The Vulgar Boatmen are an archetypal cult band. Those of us who love them really, really love them, but the three albums the Indiana/Florida band released between 1989 and 1995 never reached a wide audience. So, the reissue of debut You And Your Sister, bolstered by a pair of new remixes and three previously unreleased tracks, is a gift. Dale Lawrence and Robert Ray wrote strummy, propulsive tunes that could recall Good Earth-era Feelies, the Velvet Underground or Stax/Volt soul. The band will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with Lawrence.
Lawrence: One of the best decisions I ever made was to stop and visit Behn’s Game Farm, a place I’d stumbled across during an aimless roadtrip. It was a private zoo, located in rural northeast Wisconsin, owned and operated by Wilbert Behn, a retired lion tamer. Admission was $2 and included a guided tour by Mrs. Behn, whose every word was delivered in a flat monotone. A billboard had promised “exotic animals,” though most were of the decidedly small variety, including apparently exotic breeds of cats and chickens. I was not lucky enough to show up when one of the daily lion-taming demonstrations was scheduled, but after seeing the decidedly elderly lion (as well as smelling the “arena”), I was able to hold my disappointment in check. The tour I was a part of included only one other group, a family of four. When one of the children was bitten by an ostrich, despite our guide’s warnings not to insert fingers into the cage, Mrs. Behn’s only reaction was to say, “Guess that will teach them to listen next time.” At a couple points, she expanded on some the animals’ comparative deliciousness, noting of a particular black chicken native to South Africa, “Looking at it, most people think the meat would be tough, but it’s not. It’s really quite tasty.”
Video after the jump.
