Home  |  Out & About  |  Dining  |  Events  |  Singles  |  Classifieds  |  Archive  |  Advertising

Padraic Ingle & Jay Taylor Bring Swamp Blues to Bay City

By Scott Baker

  Padraic James Ingle and Jay Taylor are building a new local music scene of their own, the freshest this side of Detroit. Covet this now while you still can.

As music truths and legend would have it, individual hangouts and off-the-beaten-path joints would pop up around specific cities sparking little creative burrows, mixing both new and old talent for public feature concerts and underground jamming - whether it is in a hot dark club, downstairs after hours, or even at someone's private house party; not unlike when electric blues came north to Chicago and Detroit in the '50s or the New York City conclaves of jazz jumps in the same era, breeding historical duets and quartets with a vigor which have become the profound tales we can only imagine about today. How did they meet, when did it happen, where did it go, and why wasn't it as big then as it is now?

It's true for every generation for the most part, even around here; White's Bar in Saginaw, The State or Temple Theatres past and present, a basement in Frankenmuth in the early '90s, above a bar on Main Street in Midland, or even the more recent tales from Pinsetters Lounge and Bay City Coffee & Tea in Bay City.

Harmonica/vocalist/lyricist Ingle, 24, whose first name Padraic is pronounced Park when you roll the d and r together really fast (yet he prefers to just be called Mick, and acoustic/dobro stylist Taylor, 30, has a blues disorder of the third degree.

Ingle howls with a deep, stern growl, yearning to be listened to while Taylor serves up some of the most pocket-intense liquid fretwork in the Tri-cities. It's as close to juke-joint Southern Mississippi as the Tri-cities are ever going to feel and it's very, very real. And the best part is, it's only just begun.

"It started off as just a jam up at the coffee house that I was trying to put on, just to give myself and other musicians in the area something to do, because the worst thing about being a musician is not being able to play," stated Ingle during a phone interview last week.

"Having material that you want to get out there and you can't do it...I thought that (an open jam) would be a good idea and (we) just kind of stemmed from the jam. Slowly but surely people stopped coming in there to play and started coming in there to listen to what we had going on. So we kind of put the brakes on the open jam and started focusing more on our music - Jay and I."

A man with as many words as he has feelings, Ingle isn't afraid to strip the conversation down to bare essentials.

"I told (Bay City Coffee & Tea owner) Jeff (Genow), 'You need a blues night.' The first time I went in there it was just me. The first time I sat in there it was just me and my amp and I sat up front and just rocked the harmonica. That was last year right around this time."

By August, Ingle said Taylor had introduced himself to the blues crowd.
"Jay started coming around during the open jam. I had a drummer and two guitar players at the time and a bass player now and then, percussionists, piano players. Jay came walking in there one day and he had a steel guitar with him and I just knew that I needed to hear this cat play. I remember the time he came in there, he was overpowered, because everybody else was electric and he was sitting there with his steel guitar. I was trying to jam with him, but the guys I was playing with wouldn't let him in, wouldn't give him any headway. I ended up talking with him afterwards. He was a little discouraged, a little pissed off and we ended up getting together at the coffee house on an off night and just started playing (and) it just kind of stemmed from there."

The instant connection reared its head from the get-go.
"I liked the way that he played guitar," stated Ingle. "He's got a Dobro as well and I've always liked that about the blues when it comes to the pre-war stuff. I've always liked that raw, rugged, rough tone that you get from like a Dobro or a steel. You hit them strings with a slide man and it's over with."

Hanging on to a full group is something the duo would like to have happen.
"We've had some troubles keeping people in the line-up," said Taylor. "Some people aren't professional and some people have personal problems that get in the way of them performing.

We'd love to have a rhythm section and keep building on the sound, because I've got a definite vision and ideas about certain songs that aren't completed yet. Regardless of what we accomplish as far as like performances and expanding the reach of the blues and getting music and our messages out there, I just want to get these songs done. And that's kind of what's important to me - get that out so I can think about something else for awhile."

  

As soon as they developed their sound, the duo's first paying gig came just two weeks later.

"It was for the Brotherhood," said Ingle. "They are like a branch of The Outlaws. They're some bikers and they threw an end of the summer party and I know one of them. We went up there and played from 4 until Midnight, straight through! It was a hell of an experience - really good people."

After losing their bassist this past February, they recorded a demo CD at Pinsetters Lounge over the course of a few weekends. It is a raw, juke-style of blues with no overdubs or outside help of any kind, recorded in a modern setting.

"We started cutting that as soon as we got into that place," stated the vocalist. "We started compiling recordings. We'd press record and let it go basically and what we'd end up with we'd pick through. Some of the recordings we ended up with are a little sketchy, maybe the distortion is a little overpowering, but it's nothing we could really control without a sound guy. We're running our own sound. But I like the way it turned out. That's all live whatever came out of that, weird effects, the ambiance of the room."

"For the most part, there were a few selected (songs) from certain times that we peaked at a gig," added Taylor. "The great thing about the album is that's exactly how we sound. You can take that to anyone, any bar, any person, and they'd say, "how do you sound?" That's it. Straight up how we sound. There's a good energy between me and Mick. I had a natural click and a natural ear for how we want it to sound and how he plays. And Mick's coming along and he’s got a strong voice and it interlinks us pretty well. I'm pleased with us and how it works so far."

With the yelps of Ingle's inner-bluesman wrestling its way to the forefront, his original influences don't come across as drastic overall.

"I grew up listening to Joe Cocker and Neil Diamond, Jim Morrison, Creedence Clearwater, stuff like that. When I got into high school, I started listening to Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, all the old greats. It wasn't until I dropped out of high school and lost my girl - that's when I got into the blues. I remember the first song I heard was John Lee Hooker's Crawlin' King Snake,’ and it was just over with from there. I started listening to the blues religiously. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, it was more of that rough and rugged sound."

    As for Taylor, influences range from The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and basically anything out of the Tri-City Classic Rock channels from 1970-80.
"For blues, Stevie Ray, Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry,"  said Taylor. "Some of the old greats are always something we can learn from and grow to today."

Taylor foresees the band growing to mix other legendary sounds such as The Clash and other bands that matter. "There's a lot of things that need to be said nowadays and we still got to grow to that point. We're not there yet. But we'll get there."

The duo plans to work the area as hard as they can until they feel it is time to move on. A few weeks back Ingle showed his dedication by jumping between his support for a local cancer benefit fundraiser that he played and then fleeted to Saginaw to support the Saginaw-Bay Area Blues Society's Cabin Fever Bash. The duo also opened up for Larry McCray last weekend at Bay City Coffee & Tea.

"I'm pretty excited about opening for Larry," said Ingle. "Really we're trying to come up with some cash right now to get our own system. With the pay that we're getting now, it's hard. I'd rather just put the money towards a good PA system that we can have and not have to worry about somebody else."

"I'd like to see it go as far as we could ideally with reachable goals first and establishing a blues presence in Bay City," added Taylor. "We don't have a blues club, we don't have a blues bar, you know. Then take it up further in the state and maybe going from there. I definitely have a vision for what we want it to sound like and where we want to go with it. We both agree we want to grow. We've been working on our sound the past couple of months and it's going to continue to grow.

There's certain pieces and arrangements and things that I would like to hear. We have to make the act bigger, we have to do more performances, more shows, and get people more interested to grow to that point. It's kind of like an organic process."

Ingle hopes to reach out and tap the support of the local blues scene and also music lovers in general.
"I think it could be a hell of a lot better," said the vocalist. "And I think that the Blues Society is a good one and more people need to join up and be more aware of the blues and what's going on in the surrounding areas as well. I think that Bay City desperately needs a blues club. We’re trying to make that happen down at Pinsetters slowly but surely you know. We've been trying to get the word out. It's growing little by little just by looking at the till at the end of the night. We need to find a way to promote it more efficiently."

They are playing a benefit out at Bubba's Tri-City Cycle on May 27 and they are offering their support just about anywhere right now. As long as people are open to hear original musicians play.

"We like to do benefits," said Ingle. "Anything we can do to help is cool. I kind of wondered how people were going to take it as far as me doing originals. A lot of people are wanting to hear covers and crap, and a lot of bands will do covers and toss their own originals in there between, and I'm just the opposite. I guess I'm kind of bullheaded. I don't like to do covers (and) I've done a few, but I don't want to make a habit out of it. I'd rather get my originals out there, you know."

As for Taylor, he believes very strongly in what they have accomplished so far with the hopes they can keep it as real as can be to the music and to themselves as musicians.
"What we've accomplished already is pretty cool in that we've got a realistic, real sound. It isn't this pressed-pop bull crap, you know, like Ashlee Simpson or anything - this is real, this is live, this is people doing it with artistry and craft. It's soul, it's the blues, you know."

home  |  out/about  |  events  |   personal  |  store  |  classified  |  real estate  |   forums  |  archives  |  contact
© 2009 Review Magazine.  All rights reserved.