Baby Gramps brings folky-weird to Cyber Cafe West

Photo by Nelson G. Onofre.

Baby Gramps has been called "The Salvador Dali of folk music;" one look at his YouTube videos and you'll see why. But even they don't do the man justice. His unique, nay, bizarre renditions of traditional music and vintage popular music are best experienced live. Baby Gramps' last Binghamton appearance was at Cyber Café West in June 2013, and he’s returning this month. Carousel recently had the chance to ask him a few questions about his musical experiences and personal stylings:

TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: You've toured with bands like Phish. What was that like?

BABY GRAMPS: I did two mini-tours with Phish in two different years. Those were great years touring and playing with jam bands. I have fond memories of also touring and playing with String Cheese Incident, Yonder Mountain String Band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Hypnotic Clambake, and Leftover Salmon, who helped me get my first CD out.

I was asked to open for the Grateful Dead three times. The first time I was at the Oregon Country Fair in the early 80s and rumor got around that Mountain Girl and Jerry's kids wanted me to open for the Grateful Dead, but by happenstance the hangnail on the fickle finger of fate saw fit to unfavor me with the foo fa rah and my "loyal" band usurped the gig from me.

The second time was at Conde's Lumberyard outside of Eugene. They were expecting 80,000 people. 40,000 tickets were already sold. Jerry got sick. I played it anyway and gave one set to Ramblin’ Jack Elliot.

The third time I was asked to play four days in Chicago for what I was told was the last Grateful Dead reunion. They offered half up front and I said, “No, I trust you.” Got a phone call two weeks later saying, "Sorry we had a fraudulent backer. We'll get you again for something else down the road." Yet again another hangnail.

TCC: There's something about your voice and mannerisms that reminds me just a bit of, well, Popeye meets Captain Beefheart.

BG: Spot on with Popeye since I was a little sprout. I used to play with Moris Tepper, Captain Beefheart's weird guitar player, and Moris always wanted me to meet the Captain, but he ended up planting himself in the marble bone orchard before I could meet him.

TCC: Tell us more about your 2010 album, Outertainment, which you made with Holy Modal Rounder Peter Stampfel.

BG: I was honored to have my song “Trying to Kick the Buzzard Off the Gut Wagon” as the first cut of the album. Half of Outertainment is half me. It was recorded in a studio in Portland where Neil Young recorded, and his gold records are on the studio wall. My first studio album, and mostly recorded in one take.

TCC: How did you meet Peter?

BG: Peter came to my shows in NY. He jumped up on stage to play with me!

TCC: Are you a Holy Modal Rounders fan?

BG: Before all that, in the 60s, I met a character called Sleepy John who played the early Rounders songs on a jumbo "bake potato hipped" Harmony guitar that might have been Weber's guitar on the first two Rounder albums. Sleepy John told me stories about living in a hotel in Greenwich Village with the Rounders and Bob Dylan and playing standup bass with the Rounders. Sleepy John said, “follow me,” and put on their record, and said that I was a cross between Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber. Maybe we are cut from the same cloth - the whole nine yards in thirds... Peter, Steve, and Gramps?

TCC: You use Tuvan-style harmonic throat singing in many of your performances. What led you to do that?

BG: I started doing it many years before I ever heard of the Tuvans. Arthur Miles, a Texan cowboy in the 20s, mysteriously used overtone singing called sygyt in place of yodeling. His 78rpm record was the 25th best ranked single of 1929. But my earliest inspiration was Popeye, who I started imitating before I played guitar.

TCC: Your instrument of preference is a rather beat-up National steel-body guitar. Why do you prefer that instrument over a newer one?

BG: My dad played in a band in the 30s with my first guitar. As I have said before in other interviews, some people were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, I was born with a rusty National guitar in my mouth, hence the mustache. It was the first instrument I ever heard. After 50 years of playing not just one but several old Nationals that I have worn out, I will now be experimenting on a newer one. I was the only one in the Northwest playing a National when I started. Now every music store has a National or some sort of variation.

TCC: You put a lot of unusual vocal and visual elements into your performances. I know of no other performer who performs songs the way you do.

BG: Thank you for noticing. That's very perspicacious of you. I think you are referring to my vocalisthentics and stunt guitar. Others may be wading into this music genre, but I think I’m the only one who is me.

TCC: On the Rogues Gallery Concert Tour, you toured with Marianne Faithful, Lou Reed, Martin Carthy, Suzanne Vega, and Ralph Steadman among many others. How did that come about?

BG: I was playing at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, the largest in Canada, and Hal Willner happened to be in my audience. Johnny Depp asked Hal - who many consider to be the greatest producer of compilations - to put together a sea chantey album, Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys, on the coattails of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. So Hal contacted me to be on the album. Then Hal decided to take the CD on tour from New York to England, Ireland, and Australia. I was proud to be the opening and closing act of the tour backed up by the huge cast of performers.

TCC: Tell us about the cover of the Kinks' “Sunny Afternoon,” which you did for a Kinks tribute album on Sub-Pop some time ago.

BG: Well, I never played the song before I went into the studio. I just ragged it in the original sense of the word “ragged time,” which is not supposed to be smooth as Scott Joplin metronomed it into classical music.

TCC: You're a 78 RPM record collector. About how many records do you have now? Ballpark?

BG: For you shellac-sniffin’ 78 collectors, I have more than I want to lift. I don’t want to drop a disc.

TCC: What kinds of records do you normally search out?

BG: I’m still in search of the elusive lost chord and still seeking out the warp and the wow on the scratchy 78s that I learned to sing from, and not to mention the cracked ones to help me scat ‘twixt-n-‘tween the cracks of the piano.

TCC: How do you select songs for your own repertoire?

BG: With a blindfold and earmuffs.

TCC: Sub Pop Records said in an online review that you were the closest we’ll ever get to experiencing Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music in person.

BG: That quote originally came from an article that James Marshal wrote for Time Out New York.

TCC: You were featured in the 1984 documentary, Streetwise and also the more recent one, Jug Band Hokum. How did you land those roles?

BG: They just asked me. And more recently, I performed in the 30-year sequel of the Grammy award-nominated film Streetwise, and six other films. There’s my Pilgrim’s Progress Report to you.

TCC: I faintly recall you playing Ithaca a few years back. Is your Cyber Café gig the first time you'll be playing Binghamton?

BG: I played Cyber Café some years ago. I have played Ithaca every year for many years in half a dozen different venues. The last ten years or so have been at The Nines. I’m slated to be there again this coming Saturday, September 23.

TCC: Phish.net says that you sometimes shared the stage with singing saw and homemade-bass player, Curtis Chamberlain. Will he be at your Binghamton gig?

BG: No, I’m sorry to say that Curtis has moved on to greener pastures over beyond the clouds. But Kevin Buster will blow hot, hot, hot soprano sax - n - I say “Sonar possesses sopranos” – I mean this guy is out there! - n - perhaps more.

TCC: What are your plans for the future? Do you plan to release a new album any time soon?

BG: My plans are to keep writing palindromes, anagrams, oxymorons (as in Baby Gramps), more original songs and books. Writing is my passion. In the wings is my Halloween album for 365 days a year since it’s everyone’s favorite holiday according to my cronies titled Old Fangled Tech-gnarl-ogy. All connected with a miniature world that I am creating and plan to stop frame animate.

Baby Gramps is playing on Wednesday, September 27 at 8pm at Cyber Café West at 176 Main Street in Binghamton. While tickets are apparently not on sale as of this writing, Cyber Café may be contacted at (607) 723-2456. And as Baby Gramps has mentioned above, he is also playing at Ithaca's The Nines club at 311 College Avenue, Ithaca, NY on Saturday, September 23 at 9pm. Tickets are $10. Please visit babygramps.com for more info, to purchase CDs, DVDs, and/or to sign up for his email list. His t-shirts are available on eBay.