Inspired by the ’60s piano-drums blues recordings of Otis Spann & S.P. Leary, Chicago based 3-piece ensemble brings a fusion of blues & soul-jazz on a "punk kick" for a sound all their own in support of new album release, "No Hotel," on Yellow Dog Records! Featuring Johnny Iguana, Michael Caskey, Yana.
The White Stripes and Black Keys rock the blues with a guitar attack. Like the Bad Plus, the Claudettes brandish a piano instead. But the Claudettes have created their own fanatical fusion of blues and soul-jazz—like Ray Charles on a punk kick. Imagine an amped-up piano hybrid of Otis Spann, Ray Charles and Mose Allison, joined by a jolly madman drummer and conducted in gonzo fashion by Raymond Scott. File under: post-burlesque? Neo-vaudeville? Cosmic cartoon music? You’ve never seen an instrumental duo like this. Add Claudettes’ new hire, singer/dancer Yana (and her array of ’60s French “ye-ye” songs), to the mix and you’ve got a band like no one else on the scene.
Inspired by the ’60s piano-drums blues recordings of Otis Spann & S.P. Leary, Johnny and Michael formed their duo—but a wealth of influences and passions entered their quickly evolving instrumental sound. Witness the one-two punch of “New Orleans Yard Sale” (with its stomping Crescent City sound) and “Infernal Piano Plot…HATCHED!” (a breakneck blues that Looney Tunes surely would have copped). Listen to Ray Charles go off the rails on “Deep Soul for High Society,” then stand back as all hell breaks loose on another dynamic double-shot of creative composition and wicked improvisation: “Motörhome/Land of Precisely Three Dances.”
“Since age 15, I’ve always had my own blues band, wearing ties and blazers and playing Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Ray Charles, Freddie King and Howlin’ Wolf—and also a rock band or punk band. I always tried to keep those two scenes and sounds separate,” Johnny says. “This time, I decided to cram it all together into one band: the thousands of hours listening to the blues masters and figuring it all out on the piano, the amphetamine rush of punk, the classical piano lessons—and, first and foremost, the desire to make something new and personally expressive out of it all.”
That’s why the Claudettes’ debut is peppered with time-capsule blues like album opener “Stumblin’ Home Satisfied” and their spin on Little Brother Montgomery’s classic “Tremblin’ Blues—but also a schizoid trip like “Chin-Up Tango” and the positively Schumann-esque album closer “Do You See It Too?” There is something antique and nostalgic about the Claudettes, with shadows of Tin Pan Alley lurking in the chord changes… and yet something altogether fresh, alive, excited and exciting.
This is truly a show unlike any other you’ll experience – to hear it is to love it, but to see it is to believe it, get your tickets today!