Ed's Not Dead--Hamell Comes Alive
Badass singer/songwriter HAMELL ON TRIAL defies all musical catagories. "Punk acoustic" and "anti-folk" come close. Warbling, super-sensitive folk singer he definitely is not. If you're looking for ballads sung by some tearful folkie, HAMELL ON TRIAL is going to offend you. On stage his raw energy has Rolling Stone calling him, "Bold, Bald and Super-Bad!"    "I'm a rock and roll show. Period." Hamell says. "I love Iggy and the Stooges, Lou Reed, the MC5. Folk singers bore me. Insincerity incites me."    For years the garrulous and witty HAMELL tried to carve out a niche for his artistic vision in Upstate New York. After a brief stint with Blue Wave Records in Syracuse, HAMELL moved to Austin Texas where the perceptive owner of The Electric Lounge signed HAMELL to a Friday night residency. Soon HAMELL'S weekly audience swelled to a faithful throng of 500.    In May 1994, HAMELL ON TRIAL signed with Austin's premier indie label, Doolittle Records and recorded BIG AS LIFE. Not long after the release of that record, a high-profile showcase at the South-by-Southwest music festival landed HAMELL a major label deal with Mercury Records. Mercury rereleased BIG AS LIFE, which met with widespread critical acclaim, and soon HAMELL set about recording his second record for Mercury, THE CHORD IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD.     HAMELL ON TRIAL then moved to New York, where he began performing around the East Village and recording his next record for his newly formed label, SUCH-A-PUNCH MEDIA. CHOOCHTOWN, recorded almost exclusively in HAMELL'S basement in Brooklyn, is as raw and bold as a HAMELL ON TRIAL show. The record is narratively complex and showcases a cast of drunken and disaffected characters to whom HAMELL loves to give voice.     HAMELL ON TRIAL tours consistantly, impressing audiences from New York to Los Angeles to London."Hotel?" HAMELL quips, "I'm driving it!" With his battered 1937 Gibson, HAMELL paces the stage and tells a joke to check the pulse of those assembled. And then he attacks: all frenetic energy and power. A man and his guitar.