It was late on a Friday when I first checked out the Cigar Box Serenaders’ new record, and I’d had a tough old week. Not in any exciting way—just the boring old nose-to-the-grindstone, can’t-catch-a-break kind of way. I desperately needed to hear something fun, something to lift my spirits while I mopped the kitchen floor and loaded the washing machine—and boy, did Spasm deliver.
I have to admit that the title had me stumped. A note in the record’s digital liner—which also features a photo of the band with some very novelty-looking instruments—led me down the fascinating internet rabbit hole of New Orleans spasm bands: nineteenth-century street-corner outfits made up of youths playing homemade instruments fashioned from jugs, buckets, washboards, cheese crates, and cigar boxes.
An informative article on old-new-orleans.com details the original Spasm Band, led by street urchin Emile “Stale Bread” Lacoume around 1895. Lacoume went on to play “proper” instruments in “proper” bands, but his old group is regarded by some—controversially, no doubt—as the world’s first jazz group. The Cigar Box Serenaders pay tribute to this outfit and similar ones by continuing the tradition of wielding musical gizmos made from garbage.
Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band, 1896; Emile Lacoume is 2nd from left, holding
