I’ve seen Scott H. Biram start a couple of his live sets in Austin this way: “Hey, I’m Scott H. Biram and you can all kiss my ass!” He’ll flip the audience the bird a few times, berate them as “city folk,” and then dispense bits of sage wisdom, like this: “The only thing better than a truck stop with a titty bar is a truck stop with a whorehouse.”
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Biram performs solo with only a guitar and sometimes a harmonica. Sometimes he sings in a heavy-metal growl, sometimes a hillbilly croon that would be a perfect fit for a duet with Maybelle Carter; sometimes he manages to do both at the same time. He’s capable of nimble country blues licks, but just as often he’ll tear off a sloppy, distorted solo. He often sings through a harmonica pickup to give his vocals a muddy sound, and for rhythm he mikes a floorboard, stomping his left foot like a frantic human metronome. Miked stomp boards are nothing new to anybody who’s heard John Lee Hooker, but it’s a rare sight today and Biram plays with startling intensity: hunched in a chair, his face half-covered by the bill of his trucker cap, his head bobs wildly when he sings, and his eyes roll back in his head. I once heard Biram sing a version of Bukka White’s “Fixin’ to Die Blues,” where he altered the lyrics to include himself: “Let me go tell Jesus H. Christ you don’t have to make up Scott H. Biram’s dying bed.” I couldn’t tell if he was barking the command to Saint Peter or his rival down below.
Late last year Biram signed to Chicago-based Bloodshot Records. The label receives upwards of 60 unsolicited demos a month, but Biram is only the second act it’s rescued from the slush pile. (Trailer Bride was the first.) The label’s owners have never seen him play live, but on March 22 Bloodshot will rerelease Biram’s fourth album, The Dirty Old One Man Band, and will put out his fifth album in the fall. “It was Motorhead and John Lee Hooker in a knife fight,” Bloodshot co-owner Rob Miller says of the demo. “It speaks to the raw immediacy I’ve always liked about music, going back to Howlin’ Wolf and the Cramps and Hank Williams and Black Flag. Besides, he kind of scares me.”
Down by the river, gonna hold you under It might be baptism, might be murder Either way you’re bound to see the light
