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SYA017 POSSESSED BY PAUL JAMES 'Possessed by Paul James' LP 400 copies - black vinyl 100 copies - red vinyl February 2006
track list: Fiddle f**k / Old man souls / No windows / Warden's wife / Men men men / Foot in Heaven/Hell / Fiddle #1 / Diddly bo traditional / Colorofmybloodynose / Billy Bobby Boy / Nightmare waltz / Fiddle #2 / Committed
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Possessed by Paul James is actually a stage name for Konrad Wert. He was born and raised down south in the glades of Florida. Some think it odd, but he comes from the Amish/Mennonite upbringing. His father was a preacher in the church and his mother accompanied him by playing the piano. Though he left the church later on, Konrad pulls from the roots of the powerful singing that defined such an upbringing. Incorporating fiddle, banjo, guit, stomp box and the occasional diddly boe, he ‘growls’ out songs and kicks out originals with passion and grit. His intentions are clear, “the goal is this, man, we want to do music that reflects a sincere, possessive force that can cut through the bullshit and take us wherever it can.” Described as “...a redefined mix of blues, old timey folk, southern wickedness and FIRE!” by WHOOPSY magazine of Austin, Texas, Possessed by Paul James is on his way, inviting you to GROWL along.
REVIEWS
English Here's another artist who will up-and-disappear to some small Colorado town just to protect his art and write honest songs, despite having signed recently to Shake Your Ass in Italy and toured Europe with explosive shows and an unbelievable Howlin' Wolf style presence. This guy's energy, his shrieking fiddle, his stomping bass-drum feet, and his spitting, hollering preacher's lyrics are deeply tied into his real life story: Konrad Wert grew up in an Amish community, came out into the weird America he'd been sheltered from, and somehow channels the explosive freedom he felt into his writing and performances. Myspace.com/possessedbypauljames -- If this guy performs within 500 miles of you, start planning the road trip. (Dusted Magazine - Brooklyn, NY - November 2006) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Possessed By Paul James is a one man band by the name of Konrad Wert, born and raised by Amish people down in Florida. His debut album is a rowdy infectious mix of bluegrass, folk, punk, and blues graced with religious hollering (and a lotta ‘fuck you’s’), footstomping, acoustic geetar, fiddle, banjo and what-not. The album seems to be recorded live, I’m sure this is exactly how PBPJ sounds like, a show I’d love to experience (he has been busy tourning Europe). This boy has a very strong soulful raw voice and seems quite frankly to be possessed by some southern fire ‘n’ brimstone demon! Highly recommended. (Jens Kophoed-Pihl/Lowcut Magazine # 39 - November 2006) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * “In walks my true redeemer and she stares at me so coldly...” – ‘men men men’ A record that lands on your mat that you turn over and track one be called ‘Fiddle F**k’ has to be fantastic. No question. It has to be. And this chap Konrad Wert who belts out this stuff under the powerful mambo voodoo of Paul James is a freewheelingly fantastic frenzy of fury, snot and frenzied feeling that sho’ don’t let down your first impressions. Why, instead, he hops right aboard atop them hollering on guitar, banjo, fiddle, floor, fingers, fumbs and anything he can beat, breakdown and reel into some sort of rotgut rhythm, trounces them into dust, snorts ‘em with shotgun pellets, steps out into the street and stands centre-stage at the crossroads where he’s pulled willingly to the four corners by Tom Waits, Euchrid Euchrow from Nick Cave’s ‘And The Ass Saw The Angel’ book, Charley Patton and John Lee Hooker...Robert Johnson? He too scared to come, boy. Maybe it’s the Florida background coupled with the Amish upbringing, but the feral, untamed wildcat abandon of the playing mixed with a definite spirited if not spiritual fervour is something of a fraternal link to Curtis Ellers urbane big city circus mastery up in New York...another absurdist hill-folk troubadour preaching splenetic eloquent tourettes tirades at whatever trouble, hellhounds, spouses and spinsters litter his door with enough spit, sawdust, fire and brimstone to build a barge to bestiality, buggery and kingdom come. Hallelujah. Where he opens with a riposte at those drunken ‘I love you man, you’re my best friend’ types over the top of what sounds like a ripped Waterboys on the ‘Fishermans Blues’ sessions jamming with The Happy Flowers and Otis Lee Crenshaw, gladly Wert is directed to deeds deeper by his doppelganger of the soul, and this is by no means a pisstake record. ‘No Windows’ is a lovely homeless on the homestead drinking winsome wine song, with the lulling chiming lungs of Leadbelly wooing Lucinda Williams for a melodious mingling in the chicken shack; ‘Foot In Heaven / Hell’ is a lightning bar country blues boogie like The Carter Family wagon train playing for their lives, no, souls, at The Little Bighorn; Mr. Waits channelling Kerouac at a séance couldn’t create ‘Colour Of My BloodyNose’, a dark affecting tale of slapstick suicide that starts as a sprightly jig and becomes a slandering scat-sermon of suppressed helplessness and rage - 'They threw you in a garbage bag The trashmen took your soul Now your toilet is my tombstone Your blood is my muse What’s the point in fighting When we’re gonna fucking lose...oh baby FUCK YOU, Fuck You...’ ‘Fiddle #1’ harks at the ghosts haunting Johnny Cash, sounding like Cash leading a pre-Civil War battle singsong round the campfire. ‘Billy Bobby Boy’ may recall Tom Waits in the braying vocals and the mountain slide roll of the guitar that could force the coal companies from quarrying all the Appalachians into the sea, yet that with ‘Warden’s Wife’ has more traces of the full moon-shine eerie hill music of Uncle Dave Macon and the Mississippi Mud Steppers along with other names you might pull off bluegrass boxsets to make yourself seem erudite. But none more mysterious than ‘Men Men Men’, a mournful mandolin accompanying the vocal, telling its tale of us men and all the weaknesses and foibles in the face of the straight and narrow (waist)line. There is something captivatingly ancient, rigorously real yet frantically, fatalistically instantaneous about this record. Even though he coulda walked out of the woods from an underground bunker into modern life for the first time in a century this is excitingly and enchantingly eccentric and amongst all this sanitised reproduction roots rock/country/blues this is the closest you get to a real deal...accompanying himself at times with guttural utterances somewhere between Keef’s usual slur and Brad Pitts oik character in ‘Kalifornia’ there certainly seems to be some possession going down somewhere. At the very least that of genius, good gawd almighty, sinners, grinners and granddad faced gurners. Go wild, HOG wild in the country... (Stu Gibson/Sleazgrinder Webzine June 2006) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "Among the handful of soused baseball fans, Konrad Wert looks like a younger version of Tom Waits: hat dipped low over one eye, suspenders clinging to a worn T-shirt. (...). He offers a story with all the Waitsian traits: God, religion, and revelation in a half-empty bar. But his story is true. The 29-year-old guitarist grew up in the swamps of Immokalee, Fla., and his family was Mennonite Amish." (excerpt from Austin Chronicle article by Audra Schroeder) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "Break it! Smash it! Fuck it up! Love it! Hold it! Squeeze it! That's what you do when you listen to this shit. Man, when have I been this excited by one guy? Yeah I'm a jaded old fuck but I still want my rocks off? This strange creature comes from the depths of the Florida swamps ripe with raw power not seen by many. A rediefined mix of blues, old timey folk, southern wickedness and fire! FIRE DAMN IT! Fiddle, banjo, guitar, a diddly bo (stringed thingy), bells and yell. Like Billie Holiday and Doug Kershaw made a speed baby at the crawfish boil! (I got to use all these exclamations cause that's how it blows up all over)!This here dude works at Bouldin Creek, but would be better off rippen it up around the globe, tearing your ass out with all his wild antics and cornbread-fed soul purity. Some people just knock yer face in the dirt. He be one 'em! ...Git it no! This is too excitin to not hear. 'Konrad' takes a tasty dish and serves it up with some hot fever! Gut-kicken' down home wacked out blues destruction! Holy Lord, eat me!" (Johnny Mack/WHOOPSY Magazine # 5 July 2005) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * French
Possessed by Paul James est l'appellation
étrange (possedé par le rock'n'roller canadien Paul James?!?) sous laquelle
se produit Konrad Wert, un garçon sans dout un peu dérangé et originaire de
Floride. Entre folk mutant, gospel enflammé (son grand-père était prêcheur
Amish) et blues du sud, Konrads'accompagne à la gratte, au banjo, violon et
au "Diddley Bow" (une corde suffit!). Il grogne, bougonne et fout le feu aux
13 titres de ce LP sans titre qui devrait ravir les amateurs de Roots & Roll
original (trés) et originel. L'animal a des intonations prenantes et de
toutes façons, un mec capablede vous faire pleurer des larmes de Jack Daniel
en faisant turnoyer un refrain addictif à base de "Oh baby fuck you, oh
darling fuck you, oh mother fuck you!" mérite le respect, nom d'un alligator
borgne! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * German
POSSESSED BY PAUL JAMES
a.k.a. Konrad Wert ist keine One-Man Band Alltagserscheinung. Statt
zur Psychotherapie zu rennen, stellt sich Konrad Wert, der Sohn
eines Amish-Predigers, seinem Alter Ego PAUL JAMES. (Mark A. Littler/Triggerfish Magazine May 2006) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Musikalische Teufelsaustreibung. Das ging mir als erstes durch den Kopf, als die ersten paar Songs hinter mir lagen. Und das liegt nicht nur daran, dass des Musikers Vater dereinst Prediger war ... POSSESSED BY PAUL JAMES ist eigentlich nur Konrad Wert, der irgendwo in Floridas Sümpfen geboren wurde und nun neben den anderen Jungens wie King Louie, BBQ etc. als One-Man-Band durch die Lande streift. Vergleichbar mit den besagten Kollegen ist das Gehörte dann aber nicht wirklich. Hier geht's etwas traditioneller zur Sache, mehr Richtung alter Folk, Blues und Country mit Geige, Banjo und Gitarre. Die dreckige Art, wie Herr Wert das aber umsetzt, bringt uns dann wieder zurück zum alten Kumpel mit dem Ziegenfuß. Wie besessen stampft er mit den Füßen, grummelt und bellt sich durch die Songs, will sich mit seinem Gitarrenspiel scheinbar selbst überholen, erzählt Geschichten von Himmel und Hölle und von Liebe und Tod. Die Instrumente werden gewechselt, was aber bleibt, ist die Leidenschaft, mit der die Musik gespielt wird. Und wer meint, das hört sich albern an, sollte die Platte mal hören. Ich jedenfalls warte schon darauf, POSSESSED BY PAUL JAMES live zu erleben, denn das setzt der Sache dann wahrscheinlich die Krone auf. (08/10) (Alex Strucken - OX Fanzine # 65 / July 2006)
Italian POSSESSED BY PAUL JAMES, ovvero Konrad Wert, trentenne chansonnier nativo della Florida dotato della rara capacità di coniugare sacro e profano. Sermoni blues (Konrad è figlio di un predicatore), country scomposto, bluegrass zompettante, folk del profondo sud si rincorrono nella testa di questo white trash man posseduto dal fuoco del r’n’r. I 13 pezzi dell’album hanno un suono aspro, minimale, crudo, disarmante, genuino. Roba buona prodotta semplicemente dalle corde vocali di questo pazzo sciolto che si accompagna con chitarra, banjo e violino. Pensate ad una versione acustica di Tom Waits, John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson e non sarete molto lontani dall’essenza di questo disco (Manwell Graziani - Sonic Magazine #5 Dec 2006) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Una forza
della natura l'album d'esordio di Paul James aka Konrad Wert, un
ruggito ferino e iniettato di sangue che offre uno spaccato efficace del Sud
estremo degli States. Nato e cresciuto in Florida, figlio di un predicatore
della Comunità Amish Mennonita, Paul James cava fuori dai solchi del debutto
un suono secco e aspro come una ferita, tutto giocato su banjo sonagli,
chitarra, violino e altri strumenti acustici, combinando testi apocalittici
con un'attitudine selvaggia, rabbiosa, sottolineata da un cantato becero e
volgare che sembra a tratti l'abbaiare d'un cane idrofobo. A |
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