Strum, drum
and singular

>> One on one on one with one-man bands
BBQ and Skip Jensen & his Shakin’ Feet

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

This writer’s contempt for the sensitive sap alone on a stool with his nylon-stringed guitar is matched only by his admiration for the one-man band-similar, but so much cooler. Locals BBQ and Skip Jensen & his Shakin’ Feet (artists you’ll recognize from the Sexareenos and Scat Rag Boosters, respectively) don’t go all out, with the harmonica, bike horn, accordion, banjo, back-strapped bass drum and cymbals twixt the knees-because at a certain point that’s just stupid. But they do keep busy, both on stage and in the studio. Skip has a 7” coming out on Italy’s Solid Sex Lovey Doll label, while BBQ has one due out on Italy’s Goodbye Boozy and a track on the forthcoming Sympathetic Sounds of Montreal.

Mirror: So what do your one-man bands involve, and why do you do it?
BBQ: I play guitar, bass drum, a tambourine on my foot and a snare drum. I actually chew gum, also. It sounds like a-a really lousy band. I started doing it because I got fed up with waiting for bums to play music. Otherwise I’d be making calls for two months before we’d even practice.
Skip Jensen: Guitar, tambourine and a piece of wood that I tape onto my foot. Scat Rag Boosters stopped for a year or so, so I was trying to play with people, and playing alone a lot. I liked the sound a lot, because I listen to a lot of non-rock music, more stripped-down stuff-country, blues, old American folk music.

M: BBQ, are you likewise inspired by folk music?
BBQ: Because it’s so lousy, I guess it sounds like rock ’n’ roll. It doesn’t sound like roots music. I don’t know how to play guitar, that’s another problem. All I can do is bar chords, basically. There’s no skill involved.

M: What are your songs about, lyrically?
BBQ: When I make songs, they make no sense at all, because I don’t really care. Usually, whatever comes out of my mouth becomes a song. You know, stream of consciousness but from a mongoloid’s point of view. Something that rhymes, something that kinda sounds like a word-there’s no real point to it.

M: What about you, Skip?
SJ: Same as usual-life, work, love, relationships, money-
BBQ: LaRonde? Don’t you have a song about LaRonde?
SJ: LaRonde?! No.

M: You’ve each played exactly one show so far. How’d they go?
SJ: I was nervous at first that something would break or whatever, but after one song, I just forgot about it and got into it. The crowd liked it, but they were all my friends, of course.
BBQ: Of course, because it’s me, things broke and things happened that shouldn’t have happened. I made tons of mistakes but nobody noticed. It was fun. Of course, it’s easier to get back into a song after a fuck-up if it isn’t three, four, five people on stage. I’ll just add a new part that doesn’t make any sense at all, and people will think it’s a tribute to Genesis or something. :

With Bob Log III at la Sala Rossa on Wednesday, July 24, 10pm, $10

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