The Elmers

Apocalyptic Rust-Belt folk blues rock groove music, with a heavy dose of unstable irony!

Rodney Hill says: First time I heard the Elmers they were Ivory Tower and metaphorically, that's where we all were. I shared an office with half a dozen other teaching assistants, adjacent to an office where Jim, Dan, and John shared an office with a couple of other teaching assistants, in the great educational industry of Ohio State University.

One day Jim stuck his head in the door and said, hey, come listen to this. He offered me a walkman cassette player with one of those plastic headsets with orange foam ear pads. A click of the play button, a moment of hiss, then Fall's Coming. I was pretty much blown away. Hey," I said, "I'm pretty much blown away. That's cool!"

... Originally known as Ivory Tower, the Elmers are erstwhile college buddies who turn sublimated Oedipal impulses into songs of unexplained hatred and love.

The Elmers Live are pure s(ard)onic energy, a viscous blend of audience rapport and musical chutzpah. We also play every song at least twice as fast as on our recordings. Jim is the confident frontman, working the crowd with a blend of self-deprecating humor and friendly disdain. Whether on guitar or bass, Johnny anchors the music and drives the women crazy. Dan, ever the musical narcissist, is completely absorbed in the tunes. The whole show is, in every sense, a rare musical treat. Very rare.

Dylan, Talking Heads, Grateful Dead, Chuck Berry, T-Bone Burnett, CCR, Harold Bloom, Tom Petty

Our credo: We mock what we don't understand.