Mr. Nick of the blues band The Dirty Tricks and formerly of the Blues Mafia recently checked in to discuss his band’s upcoming CD. The singer/harmonica player also discussed his career to this point, including why he folded the seven year old Blues Mafia.
This a whole new record and it doesn’t use anything from a ten song demo that Mr. Nick and The Dirty Tricks have been selling at their gigs. “That demo was done in a day,” Mr. Nick said. “We just banged it out. We’re using it as a demo, mostly to get gigs. I ended up putting it with a sleeve because people kept asking about it. I put it up so we could have something for people to listen to. But it’s not the most flattering representation of us. There’s a few spots where I’m flat or sharp, just stuff I wouldn’t want to have on a record.”
The new CD has required multiple takes to get things right. “Most of it’s live in the studio. There’s some vocal overdubs, for sure. There’s going to be a few overdubs here and there. We’re doing horns. That’s all being overdubbed as well.”
Mr. Nick said he will have six originals and four cover songs on the upcoming CD. His audiences have heard four already and two are very new. One song called “Hot Damn” Mr. Nick co-wrote ten years ago with his previous band, Blues Mafia. “It’s one the audience knows,” he said. “It’s one I thought would be really good to do with this band.”
The current band is called Mr. Nick and The Dirty Tricks, but Mr. Nick doesn’t mind if people leave his name out of it and just call it The Dirty Tricks. He said that after seven years fronting Mr. Nick’s Blues Mafia that new audiences would recognize his name. “I put my name in front of it and it just kind of stayed there,” he said. “If we get billed as The Dirty Tricks, that’s fine. I’m good with that too.”
Mr. Nick brought in from Portland, Oregon his friend Curtis Salgado to produce the CD. The singer said Salgado is one of the best soul singers alive. Having worked with Robert Cray Band, Roomful Of Blues, and Carlos Santana, Salgado was John Belushi’s inspiration for The Blues Brothers routine. “I’m lucky enough to call him a friend of mine,” Mr. Nick said. After playing with Salgado at a memorial concert for another Oregon musician, Mr. Nick found that his idol wanted to produce him.
Two year ago Mr. Nick folded his Blues Mafia outfit and started the current Dirty Tricks band. The blues singer said about 40 reporters have asked him why he changed the name of the band. “That’s usually what you do when you start a new band,” he said, sarcastically. “When The Beatles disbanded, Paul McCartney didn’t form a new band called The Beatles. The Beatles were no longer there. Not that I’m equated us with The Beatles.”
The Blues Mafia broke up because of personnel issues. First, they couldn’t keep a drummer for very long. The revolving door of drummers in that seven year period prompted Mr. Nick to say “it was like Spinal Tap times ten.” Then, the band’s guitarist had gotten married and bought a house. The bass player didn’t want to stay once the guitarist was gone. “I could have continued with the name of the band and gotten new guys. But I figured it was time for a fresh start,” the singer added.
Forming The Dirty Tricks with guitarist Lonely Gus Carlson was a boon, as Carlson has his own following that come out. Carlson does a lot of swing blues that fits Mr. Nick‘s taste. “I’m really happy to have him in the band,” Mr. Nick said. “Gus is such a perfect fit for the music that we do. He’s so good, so talented. He’s one of the best guitar players I know. On top of it, he’s just a gem of a human being. He’s just a really nice guy.”
The Dirty Tricks feature the rhythm section of Rick Rousseau and Ted Bukowski. Rousseau was the long time singer/drummer for Rhumboogie, a harmonica band that played blues and early rock and roll. Mr. Nick used to see Rhumboogie at The Barely House in his native Concord, New Hampshire. When forming The Dirty Tricks, Rousseau was the obvious choice, partly because he can sing. “The really good thing about having two singers in the band,” Mr. Nick said, “is we can do all these cool harmonies that I could never do in the Blues Mafia.”
Teddy Bukowski, or Teddy B, as he is known, was someone Mr. Nick played one off gigs with whenever he and the bass players crossed paths. Teddy B was one of many bassists for a soul music show that ran every Tuesday night at The Black Brimmer. The house band for that project was called the Queen City King. Mr. Nick used to host it. Teddy B also worked with Mighty Sam McClain, K.D. Bell, Toni Lynn Washington, and he has toured the world.
“He’s just a really good bass player,” Mr. Nick said. “He’s versatile as well. He plays upright, and he has a couple of different electrics that he brings on gigs sometimes. He mostly plays upright and that’s what I really like about the sound of our band. We’re kind of like a throwback.” The fuller, fatter sound of the upright fits the 1930s and 1940s tunes that The Dirty Tricks like to indulge themselves in.
Mr. Nick was introduced to the harmonica at a young age. His father played the harmonica, and when Mr. Nick, who started playing in bands at age 12, was a teenager he discovered the blues records of harmonica greats James Cotton, Junior Wells, and Little Walter, and it all fell together.
In 1993 the singer joined a blues-rock band called Chickenhead. Playing a lot of Taj Mahal, Gatemouth, Magic Sam and Buddy Guy gave the aspiring singer/harmonica player much to sink his teeth into. When Chickenhead’s lead singer/harpist suddenly, mysteriously moved to Ecuador, he bequeathed his collection of harmonicas to Mr. Nick. Harmonica players do not play only one harmonica. They own several harmonica, one for each key a song might be played in. Mr. Nick owns about a hundred harmonicas and he is a big fan of Boston harp player Rosy Rosenblatt’s collection of a thousand harmonicas.
“He has all the weird harmonicas,” Mr. Nick explained. “This thing that’s two feet long with giant holes in it that’s like this bass harmonica and these other harmonicas that are connected to each other.”
Mr. Nick was not only listening to classic blues harmonica when he was still learning the instrument. Contemporary harpists like Paul deLay was very important to Mr. Nick in terms of his innovation. deLay could play the old timers material with an influence from trumpet players, creating a whole new sound. “He’s just off the charts,” Mr. Nick said. Mr. Nick said the harmonica as an instrument was originally created as a child’s toy but that it eventually evolved into an instrument.
In The Dirty Tricks Mr. Nick has been playing a little less harmonica and focusing more on his vocals. The upcoming CD will only feature his harmonica playing on one song and Curtis Salgado’s on the other.
“The songs dictated it. It wasn’t really a conscious choice,” the singer said. “I’ve always considered myself a better singer than I am a harmonica players. I’ve always felt like I have more control and I have a better voice. Harmonica has always been secondary to me.”
Mr. Nick has been a Boston-based musician for several years now. He has played out as far as Memphis, Florida, Oregon, and Portugal. A festival in Portugal drew 60,000 music fans to see the Chicago Blues Harp All-Stars. Mr. Nick got to be one of the harmonica players invited. The Bluestones minus Sugar Ray and Monster Mike Welch made up most of the house band.
Mr. Nick recently put together another of his many Boston All-Star Blues Revues shows that featured Toni Lynn Washington and Brian Templeton. Mr. Nick admirers the vast amount of blues players in the greater-Boston area. He noted that national acts like Roomful Of Blues, Sugar Ray And The Bluestones, Matthew Stubbs, and Ronnie Earl all started their careers in the Boston area. “There’s just a lot of really good people, and it forces you to strive to be better,” Mr. Nick said.
www.thedirtytricks.com
i too think this is great ive had a cheap harmonica ive been plniayg with for almost a year now, but havent really found the right instruction. now, i hang with alot of musicians and i know that music is best played when from the heart and no one can teach that, but when i have the right support it makes it all that much easier to get into. i find your lessons wonderfull because it dosnt feel like to much, yet. in the end, after this whole year i am only now more confident in where this should go and thats because of you ;)ps its hard to play harmonica while your cracking up lol i thought the first few videos were really funny.