Portrait of a Sick America

You won’t find the Creekdippers’ latest album Political Manifest in too many record stores in the USA. According to Mark Olson, who with his wife Victoria Williams makes up the core of the ‘Dippers, the only place you’ll get it (apart from online) is at a church in Minnesota.

“It’s just too hot for anyone to handle right now,” he says. “I would love it to be released worldwide but it wasn’t easy to get anyone to take it. We went to this church because our fiddle player’s son happens to be affiliated with them. And you can order it from the web-site.” (www.politicalmanifest.com)
With song titles like ‘Poor GW’, ‘End Of The Highway, Rumsfeld, and ‘Portrait Of A Sick America’ it’s not that surprising that the mainstream record industry hasn’t exactly welcomed it with open arms.
“It’s a very left wing commentary on the current situation,” says Olsen. “To me it feels things are way out of control. I’ve never seen anything like it. We started playing some of the songs and people went berserk, it was like hitting a raw nerve or something.”
If anything, Olson is underplaying the strength of feeling displayed in his lyrics. Take these opening lines from ‘Portrait Of A Sick America’: “I’m going to punch George Bush/The women will sing praises over his beaten body/I’m going to stuff the sermon on the mount down his throat.” And from ‘George Bush Industriale’ comes the succinct but cutting line “Go back to Texas you piece of snot”. Not exactly words designed to endear him to Mr President!
“Well let’s just say that Texas is way off our touring map for the moment,” Olson laughs. “In fact, I might not get back into America when we finish this tour. We might have to stay in Ireland. But that’s OK. It’s green and there’s plenty of sheep which Victoria likes.”
Since he left alt. country pioneers The Jayhawks over a decade ago to form the Creekdippers, life has been interesting to say the least for Olson. For one, Williams and him have chosen to live in Joshua Tree in the Californian desert – by all accounts one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
“It’s tough out here and that’s the truth,” he says. “The heat’s terrible – we have a pond that we jump into when it gets too hot. And it’s not that safe either, you have to keep your eyes open all the time. We mainly live at night. When the sun goes down in the evening it’s like ‘wow, we’ve made it through another day’. The plan is, we tour in the summer when the furnaces really start blazing.”
Taking a break from the desert, The Creekdippers arrive in Kilkenny to play the Rhythm ’n’ Roots Festival on the May Bank Holiday weekend. What can people expect to hear?
“It’s a varied show between Vic’s stuff and my stuff,” Olson explains. “There’s 13 CD’s to draw from and that’s not counting my Jayhawks stuff which we don’t play. We just mix ’em up and if people have a request we do our best to play it.”
Finally any regrets about leaving the Jayhawks just when they seemed to hit the big time?
“No, I don’t think it’s healthy to be in a band beyond a decade. You get too involved with each other it’s a little bit too much like school days Maybe there are better men than me who don’t mind it but I felt the need to do my own thing. Now I run the group. I get to be the tour manager and the record company president. We never straightened that out in the Jayhawks. We never knew who was the ‘go to’ guy. It’s a lot better this way, believe me.”

Mark Olson & The Creekdippers appear at the seventh annual Carlsberg Kilkenny Rhythm n’ Roots Weekend which takes place in venues throughout Kilkenny over the May Bank Holiday weekend (Friday April 30 to Monday May 3). Other headliners appearing this year include Dave Alvin & The Guilty Men, Terry Allen, Caitlin Cary, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Jay Farrar, Kelly Joe Phelps, Laura Veirs, Rosie Thomas and many more. For the complete line-up see: www.kilkennyroots.com