While contemporary in its genre-bending breadth, this music evokes a nostalgia for an idealized imaginary past——polychrome dreamscapes of grainy motion pictures and crackly phonograph records——and a longing for (re)connection with family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and self.” |
A new solo project by Three Times Bad and Critters band leader Sam Cain, VAGABOND EMPIRE reimagines the Great American Songbook for a post-pandemic 21st century. Live performances are a dynamic combo of originals and revamped Americana classics that dig deep into 100+ years of roots music traditions, including vaudeville, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, Cotton Club, Gypsy swing, folk, blues, bluegrass, honkytonk and more. "These Old Songs," a compilation of lofi live recordings from the first tour in the summer of 2023, was released at the end of last year. "After the Plague," a debut studio album of original material, will be released in summer 2024. The new record is a deep-feeling song cycle that channels the confusion, fear, heartbreak, grief, compassion, hope, resilience and joy many of us have struggled to come to terms with since the pandemic. |
ABOUT THREE TIMES BAD & CRITTERS
Epic "bluevelvetgrass" string band, Three Times Bad, and its scaled-down iteration, Critters, likened in Farce the Music to the Devil Makes Three and Shovels & Rope, were genre-bending groups that brought the "ecstatic hoedown" (SF Chronicle) of their live shows up and down the Pacific Coast for nearly a decade. Three Times Bad was a fixture on the regional festival circuit, including multiple runs at SoCal’s Ink n Iron Fest (with headliners Reverend Horton Heat, Iggy Pop, and Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings), NorCal’s Humboldt Hills Hoedown (with Brothers Comatose, Hillstomp, and Dead Winter Carpenters), and San Francisco’s Hillbilly Robot (promoter Shelby Ash’s infamous annual "Urban Americana Music Event"). The band appeared at many of the Bay Area’s top music venues -- Great American Music Hall, Slim’s, Bottom of the Hill, Brick & Mortar, Café du Nord -- and supported leading indie touring acts (Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, CW Stoneking, Lydia Loveless, Old Man Markley, Larry & His Flask, Finland's Steve ‘n’ Seagulls) and world-class local groups (The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, Dirty Cello, Junk Parlor, Pine Box Boys, Mission Delirium, and many more). Their debut album, American Sojourn, was named "Album of the Week" on Mike Morrison's American Roots radio show. Ghost Town Stories documented a series of haunting live Critters performances in historic California Ghost Towns. |