Keep it simple, keep it real.

April 23, 2013 10:23 PM

If you're a fan of deeply grooving and righteously soulful music that's stripped down to its barest essentials, then you'll love Brushy One String's Chicken In The Corn, not to mention No Man Can Stop Me, They Are Going Down and Boom Bang Deng. A voice and a one string guitar. All you need, really.
posted by flapjax at midnite (25 comments total)

Awesome.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 10:30 PM on April 23, 2013

Oh, and here Brushy talks a bit about how he started on his one string path, and demonstrates for us the first tune he ever played: Mr. DC
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:30 PM on April 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh hell yeah!
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:43 PM on April 23, 2013

I like this far, far more than I expected to.
posted by cthuljew at 10:48 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

I’m kind of surprised that there isn't a flapjax/Samm song called Boom Bang Deng by now. (I guess we'll have to be satisfied with Boom Chicky Boom.)
posted by LeLiLo at 10:56 PM on April 23, 2013

Thanks for this and for ultimately reminding me of Seasick Steve.
posted by cmoj at 11:01 PM on April 23, 2013 [4 favorites]

Wow. Never heard of Seasick Steve; he is really something. (This seems to be his single-string video.)
posted by LeLiLo at 11:11 PM on April 23, 2013

I just think that if his parents wanted him to have a successful music career, they would have given him a middle name like "Six" or even "Four". Brushy One String is such a handicap, although he's done well with it. I suppose he got off lucky, if you look at his sister; I don't know what Mr. and Mrs. String were thinking when they gave her just the middle initial G.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:38 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

He seems to cope well when hilarious disaster strikes.
posted by Dim Siawns at 12:04 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Words fail me. What a music this is
posted by Doleful Creature at 12:10 AM on April 24, 2013

Add another string and you get Ghana's # hit trad punk singer, King Ayisoba playing the kolgo. He wants to Sue his Father. Other Frafra musicians are also modernizing the instrument.
posted by zaelic at 1:16 AM on April 24, 2013 [4 favorites]

King Ayisoba playing the kolgo

You know, zaelic, it so happens that yours truly is now the proud owner of a kologo, which I've been knocking around on a little bit. My Ghanaian musical buddy (here in Tokyo) brought one back for me from his recent trip back home. Here he is playing it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:35 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

Just crazy about Brushy One String's music! What a great voice. Love the combination of the guitar plucking, percussion and singing.

Some other excellent ones of his:
War and Crime

No Man Stop Me (Good Morning Mr.Sun)

Love his Jamaican patois in the Mr. DC link you posted. Discovered there is a nice selection of his music on Spotify.

Delightful post flapjax. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 2:36 AM on April 24, 2013

All delightful stuff Flas

Re King Ayisoba I thought

"Now where have I heard that beat bef.......son of a bitch."
posted by timsteil at 3:17 AM on April 24, 2013

What the fuck? How is a one-string guitar sounding this fucking good? People, man, just when I think it's time to push my big red DESTROY EARTH button, they do something that rocks.
posted by NoMich at 4:31 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

my big red DESTROY EARTH button

Hey, wait... you're not Koko the Clown, are you?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:50 AM on April 24, 2013

wow
posted by mattoxic at 5:17 AM on April 24, 2013

This is so great. Gotta go listen some more.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:47 AM on April 24, 2013

These are awesome. It's rare that I want to favorite a post more than once but oh man, you have just turned me onto a whole new artist I never heard of and am immediately loving. Thank you!
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:08 AM on April 24, 2013

That was amazing. I have a five-string banjo and I've been trying to learn to play it off and on for a couple of years and now I just feel like an absolute asshole. One string. Jeezum crow.

Has anyone seen Rise Up, the movie that this is from? I'm curious about it now, but Marley/Scratch Perry-style reggae is really not my bag musically. This, however, I love.
posted by Shepherd at 6:11 AM on April 24, 2013

I’m kind of surprised that there isn't a flapjax/Samm song called Boom Bang Deng by now.

No no, try to remember, Flapjax at Midnight lives in Japan.

You're thinking of his cousin who lives in Korea, Johnnycaxe at High Noon, and his hit single, Be Bim Bop!
 
posted by Herodios at 7:29 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Has anyone seen Rise Up, the movie that this is from?

Yes, it's great on many levels, not just as a partial snapshot of the contemporary Jamaican music scene and how 'the more things change the more they stay the same' (the roots continuum of 70's "Marley/Scratch Perry-style reggae" is carried by the appearance of veteran Sly Dunbar of Sly & Robbie fame), but as portraits of the rock and roll dream, of making it out of the ghetto and obscurity into fame and stardom via music, with all the heartbreak and drama of that narrative, made more visceral by the compact intensity of the world's most musically productive island.
posted by bonefish at 7:34 AM on April 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

You have broadened my world in a delightfully funky manner. Thanks!
posted by cross_impact at 7:36 AM on April 24, 2013

One of our Facebook friends posted the Mr DC clip today and I said, I bet Flapjax found this clip, but if not, that you'd love it.

Sure enough, here's another great FAM post on the art of the one string guitar family.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:52 AM on April 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is amazing. I'd love to hear him collaborate with Portishead.
posted by boo_radley at 2:22 PM on April 24, 2013