The great George Edward "Rube" Waddell (1876-1914) was a fire engine chasing, hard drinking, alligator wrestling,baton twirling eccentric pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 to 1910.
RUBE WADDELL the band is a quartet from the Mission District of San Francisco CA that has taken him as their patron saint and lives to honor his name by causing bizzare,confounding, and sinfully fun ruckuses in bars, concert halls, city street corners, and home stereos everywhere they can.
Performing their own breed of modern Americana music, they mix Blues, Gospel, American and Irish Folk, Country, Rock, Punk, comic Vaudeville, German theater, South-East Asian ditties, a little funk and a lot of raw power into their sets. Reviewers have compared Rube Waddell at times to Captain Beefheart, the Fugs, Ween, Doo-Rag, Tom Waits, Jon Spencer and other lo-fi giants.
The Rubes got their start performing in the streets of San Francisco and became known for their monthly performances, "Live at Leeds," in front of a well known shoe store in the Mission district, and from there their popularity took them into bars and clubs around the city, America and Europe.
The instrumentation of the band varies widely including slide guitar, mandolin, trumpet, sousaphone, tabla, ukulele, marimba, pots and pans, kazoo, harmonica, electric guitar, toy keyboard, accordion, banjo, tin whistle, and various home-made instruments from one-string guitars to junkyard percussion ensembles.
"Stinkbait" is the band's second album (the first, "Hobo Train" was a one-sided vinyl now a collecter's item)originally released in 1998 on the now defunct Oakland-based collective record company Vaccination Records whose other artists included Mumble and Peg, Idiot Flesh, and Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum. Assembled with the help of "8 track cassete, duct tape, and safety pins" the album made an indelible mark on the Bay Area music scene and abroad.
Here is what Reviewers have written about "Stinkbait"
"With an arsenal of both traditional and completely bizarre instruments, Rube Waddell stomps out music that faitfully pays tribute to the sounds of Appalachia while maintaining a wicked, urban sense of humor. Stinkbait is Rube Waddell's version of Bill Monroe dueting with Fred Sanford at the Filmore if you can imagine that. Talk about a party record!!
-Cheryl Botchick, CMJ New Music Report
"If there really is such a thing as swamp boogie, an affliction half between music and parasitic infestation, Rube Wadell be the vector."
-Ink Nineteen
"Rube Waddell tastes like dumpster dived cornbread washed down with Thunderbird."
-Slugmag
Look out for the Rubes coming to your town. Their new album "Greatest Hits" has just been released and is available on CDBABY (http://cdbaby.com/cd/rubewaddell3). "Bound For The Gates Of Hell" the band's third album is also available on CDBABY (http://cdbaby.com/cd/rubewaddell2)
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