Last Updated on January 23, 2024, 12:14 PM | Published: January 23, 2024
It’s almost crazy just how much chaos one man can create.
For the intrepid Brad Fielder, it’s the chaos of barely contained junkyard blues, unhinged and unbound by seemingly any adherence to traditional pop structure or melodic stricture.
For Fielder, not one of those elements is as important as the raw sonic outpouring of feeling, and on his newest release, the eight-track, half-hour “Way Highly” – dropped on streaming services on January 19th – those feelings blast through loud and clear.
Well, “clear” might not be the right word.
Music and film
by Brett Fieldcamp
Sponsored by True Sky Credit Union
Everything is distorted, fuzzy, and on the verge of caving in. He plays guitar like Tom Waits sings, with an unstable disregard for accessibility and an absolute commitment to pure, unrestrained individuality, enough to give necessary new meaning to the phrase “one-man band.”
Sure, Fielder sings and plays guitar while sitting and hitting drums with his feet via some pedals and some apparently inexhaustible energy, but it wouldn’t be right to put his music in that same “one-man band” vein of some other remarkably popular local bar-stormers.
Fielder isn’t replicating a kit or a kick-snare backbeat with his foot drumming, Rather, the drums are mainly just there to give him something to stomp and kick while he’s wailing, something he’d presumably be doing anyway.
This isn’t singalong bar rock. It’s not stomp-clap alt-folk. It’s blues. And not that modern, precise electric guitar affectation that John Mayer and Joe Bonamassa call blues.
On “Way Highly,” precision is the enemy. Only unrepressed intensity and smoking Delta-blues fire reign supreme.
And in that sound, there’s something oddly comforting.
Not comforting like a warm blanket. Comforting like a punching bag.
It’s the sound of working-class anger and down-on-your-luck, holes-in-your-shoes energy, and more importantly, it’s the sound of expelling that energy, of ranting and raving your complaints and deepest dreams around an oil drum fire or stowed away on a boxcar.
Fielder is frequently lauded for his obvious grasp of traditionalist blues and the roots of Americana history, and that’s on full display here. But it’s nothing so boring or academic as a throwback style exercise.
These songs just feel like they fell out of him in exactly the state in which you hear them, like there was practically no filter and no time between the writing and hitting record.
And that’s clearly what the songs on “Way Highly” represent. This is as much punk as it is blues or folk. Maybe it’s proof that all of those are really just the same thing.
This is music for everyone that’s ever felt like every day was exactly the same or that’s ever gone out for a walk and ended up spending all their money or that’s ever loved someone that’s not afraid to get their hands dirty.
More than anything, these are songs that openly oppose polish, cleanliness, and clarity and instead stand for the simple truth that music is available for anyone and that it can scream and grunt and wail and stomp whenever you need it to.
“Way Highly” by Brad Fielder is available now on streaming services and bradfielder.bandcamp.com.
Follow Brad Fielder online at facebook.com/bradfieldermusic, on Instagram at @brad_fielder, and on his official site at bradfielder.net.
And … this!
If that’s not enough to satisfy your craving for a raucous, rootsy, southern-fried good time, then you’ll want to mark your calendar for Beer City Music Hall’s Mardi Gras kickoff on February 1st featuring that most in-demand of Oklahoma-based, New Orleans-style second lines, the King Cabbage Brass Band.
The Cabbage crew will there be supporting New Orleans’ The Soul Rebels, perhaps the most acclaimed cross-genre, funk-soul-hip-hop brass ensemble the world has ever seen, and the perfect group to fire up the Mardi Gras revels properly.
“The Soul Rebels are an inspiration to me and are a world-class brass band,” King Cabbage himself told Free Press. “They are bringing some magic from New Orleans so that we can celebrate Mardi Gras, life, and the people we love.”
The drinks, beads, and love all start flowing Thursday, February 1st at Beer City.
For tickets and more information, visit beercitymusichall.com.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
