songs songs songs, a tango, exposed raw vocals, heavy percussion acoustic shit, 70's, 40's blar, blar, blar, cello, native-american harp, african percussion, washtub bass, blues, rock , eclectic, etc

10 MP3 Songs in this album (44:17) !
Related styles: ROCK: American Underground, ROCK: Americana

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Details:
By Russ Tarby
The nine tracks on The Gonstermachersâ new disc, âCrushing Gift,â resonate like cinematic tone poems, setting a scene, telling a story and leaving the listener shivering in the shadows, shuddering in rhythm with the echoes.
âCharlemagneâ opens the CD with guest Mark Nanniâs swirling organ flourishes introducing a kingdom fallen to dissolution, awash in awkward war-making and plagued by crows.
On âCome to Life No More,â songwriter Leo Crandallâs ruminates in Venice over the fragility of faith and fidelity. And on âAll of Heavenâs Fallinâ Rainâ hate and guilt play a mean-spirited tug-of-war over âthe beatings we took and gave.â

Compelling cuts
The discâs two most compelling cuts, âEffamiraâs Tangoâ and âBushmeat,â draw upon Latin inflections and primitive tribal sounds, respectively.
âEffamiraâs Tangoâ has guest accordionists Bob Alexander and Nanni dueling delicately over the lusty South American one-step and the dirty Jersey Crawl.
The otherworldly âBushmeat,â on the other hand, is a minor-key, double entendre rocker characterized by call-and-responses by guest singers Bill Harsma and Natasha Jack, eerie vocatron effects and cackling laughter at lyrics like this:.
âQuiverinâ liver anâ a slitherinâ snail/
Doglog banging on the bushmeat trail.â
Propelling the songâs music are Curtis Watermanâs well-placed harmonica blasts, guest Rodney Zajacâs booming baritone sax and Nanniâs organ punctuations over the incessant rhythms of Hymie Witthoftâs percussion and Richard Curryâs washtub bass.

Offbeat instruments
Since Gonstermachers songwriter Leo Crandall has previously composed scores for stage plays and film projects, it should come as no surprise that the tracks on the bandâs new disc, âCrushing Gift,â each functions as a separate scene and set piece, each creating the aural ambiance of its songâs story.
Not only does Crandall give strong voice to his often diaphanous lyrics, he also embellishes the tunes with his offbeat instruments: cello, small-scale requinto guitar, lap steel, a ukelele-like marxolin complete with bow, hammers and whammy bar as well as his less-unusual solid-body electric guitar.
While the bandâs self-titled 2006 debut disc put a new twist to the blues, âCrushing Giftâ merely hints at those roots. The instrumental âBaby, Get over It,â composed jointly by all four G-Men, is the only truly bluesy tune here, followed by a short and stark man-done-left-me number by Crandall called âAnd Your Devil is Comin.ââ
Local vocalist Mark Gibson adds some plaintive shouting on âJohn the Revelatorâ before Crandall caps things off with âCrushing Giftâ and its first line:
âLike the voice of a bird in a sky full of rain.â
Crandallâs lowdown, gritty voice, which recalls Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart at their best, well suits his brooding lyrics. And this disc, artfully produced by Mick Walker, Crandall and Mike Fierce, is like nothing else youâve ever heard recorded in CNY.

Saturday at Shiftyâs
The Gonstermachers make what could be their last local performance in the bandâs original incarnation at a CD release party for âCrushing Gift,â at 10 p.m. Saturday Sept. 20, at Shiftyâs Tavern, 1401 Burnet Ave. The quartet features guitarist/cellist Leo Crandall, harmonica master Curtis Waterman, washtub bassist Richard Curry and drummer Hymie Witthoft.
Witthoft is moving out of town soon, and it wonât be easy to replace him when he splits. On the new disc, he plays not only the trap set but gongs, castanets, bongos, war drums and Camerounian tambour.


TWO SIDE-BARS

âShaken freeâ
Effamira jerks her head side to side, shaking her raven hair from her face. As she sits in the back of Myrtleâs black Ford, Effamira ignites a cigarette with a bejeweled lighter and takes a long, slow drag. She remembers gliding along a shiny dancefloor with her men in their tuxedos. She tugs at the arms of her velvet bodice, and in a flash, sheâs out of the car and into the wind and rain, disrobing, dancing like a Druid.

Sound like a scene from an old film noir or maybe a pre-code silent? You can sense that violence lurks just beyond the celluloid, that our heroine is bound for a bad end, that smoke and fog become one along with rainwater and red blood.
So starts âEffamiraâs Tangoâ (previously titled âDancing in the Rainâ), one of Leo Crandallâs intriguing exercises in imagism and rhythm on The Gonstermachersâ new CD, âCrushing Gift.â

âThe rain is running down the bone of her neck. She feels it soaking through her sleeve./
The rain is running down the flesh of her back and Effamiraâs shaken free, shaken free.â


Hip shots
The Gonstermachersâ name is derived from the German âGantseh Macher,â which means âbig shot.â In Yiddish, the word is âgonstermacher,â a âbig man.â
In late-2003 multi-instrumentalist Leo Crandall formed The Gonstermachers along with three like-minded musicians culled from Syracuseâs vibrant blues community.
Harmonica player Curtis Waterman and drummer Hymie Witthoft had both played for the Westcott Jug Suckers and other blues groups. Washtub bass player Richard Curry had labored in less-visible outfits such as the West Nile Marching Band.
âI believe my musical uniqueness fits in well with the uniqueness of the group,â Curry said. âWhere else would you see a cello and a tub bass together, both amplified with effects?â
You heard him right. He said cello.
Crandall often whips out the big four-string for tunes by Robert Johnson, James Brown, Louis Armstrong and his own original compositions. Veteran Central New York entertainer Jerry Cali describes the quirky quartet as âpotent, edgy and hip.â
The quartetâs initial disc was nominated for a 2006 Syracuse Area Music Award in the blues recording category. In 2007 that CD was nominated for a Blue Star award in Australia.