Hogslops Gabriel & Graham mourn their missing bandmates on the freshly mown prophetic runway
Report by Emily Cronin
Spare a moment of sympathy for the Hogslops. Members of the Leipers Fork, Tennessee-based old-time music band intended to make their way to London to support Jeff Garner at his Prophetik show, and maybe raise a little hell in the process (last Facebook status update before departure: “The hogslop string band is in route to London! Hide your daughters!”).
Instead, two-thirds of the band was turned back at Gatwick, their lack of customs-compliant papers for visiting musicians to blame. Then again, “We don’t travel without the beards… that could be part of the reason the guys didn’t get through,” said the magnificently bewhiskered guitarist Gabriel “Zeus” Kelley.
So Gabriel and banjo player Graham “Pawpaw” Sherrill made it, while Robert “Roadhog” Hardy Dyer Jr. (mandolin), Casey “Pickle” McBride (washtub), Casy “Moose” Meikle (fiddle), Kevin “K-Mart” Martin (second fiddle), are languishing back at home in Tennessee. Adding insult to deportation, this was to be the first foray outside the US for most of the band.
“We all tried to come and play and have a good time, and I guess they thought we were criminals,” Kelley said.
Thanks to Gabriel’s resourceful music-world networking—or could it be the spiritual influence of the band’s two ordained reverends?—Kelley found a third musician for today’s gig. So how will these earnest, thoughtful, stranded Hogslops spend the rest of their time in London?
“Getting really dirty, and just enjoying ourselves, enjoying good English beer,” says Gabriel.
We’ll play a fiddle to that.
Hear ALL of the Hogslops play… click here.
