Westcott Jugsuckers – 2/20
February 20, 2025 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
$15Known for their raucous shows, the versatile Jug Suckers bounce among Delta blues, ragtime, old jug band music, jump blues, R&B, and early jazz numbers interspersed with wisecracks, mischief, and participatory call and response singing with their audience.
The Westcott Jug Suckers originally formed in 1988 and were a regular fixture at Syracuse area venues, providing a fitting acoustic accompaniment to the many excellent Chicago blues-style bands prevalent at the time. Their schedule of bookings and notoriety increased organically as the word of their rollicking jug band party continued to spread.
Through the years, the band has evolved and changed personnel but the core of the music has remained constant.
The number of fine musicians who have participated as Jugsuckers is frankly too long to list much less recall and the band itself is in some ways a Jugband style musical union, which has a somewhat floating cast with Colin Aberdeen as its founder and constant.
Ya know how it is, they can only put up with him so often and for so long…
The Jugsuckers are not a Jugband in the truest sense as they do not have anyone playing an actual jug but they draw heavily from that tradition. When asked at a gig nearly 25 years ago about the nuanced nature of the style of music, the band’s name, and the lack of a jug player in the lineup by then New Times music editor, Russ Tarby, Aberdeen simply replied, “We don’t play ’em, man, we suck ’em”
Since some of the members no longer live locally, Westcott Jugsucker sightings are rare but all involved revel in an opportunity to turn their trademark energy loose again, and look forward to rockin’ it in their own inimitable style.
The lineup for this show will include multi-instrumentalist and vocalist extraordinaire, Shirley Woddcock-Kolb, harmonica player Curtis Waterman, a musician who transcends the limitations of the instrument and has a sound so distinctive it is immediately identifiable, and the rhythm section of Rodney Zajac, a seasoned road vet who has toured with Albert Collins and Junior Wells to name a couple of his former employers on the baritone saxophone and Los Blancos drummer Mark Tiffault. The band is rounded out with the head goofball, Colin Aberdeen of guitar and vocals.
The Suckers are psyched and this is gonna rock!!
DOORS 5:30PM SHOWTIME: 7PM