{"id":820,"date":"2016-04-30T07:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=820"},"modified":"2022-11-02T21:17:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T01:17:25","slug":"euphoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/euphoria\/","title":{"rendered":"Euphoria (The Holy Modal Rounders)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Euphoria\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oLHdEAlQDTQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>My uncle Sascha was a lefty lawyer in Berkeley, California, in the 1960s &#8212; he was the lawyer in the field with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, and also Huey Newton&#8217;s contact with the outside world from prison &#8212; but by the time I was old enough to be aware of his activities he had ceased practicing law, and figured in my personal life mostly as a cool uncle who gave me some of the records that have most influenced the course of my life. He had been close to Lenny Bruce, and made sure I knew Lenny&#8217;s oeuvre, and he had gone to college or law <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-588 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Fantasy-blues-sampler-e1459388602923.jpg?resize=200%2C200&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Fantasy blues sampler\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/>school with a couple of the top people at Fantasy Records, and one year gave me a promotional sampler of their new series of &#8220;two-fer&#8221; blues releases, compiled from the old Prestige catalog. He knew I was getting into blues, and that set had two cuts each by some of the greatest: Furry Lewis, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin&#8217; Hopkins, Rev. Gary Davis, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee &#8212; but what changed my life was hearing Dave Van Ronk, Tom Rush, and the Holy Modal Rounders. They had two songs each, and I still can play all six. My notion of blues up till then was some Josh White 78s and my half-brother Dave&#8217;s records, which were people like Skip James and Booker White &#8212; all terrific, but much less accessible for a white kid from Cambridge who had started out with Pete, Woody, and Cisco.<\/p>\n<p>Of all the artists on that set, I&#8217;m guessing it was the Rounders who first captured my imagination, because they were just so WEIRD. Especially &#8220;Euphoria,&#8221; which was unlike anything I&#8217;d ever heard &#8212; it sounded like Charlie Poole on methedrine, <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-822 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Holy-Modal-Rounders.jpg?resize=300%2C210&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Holy Modal Rounders\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" \/>except at that point I&#8217;d never heard of methedrine, or of Charlie Poole. I was thirteen years old, which is kind of a perfect age to discover the Rounders, and I fell hard, quickly learning this and &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/blues-in-the-bottle\/\">Blues In the Bottle.<\/a>&#8221; Then my uncle was kind enough to follow up with the Fantasy double-LP set comprising their two first albums, and I picked up several <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/bully-of-the-town\/\">more songs<\/a> off that.<\/p>\n<p>I only got to see the Rounders &#8212; the original duo, Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber &#8212; once, around 2000, and it was one of the most bizarre and fascinating shows I&#8217;ve ever attended. They had briefly reformed and were squabbling constantly between songs, but they were playing and singing great, and the (small) audience was riveted through a two hour show.<\/p>\n<p>I wouldn&#8217;t bet on any future Rounders gigs, but Peter is busier than ever, playing constantly and releasing new albums at a dazzling rate. If you don&#8217;t know his work, I still recommend starting with the Rounders, but for two later masterpieces I&#8217;d suggest &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0056D7I4M?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">Impossible Groove,<\/a>&#8221; a track with the Bottle Caps on which he raps a Robert Service poem, and his immortal version of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LRN2vHnbTx4\">Goldfinger<\/a>&#8221; with clawhammer banjo and tuba. And if you can see him live, don&#8217;t think twice, just go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My take on an early psychedelic hillbilly favorite from the Holy Modal Rounders, with thanks to my uncle Sascha, and love to Peter Stampfel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Euphoria (The Holy Modal Rounders) - 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Perry was a good friend and playing with him reshaped my understanding of the guitar. He was particularly noted for his vibrato, which was incredible -- he had exceptionally strong hands and could hold a full chord and get\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Me-and-Perry-at-Georges-80th-birthday-party-292x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":967,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/moving-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":820,"position":4},"title":"Moving Day (Charlie Poole)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In retrospect it's pretty funny how much of my early exposure to old-time country music was through the Holy Modal Rounders -- but the more I think about it, the more right it feels. I appreciate the expertise of the New Lost City Ramblers, and enjoyed the technical brilliance of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"north carolina ramblers","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/north-carolina-ramblers-222x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1364,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/send-lectric-chair\/","url_meta":{"origin":820,"position":5},"title":"Send Me to the \u2019Lectric Chair (Bessie Smith)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Among the records I assembled during my year in New York, combing the second-hand bins at Dayton's, were all five volumes of Bessie Smith's complete recordings, with their comprehensive notes by Chris Albertson. That set was an oddity of the LP era: the records were issued with the notion that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"bessie smith lp2","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/bessie-smith-lp2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4783,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/4783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}