Slim Bawb & Gator Bait play “swampgrass” music. Their debut CD “Ghost Dawg” came out April 2006. Slim Bawb is Bob Pearce leader/songwriter for the Sacramento based band “The Beer Dawgs” for the past 20 years. Slim Bawb plays banjo, reso-guitar, mandolin & mojo stomp. Gator Bait are Andrew Browne: Double Bass & Olen Dillingham: Fiddle & mandolin. The Newest Gator is Steve Stizzo: Accordion. Andrew is a former “Beer Dawg” & Olen as well as Slim Bawb was born on January 8th (that’s right, Elvis’s birthday!) Steve Stizzo plays in the popular Northern California band “Mumbo Gumbo”& is also the unofficial mayor of Roseville. Their newest CD “BEWARE!” is out now. Check “em out Jack.
Our good buddy slim bawb has out done hisself agin. Old slim bawb got together a passel of the usual suspects, and put out two CDs that are so darn good, they're illegal in states without medicinal marijuana.
If you're under thirty, and you only have one or two tattoos, you probably better approach these CDs with caution. This music is for real men and women. The kind who've been around the block enough to round the corners.
One CD has a good selection of original blues tunes, Beer Dawgs: Voodoo & Tattoo On this CD I give my nod to ``Turn of the Screw'' because I feel slim bawb's pain.
The other CD is filled with original swampgrass music, slim bawb & gator bait: BEWARE! I reckon my favorite off this CD is ``When the Hurtin' Begins''. I love the line, ``Then she left me, and you're still gone''; but you gotta hear old slim bawb sing it.
But I'm not sure what slim bawb does is actually singing. Have you ever belched right when you was talkin'? And your mouth fills with gas, and your nose burns somethin' terrible. And no one can understand what you just said. slim bawb's singing is kinda like that, but in a really good way, mind you. Like you'd just belched up a really great pizza.
slim bawb and all his usual and unusual suspects did a mighty fine job on these two collections.
Tim Null- befuddleduniverse
Gator Bait are a Sacramento based four piece fronted by Slim Bawb (actually Bob Pearce but that doesn’t sound authentic enough). To the already confusing and over crowded genre of Americana we must now add the further sub-genre of ‘swampgrass’ for that is what Bawb and friends claim to purvey through the playing of mandolin, banjo, accordion, double bass and something called mojo stomp which is an unspecified instrument but the name sounds good. Over the top of this Bawb adds his vocal which sound as if he’s been gargling with equal parts of shattered windscreen and unpasturised swamp water.
The opening is good enough – a jaunty paean to Tony Joe White (writer of ‘Polk Salad Annie’ and other good stuff) called “Tony Joe” skips along nicely enough with accordion backing and Bawb’s strangulated vocal exhibiting a pleasing expressiveness. There is some other good material here – the restrained “Sugar Didn’t Show” and the up-tempo singalong “So Hard To Understand” being the best..
Listening to this record reminds one of the debt of much American ‘roots’ music to its celtic counterpart and “Isle of Mystic” sounds like Van Morrison at his most trad/down home (albeit down home in Louisiana) and “Derrick McQuade” actually features bagpipes (here renamed Gatorpipes naturally).
There is quite a lot to like about this recording but ultimately you wish that Slim Bawb had pushed the envelope a bit more instead of keeping his tongue in his cheek.
Date review added: Monday, July 24, 2006
Reviewer: Paul Villers
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