Slab by Slab

Low rider, hell hound, bump and grinder man... Son of Dave works it with a cold sweat.

Words Daddy Bones / Image(s) Gary Manhine

image of Son Of Dave

Benjamin Darvill, whom you shall address as Son of Dave, has been a regular fixture in The Stool Pigeon for habitual readers of the Comments & Analysis pages. If you’ve not heard his music or seen his shows, however, you’ll likely be unaware that he really does live those ageless words. Armed with only a harmonica, a rattle and a stomping brogue, he says he “perverts the blues”; howling, droning, bitching and grunting. Rhythm like a gale, talk like sex. His new album, thick with the funk (in its truest, sweatiest, dirtiest sense) is simply titled 03. This thumping collection of primal howls follows his earlier works in logical titular fashion, although they’re fleshier in production. They were called 01 and 02 - a workmanlike notion that, rather than being born of a dearth of ideas for album titles, betrays his whole musical ethos; one man, one groove, one show at a time. This is how it’s done; this is how it’s kept real.

Handed a harmonica as a child in Canada by his father (named Dave - I presume you picked that up), Benjamin seems to have absorbed the essence of the blues by osmosis; the rhythm, the rawness and the honesty inherent in its just-get-it-the-fuck-out-of-your-system delivery. This mis en scene unfolds, as it should, at the beginning, at home. “Winnipeg is the second coldest city on the world, next to that one in Siberia,” Benjamin says. “There are colder towns, but not cities. It’s a pretty depressed place, typical of the Midwest in the USA and Canada. People used to make their own clothes and tools but, one by one, the manufacturing went to various developing nations. Now the downtowns are all old and empty and it’s a bit depressing. I remember all these garment buildings in the centre from when I was a kid - the wind would howl through there at minus 30 and there were just hookers and a few bad old hotel bars where the blues guys would play. Just that - and a whole lotta prostitutes in miniskirts in 30 below weather. And a lot of drunk native people who unfortunately had gone to the city looking for something great and only found country and western bars to stagger from, and knife fights to be had.”

Cold, hollow, lovelorn and hard-bitten. No better recipe for the playing the blues.

“Back home,” Benjamin concurs, wistfully, “the best bar-room blues - the best traditional blues - is just two guys on acoustic instruments, and the best blues I’ve heard is in Winnipeg. Really. Maybe you could say that of wherever you come from, or the city you’re in, ’cos there are always blues bands and you get to know the players, but it brings a tear to my eye when they play. Y’know, I never had blues records… well, maybe a couple - I had a John Hammond and a James Cotton, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee - but that just scratches the surface, and the first place I heard all those songs was in the bars in Winnipeg. I preferred not to stay at home listening to records. I just soaked it up in a general way.”

And soak it up he did. Though blues purists and those dullards partial to endless 12-bar jams would no doubt disagree, he is one of its finest exponents today. His style is fresh, his guts gravelly, and for just one man he’s quite the primal force - both live and on record.

“I stripped it down,” he says. “It’s survival. I played in a big band for many years [look it up on the web] and we eventually broke up. I couldn’t get a demo tape listened to after that. I tried putting a band together and touring it, and lost a lot of money doing that in Canada. I really didn’t want to feel I was being responsible for anyone else’s failure. My own, that’s fine, but I don’t wanna take a group of good musicians down with me.”

How very Christian of you, Benjamin. “Thanks,” he coughs, “I’ll take that as a compliment. I’ve punched people for less, but I’m sure you mean that in a good way.” He laughs his smoky laugh. “I’m just being facetious. But I realised there was no way I could put together some new band, pay for rehearsal space and then take it to Barfly in Camden and drop off a tape, asking for a job. No way. My job is to play music for people, not to drop off demo tapes. I was simply going insane knowing what the process is. I’ve been in some big A&R offices and it’s hideous, even down to labels like One Little Indian. I saw the head of A&R there - well, in the clubs, getting more trashed than anyone else - and he said, ‘Nice tape. If you could just get it onto CD.’ And so I just gave up and said, ‘I’ve got to go play on the streets.’ I took a harmonica, a shaker, stomped my foot and within half an hour people were offering me jobs.”

And thus unfolds the path of the working bluesman, slab by slab, job by job. So long as there’s an electrical current for his loop pedal, mic and amplifier, he will take his hands, feet and that dirty mouth and ply his trade. Sometimes bright lights pick him out, sometimes TV cameras crane to peer beneath the broad brim of his hat, sometimes he plays to passing trade, but he will never be short of work. A tradesman never is.

“I never worry,” he says. “I can always go back to busking or to the corner pub for a regular gig and people will love it. I don’t have to worry about changing styles or selling a lot of CDs, although I need to now to pay for the one I just made.” He cackles. “But it’s not that desperate. I’m in for the long haul. I’m not blasé about it, but I do like to remind people that it’s like a job, in that you don’t just make a splash for a couple of years and then retire. It’s something you do, and something that you have to be able to do - at the drop of a hat. If you can’t go somewhere… how can I say this? Like a cook. He can take his knives and his job anywhere, y’know? And it’s an honest job.”

The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

The Stool Pigeon issue 15, March 2008

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