ROOTS RAMBLING: The Atomic Duo

Today we kick off some random links from last month's edition of the annual International Folk Alliance, the last one in Memphis. Next year the conference is in Toronto while the office pulls up stakes and moves to Kansas City.

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ROOTS RAMBLING: The Atomic Duo

POSTED: Thursday, March 15, 2012, 12:00 PM

Filed Under: Music

Today we kick off some random links from last month's edition of the annual International Folk Alliance, the last one in Memphis. Next year the conference is in Toronto while the office pulls up stakes and moves to Kansas City.

The Atomic Duo were part of a contingent wryly named Austin Doesn’t Really Suck. We knew that. But good of them, in this time of SXSW (South by So What, according to locals) invasion, to point out the hometowners have got real, deep roots. Silas Lowe, the “Little Boy” in this Atomic Duo, is a lively defender of deeply rooted people. It was a joy to watch him taking the FA listeners to task when they were sniffing about proper English usage. Silas asserts people have a right to express themselves as they do in community. The matter of proper English being an affectation of privilege was discussed as well, IIRC. Lowe’s partner, “Fat Man” Mark Rubin defends all manner of community expression, reaching beyond plain vanilla English to his days as bass player with conjunto legend Santiago Jimenez Jr. to playing in his own klezmer band (yes, in Austin), traveling the world playing tuba with Balkan brass bands and adding the same to Texas Czech and New Orleans faves, Panorama Brass Band. Rubin grew up in Norman OK, so it’s no surprise he also has headed a western swing outfit. You may also recall him from the oldtime-with-attitude group, Bad Livers. The Atomic Duo is the perfect road band, compact for jamming into that well-used town car. Their songs tend to marvel over this country and what is happening/has happened to folks. Mark Rubin intro’d this one saying, well, there are plenty of good songs out there, never felt the need to write one, until it happened to me. Cue, “Keychain.”

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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