YEARS before the members of the folk-punk-jug-band Blackbird Raum played their first show, they were squatting in abandoned buildings in Santa Cruz, making art and music and staging political protests. It was the early 2000s and, with no electricity and little money, they picked up whatever instruments they could play around a campfire: banjo, mandolin, accordion, washtub bass, a washboard. “We all started playing those instruments because you could,” says mandolin player Mars.
It wasn’t until they saw the Eugene, Ore.-based outfit the Sour Mash Hug Band, though, that the idea of forming a band took hold. “All of us were scraping by in the most squalid manner possible,” says banjo player Caspian (the players use only their first names). “The idea that these people played the streets and got 30 bucks, we thought they were millionaires.”
Part of a loose circuit of traveling squatter bands like the Inkwell Rhythm Makers and the Hobo Goblins, the Sour Mash Hug Band played old acoustic folk instruments, mimicking the sounds of rural turn-of-the-century Americana, early jazz and traditional European music. The five members of Blackbird Raum knew almost nothing of traditional folk and jazz and had no interest in replicating it, especially the lighthearted lyrics. So they mixed in punk and penned songs with a harder edge, like “A rat in my dream:” “Bleach out the oceans, castrate the winds, sterilize the blood so we die while we live.”
“Our music isn’t rooted in much of anything. We just hodgepodge it in such a weird way,” says Caspian. “I might tune my banjo to some weird old banjo tuning from Appalachia, but use it to play chord progressions that you’d probably find in a Tragedy (hardcore/crust punk) song and steal a lyric from some dancehall reggae song. We just grab stuff freely.”
After five years touring the continental U.S., Alaska and Europe on their own, Blackbird Raum, which takes its name from a mythical demon who bedevils kings but can reconcile enemies and reunite lost loves, has released two albums, Under the Starling Host (2009) and Swidden (2010). These days they play any and all venues and appeal to a hugely diverse audience. Three years ago they were playing a shopping mall in Salt Lake City when an ordinary-looking guy approached. “Are you Blackbird Raum?” he asked eagerly. It was their first day in town, but they’d played earlier at a farmers market and had apparently made a new fan.
“Because we’re playing on the streets, everyone has access to our music. Our CDs end up in the hands of people who you’d never think,” Caspian says.
Blackbird Raum
Saturday, 7pm
Live Oak Grange, 1900 17th Ave., Santa Cruz
Price TBA
