The
Dickel Brothers play during happy hour at Berbati's
Pan every Friday, starting at 6 pm. No cover. All Dickel.
Over the past few years, Portland has borne witness as a small
gang of whiskey-swilling young men resolutely hauls its wild
hoot-'n'-holler folk revue from city sidewalks to basement
parties to stages of all kinds. While the barn-raising power
of its acoustic rabble-rousing continues to grow in popularity,
confusion persists: Who are the Dickel Brothers, exactly?
Let's begin with who they are not.
The Dickel Brothers are absolutely not another glassy-eyed
bluegrass outfit, though many have fired off that misguided
verdict based on the band's ingredients: fiddle, banjo,
mandolin, guitar and stand-up bass, with washboard seasonings
(optional). Nor are they fashionably rootsy country dudes,
though they do look right smart in those dark suits and
old-guy hats. And while they kick it out with punk verve,
the Dickel Brothers are not one more piddling "alternative"
to anything.
They're not even brothers.
Between me, you and the fencepost, it doesn't matter what
the Dickel Brothers' respective birth certificates say.
When you hear them, it's clear as a new day's dawn that
these boys all share a blood calling to play old-time music
and a primal attraction to the hillbilly, gospel, blues,
country and Cajun that boiled out of the rural South during
the Great Depression.
"I feel like I have nothing to do with what is going on
today," explains fiddling wonder Clancy Dickel. "And everything
that is, was--everything that has happened, did happen with
string-band music."
With EmPty Records' recent release of Volume One,
the Dickel Brothers' first full-length recording, the world
is poised to take a swig off the bottle the Dickels have
passed around Portland since 1996, when Matt Dickel and
his spiritual brother Joel began busking the streets with
raw, breathless folk. Joel left Matt to carry the familial
old-time torch alone for a full year. Then, Clancy surfaced.
Before long, the heat rising from the duo's throwdowns at
the Delta Cafe and E.J.'s drew in a few other brothers.
Today, mandolinist Michael, Marcus on banjo, and stand-up
bassist Brian round out the brood, forming a five-piece
combo that brawls across any space it claims as a stage.
A recent show down in the Shanghai Tunnel saw Clancy swinging
by his knees from exposed plumbing, sawing fiddle and singing
at the same time. The Dickels stress that their barely contained
aggression springs directly from the bloody grooves of 78s
cut by dirt-poor musicians before the war--World War II,
that is.
"It's really the purest form of folk," says Brian Dickel.
"It was a necessity. People worked hard, and they needed
an outlet. That's what attracted me to old-time. In the
'60s and '70s, a lot of hippies picked up on the old-time
vibe. I think now we're looking at it from this other angle
and revitalizing the fact that it is a people's music."
Matt Dickel's two cents' worth is a bit more blunt: "We're
taking the whole rowdier side to it. We're not taking the
laid-back, pot-smoking side."
Michael Dickel is ready to take up this line of attack
on the jam-grass phenomenon as well. "There's a certain
amount of energy in old-time that just isn't found in the
acoustic music that's going on today in our culture," he
says. "Most acoustic music today is all about being mellow,
and old-time is not about that. It's about energy and intensity."
That intensity makes EmPty Records perfect for the band.
While the Seattle imprint won its spurs releasing fully
amped rock, now it has latched on the Dickels' distillation
of punk's outsider spirit.
Volume One stomps, shouts and reels with impressive
virtuosity. It creeps along shadowy forest footpaths and
sails straightaway into the starry night sky of a never-known
past, scintillating with mystery, reeking of drink and smirking
with Saturday-night carelessness. It's a testament that
speaks of lonely graves, distant trains and spilled liquor.
The instinctive savagery apparent in the Dickels' live performances
is nurtured in the studio, creating a sound that's a little
more even but just as raw.
The Dickels' greatest accomplishments on Volume One
are their two originals, "The Sinners Have Come" and "When
I Die." With finely turned phrases of crooked spirituality,
these songs sidle admirably up alongside time-honored standards
like "House Carpenter" and "New River Train."
Of course, success is to be expected of guys with such
a thirst for knowledge. Talk to the Dickels, and they'll
be quick to inform you that old-time was considered antique
even in the 1920s, that it's the product of traditions rooted
in the countries from which early Americans emigrated. When
the discussion turns into a debate over the fine points
separating revisionist and traditionalist old-time, ask
a Dickel for a slug off his flask and ease the conversation
to a different, but related, topic. You don't have all night.
But don't mistake this zeal for didactic dullness. "We're
having a good time," says Matt Dickel, "and people should
know that. If we're going to be playing together for 10
years, people are still going to be able to see us on the
street corner for free. That's the way it's going to be.
It's still the people's music. It always was public domain.
And that's us. We're public domain."
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Willamette Week | originally
published July 7, 1999
|
