Pegstar Presents: Legendary Shack Shakers * The Yawpers

Rudyard’s presents Pegstar Presents: Legendary Shack Shakers * The Yawpers.

Legendary Shack Shakers (Nashville, TN/Paducah, KY)
http://www.legendaryshackshakers.com/

The Legendary Shack Shakers’ hell-for-leather roadshow has earned quite a name for itself with its unique brand of Southern Gothic that is all-at-once irreverent, revisionist, dangerous, and fun. Led by their charismatic, rail-thin frontman and blues-harpist JD Wilkes, the Shack Shakers are a four-man wrecking crew from the South whose explosive interpretations of the blues, punk, rock and country have made fans, critics and legions of potential converts into true believers.

After taking more than a year off to work on other projects (including JD Wilkes’s book “Barn Dances & Jamborees Across Kentucky”), the band is re-mobilizing in the fall of 2014 much to the excitement of many a Shack Shaker fanatic. Despite the group’s time off, their reputation for intensity has stuck with them.

On stage, JD has been compared to the likes of Iggy Pop, David Byrne, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The Nashville Scene named Wilkes “the best frontman in Nashville” in 2002, while former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra has called JD “the last great Rock and Roll frontman.” Having joined the band in early 2012, garage blues guitar player Rod Hamdallah–who also lends his prowess to Wilkes’s side project ‘JD Wilkes and the Dirt Daubers’–is back in the Shack Shakers’ lineup. The rhythm section is rounded out with Brett Whitacre on drums and Mark Robertson thumping out the upright bass.

Although not legendary upon being named, the band has grown into its reputation the last several years due to their heavy tour schedule, six critically acclaimed studio albums, and songs that have been featured on television shows such as HBO’s True Blood. Past tour mates and fans include Reverend Horton Heat, Rancid, The Black Keys, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, and Hank Williams III. Robert Plant is also a noted Legendary Shack Shakers fan, and picked the band to open for him on his 2005 tour of Europe. Plant named the band’s third albumBelieve as one of his favorite records of 2005. The list of esteemed admirers goes on to include horror novelist Stephen King, who listed “CB Song” as among his iPod’s Top Five in a 2008 Entertainment Weekly article. Such a wealth of devoted fans over the years has only added to the mystique that the Legendary Shack Shakers possess, carrying them down the road toward new creative pursuits and barn-shaking tunes.

“It’s f***ing great!” – Robert Plant

“Dynamite group.” – Stephen King

 “AgriDustrial (is) a masterpiece of experimental music.” – Creative Loafing

 “(Swampblood is) one of the strangest and thoroughly drawn concept albums of recent times. -American Songwriter

“(Wilkes writes) mind-blowing lyrics rife with Biblical references and ruminations of life, death, sin and redemption.” – Billboard

“Col. J.D. Wilkes lets loose on the (harmonica) like an Old Western mob on a prisoner.  Come for a sh*t-kickin’ good time.” – Pitchfork

 “(Wilkes) is the closest thing there is to the Ambassador of Genuine Traditional Southern Culture.” – ALARM Magazine

 “Great stuff! (JD) is my favorite right this second. He is a real old-Kentucky banjo player and (you) can take that to the bank! I gotta watch out next time I see his banjo.” – Dom Flemons, Carolina Chocolate Drops

The Yawpers (Denver, CO)
http://www.theyawpers.com/

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s promise to “Sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world,” Denver Colorado’s The Yawpers have set about bringing together disparate pieces of the American music lexicon and making it their own.

The sonic backbone to the Yawpers stripped down – yet brazen- sound are the overdriven acoustic guitars and trap kit. Equal parts frenetic, earnest, and menacing, it’s a combination that is uniquely and accurately Yawper…

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/theshackshakers
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/theyawpers