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Artist Spotlight
Sweet Undertow

Interview by Dean Andersen

Sweet Undertow is the moniker of Eddy Undertow, an artist who writes bluesy rock that draws from country, Americana, soul and punk. Originally from Chicago and now based in New York City, Eddy draws musical inspiration from his vast experiences in life.

Before establishing himself as a musician, he worked as a wildland firefighter. Later, he spent several years travelling in Asia and Europe with his guitar, performing in bars in Crimea, an orphanage in Ukraine, and as far as Ho Chi Minh City and Mumbai. He’s been stalked by a leopard in the Himalayas, and paid in counterfeit sneakers after performing at a disco in the Carpathian Mountains.

We caught up with the travelling wordsmith to talk about the records that inspire him – the albums that have changed how he thinks about music, influenced his own music, and continue to drive him today.

 

1. What’s one album you think everyone should hear at least once?

You should drop what you're doing and listen to Desitively Bonnaroo by Dr John. The whole record is a deep collaboration between Dr John and The Meters - an outlandish gathering of some of the greatest musical geniuses of the past 100 years. It pushes New Orleans jazz, funk and rock-n-roll to a deeply strange place that no one before or since ever really went. Plus it's really fun and you can't help but shake it.

2. What album changed the way you think about music?

Live at Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash. I was 16 when I heard it for the first time. I had never really heard country music before. At the time I was listening almost exclusively to like Crass and Los Crudos and Charles Bronson – loud, dissonant crazy punk rock kind of stuff. But when a friend of mine put on Live at Folsom Prison, that weird rhythm and the dark, strange stories he told taught me immediately that you could be punk rock without being punk rock. Sometimes you can be loud by being quiet. The album is this jubilant performance of often funny songs that contain this dark, gothic vision of the world. And the roars of joy from the crowd of convicts in the most joyless place on Earth - how can you listen to that record and not have it change your life?

3. If you could only take one album to a desert island, what would it be?

I think my concern is that regardless of how good the record is, if you only listened to one record for all of eternity it would drive you insane.

That said, I'd have to say Standards by Tortoise. Enough deep strangeness to hold interest, some perfect grooves for snare building and game hunting, and plenty of tunes for sitting listlessly watching the waves in hope of a ship. 

4. What’s your ultimate guilty pleasure album?

The Best of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Look, there's a lot of schmaltz with these guys. But the songs are great, and I can't help but love it when Teddy Pendergrass just starts to absolutely flip out toward the end of basically every song he sings on.

5. What song are you obsessed with right now?

What You Got by John Lennon from 1974's Walls and Bridges. It's punk rock that pre-dates punk rock through the lens of the Beatles and New York City. It sounds like what the Clash were listening to when they were making London Calling. It's this griffin-like punk/disco chimera.

Also! Situation by Sturgil Simpson's alter ego Johnny Blue Skies - it's like if What You Got by John Lennon and Rock the Casbah by The Clash had a baby and left it to Grace Jones to raise in secret in an Appalachian holler where she fed it a steady diet of psychedelics.

You can find Sweet Undertow online, on Instagram and YouTube.

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