Wow. Whatever these guys are doing, it’s intense. I don’t know if it’s what they intended, but the song in this video has a distinct sea shanty vibe to it. This is music pirates might listen to during a bout of heavy drinking after laying waste to a small seaside town.
The Ghost Town Rejects play, apparently, “blackened folk punk.” I’m not sure what blackened folk punk is, but these guys are undoubtedly the genre’s foremost purveyors.
The washboardiste, possibly named Pitch, plays her board à l’américaine inversé with the legs cut off. A call bell and a can are mounted in the headboard, which now hangs down by her waist. It’s hard to tell what she’s using for scrapers–shotgun shells, maybe? At any rate, she has developed an elegant solution to the problem of playing a 6/8 pattern. It looks simple, but this is pretty advanced stuff. She sings, as well.
If I ran into these guys on the streets of Portland, I’d stop and give them a listen.
