SLEEP GUNNER: Fakin' Their Way Through The Louvin Brothers Catalog.: December 2014

8.12.14

michael moore's 60th birthday party.

Although almost ruined by the bluntest, most-uneducated, darkest bartender-lady in history (one had to take a deep breath before daring to order another beer), it was all too lovely being invited to play at one of our favorite music hero's party. Yet another pic by the wonderful Francesca Patella.

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infamous butchers #2.

Infamous Butchers #2 @ Butcher's Tears, November 27th: Sleep Gunner playing solo Louvin renditions (as shown below, yis) + Han Bennink & Koen Kaptijn playing Kurt Schwitters. Lovely pictures courtesy of Francesca Patella.

infamous butchers #1.

Our new series @Butcher's Tears where we invite local heroes to do something/anything with 20th century vocal music, and next to that, force ourselves to play an out of the ordinary Sleep Gunner set.

sept. 27th: Sleep Gunner LP Presentation + Joost Buis & Michael Moore playing Hank Williams.

Here's some footage of our esteemed guests:

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Sleep Gunner is a pair of Amsterdam-based drinking buddies that has fallen hard for the music of 1950s Alabama heartbreak duo The Louvin Brothers.

Tragically we ourselves don't sing, at least not in front of other people. So we're left with trying to translate Ira and Charlie's high lonesome twists and turns of melody into something that can be delivered via two guitars (two and a half if you count the doubleneck). The lyrics, a curious mix of repeated abandonment by cold-hearted women and stern-yet-dubious Christian moralizing, you'll have to Google for yourself.

The music that we both normally (separately) play isn't very much like bluegrass, gospel, or early country music at all, and thus Sleep Gunner is no attempt to be truly authentic in any of these styles.

But it's also no attempt to be remotely ironic; we're looking for a tender balance between staying true and respectful to the original performances and staying true to our modern, arty, guitar-playing selves, for better or worse.

The fruits of this to-be-ongoing labor will be regularly posted here. In video format, of course, as testimony to Sleep Gunner's awesome stage presence and fashion sense. Also so as not to add to anyone's already-towering stack of unlabeled, forgotten CD-Rs....

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