Le two step with Mama Rosin

Interview by Alex Hancock

Echo Magazine uncovered Mama Rosin’s singer/guitarist Robin Girod and accordian player Cyril Yeterian outside a pub venue in London’s Barbican on the first launch night of their latest album – a split-collaboration with garage rockers Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers. The band recently debuted on Jools Holland with their mix of rash, energetic tropical roots music and gypsy punk. After an energetic set that got the room shaking and audience foot-stomping while the band two-stepped around them, they spoke about their influences from Mississippi blues to tropical and cajun music, their plans for the future and going from the strange to the bizarre with the figures involved on their record label.

How did your collaboration with Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers come about?

We are both from the same label. We played together at a very strange blues festival in France and we decided to play together at the end of our show and smashed the room up. Then we thought – ‘we have to record that’.

How would you describe your music to people who have never heard it before?

We like to call it tropical-psychedelica. The drummer uses a tropical rhythms and we use a lot of reverb. There’s always repetition and sometimes we’ll have some songs that are 10-minutes long. With the accordion and the melodies we try to have something of the Caribbean in there. We like the exotic style of calypso – we are not a political band but we are sensitive to the energy and the passion in the hard political content of early calypso, blues and Cajun music. It’s all about the inner fire.

You appeared on Jools Holland last year and since then you’ve been busy touring across the continent.  What are your plans after?

We are going to play some festivals this summer and we have a lot of gigs lined up. There will also be a Voodoo Rhythm night at the Lexington in October with Hipbone Slim, ourselves and The Monsters – one of the best fucking garage punk bands in the world. We have seem them and we can assure you that. Cyril is going to become a father in autumn so we are trying to play as many shows as possible before then.

I’ve heard your label mentioned a lot recently but who runs it?

It’s called Voodoo Rhythm and it’s founded by a guy called Reverend Beat-Man. They are principally interested in the garage, blues, trash, rock n roll. It’s one of the best labels in Switzerland – they have around 40 bands from all around the world. Our favourites are Roy & The Devil’s Motorcycle, The Monsters, Bob Log III, a band from Spain called Wau y Los Arrrghs!!! who are now on Slovenly records, The Dead Brothers and The Come ‘n’  Gos.

Can you tell me more about this Reverend Beat-Man character?

He is a very good father for his son and for his bands. We really like him although he’s a man of two faces. He became famous for a project where they put a boxing ring on stage and then  fight while playing music. It was really weird and violent. He toured around the world but stopped because he broke his back. That was more than 10 years ago.  These days he runs the label and plays solo concerts.

I heard that you guys have started putting out other people’s records now.

Yes we have our own label, Moi J’Connais, which is influenced by Voodoo Rhythm, Honest Jon’s and Mississippi Records. We were inspired at first by the Sonic Boom compilation Spacelines, and then decided to make a compilation of our personal influences to explain to people why we play the music we play. We like music from all over the world and too much of it has not been re-released on vinyl. So we decided to reissue some really obscure, old stuff,  rock ’n’ roll, calypso, Cajun, zydeco music and we also release 10” records for new bands. We reissued a record by Blind Blake, a blues/calypso singer from the Bahamas, who inspired a lot of people from Johnny Cash to the Beach Boys. He played in a hotel for American tourists so he changed his music to a bit more jazzy which was incredible. We met somebody in France who flew over to the Bahamas to track down the tapes and we released the on CD and LP. We are proud to have him on our label.

Following their sensational burst onto television screens worldwide the exotic Switzerland-based outfit are now expected to be working with Jon Spencer on their next album.

Reverend Beat-Man, Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers, Mama Rosin, DJ Lucador and The Monsters are playing at The Lexington on October 29th.