Hasil recorded and performed for almost 50 years being popular in his corner of West Virginia and unknown almost everywhere else until The Cramps - bless 'em - covered a song or two of his and he became known, although not popular in the sense of widely known and widely liked and commercially "viable".

The European "Chicken Walk" album is about as good an introduction to Mr Adkins and his music as there is and is enough for most people.

Hasil had a vision - a rockabilly one man band - and stuck to it.

He also liked meat, alcohol, and cigarettes.

Billy Miller of Norton recs tells a good Hasil story.....

yeah he liked coffee and meat.

The two who started and ran Norton Records did as much as anyone to spread the name of Hasil Adkins. Their group, the A-Bones, are a Hasil-like band.

The story about the can of Warhol soup is priceless and sums up a lot of what Hasil was about. Thanks.

I've only listened a bit but he certainly had a perfect rock and roll voice. Not sure about his band tho. :P

Yes, his band had eccentric tuning at minimum but,

Poultry in Motion album, each song about chickens? Rare insight from the man from Boone County.

Part of an old interview:


"An Interview with the Haze
MRR: Somebody told me you live on top of a hill and you've got nine cars.

HAZE: I got a bunch, but I ain't got that many. Polka-dotted and all different colors. I don't live on a hill. I live down under a hill, in the bottom and I've got a lot of cars, yeah.

MRR: Like cars?

HAZE: Yeah.

MRR: What kinda cars do you like? I hope I'm not being too personal...

HAZE: No, that's fine. I like Roadrunners, Satellites, Plymouths, Chryslers, Dodge, Fords. I like Fords...not the V8s cause I don't think they made a V8 that would stand up, but all the six cylinders that I've had have stood up.

MRR: Nice show tonight.

HAZE: You write what you think. I mean that wasn't a good show to me. I could have done a much better show.

MRR: What happened?

HAZE: The guitar was tuned too high. My friend, Mike, he had it tuned funny cause I got drunk - ha ha - and, you know, every thing wasn't just like it should be... I'll put it that way.

MRR: Bad guitar? Trouble with your instrument? B

HAZE: Yeah, Yeah. The keys wouldn't hold in tune and all that stuff. But, hey, they liked it so who cares?

MRR: How do you feel about last night?

HAZE: Well, really not too good, what I heard of it, but some of it was alright.

MRR: Do you enjoy playing music for people?

HAZE: Oh yeah! Yes. Yeah. That's my whole life.

MRR: Aside from yesterday, when was your last concert?

HAZE: Just about a month ago in Huntington, West Virginia. Gumby's Place. The college kids, they went wild, man. They had a crowd you wouldn't believe. They tried to figure me out, how I played this, how I played that. You know, some of them were taking music at college and all that, but they can't figure me out. They ask me "How do you do all this?" I say "You don't do it. You don't figure it out. You just sit down and do it."

MRR: You live in West Virginia?

HAZE: Yeah, Madison. Yeah, Near Madison, right close to it.

MRR: You play there? Have you got a big local following?

HAZE: Oh yeah. I could be playing every night. I could play every night. I don't do it though, cause I just love -you know- to get back in the country and--I want you to put my girlfriend, Hazel Jean, she's the one I love better'n...

MRR: Who?

HAZE: Hazel. Hazel Jean. It's spelled H-A-Z-E-L.

MRR: Is she here?

HAZE: No. She's back home.

MRR: You want to tell me something about her to put in the article?

HAZE: I'm gonna send you a picture of her because everyone wants to see who I go with...who I date.

MRR: The magazine would really like that. We could use some recent pictures of you, too.

HAZE: I'm gonna send you some. I'll send you a picture of her, too. I want you to put that picture in cause she's the prettiest--. Well I think she's pretty. I'll put it that way. Cause she's the prettiest girl I ever had in all my life.

MRR: Can you give ma a rundown of your career?

HAZE: My first record came out in 1961 and then I had one come out in 1962 and then I had two that came out in 1964. The ones that came out in 1964 was "She Said" and "Is This The End" a slow song on the back side of it after that. Aw heck- it just goes on and on after that. My first LP was in 1984."

Had"nt heard of HA untill you mentipmed him about a year ago.

Thanks for the intro , pure music


:applaud:

Excellent...in the last few weeks I've found Billy Childish, Tav Falco, and now Hasil Adkins, the last two of those due to this very forum....and to think that I've been struggling to get excited about music for the last few months!

Cheers Duckpin! :applaud:

Brilliant music and much thanks to Duckpin for helping me discover him through sending me some CDs.

I just love chicken of all kinds.

Every time I visit a record shop I ask have they got any vinyl,

so far no luck , most have never heard of him.

I was or still am a big Cramps fan and was lucky enough to

see them a few times in the eighties.

Give Dirty Beaches a try.

:zip:

+1. :beer:


I love his rockabilly/psychobilly songs, not so keen on his slower c&w numbers.

'The Wild Man' is a fine album.

It is pure music in a very real sense - it Adkin's vision, warped or not depending on your viewpoint, and his alone. He had many influences, Hank Williams #1, but he also was influenced by the RocknRoll that made it into the mountains.

You're welcome and thanks to Hasil who kept his music unique through thick and thin, mostly thin.

There used to be a 30 minute video biography on Hasil on youtube; it was in 10 minute segments. It gives a good flavor of his music and his part of the USA.

Hasil Adkins was an excellent C&W singer but if you don't like that type of music you won't particularly care for Adkins singing it.
His earlier material, packaged on to albums, is what he's best known for and what The Cramps took from him and did great with it.

I would stay away from his Live in Chicago CD because he's too drunk and doesn't finish most of his songs.

Like RM said, The Wild Man is good.

Packettes are the WV name for convenience stores where you can get beer, sodas, snacks, staple food products like Vienna sausages, etc. Many have a basement outfitted with a little stage and tables for the patrons and Hasil would play these venues.

Hasil's last chicken song was KFC - Kentucky Fried Chicken. He was an admirer of Colonel Sanders who developed the recipe for the fried chicken and started the chain of fast food stores.

:)

I saw Hasil at The Southgage House (RIP) in Newport, Kentucky in 1999. Certainly the most unusual show I've ever seen or likely ever will see. He spent the better part of an hour just sitting on stage and intermittently shouting "Whewwwwww!!!!!" or complaining about how hot it was in the club. He played two whole songs and parts of two others. Hasil announced his last song would be a cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls Of Fire. He started to play it but some dumb bitch who kept coming up on the stage and bothering him did it again, resulting in him angrily kicking his drums over, throwing his guitar down,and storming off the stage, never to return. Yeah, the security was rather lax at that gig.

...and @ Dr.john's review there, I think MES has drawn some influence from Hasil's stage performances. :D

So, then, with maestro Adkins, you pay your money and takes your chances :o

Captain Beefheart went to a Miles Davis concert and Davis continually wandered about not playing and then at a propitious moment, gave out one "blat" on his trumpet and walked off stage for good. The Captain was ecstatic.

Hasil ain't like that. Dr John R could do with a refund :lol: .

and then there's Cage... sitting on stage, eating an apple.

Which I threw at him

Panache on his part I thought :lol:

Maybe that was dinner! :)

:D

That youtube video was put back up by somebody. It was there two weeks ago anyways.
All over this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tj4mxSOD1s

Aye it's still there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRBm13Yp6Es

Many thanks! :)

I found it, lost it, and found it again.

FALL connection: The first Tav Falco / Pantherburns 7'' is in MES's record rack, pictured on the back of Grotesque.

Another connection: the Pantherburns have a longish live track, "Jumpsuit" (early 80s, on New Rose) that is very Fall-like.

yep, there are more down there like jesco white and the white family, too ever see that wonderful whites of wv movie? you wont believe it but its real
in fact thats the oldest white gal -maime- that ends the fight between the girls..no shit i saw stuff like that (catfights, redneck fistfights...etc) many times in these piss holes around here..


as for hasil, the guy is as real as it gets...hes from the kentucky side of wv (im on the md side) but lots of folks all over the state know about him-never got to see him live personally but i know lots that did...even some of his later albums are ok..that norton comp is good for the old stuff...does a number of songs about cutting heads off and also peanut butter is a fave topic..theres some nice live footage i have somewhere on a vhs from another film..great stuff.

wow, that was as weird as I remembered it being -- didn't think it would be

Personally, I would never approach Jesco White - he's too unpredictable and mean when he's switched on. Hasil could be really a good guy and was like a lot of people I knew at Fancy Gap.

One thing about West Virginia is that outside of the Interstate Highways, it takes forever to get anywhere. The roads are serpentine and roller coaster and even if the signs say 55 MPH on the west side of I-77 there are few places where you can safely sustain that speed. And then there's the ever-present danger of giant overloaded coal trucks barrelling along the middle of the road. So people mostly stay around their town or the next one down the road and make their own fun. Much of their fun involves alcohol, meth, meat snacks, four-wheelers, and guns.
Typical southern mountain stuff only more so in the isolated hollows of WV.

And of course, music, mostly country or rockabilly.

And he had a painterly way of making sense of hipster fashionistas. After a mid 80's concert, a dazed Haze notes the strange appearance of certain females in the audience. He figures they look like "outer space witches." That was from venerable KICKS, a gem of a zine produced by those nutty Campbell soup kids, Billy Miller and Miriam Linna.

And The Fall's cover of Bourgeois Blues is almost certainly based on the version on Behind the Magnolia Curtain...

Miller and Linna performed many valuable services. In addition to Hasil they brought Esquerida and Charlie Feathers to a wider audience.

I thought he died in a grease fire at a KFC...

Hasil died from injuries sustained when a methed-up kid on a 4-wheeler ran over him in Hasil's yard before he was able to make it into his house. The kid went down the road and ran over and killed another person.

"Miller and Linna performed many valuable services. In addition to Hasil they brought Esquerida and Charlie Feathers to a wider audience."

Yessir! The Voola and the Tip Top Daddy. Not to mention a loving three volume tribute to my hometown's legendary DJ, Mad Mike Metrovich. He brought the music of The Sonics to western Pennsylvania ears - and beyond; I believe he was the first to showcase their scree outside of their native Northwest. Miriam says there are more Mad Mike volumes in the works.

Billy and Miriam are true heroes .... those Mad Mike albums are great. The musics fantatsic of course.... but Miriam's liner notes are a work of art.

I only have one copy of Kicks. I seem to have lost or mislaid the others I have so now I only have #5
They go for big bucks now.

The only criticism i have is that the Bobby Fuller album i have on Norton is pressed off centre.... a few of their vinyl albums can be off-centre. Apart from that they are #1 reissue label, more or less

Lest we forget: Ernie "King" Uszniewicz and the Uszniewicztones!!!



Off center is really tough, except in the case of the above where anything would help :lol:

yeah - that Uszniewicz album wuz bad ... i got it for £5 in a sale and i'm ashamed to say i took it back.
The worst Norton album is the Phantom Raiders who were 11 and 12 year olds. Truly awful



"new sound '67" my ass