I forget what I was listening to on YouTube. I'd put on a song, then went about my business. After a couple songs some old timey type stuff starts playing. It was really good. I tried to guess the year by just listening to it. Boy, was I off. By over a half century. The band was Tuba Skinny and the video was a live one, playing at a buskers festival in 2013. My first thought was "What the fuck people? What is going on in this world when there is a band this tight, regardless of genre, and I've never even heard of them?" So now you have too.
I went looking for more and came across a song called "Garbageman". Again, killer. That sent me looking for the Cramps song of the same name and while looking for it ran into Merle Haggard's song, again, with the same title. At this point I'm up to my ass in garbage men. I decide to cut my losses, go find an image of a garbage truck to use. Folks, this is what it's like over here: Somehow, I find myself on a site called Classic Refuge Trucks, which is essentially a fan page for garbage trucks, fiendish enough that I was sucked in. I must have been looking at garbage trucks for a half hour. Then I saw that one of the garbage truck manufacturers was named Gar Wood. Gar Wood is also the name of a local guitarist/bassist that was in two bands that I really like, Hot Snakes and Beehive and the Barracudas. Oh shit, that's a detour for later.
~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:Tuba Skinny - Garbageman mp3 at Internet Archive
Cramps - Garbageman (streaming) at YouTube
Merle Haggard - Garbage Man mp3 at Keep the Coffee Coming
Tuba Skinny - Billie's Blues mp3 at Internet Archive
Tuba Skinny - You Can Have My Husband mp3 at Internet Archive
2 comments:
Stick out yer can, Tom! You know that Cramps track holds a special place for me. My grandfather was a garbageman from sometime in the sixties till he was promoted to an office job - still for the city's sanitation dept. - sometime in the seventies. He got me a summer job there in '86; a job I held every summer for twelve straight years, followed by a two-year stretch full-time. Man, while swingin' those cans, rain or shine, I had that song running on repeat in my head more than once.
e
Oh man, that would be a sight. You slinging cans in your stage clothes. I know you probably wore something more appropriate for the job, but it cracks me up imagining you in your stage regalia. It reminds me of a friend of mine who worked in a shop for the Navy, one that you would normally wear coveralls. On a dare from one of his co-workers, he bought a suit at a thrift store and wore it to work. When his boss called him into the office to ask why he was making a joke of his job, he replied "I was always told to dress for the job you want." He got written up.
Post a Comment