Blues

Ash Grunwald ‎– Gargantua (2013)

2016-11-10T12:36:54Z

Ash Grunwald ‎– Gargantua (2013)


1 	The Last Stand 	3:22
2 	Breakout 	3:51
3 	Acting Cool 	4:24
4 	Walking 	2:58
5 	Crazy 	3:43
6 	Black And Blue 	4:16
7 	Raw 	3:34
8 	Skywriter 	3:25
9 	Mojo 	3:24
10 	Smokestack Lightning 	4:38

Ash Grunwald – guitar, vocals
Scott Owen – double bass
Andy Strachan – drums

So the story goes, Ash Grunwald spent just six days in a studio with Scott Owen and Andy Strachan of The Living End, and out popped Gargantua. An album like this makes you wonder why any stripped-down rock could ever take much longer. When music is this simple, Gargantua is a great example of how a fast, rough approach can add so much.

Acting Cool, one of only two originals on offer, is a real standout. Pinched harmonics and even a hint of double kick drum from Strachan let you know no member of this trio is interested in half-arsing it. Black And Blue is another cracker, with dirty, overblown guitar giving a new spin to this impassioned call and response while losing none of its chain gang grit. This isn't a hippie with an acoustic guitar stomping out his own beat; this is a blues disciple turning things up to 11 and recruiting what is possibly the most successful rhythm section working in Australian music today. You can hear Owen and Strachan grab onto everything Grunwald throws at them and wring out every last drop.

A couple of originals, a few rearranged self covers and a song left off the soundtrack to a Schwarzenegger movie might not sound like the ingredients for a good album, but Gargantua is all about a rock attitude that doesn't care about any of that. It only cares about delivering the real deal. Grunwald's vocals aren't always quite up to the growl he attempts, but the passion is real, and that's what matters. ---Pete Laurie, themusic.com.au

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Ash Grunwald - Hot Mama Vibes (2010)

2010-07-04T11:15:54Z

Ash Grunwald - Hot Mama Vibes (2010)


01 Walking [00:04:07]
02 Tear The Roof Off [00:03:56]
03 Raw [00:03:24]
04 Hot Mama [00:03:07]
05 Lady Luck [00:03:17]
06 Love Me [00:04:10]
07 Change [00:03:29]
08 Somebody [00:04:57]
09 Born For Good Luck [00:03:03]
10 Get It Back [00:03:07]
11 Mind Playing Tricks [00:02:09]
12 Never Let You Go [00:03:36]
13 Parents (feat. Funkoars) [00:03:58]

Whether the sight of Ash Grunwald makes you swoon, or want to take the garden shears to his top-heavy dreadlocks (or both); his new album proves he has moved well beyond John Bulter’s shadow. Taking his blues roots – with huge debts to the likes of RL Burnside – and adding large slabs of hip-hop inspired beats, and a lot of Tom Waits-like mega-phone vocals, has provided an interesting blueprint for Hot Mama Vibes. The lead track Walking was an obvious first single, with its Bo Diddley foot-stompin’ riff and thumping rhythmic accompaniment. It is well backed up by Raw, a slower, bass heavy tune that runs around a sampled matra/chain-gang chant with great effectiveness – providing the sort of dynamic palette that shows Grunwald’s playing to best effect. The policy of collaborating on the beats with the likes of Funloars, Chasm and Mr Trials makes the album track more and more like a hip-hop release, and at times Grunwald sounds uncomfortable trying to find his place in the groove, he is at his best when he leads from the front. The exception to this is the excellent Lady Luck, where Grunwald kicks back on the vocals, and plays just sparse leads on guitar, allowing the track to hang on a cooler than cool keyboard refrain from Fingers Malone. To shear or not to shear, that is the question. --- Chris Peken, altmedia.net.au

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Ash Grunwald - Live From The Factory (2008)

2010-07-03T20:23:10Z

Ash Grunwald - Live From The Factory (2008)


01 – Don’t Worry [00:04:11]
02 – Think Tank [00:06:03]
03 – Give Signs [00:04:07]
04 – Take The Drop [00:03:54]
05 – Skywriter [00:04:45]
06 – Money [00:07:48]
07 – Serious [00:03:34]
08 – Heart Attack And Vine [00:03:36]
09 – Going Down Slow [00:05:03]
10 – 1976 Coaster Van [00:04:30]
11 – Give Something Away [00:03:15]

Ash Grunwald - guitar, vocals,
Chris Wilson - harp, vocals.

Ash Grunwald is part of Australia's blues and roots scene, a one-man band who belts out his songs on guitar and stompbox at festivals around the country. Like a lot of blues and roots musicians, he's something of a young hippie, and many of his songs deal with subjects like escaping from the big city and spending time with nature. He even has a song thanking a pod of dolphins for saving him from a shark while he was out surfing.

Grunwald's grandfather played bass and at the age of ten they first started jamming together while he was learning to play the guitar. That began his obsession with the blues, expanded into an expertise by listening to the blues shows on Melbourne's community radio stations as a teenager. By his early 20s, Grunwald had been in and out of several bands including the Blue Grunwalds and the Groove Catalysts, as well as playing in a couple of duos. He found that he preferred playing solo, however, booking small shows along the coastline wherever there was a good beach he could surf at, even if it meant playing unnoticed for hours in the dark corner of a restaurant.

Still independent and without a manager, he recorded a collection of his songs and several blues covers live (including songs by Howlin' Wolf and Robert Johnson), Introducing Ash Grunwald, and released it himself in 2001. Shortly after that he discovered Tom Waits, and in particular his work from the '80s and after, which involved experimental percussion with everything from pots and pans to a dumpster. In 2004, Grunwald recorded a second album, I Don't Believe, again live and solo, this time using spanners and hammers for percussion and adding several covers of Waits' songs. It was also the first time he used samples and live loops on an album. Songs from those first two albums were then combined together in a new release called Live at the Corner, for which he won an Australian Blues Award for Album of the Year.

The popularity of blues and roots had exploded in Australia with independent, dreadlocked musicians like the John Butler Trio suddenly capable of topping the charts, and Grunwald was caught up in the boom. The JJJ radio station was responsible for spearheading the trend, and in 2005, Grunwald's youthful fascination with radio came full-circle when he became host of JJJ's Roots N All show, a position he held for 18 months. He also worked on Give Signs, his first album to consist only of original songs on which he continued to experiment with unusual percussion, like the sound of a cricket ball bouncing on the floor and his own boots stomping down the steps.

Every year, Mushroom Publishing holds a songwriting workshop in which two songwriters from different genres work together to create a song in a day; in 2008 Grunwald participated in this workshop and was teamed up with Count Bounce, the beatsmith from hip-hop group TZU. The two had a passing acquaintance from sharing the bill at festivals, but working together they discovered they had more in common than it first seemed. The two continued working together on Grunwald's 2008 album, Fish Out of Water, which was the first of his albums not to be recorded purely live or on his own. --- Jody Macgregor, Rovi

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Ash Grunwald - Fish Out Of Water (2008)

2010-07-03T12:31:55Z

Ash Grunwald - Fish Out Of Water (2008)


01 Can U Find A Way [00:04:07]
02 Mojo [00:03:13]
03 Fish Out Of Water [00:03:28]
04 Give Something Away [00:03:07]
05 The Devil Called Me A Liar [00:04:09]
06 Joke On Me [00:03:11]
07 Breakout [00:04:26]
08 Working Hard [00:02:32]
09 The Bottle [00:03:58]
10 Get What You Want [00:03:10]
11 Port Campbell [00:05:36]
12 Shake [00:04:07]

On the second song of his new album Grunwald screams, "I want it back, give me back my mojo". Well there's no doubt he has got it back - in spades. You can count the number of artists who have combined traditional blues with modern day electronics on one hand. R.L.Burnside, Moby and more recently the Black Keys did it really well. Kid Rock - not so good. The latest marriage is Ash Grunwald with TZU hip-hop DJCountbounce. Grunwald has flirted with the mix before, and he hinted at something really funky on his cover of Tom Waits' Goin' Out West a few years ago. But generally speaking, his music seemed a little meek and old-fashioned for a hulking, handsome guy in his late 20s. But now he comes on like Howlin' Wolf meets Beck, or an Australian version of soul-beats duo Gnarls Barkley. On Get What You Want he even reaches Curtis Mayfield-esque falsetto. And his traditional blues numbers have an Australian flavour - he sings about a surfing road trip on the soft acoustic blues number Port Campbell. This modern-day bluesman has managed to sound utterly contemporary while keeping his roots in the Mississippi. ---Patrick Donovan, theage.com.au

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Ash Grunwald - Give Signs (2006)

2010-07-02T14:25:05Z

Ash Grunwald - Give Signs (2006)


01 – Serious [00:02:53]
02 – Skywriter [00:03:14]
03 – Give Signs [00:02:54]
04 – Money [00:03:50]
05 – Take The Drop [00:04:12]
06 – Think Tank [00:04:18]
07 – Situation [00:04:20]
08 – Come On Strong [00:03:24]
09 – Do It Now [00:03:51]
10 – Dont Worry [00:04:00]
11 – Bottled Thunder [00:05:29]
12 – Opinion [00:04:00]

Listen to Ash Grunwald's composition Money, with its driving, seemingly endless chorus of "Money and fancy clothes" and, if you are old enough, you will feel you are back in the late 1960s listening to those nail-it-to-the-floor rhythm 'n' blues bands like Chain or Blodwyn Pig.

This is real time-warp stuff, old-style rock-influenced R&B. It's an interesting development for Grunwald, who started his career sounding like an antipodean version of Howling Wolf. He has needed to find new ground, given his heavy tour schedule and the demands of his fans.

At this point he is probably Australia's most eclectic blues performer. This is the Grunwald 2006 model with Skywriter sounding like some glorious British bump 'n' grind outfit from 1968, Give Signs full of low-key menace, Situation using the blues as a base for potent and hard-edged anti-war politics, and Do It Now celebrating his great loves - the beach and surfing.

All this is pretty amazing for one man with a guitar and percussion that includes everything from cricket balls to Drambuie bottles. --- Bruce Elder, smh.com.au

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Ash Grunwald - Live at the Corner (2004)

2010-07-02T11:33:52Z

Ash Grunwald - Live at the Corner (2004)


01 – If You Don’t Mind [00:03:48]
02 – Just Be Yourself [00:05:59]
03 – Going Out West (T. Waits) [00:05:59]
04 – Hey Baby [00:02:01]
05 – Spoonful (C. Burnett) [00:04:18]
06 – Everyday [00:05:27]
07 – Crossroads (R. Johnson) [00:05:06]
09 – Is There A Reason [00:04:19]
10 – Just Can’t Help Myself [00:03:15]
11 – Dolphin Song [00:05:36]
12 – Jesus Gonna Be Here (T. Waits) [00:03:35]
13 – Walking Blues (R.Johnson) [00:04:15]

Yes, Australia has a vivid roots music scene, and some of the more interesting folk and blues acts around today are a part of it. Ash Grunwald is one of the more interesting Australian blues musicians. This live album is just Ash with an amplified resonator guitar, slide and stomp box. The sound is aggressive, and hard-driving, with just a hint of funk, and this album is somewhat reminiscent of Chris Whitley's At Martyr's album. On studio albums, that funk influence is a bit more pronounced, particularly on Give Signs, which incorporates bits of hip-hop at times, and does so more interestingly than Chris Thomas King, in my opinion. However, this album sticks a bit more to an aggressive blues style. Grunwald is not the virtuoso that fellow Aussie Jeff Lang is, but on this album, he bangs away convincingly on his National, at times strumming so forcefully that it sounds more like a percussion instrument than a guitar. His slide work is rudimentary, but effective. What stands out most about Grunwald is his very unique voice. I can't describe it, so just listen to some sound clips. It is a bit of a polarizing voice-- you either love it or hate it. Needless to say, though, it is a big voice. --- Nobody important, amazon.com

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Ash Grunwald - I Don’t Believe (2004)

2010-07-02T10:12:08Z

Ash Grunwald - I Don’t Believe (2004)


01 Everyday [00:03:35]
02 Hey Baby [00:02:51]
03 Whispering Voice [00:02:44]
04 1976 Coaster [00:02:51]
05 Keep It Real [00:04:09]
06 Goint Out West [00:05:45]
07 How Many More Years [00:04:44]
08 Cross Roads [00:05:01]
09 I Don’t Believe [00:03:06]
10 Empire State [00:02:34]
11 Dangerous Ground [00:03:51]
12 Jesus Gonna Be Here [00:02:49]
13 Walking Blues [00:03:57]
14 Everyday Reprise [00:02:05]

Ash Grunwald is an aggressive guitar player with a big voice. He favors a stripped-down sound built around an amplified resonator guitar, played with a slide, and a stomp box, and while is isn't the most technically accomplished of the Aussie bluesmen (that honor probably belongs to Jeff Lang), he is creative and interesting. He plays with a hard-charging style that incorporates elements of funk. This may be the most interesting of Grunwald's early efforts. Live at the Corner has quite a bit of energy, but is a bit more straight blues. The sound on Introducing Ash Grunwald was somewhat inchoate. Give Signs goes much further into funk, and incorporates elements of hip-hop, but doesn't quite have the lively energy of Live at the Corner. This one is a nice balance between those elements. It isn't as energetic as his live album, but sounds more innovative. It isn't as exploratory as Give Signs, but it has more life to it. This is just a solid and interesting blues album. Ash's voice isn't for everyone, so you might listen to some sound clips first, but it is interesting. --- Nobody important, amazon.com

Ash Grunwald is an Australian blues musician.While it’s true that his music is steeped in the Delta blues tradition of the legendary acoustic musicians who proliferated in pre-World War II America’s deep South and the giants of electric blues who shaped rock and roll, it’s the young Victorian’s willingness to combine these influences with grooves and sounds common in contemporary music that sets him apart. A soulful singer and guitar player, Grunwald immediately drew attention with the release of 2002’s ‘Introducing … Ash Grunwald’ a collection of originals and blues standards that included ‘Smokestack Lightnin’ (Howlin’ Wolf) ‘The Sky Is Crying’ (Elmore James), and ‘Rolling and Tumbling’ (Robert Johnson) recorded live with only acoustic guitar and foot percussion consisting of a stomp box and tambourine. The positive response to Grunwald’s debut resulted in two Victorian Blues awards for Emerging Talent and Album of the Year.The following year he scored two Australian Blues awards for Male Vocalist of the Year and Best New Talent in addition to the MBAS’ Blues Performer of the Year. He also reached the final of the International Blues Performer of the Year in Memphis.In 2004 Grunwald released his follow up album, I Don’t Believe, once again recorded solo and live. ---/mp3stune.org

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