There are certain adventurers, bold and ruthless men who face the most dangerous foes – bored schoolchildren – and manage to bait them into laughing hysterically. They venture into the sacred precincts of libraries and deliberately make noise. They fearlessly approach danger with a laugh and a squint. And clothes 300 years out of date. And a xylophone.
They are that rare and dedicated breed of historical re-enactors who travel from school to library to community center, giving kids the kind of assembly they really want. The kind with cutlasses, peg legs and a hard guitar beat: rock and roll pirates with just enough historical accuracy to fascinate their audiences into learning something. They have recorded three CDs of some of the funniest and best-played original pirate music I have ever heard.
May I present: (drum roll, please) — Captain Bogg and Salty!
There are six guys in this group, and not a one of them is credited on their albums as actually being the eponymous Salty. (That’s all right; he’s the one on the albums with the voice like Stan Laurel.) They are based in Oregon, but they get around the West Coast. Since 1999 Captain Bogg and his crew have made the rounds of schools and public facilities, dressed as pirates, singing the joys of life as a sea dog in a wickedly funny yet Disney-clean style.
I like pirates. I like sailors. I like sea chanties. Yet for years I have avoided these gentlemen because their first album cover made it appear that Bedtime Stories for Pirates (1999) was strictly for scurvy sea-dogs under the age of 5. What a surprise, then, to listen and discover that the music rocks, and the kiddie-acceptable lyrics are nevertheless as sharp and irony-rich as though penned by a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The tunes are complex and delightful to sing along with; the words are like the best cartoons, with enough levels of low humor to make kids squeal and parents snicker. Your 5-year-old will indeed love this album, but, believe me, you won’t get tired of hearing it over and over on long drives. Indeed, the song “Scurvy” has such frenetic energy it’s like a shot of Jolt Cola and rum.
The second album, Pegleg Tango (2005), is even better, and ratchets up the kiddie appeal to 11-year-old level. You, in fact, will probably want to keep a separate copy of your own, free of sticky little handprints. The title song, and the spoken dialogue preceding it (long nines being fired from a rowboat??? Sailing from the coast of Knocknarea???), made a fully-grown pirate of my acquaintance laugh so hard he snorted rum from his nose. “Pieces of 8ight” is a great rocker.
“Haul Away Home” starts off as a very nice, classical little ditty about the joys of journey’s end, and devolves into a demented lament where your own parrot is demanding a cut of the loot. My personal favorite is on this album is “Sea Kings,” an Elvis tribute that wanders off into a long recitative in the middle about splinters, seagull poop and other minor annoyances in a pirate’s life. And it is the Funniest. Recruiting Song. Ever.
Prelude to a Mutiny (2006) ventures more into adult territory. Your 5-year-old will be a little frightened by the intense track “Mutiny on the Hispaniola” but your piratically inclined teenager will love it. It sounds as though it’s an excerpt from a rock opera on the subject of Treasure Island. If CB&S have actually written one, I’ll be the first to pre-order it. “Wind” is a blackly satisfied tribute to the whole scabby, bloody, glorious arc of a pirate’s life. “Dead Men Tell No Tales” is head-banging rock with a nautical vengance, and sounds like Ian Anderson circa 1982 has been possessed by a demon pirate prince. And then there’s “Part of Your World” – yeah, Ariel’s song from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, if you can imagine it passionately crooned by a filthy, disease-ridden, rum-soaked old buccaneer. I damn near drove off the road, I was laughing so hard.
In short, CB&S is pirate music for the whole family, assuming your whole family is into pirates. Mine happens to be, so I couldn’t be happier to have made Captain Bogg’s acquaintance at last. Ten skulls and crossbones out of 10. Buccanner I live, and pirate I die!
And the gentlemen are: Loren Hoskins (Capt. Bogg), Kevin Hendrickson, Karl Iannotti, Andy Lindberg (currently on shore leave to continue his acting career), Lucas Haley and Dave Owen. And they play: glockenspiel, electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, accordion, melodica, xylophone, bass, drums. And limes.
(Scabbydisc, 1999, 2005, 2006)
