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On the second day of the 5th Annual Memory Lanes Block Party in Minneapolis, a tall skinny guy in a black-and-white checked tie and turquoise button-down shirt with matching Converse footwear took the stage and literally kicked off the musical festivities. I say "literally" because this dapper gent sat behind a kit consisting of a bass and snare drum, and for the next seventy minutes, his feet worked just as hard as the hands that wrung a good rock-a-boogie time out of his maroon-and-white 1964 Silvertone guitar.
For the uninitiated, this was Alex "CRANKSHAFT" Larson, the souped-up, one-man engine of boogie blues who does roughly 150 shows a year in and around the Twin Cities. Sometimes joined by a drummer and bass player, billed as the Gear Grinders, Crankshaft Larson currently makes his bed in Anoka County, where the hijinks of local schoolboys inspired his opening tune Neighbor Boys, a kazoo-embellished number already familiar enough to elicit the participation of many in the audience, who responded to the “neighbor boys†refrain of each chorus with a spirited yeee-hoooo! (An entertaining music video of this tune can be found here: vimeo.com)
I’ve seen Crankshaft perform three times in the past month and he is nothing if not consistent. While banging out songs with workmanlike deftness and efficiency, he nonetheless does so with a joyous enthusiasm that shimmies up your legs and gets them moving. Whether performing his own whimsical Eatin’ Chili, a snarling punk-a-billy cover of the Cramps’ What’s Inside a Girl?, or a slow blues that would do Robert Johnson proud, Crankshaft does it like he means it, and the audience responds like they know it. By the time he cranked out the rollicking title track of his newly released album, When the Sun Goes Down, whose key-shifting main riff evoked the Ventures, Crankshaft had people of all ages dancing at his feet. His set featured a number of tunes from this new album, one of which was clearly already a crowd favorite and would have been a nice selection for the soundtrack of the Farrelly brothers’ movie of the same name: Kingpin. Crankshaft finished his set with a tune, already a personal favorite of mine, whose title describes something I promise you won’t be doing if you attend one of Crankshaft’s performances: Barkin’ Up the Wrong Tree.
For the uninitiated, this was Alex "CRANKSHAFT" Larson, the souped-up, one-man engine of boogie blues who does roughly 150 shows a year in and around the Twin Cities. Sometimes joined by a drummer and bass player, billed as the Gear Grinders, Crankshaft Larson currently makes his bed in Anoka County, where the hijinks of local schoolboys inspired his opening tune Neighbor Boys, a kazoo-embellished number already familiar enough to elicit the participation of many in the audience, who responded to the “neighbor boys†refrain of each chorus with a spirited yeee-hoooo! (An entertaining music video of this tune can be found here: vimeo.com)
I’ve seen Crankshaft perform three times in the past month and he is nothing if not consistent. While banging out songs with workmanlike deftness and efficiency, he nonetheless does so with a joyous enthusiasm that shimmies up your legs and gets them moving. Whether performing his own whimsical Eatin’ Chili, a snarling punk-a-billy cover of the Cramps’ What’s Inside a Girl?, or a slow blues that would do Robert Johnson proud, Crankshaft does it like he means it, and the audience responds like they know it. By the time he cranked out the rollicking title track of his newly released album, When the Sun Goes Down, whose key-shifting main riff evoked the Ventures, Crankshaft had people of all ages dancing at his feet. His set featured a number of tunes from this new album, one of which was clearly already a crowd favorite and would have been a nice selection for the soundtrack of the Farrelly brothers’ movie of the same name: Kingpin. Crankshaft finished his set with a tune, already a personal favorite of mine, whose title describes something I promise you won’t be doing if you attend one of Crankshaft’s performances: Barkin’ Up the Wrong Tree.
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Crankshaft at Memory Lanes Block Party, Minneapolis (05/26/13) |
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