R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders sound like a transmission from a 1920s radio station that somehow survived in a time capsule. It is a world of scratchy shellac, resonator guitars, and the eerie, mournful wail of a musical saw. The music is unashamedly acoustic, prioritizing the wooden thrum of the upright bass and the bright, percussive snap of the banjo over any modern artifice. It feels lived-in, slightly frayed at the edges, and deeply tactile.
What makes them truly distinctive is the tension between their obsessive historical accuracy and their subversive, counter-cultural wit. While they play the music of the medicine show and the vaudeville stage with technical reverence, there is a wink in the delivery. They embrace the 'hokum' tradition - music that relied on double-entendres and bawdy humor - bringing an underground comix sensibility to the rigid structures of early 20th-century folk. It is a celebration of the weird, the forgotten, and the slightly disreputable corners of American music history.
Start with 'Singing in the Bathtub' to get a sense of their playful, eccentric charm. It perfectly captures the band's ability to take a lighthearted 'evergreen' standard and imbue it with a sense of genuine, dusty joy. From there, explore their 'Party Record' for a taste of the more scandalous side of the 1920s revival.
R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders are an American retro string band playing songs from, and in the style of, the 1920s: old-time music, ragtime, "evergreen" jazz standards, western swing, country blues, Hawaiian, hokum, vaudeville and medicine show tunes. Underground cartoonist Robert Crumb was the band's frontman and album cover artist. Other members of the band include fellow cartoonist Robert Armstrong and filmmaker Terry Zwigoff (who directed the 1995 documentary Crumb).
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