I love finding mashups by accident. Just scrolling thru the interwebs and coming across something that makes me say, “Ok, I’ll check that out.” And moments later, I’m yelling “HOLY SH*T!!” and it echoes down the hallway. Most times, these mashups are two songs that everyone knows; songs from completely different genres of music; songs that have absolutely no business fitting together. More on that in a moment.
There’s a few people on YouTube who specialize in these mashups, but this is not one of those. This is by the band, The Native Howl from Leonard, MI and they describe their sound as “Thrash Grass”. Never heard of it before but I am quickly becoming a fan. You see, it’s blue grass fused with metal and it’s glorious. Metal, that is fast and furious and blue grass which is filled with melody and hella technical.
Now, if you go back to the year 2000 and the George Clooney film O Brother, Where Art Thou? which was a brilliant work by the Cohen Brothers about three escaped cons in the deep south in the 30s. The film is loosely based on Homer’s “The Odyssey” and in the movie, George and his crew go into record a song as “The Soggy Bottom Boys” and it becomes a huge hit. And it’s a catchy ass song. I don’t care if you like country music or not, everyone knew this song, everyone was singing along with it, I know a whole crew that will karaoke this song.
What happens when the fictional Soggy Bottom Boys meets Metallica? Freaking magic is what happens and The Native Howl absolutely nails it. This “thrash grass” band took “Man of Constant Sorrow” and mashed it with “Harvester of Sorrow”, which is one of my all time favorite Metallica songs, and created this unique masterpiece, “Harvester of Constant Sorrow”.
Dedicate four minutes of your life, you won’t regret it.
Now, if you’d like to see what The Native Howl can do live, (and honestly after this, I am way intrigued) they are hitting the road with the legendary GWAR along with Crowbar and Nekrogoblikon. There’s a couple shows within doable driving distance.
Piere’s Entertainment Center, St Louis MO on May 20th
The Signal, Chattanooga, TN on June 3rd
