Moolah Temple $tringband began as an oafish attempt to combine two one-man bands into one two-man band. They were initially dubbed Anti Dram $hop Party and their first event was billed as A Secret History of the 20th Century. Moolah Temple $tringband explores the themes of Temperance, wounded affection, the aesthetic of the Evangelical movement, secret and separatist societies, Dada and Absurdist conceits, minstrelsy, manifest destiny, field recordings, the Old Testament, honky tonk and ethnological forgery. Whilst operating under the auspices of a string band– erroneously akin to the Mississippi Sheiks or Grayson & Whitter if they had been fond of African Headcharge– they have infuriated more than they have charmed.

Jonathan Wertheim as Johnny Favorite  [treated acoustic guitar, riddims, imperial recorder, etc., reprobate] & Ian Moore as Eden Moor [fiddle, banjolin, pots & pans, teetotaler] met in live performance situations in the mountains of Jackson County,  North Carolina. This led to them trading four track tapes of each other’s solo material and a black radish emerged. They split lead vocal duties equally which is somewhat of an anomaly in popular music.

Moolah Temple $tringband mixes fiddle-fueled acoustic mountain music with riddims and found sound in a multitude of wilfully slapdash approaches, in an attempt to keep them and their listeners interested. They try to record in as few a takes as possible, aping the immediacy [and often sound] of wax cylinders and acetates. In Moor’s case, the four track is a necessity; in Favorite’s, it’s a guilty pleasure he has never abandoned.

Moolah Temple $tringband has a four track heart. Moor & Favorite hold the pre-desktop home recording mythos as indispensable to their sound– incorporating, scratched and stomped tape, radios, live performance walkie talkies, vinyl, found objects, nosey and noisy neighbors, outdated drum machines and homemade instruments– though the music does eventually  find its way into the digital realm.

They are not content to merely rearrange music from the public domain. Both are singer songwriters contributing [convincing and not-so] period songs in differing pre-war styles married to the detritus of mid to late 1980s technology. Unlike some of their ilk, Moolah Temple $tringband  has a featured instrumentalist in the shape of fiddler Eden Moor. Moor’s quasi-traditional  fiddle playing helps displace the listener and elevates  Moolah Temple $tringband from being yet another acoustic-based loop band.

“It seems that an early goal … was simply to reinterpret old time music in thoroughly drastic and unbecoming ways, and sure enough they’ve done a lot of that. That both are “legit” musicians— make no assumption that these musical oddities aren’t driven by focused intent and skill— reminds us that mere technique will often take a backseat to imagination, twisted as it may sometimes be. The moments of normalcy, if you can describe them as so, reveal artists that are perfectly capable of doing it “right,” but that absolutely cannot keep their hands off the “freak” button.”

-Chris Cooper from the Blessed, demented genius review of Money On The Floor
Smoky Mountain News Arts & Events

Listen to “Rum & Pepsi” by Moolah Temple here:

BUY THE ALBUM!  Pimalia has just reissued Moolah’s first album, Bullet on the Woodstove (pictured below).

Click here for Moolah Temple on Amazon.com