During South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, two weeks ago, Continental Club owner Steve Wertheimer sounded especially proud to introduce a hometown group that has taken on the world.
"We're thrilled to have them back where they started," Wertheimer said.
"Aw, Steve, you're gonna bring a tear to my eye," Black Joe Lewis murmured as he stepped onstage. Within seconds, though, the 28-year-old singer/guitarist started hollering into the microphone, his sentimentality gone in a burst of horns and blues-punk guitar grinding, courtesy of his mighty band, the Honeybears.
Two hours later, one of the best new live bands to break out of Austin and/or SXSW in the past decade had staked out an even bigger buzz -- this time with more of a hard-rocking wallop. Imagine Muddy Waters meeting Wilson Pickett in a Texas punk-rock bar, and you'll get an idea.
Lewis later said that the punchier sound can be credited to all the touring the band has done, opening for everyone from Dave Matthews to the New York Dolls to Spoon. Although eager to play the Twin Cities on Sunday at the Cedar Cultural Center, Lewis was not shy about stating the poor impression he got of Minnesota in his midteens, when his mom took a job that brought him to Rochester for about a year. "I hated it," he said. "Too much snow, and there were as many rednecks up there as there are here in Texas."
Lewis talked with the same candor about some of the songs on the septet's new sophomore album, "Scandalous." True to the title, these aren't tunes you're likely to hear on the Disney Channel. "Booty City" was inspired by a visit to an area of Washington, D.C., that Lewis said is heavily populated by Ethiopian-Americans. "Me and the bassist Bill [Stevenson] gave it that nickname after we got a look at some of those women," he said, shaking his head. And one of the album's grittiest (and best) tracks, "Mustang Ranch," pays homage to an infamous brothel outside Reno. The song is a true recap of the Honeybears' effort to get their "hams glazed" during a long cross-country trek.
"It pretty much happened the way it's told in the song," Lewis said. "But we learned pretty quick the place wasn't for us. When we walked in, it was like one of those scenes from a movie where someone walks into a saloon, the music stops and everybody turns and looks at them."
Lewis was blunt again when it came to explaining the origin of his nickname (come on, it's not often you hear a black dude called "Black So-and-So"). He said it started as something of a joke but stuck around "because I like being black, and I like fucking with people about it."
