REVIEW: Broadside Electric, With Teeth
- Chris Candreva
I will state here at the outset that I have been friends with the drummer of Broadside Electric, Joe D'Andrea, for more than ten years now. This does not in any way effect my review, however, as I would have no problem saying "Gee Joe, your drumming is great as usual, but the rest of it is just plain awful !"
Luckily, With Teeth is far from awful.
Broadside Electric calls themselves a "progressive folk ensemble", and that is probably as good a description as any. The closest analogy in the pop world would probably be Traffic (one song did sound reminiscent of John Barleycorn Must Die ). However, they remind me strongly of the bands I heard in pubs in Ireland, playing traditional tunes.
Broadside Electric pulls their music not just from Ireland, but utilizing traditional songs from Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, England, France, Scotland, and Scandinavia. Not just pulls, but blends songs across various styles. An example: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm, a song about Anne Boleyn, is (obviously) of English origin, written in the early 1930's for Stanley Holloway. They perform it, however, as a Klezmer, complete with another Klezmer piece (_Ternovka Sher) as a solo in the middle.
Equally eclectic is their choice of instruments, which include the crumhorn, juice bottle caps (yes -- exactly what it says), tin whistles, a concertina, and a rauschpfiefe. Most prominent to their sound seems to be the Chapman Stick, a 10- or 12-stringed electric instrument which consists of a single long fretboard, played by hanging it from your belt and a shoulder strap and taping on the strings with both hands.
Broadside Electric has managed to secure distribution of With Teeth through Amazon.com, where you can here samples of all the tracks in RealAudio format. They also have a 1 minute montage of the tracks available from their web site, available in RealAudio ( http://www.broadside.org/audio/rm/teethmarks.ra ) and MP3 ( http://www.broadside.org/audio/mp3/teethmarks.mp3 ) formats. Rather than ramble on trying to describe the music, I will suggest visiting the sites above to sample the album for yourself, and end with the word of Jerry Pournelle:
Recommended.
