Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of the trailer for "The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound To Lose".
DVD Review
The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound To Lose, The Holy Modal Rounders, Bad Bird Productions, 2007
Okay, let’s go through the geography of this seemingly endless review of folk revival of the 1960’s tour that I have been conducting over the past year or so. I have gone down the byways and back alleys of Bleeker Street. I have tipped my hat to McDougall Street and its “mayor” (the late Dave Van Ronk an interviewee in this work). I have been positively 4th Street more times that I can shake a stick at (Bob Dylan’s old haunts). So now, once again, I am looking at a group, the Holy Modal Rounders, whose core musicians Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, roamed those same few square blocks of lower Manhattan and made some off-hand (and off-the-wall) musical history in the early 1960’s. In this case, however, the DVD review of this film documentary poses a question, in the negative, mainly, about those who aspired to make their own niche in that world.
The name Holy Modal Rounder, exotic sounding as it was in my youthful novice days of late Sunday night listening to a local folk music show on the radio, was very familiar to me as an exemplar of what I would call “novelty” folk. Taking the standard Harry Smith (or John and Alan Lomax) American folk music songbook and placing their own twist on it, sometimes to fill out a missing aspect of a more traditional work, sometimes just working off their own humor or hubris. Later they would add a psychedelic rock-oriented embellishment to that basic musical approach. These adaptations has a long and honorable history in those genres, although I must admit that my own tastes did not run to that irreverent place, as far as folk music went. Thus, while I had heard of them and had a few laughs at some of their lyrics I was not particularly a fan. Thus, their subsequent fates, that form the substance of this documentary, were not known to me.
One of the things that I have tried to do in reviewing many of the more or less well known figures of the 1960s folk revival has been to ask a question about why others never dethroned the “king” and “queen” of the folk scene, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. In some cases it was purely a question of being lesser talents. Everyone with a guitar and knew three chords, had some cash or friends with cash (it disn't take much) and some wanderlust tried to get to New York in those days. In others it some personal quirk or idiosyncrasy. A fear of failure or success, some psychological problems, family responsibilities and the like. Or, as in many cases in the rock 'n' roll milieu, took the downward spiral into drugs and alcohol dependence. All creative endeavors are, unfortunately, littered with such cases. A weird combination of those factors drove Stampfel and Weber down.
The best part of this film, however, describe that demise but also their reemergence as grey eminences as the part of the revival of the folk revival in more recent times out on the lesser known 'cult' musical venues. Some of this material presented here is gripping concerning the destructiveness of the drug problems, the ‘recovery’ and the aftermath. But also about the commitment to the music. So if you were part of the 1960s folk/rock scene, or want to know about that Greenwich Village part of it, or if you are just interested in a cautionary tale about the pitfalls, personal and otherwise, in the way of musical success this is a good view.
"Romping Through The Swamp"
Lyrics to Romping Through The Swamp :
Throw away your pomp
Romping through the swamp
Romping through the swamp in the month of May
Wading through the slimy ooze
You can drive away your blues
Romping through the swamp
Toking on your womp
Lying in the swamp
Looking at the ways glaze haze can raise
You can be a muddy satyr
Wrestling with an alligator
Romping through the swamp
You can spend your time
Covered up in slime
Saying I love you to the rot and goo
Lurching through the quagmire
Head aflame with swamp fire
Romping through the swamp
Lyrics to Low Down Dog :
Don't you take me for no low down dog
Low down dog!
Don't you know I got my pride
I just want to walk beside you, baby
But you say
But you say
I must walk behind?
Well, I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Who will keep your bed warm when I'm gone?
When I'm gone?
If you let the fire go out
Better know what you're about, my baby
But you say
But you say
My bed's warm enough?
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Who will mind the children when I'm gone?
When I'm gone?
When you want to get away
Who will take them out to play, my baby?
But you say
But you say
Kids are my whole life!
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Who will feed you peaches when I'm gone?
When I'm gone?
Your new lover may be cute
But will he bring home the fruit, my baby?
But you say
But you say
Peaches make me fat
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Don't you treat me like no Viet Cong!
Viet Cong!
Don't you know I'm from Da Nang
I just want to let it hang my baby
But you say
But you say
We gonna drop the bomb!
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Well, on a wagon traveling down your road!
Down the road!
Well, you say I'm just one more
That it really ain't a bore, my baby
But you say
But you say
Your road's worn and rough
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
DVD Review
The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound To Lose, The Holy Modal Rounders, Bad Bird Productions, 2007
Okay, let’s go through the geography of this seemingly endless review of folk revival of the 1960’s tour that I have been conducting over the past year or so. I have gone down the byways and back alleys of Bleeker Street. I have tipped my hat to McDougall Street and its “mayor” (the late Dave Van Ronk an interviewee in this work). I have been positively 4th Street more times that I can shake a stick at (Bob Dylan’s old haunts). So now, once again, I am looking at a group, the Holy Modal Rounders, whose core musicians Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, roamed those same few square blocks of lower Manhattan and made some off-hand (and off-the-wall) musical history in the early 1960’s. In this case, however, the DVD review of this film documentary poses a question, in the negative, mainly, about those who aspired to make their own niche in that world.
The name Holy Modal Rounder, exotic sounding as it was in my youthful novice days of late Sunday night listening to a local folk music show on the radio, was very familiar to me as an exemplar of what I would call “novelty” folk. Taking the standard Harry Smith (or John and Alan Lomax) American folk music songbook and placing their own twist on it, sometimes to fill out a missing aspect of a more traditional work, sometimes just working off their own humor or hubris. Later they would add a psychedelic rock-oriented embellishment to that basic musical approach. These adaptations has a long and honorable history in those genres, although I must admit that my own tastes did not run to that irreverent place, as far as folk music went. Thus, while I had heard of them and had a few laughs at some of their lyrics I was not particularly a fan. Thus, their subsequent fates, that form the substance of this documentary, were not known to me.
One of the things that I have tried to do in reviewing many of the more or less well known figures of the 1960s folk revival has been to ask a question about why others never dethroned the “king” and “queen” of the folk scene, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. In some cases it was purely a question of being lesser talents. Everyone with a guitar and knew three chords, had some cash or friends with cash (it disn't take much) and some wanderlust tried to get to New York in those days. In others it some personal quirk or idiosyncrasy. A fear of failure or success, some psychological problems, family responsibilities and the like. Or, as in many cases in the rock 'n' roll milieu, took the downward spiral into drugs and alcohol dependence. All creative endeavors are, unfortunately, littered with such cases. A weird combination of those factors drove Stampfel and Weber down.
The best part of this film, however, describe that demise but also their reemergence as grey eminences as the part of the revival of the folk revival in more recent times out on the lesser known 'cult' musical venues. Some of this material presented here is gripping concerning the destructiveness of the drug problems, the ‘recovery’ and the aftermath. But also about the commitment to the music. So if you were part of the 1960s folk/rock scene, or want to know about that Greenwich Village part of it, or if you are just interested in a cautionary tale about the pitfalls, personal and otherwise, in the way of musical success this is a good view.
"Romping Through The Swamp"
Lyrics to Romping Through The Swamp :
Throw away your pomp
Romping through the swamp
Romping through the swamp in the month of May
Wading through the slimy ooze
You can drive away your blues
Romping through the swamp
Toking on your womp
Lying in the swamp
Looking at the ways glaze haze can raise
You can be a muddy satyr
Wrestling with an alligator
Romping through the swamp
You can spend your time
Covered up in slime
Saying I love you to the rot and goo
Lurching through the quagmire
Head aflame with swamp fire
Romping through the swamp
Lyrics to Low Down Dog :
Don't you take me for no low down dog
Low down dog!
Don't you know I got my pride
I just want to walk beside you, baby
But you say
But you say
I must walk behind?
Well, I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Who will keep your bed warm when I'm gone?
When I'm gone?
If you let the fire go out
Better know what you're about, my baby
But you say
But you say
My bed's warm enough?
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Who will mind the children when I'm gone?
When I'm gone?
When you want to get away
Who will take them out to play, my baby?
But you say
But you say
Kids are my whole life!
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Who will feed you peaches when I'm gone?
When I'm gone?
Your new lover may be cute
But will he bring home the fruit, my baby?
But you say
But you say
Peaches make me fat
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Don't you treat me like no Viet Cong!
Viet Cong!
Don't you know I'm from Da Nang
I just want to let it hang my baby
But you say
But you say
We gonna drop the bomb!
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
Well, on a wagon traveling down your road!
Down the road!
Well, you say I'm just one more
That it really ain't a bore, my baby
But you say
But you say
Your road's worn and rough
Well I ain't holding still for none of that stuff!
