by MARK SLUTSKY

"Even when I was in a marching band, I’d strap a saxophone around my neck and play drums at the same time," says Jeremy Jacobsen. "Or I’d maybe play piano and drums at the same time. So I’ve been doing it really since I was a tot."

You might know Jacobsen best by his stage name, the Lonesome Organist, under which he performs as a one-man-band extraordinaire, playing guitar, drums, keyboard, cymbals and whatever other instruments he has at hand - simultaneously.

The solitary ensemble that is the Lonesome Organist came into being, according to Jacobsen, "the same way I suppose anybody comes into being as a one-man-band - you can’t, or are not willing to play with others. In my case I couldn’t - I wasn’t really playing with anybody and I still wanted to be playing. I was sort of inspired by Hasil Adkins, an early one-man-band who was around in the ’60s. He plays really garage-oriented rock ’n’ roll, rockabilly style, but he’s actually kind of a good musician in a certain way. But he was really the first to do it in a rock context." Though Jacobsen’s stuff definitely veers into rock, it’s the other styles he dabbles in - vaudeville, blues, occasional yodelling - that make him so interesting.

His new album, Forms and Follies, actually shies a little away from the vaudeville stylings the Lonesome Organist is perhaps best known for, and takes a cue from the classics. "There’s some fugues on there," Jacobsen says. "Which isn’t strictly speaking a formal structure. It’s more texture."

Wait, fugues? "It’s such a cool form - such a cool texture! It makes me very happy. I’m a practicing classical organist, and I play a lot of Bach. I wanted to see what I could do within the context of a jazz or rock style."

Jacobsen’s much-praised live show, though, is no Sunday-school recital. "Part of the pleasure of watching a one-man-band is like watching a tightrope walker to see whether they fall off or not. It’s like people going to the gladiators’ den just to watch arms ands limbs get chopped off."

WITH GUESTS AT CASA DEL POPOLO
ON FRIDAY, JULY 18, 9PM, $10

>> Music Listings