Fed up with Haloween tricks? Well oh boy do I have a big treat for you today, a big fat musical onesugar coated with an assortment of what we like to call Little Blue Crunchy Things. Also know as the damn well finest musicians to ever grace the state out of Wisconsin, if not the entire planed.
I first came across LBCT's blend of funk, jazz, hip-hop, blues, rock, rap, ska, country and who knows wtf else on the tabloid Jenny Jones chat show which incidently happened to have one of the finest line up of live band appearances I've ever seen on TV, but enough of that... Over five years I searched far and wide for every single thing the band have ever recorded, which wasn't so easy as they officially broke up around 2000, before I first heard of them.
They formed in the late 80s in Milwaukee, WI, fronted by a man called Noah Tabakin. They recorded three studio and two live albums but due to their range of styles and extended length of the albums it feels like a hell of a lot more. Noah freestyles, raps and beatboxes over a few songs, in addition to playing the sax and DJing. Some of the finest saxaphonests, bassists, funk guitarists and drummers in the area joined up, add in some trombone, trumpet, covers of heavy metal songs, and a range of vocalists from female hip-hop to male country singers and you have one of the widest musical styles to a band I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. No wonder frontman Noah is now part of a so-called "circus punk marching band".
Anyway, I've included a few songs in this post, but focusing primarily on anything with a bit of a dark side.
Starting up is the obvious "Halloween", their only released instrumental track from a live show in 1996.
"Licorice", which hopefully not to much of you are treated with tonight (it sucks, eh?) is from the same show, and demonstrates Noah's hip-hop vocal style.
Up third is a version of LBCT song "Florence" that was re-jigged by the band for their special Halloween shows throughout the 90s, and rebranded "Florence Goes To Hell" by their fans. It's much more of a treat if you've heard the original first, as this one flips the light hearted acoustic tune on it's much darker sided head.
Finally there's one of my favourite LBCT tunes, the synthed up, sexed up "Sindy" from their last ever official show in 2000.
I say official as the band to this day still get together to play reunion shows every now and then. Unfortunately a wee English kid with no money can not afford the trip over the pond, so has to make do with whatever turns up online. Which ain't much; below are the only videos of the band I've ever found - poor quality, dark, mobile phone clips, but fuck me if the 40 seconds of "Billy The Kid" on there isn't the best sounding country style track I've ever heard.
I first came across LBCT's blend of funk, jazz, hip-hop, blues, rock, rap, ska, country and who knows wtf else on the tabloid Jenny Jones chat show which incidently happened to have one of the finest line up of live band appearances I've ever seen on TV, but enough of that... Over five years I searched far and wide for every single thing the band have ever recorded, which wasn't so easy as they officially broke up around 2000, before I first heard of them.
They formed in the late 80s in Milwaukee, WI, fronted by a man called Noah Tabakin. They recorded three studio and two live albums but due to their range of styles and extended length of the albums it feels like a hell of a lot more. Noah freestyles, raps and beatboxes over a few songs, in addition to playing the sax and DJing. Some of the finest saxaphonests, bassists, funk guitarists and drummers in the area joined up, add in some trombone, trumpet, covers of heavy metal songs, and a range of vocalists from female hip-hop to male country singers and you have one of the widest musical styles to a band I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. No wonder frontman Noah is now part of a so-called "circus punk marching band".
Anyway, I've included a few songs in this post, but focusing primarily on anything with a bit of a dark side.
Starting up is the obvious "Halloween", their only released instrumental track from a live show in 1996.
"Licorice", which hopefully not to much of you are treated with tonight (it sucks, eh?) is from the same show, and demonstrates Noah's hip-hop vocal style.
Up third is a version of LBCT song "Florence" that was re-jigged by the band for their special Halloween shows throughout the 90s, and rebranded "Florence Goes To Hell" by their fans. It's much more of a treat if you've heard the original first, as this one flips the light hearted acoustic tune on it's much darker sided head.
Finally there's one of my favourite LBCT tunes, the synthed up, sexed up "Sindy" from their last ever official show in 2000.
I say official as the band to this day still get together to play reunion shows every now and then. Unfortunately a wee English kid with no money can not afford the trip over the pond, so has to make do with whatever turns up online. Which ain't much; below are the only videos of the band I've ever found - poor quality, dark, mobile phone clips, but fuck me if the 40 seconds of "Billy The Kid" on there isn't the best sounding country style track I've ever heard.
Anyway, if there's one thing you do on a whim from this site, I'd suggest it's grab a hold of every Little Blue Crunchy Things album you can find, most of which are on digital download sites right now. You can start on their MySpace site and if you're not full enough of treats by this evening, just take a listen to Angels, the original Florence, Thunder, Hurricane, Babies, How Ya Gonna Do Me, Slip Away... hell, anything, and you'll get a taste of the greatest musicians ever.
- Christopher
