As the opening act at July’s Mountain Fair, Sweet Jessup and the Dirty Buckets got folks up and moving around early on. Fair-goers later moved themselves from the stage to the merch booth and started grabbing the band’s inaugural CD, titled “Dirty Buckets.” By Sunday afternoon, the CDs at the park were sold out. Sweet Jessup fans have another chance to snag a CD ($10 for eight songs) when the band returns to Sopris Park for Potato Day on Oct. 5.
The Sopris Sun recently hooked up with band-founder Morgan Williams at Mountain Heart brewery. The main topic was the band’s CD and the Sweet Jessup sound. The CD’s eight songs were recorded live in one day at Dave Taylor’s Cool Brick Studios. All the songs are Williams originals.
“Dirty Buckets” kicks off with a slide-whistle providing counterpoint to trumpet on “Tropes and Dopes.” The CD then slows to a languid “Summertime” kind of song on “Rhymes with Blue” and heats back up with a train-whistle intro to “Ten Coal Trains.” Many locals will know the “longwall” mine the song references is a coal mine. Williams said the first three songs on the CD are good examples of what Sweet Jessup is capable of doing and are a little more complex than the others.
After the first three tunes it’s back to the upbeat tune that kicked off Mountain Fair. “Meadowlark Song” features Brian Colley on violin and his sister, Deborah Colley, also Williams’ wife, on lead vocals. Deborah’s joyful delivery revolves around two meadowlarks singing back and forth to each other in a meadow to which they have just returned.
Instrumentation on the CD has Williams on acoustic guitar/slide, Brian on violin and singing saw, Deborah on lead vocals, Ashton Taufer on stand-up bass, Brad Swart on trumpet and Alex Reginelli on percussion (which includes five-gallon plastic buckets and a wine bottle). Williams uses “open D” tuning on some songs. “I’ve always been drawn to open D tuning,” Williams said. “It’s the blues.”.
Q & A
Sopris Sun: Please describe your sound.
Williams: My drummer and I were talking the other day. He likes punk, I like indie rock. We [the band] came up with this sound together. April [Spaulding] calls it “Carbonbilly.” I feel that’s where we fit in … ragtime, blues, rock, a little folky. It’s gimmicky. I don’t know if that’s a sound or not.
SS:“Tequila” is a toe tapper. It kicks off with you, Deborah and Brad [Swart] harmonizing on the word “tequila” for more than 10 seconds, then roars off in a slide guitar flurry. Taufer’s bass sounds like one of those big Japanese drums. Tell us about that song.
W: Percussion and bass are really driving that song … He [Taufer] is hitting it right on the beat. It’s incredible.
SS: On “Orion,” Deborah’s voice soars toward the end.
W: She draws out that note, that vowel. Twenty years ago, I heard a song with some coyote yips. I hear a little bit of coyote in that.
SS: “All Hail the Parking Lot” also mentions a storage unit. D23. What’s behind that?
W:There’s a bit of a cynic, pessimist in me. It’s funny how we have space for our things … It’s mocking our American stuff.
SS:Swart on trumpet is your most recent band member.
W: We are lucky to have Brad. He started last spring. I always wanted a trumpet. He also plays in the Dixieland band Noodle Soup in Rifle.
SS: How did the CD come about?
W: We bought recording time in the KDNK Labor of Love auction.
SS: What do you plan to do with “Dirty Demo?”
W:I think it would be great if we could potentially use it, so if someone like a producer took an interest and wanted to do a legitimate album and help pay for it, we could do it. That’s one thing. We also love our sound and want to get it out there. It isn’t perfect but it’s what we could afford. The “Dirty Demo” CD is dirty … but I think it sounds pretty damn good. A lot of it was Dave Taylor’s awesome recording space. He’s a great producer and mixer. So, maybe we’ll catch someone’s ear who says, “Let’s get these guys in the studio and record a full album.”
SS: You’ve already got eight songs. Do you have enough material for 12 to 14 songs?
W: Oh yeah.