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![]() The Claudettes (from the album High Times in the Dark available on Forty Below Records) Turn the clock back a moment to a place in time when a young Johnny Iguana took to the stage. While little Johnny was a solo performer, climbing the stairs beside smaller feet was the sound of The Claudettes. From that minute when Johnny Iguana was crowned the madcap minstrel of his local elementary school, through the years, and into the recording of High Times in the Dark, their recent release, the constant has been the beautiful mash-up of coordinated chaos that is The Claudettes. Instruments and their players have been drawn to the sound of The Claudettes like satellites, true believers tugged by the gravitational pull of a soul-saving boogie. Michael Caskey was part of The Claudettes when the sound was just piano and drums, and he continues to subtly guide the groove with a solid backbeat in “Don’t Do That Stuff Anymore”, tapping out a path for the band in “One Special Bottle”, and the source for an earthly rumble underneath “I Swear to God, I Will”. Completing the rhythm section, Zach Verdoorn on bass completes the magic power of three with Johnny and Michael as The Claudettes hammer out a highway song with “Creeper Weed” and weave gypsy accents into the majestic theatrics of “You Drummers Keeps Breaking My Heart”. Steering the stories is Berit Ulseth, her vocals holding firm to the wheel as she cruises into High Times in the Dark, high-stepping in the carnival cabaret of “Bad Babe, Losing Touch”, casually commenting as she shares a duet and commitment in “I Don’t Do That Stuff Anymore”. High Times in the Dark sets up as main stage, big tent, taking the audience away from the troubles of day-to-day life with the merry melodrama of The Claudettes. The band put the bomp into pomp with the see-saw sway of “Grandkids, Wave Bye-Bye” as The Claudettes make a counter-offer to full-on love in “24/5” as they fall in line behind effervescent notes in “Declined” while High Times in the Dark wraps the echoes of a church basement piano around the accusations confronting a cold-hearted lover in “The Sun Will Fool You”. Listen and buy the music of The Claudettes from AMAZON Please go to The Claudettes website for more information
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