Juteblue

JuteBlue is an American rock, punk, and alternative band formed in Rapid City, South Dakota in 2005. The group is composed of Christian Calvert (bass guitar, lead vocals), Shawn Her Many Horses (guitars and vocals), and Luke Johnson (drums and vocals).

The band’s music varies widely in style, from alternative pop/rock (“Creek”, “Songs About Cars”) to psychedelic (“Death for One”, “Inter-Mission”) to hard rock (“Black Ivy”) and has also included reggae, 60’s surf, punk and alt-country. This diversity in style contributes to the band's unpredictability and prevents them from being confined to any certain genre. When asked about their genre, JuteBlue maintains that they play “award-winning" music.

2004-2005: Founding

In the spring of 2004, all three members lived in the same residence hall at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Dake Hall, all on the same floor. Christian was the resident assistant for the hall, and would routinely play bass in his dorm room. Occasionally, Shawn would jam with Christian in the dorms, across the hall from Luke, who didn’t own a set of drums and hadn’t played music in any form since high school band. Late one night, Luke was playing Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction” album loudly in his dorm room, and Christian wrote him up for a noise violation.

Christian and Luke were both majoring in Metallurgical Engineering at SDSM&T, and in the fall of 2005 had a similar class schedule. Luke had obtained an electronic drum set the previous summer, and was invited to bring it over to Christian’s house for a jam session with Shawn, Christian, and another student named Brandon Fried who played guitar. That evening the foursome played a variety of classic rock and punk songs. Fried only played with the group that one evening. For the remainder of the fall, the group met occasionally for jam sessions and worked on covers of songs by the Sex Pistols, the MC5, Toadies, and The Clash, among others.

2006

As 2006 rolled around, the band began expanding their repertoire, adding covers of The Breeders, The Presidents of the United States of America, and the Buzzcocks and soon decided they needed a name. Calvert and Johnson were in a composite materials class at the time, and one day, while discussing natural fibers, their professor, Dr. Jon Kellar, mentioned jute, but had no idea what it was. A student named Mark Hofacker looked it up on the internet and found that it was used in carpet and burlap bags and was actually the second-most used natural fiber in the world next to cotton. All three band members eventually agreed that Jute would be their name. Around this time, Shawn began working on some original songs, which would later become the core material for their first album. Around April of that year, Calvert learned of another band named Jute, so the band members were once again without a name. They played their first, and only, show that year in Calvert’s living room, playing without the use of microphones. Most of this performance consisted of cover songs, as Shawn’s original material still was without lyrics. Johnson and Calvert traded off lead vocal duties, but by the end of the set, Calvert was singing most everything since Johnson had a sore throat and had lost his voice after the first few songs. They eventually ran out of material, so Shawn played some solo songs towards the end of the show, including a cover of a Mazzy Star song.

The group parted ways for the summer, despite Calvert’s insistence that Johnson stay in Rapid City, and each member worked on writing music that summer in his spare time. However, when they returned to college in the fall of 2006, they still were without a complete original song. They experimented with microphones some that semester, but rarely practiced. When they would practice, it was a frustrating experience because the microphones had feedback problems and Johnson’s electronic drum set would suddenly cut out for a few seconds of every song.

2007

During Christmas break, Johnson was in his basement back at his hometown of Webster, South Dakota and saw a video of a friend’s improvised song on YouTube. Inspired, he wrote the lyrics for what would eventually become “Creek”, based on music Shawn had come up with the previous year that Shawn had disliked because it was “too poppy sounding”, and a line Calvert had come up with during a jam session the previous semester. Johnson came back to Rapid City early and worked with Calvert on editing the lyrics and coming up with the unusual song format that would become a trademark of the band.

Shawn later finished two songs of his own, “Death for One” and “Black Ivy”, and suddenly the band had a variety of original material. Shawn would end up being the band’s primary songwriter, as he wrote the music for four of their songs and the lyrics for two. Still, before they could perform again they needed a name, and eventually decided on JuteBlue since they couldn’t be Jute. Calvert purchased microphones and borrowed a PA system, and Shawn found an old Synsonics drum set that Johnson installed new heads on. Finally, JuteBlue was no longer equipment-deficient.

They played a number of other shows in 2007, including a Battle of the Bands at the Ellsworth Air Force Base, which they won.

Recordings

A live album, “Live at Chris’s Living Room” was recorded in March of 2007, using only a cassette player in the back of the room. This tape was later ripped onto a computer by Shawn using a handheld cassette player and converted to mp3 form. Shawn also designed the cover. The album contains 10 songs, but only because the tape ran out at that point of the show. This was disappointing because the end of that show contained an ultra-fast version of the Surfaris’ “Wipeout”, and also culminated with an intense performance of Radiohead’s “Creep” that the band had only learned days before and had never performed previously. The album is still available on the internet for free downloading.

In May of 2007, JuteBlue recorded their first studio album, “Debut”, in about four hours. “Debut” included all their original songs, a couple covers, and even acoustic versions of both “Creek” and “Songs About Cars”, where Calvert played maracas in lieu of bass, and Johnson played guitar, djembe, and tambourine. But the most notable part of the recording session involved the song “So We Dug”. Calvert had finished the lyrics to the song only days before, and the band had never played the song going into that recording session. Before recording it, Calvert informed Shawn and Luke, “we’re going to play this in one take and however it goes, that’s what we’re keeping.” So the recording on the album is actually the first time the band played the song, ever. The album is due out on November 20, 2007 and was entirely mixed by Shawn Her Many Horses.

JuteBlue’s songs have had considerable internet chart success, as “Creek” hit #7 on the SoundClick Alternative General charts and #22 on the SoundClick Alternative charts, and “Songs About Cars” hit #34 on the SoundClick Alternative General Charts and #81 on the SoundClick Alternative chartsin May 2007. “Death for One”, “Inter-Mission” “Black Ivy”, and acoustic versions of “Creek” and “Songs About Cars” also charted.

Song structure

JuteBlue is known for abandoning the traditional structure of most popular music, putting their solos and choruses in various places within the song, and incorporating elements of music not normally found in the genres they play. For example, “Creek” contains the guitar solo before the first verse, and one chorus is performed in a round accompanied only by handclaps and a bass drum. The verses of that song are also unusual, in that instead of the typical 4 or 8-line verse, it has 6-line verses.

Equipment and performance setup

JuteBlue plays every show with their drummer, bassist, and guitarist in a straight line, instead of the traditional setup of the drummer behind the bassist and guitarist. This setup was first used in their basement practice sessions so each member could clearly see any cues from the other members, and because hearing each other was often difficult due to the lack of microphones and monitors.

Calvert plays a Peavey T-40 bass through a Sunn concert bass head and Peavey cab.

Shawn plays an Agile LP hollowbody electric guitar most often, using a Boss GT-8 effects processor and an Ashdown tube amp. He also occasionally uses a Jekyll & Hyde overdrive pedal and a Fender Princeton Classic or a Yamaha amp.

Johnson’s drum set is a 5-piece Synsonics kit in various stages of falling apart. He built his own bass pedal using the frame for a broken one, a screwdriver covered in duct tape for the beater, and a floor mat from a Chevy Tahoe for the base. This base has since been replaced by a pizza box. He uses cymbals with holes in them resulting from removing cracks. Recently, he restored a vintage Slingerland hi-hat stand from the 1960s that uses Zildjian cymbals. Johnson uses Zildjian Rock drumsticks exclusively, since they are the only sticks he hasn’t been able to break. He also plays “about every other show” barefoot, or with only one shoe.

Discography

Live at Chris's Living Room, March 2007

Debut, November 2007

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