the past two decades performing, and now I’m entertaining. It took me awhile to come around to that. I’m really enjoying entertaining people, and doing it with these guys is a really good place to be. To have it be this much fun is just crazy.
Bowtie: We’re more about entertaining than making an artistic statement fraught with meaning.
Wild Bill: I disagree. I think laughter and joy is an important musical message.
All (impressed): WHOA!!
Mr. Eck: As I’ve become older, that’s what I most want out of music.
Wild Bill: The late Jackie Alper, of WRPI’s “Mostly Folk” show, once said she was thrilled that folk music was still viable in the 21st century, and that the act of singing an honest song was a political statement.
Bowtie: I want to play acoustic music now; this is the way I want to go out. Playing roots music. I want to become a legend, and so old that I have to play sitting down.
This article appears in November 2007.
