Foddershock

Foddershock is a band based deep in the dusty black coalfields of southwest Virginia, in the small town of Clintwood in Dickinson County, in the middle of the gothic country weirdness. Exactly five years ago today, I began to write this article. After a while, I realized that I most likely wouldn't be able to get a hold of all their albums (there are only cdr, no digital releases or streaming whatsoever). I couldn't do them justice. I put the article on hold. Foddershock withstands all authenticity tests and deserves a place in my prestigious article series. Now is the time as good as ever to publish the article. I’ve tried to contact the band in a number of ways, but no response. It has been quiet around the band for a long time now. Foddershock are either disbanded or on an indefinite hiatus. Reportedly, one of the founding members now lives in a nearby state, which probably makes things more difficult. In this article, I present the bits and pieces that I’ve managed to gather and put together. Someone has to take on the important mission and document for posterity. Foddershock is, by any standards, an obscure band. They should be filed under "gothic country", "weird Americana", "Appalachian Americana", "southern gothic", "hillbilly folk", "mountain music", "appalachidelic", "southern banjer trance" or "AcousticAppalachianDysfunctionalFolkRock". The latter term was coined when five friends were asked to categorize the music. They came up with five different answers. There are also other elegant epithets, like "Appalachian Indie Americana spewed from the cave-like womb of Virginia's Baby". Foddershock say mundane things like "We dig beer. We dig pork. We know people who dig coal". In their band biography on last.fm they presented their music mission as "Songs about love, hate, life, death, drinkin’, snortin', shootin' and killin’. Sometimes tragic. Sometimes funny. Always interesting". These simple statements may indicate that they are a novelty act, but they are many layers to excavate. Foddershock is heavily influenced by the four D's...the Devil, Drugs, Death, and Dysfunction. The band is known for their backwoods mountain sound and the Southern Gothic surrealism in their lyrics. And, of course, there are a loads of religious references (and a lot of profanities for that matter).

Foddershock was formed in 2000 under the influence of alcohol by two friends, V.W. Hill (composer, vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass, jaw harp, keyboard, percussion, hog noises and hollers and A.K. (Tony) Mullins (lyrics, homebrew, burps). However, their musical cooperation began as a chance meeting. Hill who had been playing for a long time, didn’t know that Mullins wrote things. Mullins, on the other hand, had never considered himself as a writer or poet. Fortunately, Mullins’ wife begged to differ and showed Hill some of the stuff Mullins had written. And the rest is, if not history, an indispensable part of the gothic country genre. The band was later expanded by Matt Mullins (lead and resonator guitar), Kevin Phillips (bass) and Marty Rose (percussion). The initial ambition was just to play and have fun. Through mp3-s on Internet (on mp3.com, an Internet site shut down 20 years ago that let artists load their music for others to download), and having their music used in a documentary, and an award winning independent film they reached a larger audience outside of the local community. In a transcript from an Interview with Foddershock on the site Antiwar Songs (AWS) "Our listening audience is no longer just our drunk friends and family. The Internet has allowed other people's drunk friends and family to listen as well." This triggered an ambition to get their music out to many more public and national public radio stations across the country. However, this never really took off.   

The definition of a foddershock is literally a shock (or mound) of fodder for livestock. It has also an aesthetic function. Cornstalks are bound together and often decorated with pumpkins, gourds, berries, straw bales and/or fall foliage. It’s a symbol of harvest and feast. However, the band name has nothing to do with agrarian topics. In an interview with Chaz Fanaro for the forum Liquid Stereo in 2003 V.W. Hill explained: “Well, the name comes from back in the days before the internet and a time when we only had one fuzzy station on the television. We had a form of ancient communication called citizen's band radio. It was my brother who used the "handle" Foddershock first. So I stole it from him... later on it was said by one particular radio DJ. Hey this music gives you Fodder for thought and is sometimes quite Shocking." 

Most bands/artists in the gothic country genre follow a standard formula when it comes to their creative process, for example idea/theme first, then lyrics followed by arrangement and chords or some other order or process. The easiest and most common way is writing lyrics to music. In this case, it’s music to lyrics. Mullins sends lyrics to Hill. With the lyrics in front of him, Hill starts recording, making up a tune and playing along as he reads. As a self-taught multi-instrumentalist Hill records all the music and vocals, blending it all together. Well, maybe blending isn’t an adequate term. Hill can make music sound traditional, like it’s coming straight down from the mountains. This division of labour between them seems symbiotic. For Mullins, this gives him a chance to present his lyrics and writing skills. For Hill, the lyrics give him a chance to compose music. Hill is influenced by the legend Clifford (Lonzo) Perrigan. Lonzo was a homeless man that wandered the mountains and sang and played guitar for supper and a place to bed down for the night. Hill sat in Lonzo’s knee when he was three and was even able to round up some old recordings of Perrigan made at Hill's grandfather's home in 1969. Snippets of those recordings are included on the album "Ghost of Lonzo".  


In the article series, I try to find out how the artist or band find inspiration for the themes, moods and expressions in their lyrics. The best advice you can give to a writer is to write about the subjects that you know anything about. In the above-mentioned interview with Chaz Fanaro Hill said: "We just mostly use things that we see in our day to day lives. Tales about the people we see or know here in the Appalachians. They can be songs about our friends, neighbors or a combination of personalities. They can be funny or quite sordid. After all life ain't all fun and games. Hill continues: "As for the song "Black Dust" we live right in the heart of coal country. My grandfathers, father and all my brothers were all coal miners. The instrumental tune came to me one day when I was recalling a time when my dad came home from the mine, and as he sat on the porch steps taking off his boots I could see the black coal dust catching the sun and it sparkled and swirled. It really caught my eye and I thought it was kinda pretty...surely something that I'll never forget... hell I was just a kid then and never realized this stuff was killing him. But that sparkling black dust took away his breath."

In an interview for Dickenson Star in 2003 (coalfield.com The Coalfield progress) you can read: "For him, writing is a way to cope with the stress of his job. As a counselor, Mullins spends his days trying to help those who struggle with mental illness and substance abuse. "It's a huge outlet," said Mullins. "A lot of it does come from my observations." And the subject matters are endless with economic hardship and Oxycontin addiction. Hill, on the other hand, has worked as an construction worker and is described as a jack-of-all-trades. Virgina is dusty black coal country. The history of Virgina has been shaped by it. Coal has produced wealth, but not for the people who mined it. The mountain communities have remained mostly poor. Coal also created its own culture. Music was at the center; and coal, runs through the music of the Appalachians. Foddershock has had songs in movies ("Comin' Down The Mountain", "Coal Bucket Outlaw") and on the compilation album "Music of Coal", which was nominated for a Grammy in 2007. On the photography site "Humans of Central Appalachia", Mullins explains "Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that these mountains represent a cultural contradiction. Open arms going head-to-head with closed minds. Acceptance battling judgement. Geographical beauty sometimes tainted by psychological darkness. When writing, and seeking meaningful Appalachian subject matter, that's what I find the most inspirational, and the most disturbing...the Beautiful Darkness".   
  
Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. Not many people want to appropriate Appalachian culture. There’s a stereotype image of people from these parts. We have all seen "Deliverance" as the cultural reference (it actually takes place in northern Georgia, not Virginia). This doesn’t stop Foddershock from writing a song about Ned Beatty including the sound of a squealing pig. The term "hillbilly" is one of the oldest epithets in use in the U.S. To many native Appalachians, it's offensive. The same goes for "redneck" or "trailer trash". Sometimes people born, living in or from Appalachia label themselves in these derogative terms. Foddershock are the sovereign anthropologists here. I think it’s safe to say that this is cultural exploration with real music and real (or half-real) stories about the lives and deaths of modern-day mountain folk. What I particularly like about Foddershock is their going from idea to execution. It's social awareness perfectly balanced with heavy irony and a distinct bite. Some people say that the best humour is based on misery. The lyrics are a perfect blend of the grotesque, dark humour and suspense. Sometimes the lyrics are explicit and qualify for a "Tipper sticker" (parental advisory label). But, since the albums are self-released they don’t have to think about this nonsense. Some lyrics are hilarious, like this example from "Eat Possum & Prosper": "My wife is my sister and I love them both / My son is no genius, he’s the world’s strongest man / My twelve-toed daughter was made in the van / She works at the circus and cleans up the stalls / of the two-pecker donkey and the goat with three balls". Well, that’s what I call rural realism.

Foddershock has self-produced and self-released nine albums on their very apt "label", Inbred Outcast Records (except the first album). I have managed to get a hold of four of their albums on cd-r: "Roadkill Expressway", "One Good Eye", "Inbreds From Outer Space" and "Sordid Details Of The Human Condition". This is quite of an achievement since the difficulty level is insane. Only cdr. There are no digital releases or streaming. Five albums are still missing in my collection: "Ghost of Lonzo", "‎Black Lung & White Lightnin'", "‎Corn On Macabre", "Somewhere Between Heifer And Hell" and "God Awful Truth". On their later albums their sound has become more electrified and expansive, at times heading toward psychedelic Southern Rock territory compared with the previous stripped-down-to-the-bone home recordings, which I prefer. A friendly British music lover sent me a digital copy of "Ghost of Lonzo" and “Black Lung & White Lightnin'". I will go on searching for the missing albums. Normally, I use several search methods. Systematic and random trawling is one of them. Monitoring through wantlists, wishlists and saved searches is another. Contacting, stalking and harassing people is a third method. In this case I probably have to add a fourth method: getting feet on the ground. You have to search locally for locally manufactured cdr albums. Fly overseas, rent a car and drive to Clintwood, VA and not leave until I have found a copy of each and every one of them. This coincides with an unfulfilled dream I have: a road trip from coast to coast. However, this road trip doesn't include any tourist attractions or scenic views. This road trip goes through the deep dark underbelly of America.  
   

 
Below is a suggestion for a CD compilation.

Best album: Black Lung & White Lightnin'

Best songs: Ned Beatty, Jump In the River, Angels On Dirty Sheets, Live In A Trailer, Dyin' To Make A Livin', Mountain Misfit, Searchin' For A Cure, Put That Chainsaw Down, Gospel Plow, Die In Jail, Don't Sell Drugs In the Trailer Park, Trammel Town, Eat Possum & Prosper