REALLY OLD SCHOOL

Robert Crumb is best known as an artist. He's also a big fan of old time music, as in very early blues, jazz, country, jug bands, string bands, hillbilly, and other really old roots stuff. He has a collection of around six thousand 78s, but isn't really a record collector in the stereotypical money grubbing sort of way. He won't pay exorbitant prices, preferring instead to trade drawings or play the Ebay waiting game. (Really, R. Crumb and Ebay exist in the same universe. What's next, Blues Hammer and blue jeans?). This is something he's been doing for the past five decades, so he probably knows a thing or two.

Whistler's Jug Band, 1930. One of the bands on Crumb's list.

The blog Doom & Gloom From the Tomb just posted a collection of four half hour BBC Radio shows on which Crumb was a guest, playing selections from his collection and talking about 78s. There's also a couple shows from WFMU's Antique Phonograph Music program down there, streaming, so you can get a taste of his (music) obsessions without downloading. There's a few mp3s for those of you who need an immediate fix, one from Crumb's band the Cheap Suit Serenaders, and two others, one each from the Hokum Boys and Bo Carter (from reissues that he did the artwork for). Ride the old wave.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
R Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders - Fine Artiste Blues mp3 at Carnival Saloon
Bo Carter - The Pencil Won't Write No More mp3 at Carnival Saloon
The Hokum Boys -You Can't Get Enough Of That Stuff mp3 at Carnival Saloon
Cheap Suit Serenaders - Get A Load of This (streaming) at Hell Hound on My Trail
Cheap Suit Serenaders - Cheap Suit Special (streaming) at Hell Hound on My Trail
Cheap Suit Serenaders - Suits' Crybaby Blues (streaming) at Hell Hound on My Trail
Robert Crumb - Interviews from BBC Radio at Doom & Gloom From the Tomb
Robert Crumb on WFMU, Part one (streaming)
Robert Crumb on WFMU, Part two (streaming)
The Antique Phonograph Show at WFMU Several years worth of shows, streaming.
Visit:
Robert Crumb official site Start with this page, where he reveals his thoughts on everybody from Laurel and Hardy to Obama. On Andy Warhol: " One of his lame-ass silk screen prints goes for more money than some original renaissance art." That's right. Crumb said "lame-ass." Blues Hammer here we come!
Robert Crumb at Wikipedia