Posted by Bob Tipler
on January 2, 2008, 12:44 pm
62.24.239.44
2 Dawgs Tales
I’d like to add my tuppence to the heart searching going on regarding the future of Cajun Music in the UK. (I know Jim that this was not behind your original question but the debate seems to have centred around this and at the end of the day the two issues are inherently linked).
Sorry to say, I’ve never been to a Cajun UK Gig, a Cajun Club or Louisiana for that matter but I listen to a lot of stuff and read lot and have set up and am still running two separate bands playing Cajun music out of Hastings in the deep south of Sussex, England
“The Dawgs” and “The Rockin’ Cajun Dawgs”.
I’ve travelled an odd musical path to get to wherever here is. Firstly as a Drummer in a Heavy Rock Band, then playing a melodeon in a bawdy English Folkie line up, then playing diddily diddily concertina in and Irish band and finally (after seeing the crappy film Southern Comfort with it’s fantastic 5 minutes of soundtrack at the end) discovered Cajun Music. This meant yet another squeeze box purchase not to mention trying to find where you could get a real Cajun Accordion (not easy in those pre internet days) and the when the bloody thing arrived experienced the horror of realising that I’d have to learn a whole new technique of playing out side of the English and Irish Styles that I’d put years into learning. Anyway that was a few years back.
These days with one band or the other we play most weekends predominantly larger pubs but also the odd festival.
We don’t travel too far but then as with 99% of performing musicians we do it mainly for fun and even if we earned £300 each we’d have to really think if it was worthwhile travelling a long distance for the gig.
We have a large local following made up of all ages and many types of music lovers. The thing they share in common is that they are all looking for a bloody good night out. Name me another type of music where you can have Cajun, Country, Folkies, Rockabillies, Blues Buffs, Soulsters, Trad Jazz Types all in the same pub all thinking this music is for them? I’m not aware of one.
I’ve never been on some sort of mission to convert people to liking the sort of music I like, but have found in Cajun music a platform to perform aspects of all of various music I’m into, to an appreciative audience.
At the end of the day as someone else said it’s about marketing and knowing your audience. There is a place for the purists as with everything and I’m really pleased that there are folk providing a reference point. I personally favour listening to the Old School Cajun stuff from the 40’s and 50’s but I wouldn’t take a set of that stuff to a pub and expect it to go down too well after one or two numbers.
Most musics, particularly the niche styles go through periods of discovery and retraction and the initial enthusiasm that made it possible to want to set up Clubs will always wain. I think this is due to the fact that all types of Clubs are by definition exclusive, either by music, dress code, or whatever. Unless they adapt and change to cater for the younger generations that are coming up behind all of us they are simply doomed to close at some point.
So we have two versions of The Dawgs.
The first “The Dawgs” is a good time Cajun Band playing around 60% of our own stuff, some Cajun standards and some Cajunised cover numbers we’ve worked out (i.e. “Fine Young Cannibals She Drives Me Crazy”) it’s a well honed populist approach but it goes down well and we normally have a few “trained” dancers in the house (Cajun and Jivers) plus a good number of good natured freestylers – some of whom get free lessons on the night by the more experienced dancers. We don’t do too many French numbers as we don’t speak French and nether does our audience – let alone the strong patois that is the traditional Cajun tongue. But make no mistake The Dawgs have the Cajun Soul and Spirit.
The Rockin’ Cajun Dawgs came about as I’m also into Rockabilly Music and had noticed the DJs at the large weekender festivals in Europe and the UK playing a few numbers for the crowed to bop to. Things like The He Haw Breakdown, Saturday Night Special, Nathan Abshires Pine Grove Blues. This Rockin’ Scene is cool at the moment, think tattoos, hot rods, burlesque, twanging guitars and it’s a young scene – particularly in Europe. Saw the young Louisiana band The Lost Bayou Ramblers in Bruges a couple of weekends ago and they rocked to a crowd made up of this lot.
So we set up the Rockin’ Cajun Dawgs playing predominantly Cajun Rockin’ Blues music to appeal to this set – Accordion, Electric Guitar, String Bass and Drums - reverb on the vocals. We found a whole load of Cajun Rockin’ stuff from the 40’s and 50’s to form the basis of a set and we’ve again written a lot of our own stuff and always throw in a few 2 steps and waltzes. We played at The Rockabilly Rave last year which with 2000 people is Europe’s largest event and had a great time. Our plan is to do more of these in the UK and if along the way we get more people into Cajun music then fine.
The clubs as they stand may well have to close if sufficient people are just not coming but there will always be ways to get the music through to people. I’d suggest those that want to dance should go down and support their local Cajun Band at the next pub gig – have a dance, pull a stranger in to dance with in time you may find you’ve got the basis to set up some local lessons. A mate of mine runs some really successful Lindy Hop lessons in a number of towns down this way and we often get some of his dancers at our gigs trying out the moves they learnt to our stuff and then they get interested in learning about Cajun dancing.
We always post out gigs on Jim’s great site and I’d be disappointed if the gig list and this forum was lost so hope someone can take it on sorry time commitments prevent it from being me.
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