Wow.

This is the music I have been waiting my whole life for. I am a changed man for having listened to this album. It brought me back to being a little kid again, to the first time I heard music, at Christmas or something, where it was this magical thing that uplifted my spirit, yet at the same time was a very visceral experience where you lose all sense of deportment and start jiggling around like a child possessed.

The first time I turned this album on, I was out of my chair, stomping my foot on the floor, banging my head, making a complete ass out of myself for the entertainment of the four walls of the Saving Country Music headquarters. It made a music virgin out of me again. I listen to a LOT of music folks, and like a hardened drunk who has made a career of building up years upon years of tolerance, it takes the immensely strong stuff to do the trick. Lone Wolf does the trick.

And usually the stuff that does the trick on the first listen doesn’t hold up for long. It’s like a sugar high. It’s those albums you have to listen to a few times through to get in to that stick with you for a while. Not Lone Wolf. It is infectious, catchy, even repetitive in a sense, but there is something infinitely deep here that makes it not just rattle your bones, but rattle your soul. As carnal and primitive as it is, it is also artistic and sublime.

There’s not good songs and bad songs here, it’s not that kind of album; the beginning and end of each song is only there to give you a chance to take a breath. Normally I would mercilessly chastise an album like this for being obnoxiously consistent in a short sighted manner. All the songs are fast, and they all work the same way. But with this project, the lack of diversity and color is one of its main strengths. It is like a primal trace that delivers you to some elevated state consciousnesses. You are a better person for listening to Lone Wolf, even though all that’s really here is banjo, tambourine on bass drum, and maybe some spoons and shakers.

The lyrics are endearingly undefinable most of the time, delivered in a guttural pitch. They’re meant to be felt, not heard. Two of the songs are in Spanish, and the pace and tone makes them almost like a Mongolian meditation chant.

But let not your heart be troubled by all this high talk, when you boil this music down, it is still simply country music, banjo music, from a way way back time, almost ancient, even older than old-time. Lone Wolf seems to be able to conjure up something from the past with his music, like a tantric time machine. Simply put, this music reminds you that you’re alive. It isn’t just fast and catchy, it isn’t even just soulful; it is spiritual, and at the same time, so carnal that it can bust through all prejudices built on taste, upbringing, disposition, geography, religious or political affiliation, or gender. It bores right down to the heart of your humanness, and tickles your life force.

I know some of you are reading this and laughing at such grandstanding. Laugh away, I don’t give a shit. I know what I’m hearing. And it may not affect you the way it affected me, but if this is the case I don’t disagree with you, I feel sorry for you, because you are missing out.

This is the best clawhammer banjo music I have heard in the modern era. Clawhammer is the older style of banjo playing, from over 100 years ago, that was mostly replaced when pure fingerpicking became popular with bluegrass in the 40′s and 50′s. The clawhammer is what gives Lone Wolf such an ancient feel, and the style works with the straightforward consistency of the compositions in this album, because that’s how the old recordings were done as well. There were no producers, no sense of putting fast songs and slow songs together or mixing up styles. They just captured the songs as they were written, and there’s a lot of purity in that method. Lone Wolf wrote all but one of these 13 songs, that being the traditional “Morphine, and he has made the clawhammer style his own by striking the snare top of the banjo with his thumb while playing, giving it an extra, percussive element.

Lone Wolf is Bruno Esposito, a Northerner with a thick Italian-American accent that cut his teeth working in pizzerias. You may think this sounds completely out of place for a banjo player, but I’ve always said when you find a human that seems to be the combination of ill fitting parts, that’s how you know you’ve found someone on the right life path. He’s played bass guitar in punk bands, but when he was living down in Georgia and playing upright bass in a bluegrass band, he was exposed to the banjo and the clawhammer style, and never looked back. His inability to find other bluegrass players as he moved around and evolved his style led to him becoming a one man band, adding bass drum and percussion to the show. I believe he has also spent time down in south and central America, which is where the Spanish language and influence creeps into his music at times.

I can’t say enough about this music folks. I know some will not like it because there not much modern about this. But I can even see many people who hate country and bluegrass music loving this, people who are into world music and ethnic music and even dance music. It’s that catchy and infectious, but it doesn’t insult your intelligence or taste either. And there’s a lot of blues here too. If you’re into the Scott Biram’s and Hillstomp’s, or even the old blues legends, this will have huge appeal to you as well.

Reverend Nix, DJ of the Mojo Medicine Show, broadcast right here on SCM LIVE deserves big props for bringing Lone Wolf to our attention. The first time I heard him was on a live performance on Nix’s show, and even then I had a feeling Lone Wolf was something special.

We needed this album. Since the monster releases of 2010, except for a few select projects, the new music has been pretty dry, and with all the XXX drama and concerns for the future of the music business, we needed music that reminded us that music is supposed to be the focus, and that makes you put your head down and succumb. That is what Lone Wolf does. GET THIS ALBUM!

Two guns way up!

From the humid, insect-ridden swamps of Florida, Bruno Esposito, also known by the moniker Lone Wolf, has stepped forth as a newcomer to the one-man band scene. With his vigorous banjo playing and gruff vocal delivery, he certainly plays a style of music one might associate with the swamps of the Southeastern United States. But just as his sound is made from the same stuff that made old-timey music great in its day, it also possesses that which makes modern music great. That is to say, it is raw and primitive, earthy and full-of-feeling, indeed the things that many obscure music enthusiasts have come to expect from such singer/songwriters.
Within seconds of first listening to Lone Wolf's debut self-titled release, it is clear that his sound is built on foot-stompin' percussion, lightning-fast banjo pickin', wailin' harmonica bits, and rust bucket vocals. All thirteen songs are absorbing and well-written compositions, with thoughtful lyrics about the ol' railroad tracks, women troubles, drinking heavily, the warm drowsy stupor of morphine, the story of a crow, and here and there glimpses into Esposito’s personal life.  Two of the songs he sings in Spanish – “El Canto Del Periquito” (which literally translates into “The Singing of the Parakeet”) and “Mala Crianza” (which more or less means “Bad Upbringing,” I think). But what else would one expect from a fella whose early years were spent in Peru and Italy, respectively, who was brought up on old Italian folk songs and such, and who later became involved in the 80s and 90s punk movement. That last was what Bruno did until, wanting to branch out a bit and hearing opportunity knock, he found himself playing double bass for a psychobilly band, which opened up new musical doors for him. The doors to roots music.    

In addition to the minimal drum setup he uses, which is little more than a kick drum, Lone Wolf plays his banjo in a rather percussive fashion, thumping his thumb repeatedly against the instrument's body, sort of the way one would employ a snare for rhythmic punctuation. There are shakers, too, which he cups in his hand as he plays his banjo, and which sound almost like a small handful of buckshot rattling around at the bottom of a plastic cup. Uncommon in the one-man band scene, he has incorporated the use of spoons in his percussion, having fixed them to back of his banjo, between the dowel stick and the head. On his old, raggedy five-string banjo Lone Wolf shreds using the well-known clawhammer (or frailing) technique, sounding something like a punk rock Roscoe Holcomb without the full measure of Holcomb’s “high, lonesome sound,” coupled with Scruggs’ quick-fingered playing, perhaps after a few gulps of mason jar moonshine. 

One-man bands that do the whole banjo thing aren't as rare as some might think. One-man bands who do the whole banjo thing exceptionally well are pretty rare, however, each of them standing out as a credit to the scene in his own way. Phillip Roebuck, The Dad Horse Experience, One Man Banjo, Thee Asthmatic Avenger, Royer's One-Man Band, and Trainwreck Washington are a few those artists, and now so too is Lone Wolf One Man Band.    

Recently I had the opportunity and pleasure of interviewing Bruno Esposito (Lone Wolf One Man Band). He turned out to be a pretty cool and interesting individual. And what follows is the content of that interview in its entirety.

As is usually the case, I would like to begin in an introductory fashion by asking you: Who is Bruno Esposito (aka Lone Wolf One-Man Band), not just as a singer/songwriter but as an individual, as a human being of this vast and crazy world in which we live?

 

I’ll begin with a brief family background. In the aftermath of WWII, my parents fled from war-torn Italy, as kids with their respective families, and immigrated to Peru, where they met in 1964.   They eventually married in 1969 and started a family soon after. I'm the last of four children.  Because of political and economic instability in Peru, my father decided to move us all to Miami, Florida in 1978. As with millions of other immigrants, my parents sought the “American Dream” in the good ol’ USA. I was two-years-old when we arrived. With the exception of a brief experience living in Naples, Italy for two years in the mid 1980s, I have lived in Miami for most of my life and consider it my hometown. 

What made you choose the one-man band route as opposed to the full band lineup direction?

 

There are lots of reasons why I chose this direction. For one, I tend to move around a lot. My whole life has been about moving around. If I move, I just take the act with me and there are no letdowns, no commitments.

There's also more control over things like finances, decisions on gigs, songwriting. There's no dealing with egos...no bullshit, just me and my music. And I'm free.

Don't get me wrong, maybe one day the opportunity will come again to form a good band, and I'm not opposed to doing that at all, but at the moment, I couldn't be happier doing what I'm doing.

As a newcomer to the one-man band scene, what has been your experience and overall impression of it so far?

 

Well, to be honest I haven't really played out with a lot of OMBs, only my friend Uncle Scotchy out of Miami, and Joe Buck. May, Friday the 13th, I'll be playing with Phillip Roebuck, which I'm looking forward to. But the experience so far has really been a positive and educational one. As a one-man band I'm always looking for ways to improve or add different sounds or elements to the act. I think, when I play out with guys who have been doing this for years, I really get inspired to get better and better.

With a sound that clearly has ingredients of country blues, ragtime, Appalachian folk, and bluegrass, surely you have some roots influences. And that brings up a point of curiosity: What do you personally think of today’s growing roots revival throughout the world, both in the one-man band scene and the full band scene?

 

I've always been a huge fan of old-timey music. Something about the way they played music back then just made it better. I really think that technology is great, but it has distracted us from really learning things that truly fill the soul with satisfaction, like learning an instrument. Nowadays, you barely see kids playing in the streets; they're all inside watching TV or on the internet.

So, to see that kind of roots mentality coming back, in a big way, on a world level, is amazing and makes perfect sense to me.

What have been some of your most memorable gig or road moments so far as Lone Wolf One-Man Band?

 

James, to be honest with you I've had some great ones, but I really think the best ones are yet to come.

I've been playing lots of dive bars where the people dig what I'm doing, but the best reactions come from gigs I do within the scene. Like opening for Hellbound Glory and Six Time Loser at Will's Pub in Orlando, which stands out as a good show. But the most memorable one would have to be the Hootenanny-Versary Hillbilly Hoedown at The Poorhouse in Ft. Lauderdale. Not only was it a really cool lineup of bands but also Scene Mom Productions (Deb and Joe's) anniversary. They've been in the scene and helping out bands from all over the world here in Florida for more than thirty years.

I met a lot of people and got to see Uncle Scotchy, Joe Buck, Viva La Vox, The Sawyer Family, The Darling Sweets, The Loxahatchee Sinners Union, and Boise Bob.

All the Miami shows are not so memorable due to memory loss.

Having only just released your debut self-titled album a few weeks ago, what has been the general response to it so far? 

It has been very well received so far. Triggerman's review from Saving Country Music was incredible and truly inspired me to continue doing this for as long as my body can handle it, and to grow and evolve as a musician and person. Reverend Nix out of Orlando, Florida really needs to be credited here for putting my name out there and really supporting what I'm doing. We have lots of plans for great releases in the future. For example, we have this idea of recording in this tin shack (here in the middle of our swamps) called the catfish hotel, which has this amazing sound in it. Also, doing split albums with other great artists, like Blues Beaten Redshaw, Uncle Scotchy, Husky Burnette and working with Hillgrass Bluebilly have been talked about.

What are your plans for Lone Wolf OMB in the coming weeks, months, etc? Anything of note, as far as shows, special projects and whatnot?

 

Lots going on. Everyday something comes up. The future looks bright for Lone Wolf OMB. I'll be doing recordings with Chris Jay (sound engineer extraordinaire) out of Orlando soon. There are a few releases in the works. So, keep your eyes and ears peeled. Some out-of-state tours are being planned. I would also love to go to Europe for a while, as I haven't been back to Italy since 1995 and it would be great returning to see my big family over there...and play some shows.

My schedule just gets busier and busier. I've had to hold back just a bit recently 'cause I got me a job at Gold Tone (instrument company) working as a stringed instrument assembler and repairman, though they are very supportive of me gigging and touring. It's the perfect set up. My life nowadays sure beats working six or seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m. in restaurants...being a slave to that system and all that.

Lastly, if there's anything I failed to cover...or if there is anything you would like to express or discuss, by all means feel free to do so now. The floor is all yours, Lone Wolf.

 

I would just like to say, "Thank you, James," for making this series of one-man band interviews.

"Thank you!" to all the writers and D.J.'s who write about and play good music. Dave Harris for documenting everything going on recently, and writing the book. And all the one-man bands and musicians out there keeping this music we love alive.

Oh, and come check me out at my shows!



*article/interview originally appeared at The National Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/one-man-band-in-national/one-man-band-serie...

Rev. Nix here with Bruno aka Lone Wolf One Man Banjo Band. Now if folks don’t know, you play an old style of frailing mixed with good ole fashion blues stomp.

What lead you to your style as far as teachers or musical influences?

Well, I’ve never taken a music lesson. My middle school in Miami didn’t have music courses or anything like that, so playing music came later in life. Who knows, maybe if I would’ve been exposed to it at a younger age, I would feel different about it today. But playing music is my passion and it’s what I do every day. The style that I play today I think really expresses who I am and tells the story of my musical journey in life thus far. I love dirty, pre war delta and swamp blues, Appalachian folk songs, punk, rockabilly and psychobilly. I’d like to say that my music is a fusion of such genres.

I want to ask you about inspiration. What makes Lone Wolf write and sing about what you do?

My song writing has no set process. I like to let the music itself set the mood for writing words to it. The music speaks to me and tells me what to write about, like the song “Haunted Carousel”… that riff told me to write about a mobster who takes his date to the fair, gets whacked in front of her on a carnival ride and ends up haunting the ride. Some of my lyrics are folkloric stories and some are inspired by true life events but in the end it’s the music that really drives me to write. Inspiration for new songs comes from all over and ideas come to me every day. Sometimes I’ll write a riff and the words won’t come until years later, and sometimes everything ties in together in a matter of minutes. I like to play with it and let it just happen naturally.

“Dream Sea” was the song that made me say, “wow wait a minute!” Tell me about the writing process of that one.

It was just a cool riff I was playing in my room. It made me feel like a pirate charging big waves with his fleet of ships and crew, so I immediately started writing about it. It’s basically about a pirate who gets ship wrecked, stays afloat on barrels of rum, spends days at sea, gets attacked by a giant squid, then lands in an island full of ladies in bikinis who drink his “rum”. He awakens only to his disappointment that it was all a dream.

You are in a singer/ song writer class because your songs are stories like “How I Got Here”. Tell us about that one. It has an interesting character in that song.

That song is based on the true story events of how my grandfather escaped from prison in Naples, Italy. He got on a cargo boat that was heading to the Americas, winds up in South America barefoot and walking down a dirt road only to come across a cemetery that had some drunken fool there with a huge wad of money hanging from his side. Being in the position he was in, he picks the man’s pocket and was chased by local authorities and immigration through a thick jungle. He came across a train track with a train going slow enough to jump on it and get away. So, as the story goes, with that little bit of cash, my grandfather sent for his family in Italy and started a new legitimate life in America.

Being part of Lone Wolf has brought me into this writing process and seeing what influenced you. The song “Cat Fish” is about our trip into the swamp. You can tell the the story of us in that little canoe literally in gator infested waters!

Florida has been my home for most of my life and growing up here, you get very familiar with the swamp and its wildlife. That one day was particularly memorable. My friend Nick Redditt talked to me about this place out on the St. John River called The Catfish Hotel, and how neat it was and it had a very unique sound inside of it as the floors are wood and the walls are tin. So, one Wednesday we head on down there with a canoe strapped to my brothers pickup truck. On our way to the river, you have to cross about 7 miles of dirt road with water canals on each side both filled with gators and other Florida wildlife. When we finally get to the banks of the river, all we see are humps above the water! We both knew those weren’t logs ,but we really just didn’t say anything about them. We get into the river and I swear the gators were just eyeing the crap out of us, even coming up close to investigate!. Now, the canoe we were in was this tiny thing and it almost flipped about five times but when we were nearing The Catfish Hotel, this gator about 9 or ten foot long was blocking our path. Nick said, “just keep going, he’ll move”. Well, we kept going and felt a hard knock on the bottom of the canoe followed by a huge swirl to the left of the canoe and our canoe was rocking, boy. It was almost as if he had done this before. We get onto the bank of the river only to see the carcass of a cow that must have gone for his last drink a few months back and was devoured by the wildlife. I remember thinking that if they (the gators) aren’t afraid of those huge cows they’ll surely never be threatened by us. But anyway, The Catfish Hotel was everything Nick had said it was and more. We recorded a few songs in there and had a blast doing it.

Many songs came from that trip we took out into the swamp. You’re always writing new songs. Tell us what’s in store in the future as far as song writing?

You never know what the future can bring. That’s the beauty of it all. I really have no set plan. I like to live my life day by day and not really have a set plan. If you guys really want to see what’s in store for the future of Lone Wolf OMB. just stick around and come back and see me every once and a while. I write songs very often. Lately I’ve been jamming out with my eleven year old boy, Gino “Washboard Boy”. He has taken a liking to the washboard and has very good rhythm for his age. He loves it. I’ve taken him busking a few times with great success. He’s been bit by the musical bug and I think we’ll be seeing some cool stuff from him in the future.

It’s safe to say Florida is a huge part of Lone Wolf. We have The Cracker Swamp Stomp for Wildlife Education coming up. That is a way to give back to the land for the inspiration and the respect we have for the environment. You working with the community makes us proud. Tell us a little about how and why The Swamp Stomp?

You know, I had to leave Florida to really appreciate it. I’ve spent time away from here and always came back liking it more and more. This state has lots to offer environmentally and culturally. That’s why, when the opportunity arose to be a part of the Cracker Swamp Stomp, I jumped right on it. The Cracker Swamp Stomp is an event going on Aug. 6th in Orlando Fl. at Wally’s and Will’s Pub on Mills Ave. This even will raise money to help save and protect our precious Florida wildlife.

I’m proud to know Bruno is helping make the world a better place with his charity efforts, along with the sweet sounds of that long unheard frailing sound. Make sure to tune into SCM-Live for unreleased tracks from Lone Wolf. So in closing, Lone Wolf OMB is your Gramps old bluegrass frailing foot stomping banjo, but it’s just Bruno’s interpretation. 

When The Ramones fired off the first shots in the Punk Rock revolution back in 1975, they were a reactionary movement. Disgusted with the radio's state of corporate rock and disco, they attempted to recreate Phil Spector's 20-person-strong wrecking crew hit factory with three chords, two amps and a cloud of dust. By the time they did their victory lap on the Lollapalooza Tour in 1996, the Ramones had successfully given music a teenage lobotomy, despite never having a hit record.

A year after The Ramones gave birth to punk rock, Bruno Esposito, the one man band known as Lone Wolf, came into the world. By the time he was in grade school, he knew he had two paths: music and food. While his food was good enough to  become the sous chef for mango-gang leader Chef Allen Susser before he hit 25, Esposito's true calling is music.  He knocked around Miami's punk scene for years, before distinguishing himself as the stand-up bassist for local psychobilly quartet The Van Orsdales.

After his tenure on the greaser circuit, Esposito relocated to Georgia to attend luthier school. His childhood hobby of fashioning guitars out of kite strings and shoeboxes transformed from a passion into a profession, as Esposito quickly fashioned a line of banjos out of cigar boxes and chewing tobacco cans.

Esposito has taken punk's DIY ethic to a new level. Rather than drag a drummer or a drum machine on the road, Esposito bangs out a straight 4 beat on a kick drum ala Joe Buck Yourself. But while Buck screams about tractors, Esposito's Lone Wolf character vocals are a low simmering guttural growl. Lone Wolf doesn't need to scream at his fans. He's too busy picking out lines on his home made banjo or deciding how many shots of Jim Beam to down before launching into a Robert Johnson-influenced gut-bucket blues.

Eric Clapton may have popularized "Crossroads" but if you can afford a junkie nurse, chances are you've never actually gone to one and dared the Devil. Lone Wolf may be playing small clubs, but that's only because the Devil is ducking his challenge. The Devil knows Esposito can make a ragu out of his hooves and horns and braise his tail in a wine reduction. The Devil knows Esposito can ride a 10-speed 75 mph down a mountain at daybreak, miss the tour bus, and still make a gig 400 miles away. The Devil knows Esposito could make the fiddle of gold Charlie Daniels got off him, and Esposito doesn't need to wager his soul - or his pizzeria in Costa Rica to get it.

But every night on the bandstand, Lone Wolf is wagering that the Blues he loves is still worth singing in a society that values music less than Satan does.



Read more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/miami-music/2011/01/one-man-bandjo-lone-wolf-howls-at-churchills-pub-tonight.html#ixzz1RfNf37t2

Could Lone Wolf be the fastest banjo player alive? One way to find out is to mosey over to the next edition of Southern Fried Sundays at Will’s Pub to witness Florida’s up-and-coming one-man band Lone Wolf, or Bruno Esposito as he’s known to some, play his psycho blues (listen to “Haunted Carousel” on his self-titled album for a taste of this joyfully eerie experience). His sound is based on a frenzied, hybrid clawhammer strum that will have you stompin’ while he belts out lyrics in a grizzled, craggy voice that hardly seems capable of emanating from the physical realm. But we know why you’re really going: slap down a fiver at the door and you get fried chicken and barbecue. Mmm … one-man band and hot sauce. – Katie Westfall