Phillip Roebuck: One Man Band Meets The Hipsters

Love For The Damned

Phillip Roebuck

Phillip Roebuck that Lester Bangs himself would have been proud of the rise of Phillip Roebuck.  I mean, what could be more classically unhip than strapping a bass drum to your back and playing banjo on street corners and subways?  It has this scary Appalachian vibe to it, or the unsettling feeling that the Keystone Cops could appear at any moment.  And yet, Phillip Roebuck somehow manages to look like a goddamn rock star in his publicity photos.  At the risk of publishing the same quote everyone else in the damned world has used:

"Phillip Roebuck is poorly suited to written description. Merely describing what he does makes it sound trivial, when it is actually mind-blowing. Phillip is a one-man band in the traditional mould: He sings, plays banjo and harmonica with a bass drum strapped to his back, which he operates with a foot-powered harness that also plays the tambourine and maracas. See? That sounds silly, doesn't it? But Phil isn't silly, he is both a delightful oddity and the purest kind of genius. He plays in a frenetic style that suits his reedy, mountain-style singing, and manages to sound both plaintive and raucous at the same time. Look past the contraption and be enlightened." - All Tomorrow's Parties program notes, 2004

He's teamed up here and there to lend his banjo skills to The Boggs and Brooklyn Browngrass, but when you're a one man band you... well...  you're a one man band.  His latest album, released last year, is available on his website and through emusic.

You know it's me because I forget to sign my posts until the second pass,
W.