East Portland Blog readers may have already been exposed to Complete, but if not, watch this 2008 video of the band playing their own composition “Hoogie Boogie Land”:
This seems pretty shitty at first, right? Guy can’t sing, death metal “no established beat” drumming but in a wimpy hard rock format. Maybe these guys don’t really know how to play. But, it’s good, and maybe even great. “Hoogie Boogie Land” isn’t very tuneful, but it has soul.
Have you ever wondered why white-man blues guys make no impression despite the fact that they are much faster, louder and better than the famous early electric blues pioneers? One reason is that they can’t get out of the groove. Everything has to line up and lock down with them, and the result is a uniform lack of idiosyncrasy. No idiosyncracy = no soul (see, e.g., The Fabulous Thunderbirds vs. (pre-60s) Muddy Waters). Complete follows Muddy Waters – heavy emphasis on personality.
For the Muddy Waters camp, music lulls and swells, has emphases in unexpected places, and can be very difficult to reproduce, all necessary (not to say sufficient) indicators of soul. Let’s see if Hoogie Boogie Land tracks with something many can agree is a masterpiece. Exhibit A: Muddy Waters’ 1950 recording of Rollin’ Stone a/k/a Catfish Blues. Really listen to it, closely. It has one or two parts, no locked-tempo beat, the emphases come in whenever MW fuckin’ feels like it. If you are an instrumentalist, try to learn this version. Sounds easy at first, but I think you’ll find it very resistant to carbon-copy duplication.
Exhibit B is the video above of Complete’s 2008 recording of Hoogie Boogie Land. Two to three parts for this one, no strict beat, emphases and dynamics are “unconventional.” Let’s see what happens when nominally more competent musicians try to duplicate it:
These guys are definitely faster, louder and better than Complete, but they couldn’t make the magic happen this time, and I suspect if they tried harder, the result would be exactly the same.
– Andy Cohen plays guitar in legendary Chicago band, Bottomless Pit.
