Charlie Parr, JD Wilkes + Boss Caine

Let’s go baboon presents
Charlie Parr
JD Wilkes (Legendary Shack Shakers)
Boss Caine
Thursday 29th August, 7.30pm
Tickets are £12.50 in advance (more on the door) and are available from Earworm Records, the venue in person or online via See Tickets.

Charlie Parr (US)

Easily confused and very shy, Charlie Parr has been traveling around performing his Resonator-fueled folk songs ever since leaving Austin, Minnesota in the 1980s in search of Spider John Koerner – whom he found about 100 miles north at the Viking Bar. The experience changed his life, made him more or less unemployable, and transformed him into the force of nature known to fans today. Those who have been following Charlie Parr through his escapades of nonstop touring already know that the Duluth-based songwriter has a way of carving a path straight to the gut. On his latest record, Dog, he digs deeper and hits those nerves quicker than ever before. In quieter moments, Parr confronts hard issues head-on, using only an acoustic guitar or banjo to light the way, then ramps up to raucous, punk-tinged soundscapes that make you want to howl at the moon.

JD Wilkes

JD Wilkes is an American musician, visual artist, author, filmmaker and self-proclaimed “southern surrealist”. He is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist (notably on harmonica and banjo), having recorded with such artists as Merle Haggard, John Carter Cash, Mike Patton and Hank Williams III. Wilkes is perhaps best known as the founder of the Legendary Shack Shakers, a Southern Gothic rock and blues band formed in the mid 90s. JD Wilkes has been compared to iconoclasts like David Byrne, Iggy Pop or Jerry Lee Lewis, and with his small, wiry frame and intense, incandescent performances, it’s not hard to see why. But while he plays the carnival barker onstage, he’s a dedicated lifelong student of true Southern culture. Wilkes’ solo debut, Fire Dream, represents the apotheoses of that vision: a hillbilly-gypsy epic, it’s an album of art damaged cabaret music, leavened by Latin rhythms and high lonesome hollers.

Supporting Charlie Parr and JD Wilkes will be York’s finest troubadour Boss Caine.