Creaturemag Online Art Magazine, we publish interesting art and literature from the UK and beyond

This week we have a guest-piece from one of our American Readers Joel Patterson from Mountaintop Records, New York who talks to us about why we should love his local blues act Holly & Evan. And he’s convincing…

Brutality, anyone? Holly and Evan have just finished playing one of her searing, original numbers, here in this crowded and hazy bar on a gritty backstreet down by the river. It’s titled ‘123’ and, like all of her tunes it’s built around a few simple words strung out over a few choice blues licks. “1,2,3, baby. It’s just that easy.” Stark and riveting, it sounds like some classic lamentation from the Delta.

The next one has a pounding, enraged rhythm. “Hurry up! Hurry yourself! I’m losing my mind!” Holly’s voice is effortless, a soft husky growl – her guitar playing struts and swaggers. Evan attacks his upright bass like he’s tussling with a schoolyard playmate, lurching to and fro, nearly strangling it, keeping up a steady slapping beat on the strings like a snare drum – he’s a whole one-man rhythm section. The two of them together create a slinky, irresistible, bobbing, swaying groove. But instead of stark rivets, the patrons here drone on oblivious, lost in their dreary Wednesday night.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’d realize these two have become a fixture on the local scene, but it seems like no one here has ever heard of them. (Such are the anomalies of local scenes – this thirty-something pair were described in one local paper recently as “that teenage folk-rock duo.”) There’s not even the smattering of applause that’s usually a reflex action. But the waitresses on their hurried missions toss them glances of heartfelt approval, and by the end of the evening a small crowd is dancing before the alcovish stage.

So this is Holly and Evan, 2011– finding their footing in a harsh, indifferent world- fragile, klutzy creatures obsessed with rootsy, lusty acoustic blues music. This is their story.

The pair met at an open mic night in 2009; Holly was looking for a way out of the pseudo-nightmare her life had settled into, supported by her second husband, with kids from a first marriage – a bitter detente that was nevertheless an improvement over the first marriage (betrayal, thievery, the whole soufflé.) She revived her guitar practice and started writing songs spiced with autobiographical lyrics. “I’d rather be dead/ by the side of the road/ than to spend one more minute of time/ with that man of mine.” A pivotal encounter with a video documentary of the 1930′s blues legend Robert Johnson opened up a whole world to her, with its charred landscapes of emotion and pain and without understanding much in the way of music theory, she taught herself to mimic the progressions and began to experiment.

Evan had been in various bands – as lead and sideman – since high school and was at the open mic with his bass guitar to accompany a friend. “This girl plays two songs, one of them’s good,” he remembers being told. Evan actually liked the other one, the one with a slick key change. He volunteered to play with her and even if that first performance was a disaster, they found an instant rapport, showing up at open mics as a team, texting constantly, each of them finding in the other a perfect cohort and partner and not to get too sappy about it, a friend.

Two years later, they are playing a steady gig-and-a-half a week. Evan’s Hyundai Accent gets packed like a game of Tetris with his bass, Holly’s guitar, and all their various and sundry PA and gear; a briefcase with “Holly & Evan” stencilled on it; the latest preamp/direct box Evan’s fashioned for Holly’s guitar; copies of their live CD, while Evan slaves over the studio debut, scheduled for the fall, using real tape and vintage gear he’s personally rebuilt.

Not every single gig has cash rewards, but well-attended and karmically blessed shows will net them $100 apiece on a good night. Their monthly gig as the house band at a New Orleans themed restaurant is less but includes dinner and gives them steady exposure. The intelligensia of the venues they play at have no trouble recognizing that something’s happening here, but by the same token, they don’t have a bunch of screaming buddies traipsing to their shows and riotously whirling around like dervishes, like the “cults” surrounding some of their contemporaries. Beyond these gigs, neither of them is technically “employed,” so the support of their families is the linchpin and accelerator pedal and automatic transmission of their career.

Evan’s mom has been tireless in seeking out opportunities and radio airplay and promoting them – relentless in a good way – unfazed by the often baffling inconsistency or downright craven bastardry of the people she has to deal with. There are bitter ironies involved in playing music for fun and profit – the joys and rewards of performing and the grim real-world bartering- -overlapping, in infinite shades of greyscale.

Why should you love Holly and Evan, British readers who’ve never seen them play? You should love them because they don’t really know what they’re doing. They pursue their goals not always objectively but always passionately, and they are fun to watch. The time is ripe for a stipped-down, back to basics approach to music. And this revolution will be televised.

Got a band that you love and think everyone else should too? Tell Creature about it!