The Kropotkins

Discography
Photos
History
Lyrics

to listen

Discography

Five Points Crawl
2000


Mulatta Records
Performers: Lorette Velvette (vocals, guitar), Charlie Burnham(violin), Dave Soldier (banjo, violin), Dog (guitar, bass), Maureen Tucker(bass drum, vocals), Jonathan Kane (snare drum)

Tunes: Crazy Hannah (Mo Tucker)
Starkweather (James Tucker (Mo's Brother), lyrics, Dave Soldier music)
Truckstop Girls (Soldier)
I Gotta Man (Charlie Burnham)
Drivin' to Spring (Soldier)
Justice Down South(Soldier)
Seconds Past Midnight (Velvette & Soldier)
Sissy Wa Wa (Velvette, Soldier, Rory Young)
Junior's Groove (Vevette)
Forever Motel (lyrics James Tucker, music Soldier)

The Kropotkins
1995

Mulatta Records
Performers: Lorette Velvette (vocals, guitar), Mark Feldman (violin), Dave Soldier (banjo, violin), Dog (guitar, bass), Samm Bennett (bass drum, vocals), Jonathan Kane (snare drum)

Koch Records, out of print, some copies available from Mulatta Records
1. Cold Wet Steel (Soldier)
2. Shake 'Em on Down Fred (McDowell)
3. Everdream (Soldier/Rory Young)
4. On This Earth (Soldier)
5. Pachman Farm (Bukka White)
6. Something Crawling Round My Bed (Velevette)
7. Good Cheap Transportation (Bennett)
8. Coal Black Wind (Soldier)
9. Some of the Dust (Bennett)
10. The Nasadiya (Soldier)
11. Crow Jane (Soldier, based on anonymous song)

Photos

from left: Lorette Velvette, Jonathan Kane, Dave Soldier, Dog (Mark Deffenbaugh), Charlie Burnham, photo by on Gott in NYC (2000?)

History

My favorite musician forever will I think be Bill Monroe, who made me want to play and write music (my inspirations to make written music were Roscoe Mitchell & Eddie Palmieri). Bill's music along with Othar Turner, Howlin’ Wolf (another forever favorite since I collected his 78’s as a kid in Carbondale), hearing unreleased north Mississippi tapes by Alan Lomax at the Smithsonian, all inspired the Kropotkins. We asked was what would rock n' roll sound have sounded like if it developed down those rural routes?

The idea for the Kropotkins occured to me was when I was on tour with John Cale in 1992. The band was John on Bosendorfer piano backed up by the Soldier String Quartet and the great British pedal steel player BJ Cole. On some numbers we also had the Quartet's singers at the time, Tiye' Giraud and Sam Butler, who had been in the 5 Blind Boys of Alabama. Bob Newirth was on the tour too, sitting in with steel string guitar and banjo whenever he liked. The Quartet with Tiye' and Sam would do an opening set and the second half was John's pieces, which I arranged for piano and quartet with BJ making up his own lines.

We traveled in two enormous tour buses full of equipment and required many hours a nday to set up the sound. One day in as we were waiting for soundcheck in Stuttgart I heard a Japanese bluegrass band playing Bill Monroe beautifully on the street. It took about a minute for them to set up and they could play anywhere, and Monroe's music was transcendent, many years after he created it and in a foreign country played by unexpected musicians. I wondered if it would be possible to make some kind of American rock music, or whatever it is the Kropotkins make, the same way? Othar Turner and Sid Hemphill made me realize you could mix the bass and snare drum with the banjo, fiddle, and guitar and vocals. With these old American instruments, everything can be played without electonics at a barbeque. I hope that Bill and Wolf might get a kick out of it.

I called up my favorite musician for each part, and they have all joined in. Locating Lorette Velvette was, the only player in the group I didn't really know and had only met one time is a story in itself I'll write up some time. We've recorded three CDs worth of music, the last one in January 2005 and still unmixed at Easley Studios in Memphis. Lorette is back, and so are Samm Bennett (returning from Tokyo), Dog, Charlie Burnham, and Jonathan Kane, joined by Doug Easley and Al X. Greene. Mo Tucker couldn't come, as a new grandmother. Unfortunately, Easely Studios burned down soon after, destroying lots of classic studio gear.

It's a great group, we have a great time playing, and its the fact that a bunch of them have kids (Samm Bennett lives in Tokyo), and in Moe Tucker's case a grandson, and in my case a day job, that keeps us from performing as much as we'd like.

reviews will be added eventually, here's a few:

Reviews:
Village Voice from Joe's Pub concert
San Francisco East Bay Express CD review
LA Weekly article about Lorette