The Wanderlusters are a band lost not only in time but in place.These days, Lone Star buckles and faded blue jeans are lyrics from an old Waylon and Willie cover, not fashion advice. And while the good ol’ girls who love good ol’ boys still pine for a Stetson and cowboy boots, country music fashion long ago left mid-century costume to the history books in Nashville.
But don’t tell The Wanderlusters, the five-man country & western act whose embroidered cowboy shirts and wide-brimmed hats are made all the more peculiar because of the pastures they roam. The four Americans and one Australian are regulars of the live music scene in mega-urban Ho Chi Minh City.
The Wanderlusters released their first album, Midnight Breeze, in 2011. Their second release, the 14-track LP Bamboo Hotline, arrived last year. Their costumes fit country music’s early mid-century years best, circa 1930s to 1950s, but The Wanderlusters’ sound stretches far beyond that, from honky-tonk to bluegrass to modern country rock.
The band comprises Davis Zunk on mandolin and lead vocals; Nick Rivette on the banjo, dobro and vocals; Phil James on guitar; Scott Brantley on bongos and the Australian Matt Willis on bass.
The songs on Bamboo Hotline feature all those instruments and more: piano, harmonica, fiddle, dan bau (Vietnamese mono-string chordophone), dan nhi (Vietnamese two-stringed violin), t’rung (Vietnamese bamboo xylophone) and even squeaky ducks, although the last few can be hard to pick out.
On the opening track, On The Road, Zunk describes The Wanderlusters as a “thunderbilly freak show gypsy caravan wanderluster hobo band”. Elsewhere in the song he calls it “soulbilly” and the hillbilly moniker is central to the band’s identity.
But beyond labels, which despite their attempts the band manages to defy, The Wanderlusters are foremost an entertainment act: a merry, tongue-in-cheek, flask-in-the-jacket music show designed to enliven the spirits and woo the ladies. They relish in the honky-tonk style made famous by Hank Williams but bring none of the lonesome-whippoorwill heartache that drove the Alabama legend to an early death (Williams died drunk in the back seat of a Cadillac at the age of 29).
On songs such as On The Road, Josephine and Moongirl, Rivette’s banjo plays prominent and puts the music firmly in the bluegrass tradition. With Who’s Your Daddy and Rivett’s Stomp, The Wanderlusters float a steamboat through rivers of Gulf Coast boogie. Zunk spent years in New Orleans and either of these two instrumentals could easily be heard drifting from bars on Bourbon Street.
The trials and tribulations of expat life play prominently in the band’s lyrics. And while you’ve likely heard these observations before, you’ve never heard them in a country & western song.
Musically, the titular track Bamboo Hotline is pure Southern-fried shuffle, but lyrically the song explores an uncharacteristic theme: the quickness with which information about foreigners travels among the locals, especially local wives, despite any evidence of electronic communication equipment.
Words move fast and words move far
On the bamboo hotline
Anything you say or do
On it a light will shine
No time of day or time of night
That you will go unseen
You’re dirty little secrets
Will never be made clean
With “dirty”, Zunk neighs like the Big Bopper on Chantilly Lace.
Among the album’s best cuts are Kong Say Kong Ve, Girl Like You, and Lies. Kong Say Kong Ve is an up-tempo shuffle dominated by driving percussion. The lyrics (about drinking) are sung in the local language and, combined with Vietnamese guitar stylings, the song carries an unmistakably Vietnamese feel.
Girl Like You, the album’s eighth track, is a guitar- and mandolin-driven pop number about bad love. Zunk, who at times sounds Dylan-esque, is at his baritone best here, and his expressive vocals are complemented well by the song’s acoustic rhythms and subtle interplay between mandolin and banjo.
Lies is a fast-paced piano boogie with roots deep in the Louisiana swampland. The lyrics need no explaining.
Grandma’s sick and the water buffalo died
You gambled all your money rolling dice
So now you’re broke again, and I’m your best friend
When grandma’s sick and the water buffalo’s died
Not all songs are as memorable, but no matter. Bamboo Hotline is diverse enough to satisfy most any music aficionado, even if country music isn’t your thing. As cowboy nostalgia it’s pure comfort music, all but guaranteed to send you off to YouTube searching for Bob Wills and Bill Monroe, Jimmy Rodgers or Hank Williams. As Southeast Asian memorabilia, it’s virtually peerless.
WHO: The Wanderlusters
WHAT: A thunderbilly freak show gypsy caravan wanderluster hobo band
WHERE: Oscar’s, #29 Street 51 (Jan 24) and Equinox, #3a Street 278 (Jan 25)
WHEN: 9:30pm January 24 (Oscar’s) and 9pm January 25 (Equinox)
WHY: Pure cowboy nostalgia