Eugene Chadbourne – Honky Tonk Im Nachtlocal / The History Of The Chadbournes

Reading the liner notes from this live retrospective was a revealing experience. I’ve found myself at Chadbourne’s London appearances on a number of occasions in the last 15 years, and have generally ended up looking around at the appreciative nods and smiles emanating from the rest of the audience, while I nursed a pint mumbling quietly “I don’t get it”. His hunched, perspiring figure would cast a particularly introverted shadow, while his fingers fought back admirably against their owner’s lack of showmanship, twanging out breackneck figures on the banjo or guitar, while seemingly random scoops, whoops and trills high up the neck would serve as some kind of punctuation to the squawky singing and musical non-sequiturs. The central tenet of the performances seemed to be a persistent attempt to drag you back from the bar with a stunning piece of virtuosity, just as you’d given up on him. It inspired an odd kind of affection.

This CD release, however, comes across as a lot more consistent – despite being drawn from 4 different performances on 4 different tours with 4 different bands – and the aforementioned liner notes give you a good idea of what Chadbourne has been reaching out for during these years of reworking C&W and oldtime music: “The idea is to play this music with people that don’t normally play it… forcing them to improvise in the context of a genre they are largely unfamiliar with.” This philosophy, he explains, frequently led to violent reactions from irate punters in Alabama bars in the early 1980s, and having this knowledge as a backdrop gives these tunes some sense of triumph over adversity, and the apparent lack of due respect towards a genre that he clearly loves deeply starts to become rather disarming. French drummers, Italian trumpeters (“the number of Italians in a country band has always been important”) and British electronics manipulators provide the distinctly non-Yankee accompaniment to traditional tunes such as “Rabbit In The Peapatch” and “Devilish Mary”, bending them wildly out of shape to occasional smirk-provoking effect.

Standout moments? The furious bowing of violist Cédric Privé from a French tour in 2002 shows that to hail from Europe doesn’t automatically disable you from playing Americana convincingly, and Chris Cornetto’s electronic figures popping up unexpectedly from behind muted guitars makes a sequence ending with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “People Will Say We’re In Love” feel particularly playful. Another French festival performance featuring a more traditional line-up of harmonica, mandolin and mouth harp provides some exquisite and gentle respite, before the relative calm is shattered by a riot of toy instruments and sound effects which close the CD. It may have taken 25 years for Dr Chad’s prescription to start making some kind of sense, but today my dose has been doubled. And the prognosis is excellent.