Squirrel Nut Zippers

This is targeted at magnus and anyone who is a fan of this band


Let me start by saying I think they lost alot on June 30th of 99 with Tom Maxwell resigning from SNZ. He brought a bit of balance to the "power" over the band that Jimbo Mathus and Katherine Whalen held. Also he helped in the zippering of the music..... if you're a fan you'll know what I mean.

mVm, how do you feel about Je Widenhouse compared to the late Stacy Guess?
I feel that Guess brought more to the band with his playing style and ability and musical writing. It seems to me, a non-musician, that Guess could hit higher notes, whether live or not, and had better rythm with the band. He played with not much credit on Hot and their earlier work. Je, a talented musician, can play the horn rather well just not as good as Stacy. If you listen to Hot and then listen Perennial Favorites you can hear a drastic change in the effectivness and range of the horn IMO.

Listen to Bedalm Ballroom off of the Sold Out release to hear some of Stacy's best work. I haven't heard Je play that well or write that good of a song. It seems that Mathus and Whalen write most of their music now and hell(like the pun) I don't know if they even zipper the music now. Also get La Grippe off that same release is played with Bio Ritmo the salsa band I mentioned in an e-mail a few weeks ago.

Hot is IMHO their best album followed by Perennial Favorites, Sold Out, The Inevitable and finally Bedlam Ballroom. I've heard and seen great reviews of Ballroom but it lacked some of Maxwell's qualities. I have all of them except for Bedlam Ballroom, which I have downloaded, and I like it but I don't love as much as the earlier stuff.

I could type alot more but I think that's enough

I was hoping to get a musicians take on this....... anyone musically inclined or a fan of the band please reply.... thanks

 

I don't think I've heard any of their new work, not enough to know it was new anyway. I have some random mp3s but I don't know what album they're off. All I know is their bari player kicks butt. I'll give it some study and let you know.

Sounds like you're saying they're taking swing from a verb to a noun.

 

You would be talking of Tom Maxwell.... from Perennial Favorites back... newer stuff is .... damn I can't remember his name..... i suck

 

Hot

1. Got My Own Thing Now
2. Put a Lid on It
3. Memphis Exorcism
4. Twilight
5. It Ain't You
6. Prince Nez
7. Hell
8. Meant to Be
9. Bad Businessman
10. Flight of the Passing Fancy
11. Blue Angel
12. The Interlocutor

Perennial Favorites

1. Suits Are Picking Up The Bill
2. Low Down Man
3. Ghost Of Stephen Foster
4. Pallin' With Al
5. Fat Cat Keeps Getting Fatter
6. Trou Macacq
7. My Drag
8. Soon
9. Evening At Lafitte's
10. The Kraken
11. That Fascinating Thing
12. It's Over

The Inevitable

1. Lover's Lane
2. Danny Diamond
3. I've Found a New Baby
4. Anything But Love
5. Good Enough for Granddad
6. Wished for You
7. La Grippe
8. Lugubrious Whing Whang
9. Club Limbo
10. Wash Jones
11. You're Drivin' Me Crazy
12. Plenty More

Sold Out

St. Louis Cemetary Blues -- One of the tracks originally intended for "Perrenial Favorites" but pulled at the last minute. It's a really nice track with special guests Hawkeye on the mandolin and Andrew Bird on violin.

2. Bedlam Ballroom -- This, as most of you now, is the title track to the "Bedlam Ballroom" LP. Well, this exclusive live version recorded at Spaceland in Hollywood features the late Stacy Guess, who wrote the song, on trumpet.

3. Pallin' with Al -- This live version of the "Perrenial Favorites" track showcases the Zippers' talent of improvising and changing lyrics around at the spur-of-the-moment. Listen and you can hear Tom Maxwell sing some scat about halfway through.

4. La Grippe -- This is an awesome live version of "The Inevitable" track. In this 1997 recording, the Zippers' special guest, the salsa band Bio Ritmo, takes center stage with their vocalist, Rene Herrera, adding some Spanish lyrics of his own.

5. I Raise Hell -- Katherine Whalen takes the helm with this interesting track written by Boston songwriter Milo Jones.

6. Fell to Pieces -- Here is the real exclusive on this EP: "Fell to Pieces" was recorded at the Zippers' second practice session back in 1993! The recording quality is really poor, but the music is a wonder.

Oh, wait! There's more. If you wait a minute or two after "Fell to Pieces" there are three hidden tracks:

*1. Carousel -- I'm guessing on the title, but this instrumental sounds like it belongs right next to those horses attached to poles going 'round and 'round.

*2. Santa Claus is Smoking Reefer -- Cut from "Christmas Caravan" for obvious reasons, if you can get past the utterly silly lyrics, the melody is really fun to listen to.

*3. If You Were Mine -- Another live track featuring Katherine Whalen makes the perfect ending to a smashing EP.

(P.S. Listen after "Bedlam Ballroom" and "I Raise Hell" for jingles from the Squirrel Brand Company, the company that makes the Squirrel Nut Zipper candy!)

Bedlam Ballroom

1. Bedbugs
2. Baby Wants A Diamond Ring
3. Do What?
4. Bent Out Of Shape
5. Stop Drop And Roll
6. Hush
7. It All Depends
8. Bedlam Ballroom
9. Just This Side Of Blue
10. Don't Fix It
11. Missing Link
12. Bedlam Reprise
13. Do It This A Way

Ones I don't own

Christmas Caravan

1. Winter Weather
2. Indian Giver
3. A Johnny Ace Christmas
4. My Evergreen
5. Sleigh Ride
6. I'm Coming Home for Christmas
7. Carolina Christmas
8. Gift of the Magi
9. Hot Christmas
10. Hanging up My Stockings

Roasted Right CD single

1. Little Mother-In-Law
2. Radio, (You Are My)
3. Anything But Love
4. Wash Jones

Katherine Whalen has a solo album floating around of which I haven't listened.

Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad

1. 'Deed I Do
2. There Is No Greater Love
3. Sugar - Whalen, Katharine
4. Yesterdays
5. Just You, Just Me
6. Now or Never
7. My Old Flame
8. That Old Feeling
9. Badisma
10. All My Life
11. After You've Gone
12. My Baby Just Cares for Me

And your boy Tom Maxwell after he left SNZ

Samsara

1. Indicatif
2. Sixes and Sevens to Me
3. The Uptown Stomp
4. Can't Sleep
5. The Mooche
6. If I Had You
7. Caveat Emptor
8. Some Born Singing
9. Don't Give Me the Runaround
10. Flame in My Heart
11. Nobody Likes You
12. Three Fires Blues
13. Roll Them Bones
14. You Always Get What's Coming
15. Samsara

 

I've seen this band 12 times anywhere from a free show in Carrboro to The Attic in Greenville.

First time I saw them was at G105's Christmas Ball...... and they opened for...... Bare Naked Ladies.... that was in 1995. Neither band was "well-known" at that time.... great fucking show.... been hooked on both bands since then.

 

Oh, so Maxwell is the bari player. Shit. So what happened there exactly? And with Guess, Je?

 

oh, yeah I can get into some BNL. When I Fall, If I Had a Million Dollars, Brian Wilson

 

Maxwell and Mathus had some conflict of interests with the way the band was heading. Mathus and Whalen, who are married, were leading the Zippers off the "original" course. Maxwell wasn't happy going in that direction so he resigned and went solo. his work on Samsara is good and goes in his words "a bit deeper" than the Zippers were willing to go.
Check out Trou Macacq on Perennial Favorites. IMO is Maxwells foretelling of the breakup in his words.

Guess was an original Zipper that played on the first CD (The Inevitable) and played on some of the songs on Hot. He was kicked out before Hot was put out for his heroin addiction. He wouldn't get off the smack so the gave him the boot. He died in 1998 from a heroin OD.

Je was brought in after the Hot release and has done a good job but Stacy was better.

Just MO.

 

I tried to find some Maxwell. Only got one song on search, Can't Sleep, it didn't download. Try again later. I'm all about some bari.

Sucks how they have to screw with the chemistry.

If you remember the Floyd quote I had, it was because I saw a band I'm in go from funk to wanting to fucking cover Craig David songs. That'll just piss you off there.

That's what was so maddening about that new Dave Matthews. It was just Dave Matthews...the rest of the band were just studio musicians. Completely different sound. It's a good sound but I wanted to hear the band, not Dave.

Sucks about the heroin. All too familiar to the business.

 

I've heard this before and never researched it at all.. figure I'll ask you......


I heard Dave Matthews doesn't write his own shit?
It's written for him he just plays it... rather well too.

Is it true?