Casey Ruff – “Casey Ruff and The Mayors of Ballard” LP
(self-released, January 2022)
The “Casey Ruff and the Mayors of Ballard” LP makes me feel a little drunk. Casey Ruff’s growl makes it ok to feel woozy and warm, like I’m floating in my own skull a bit. My breath smells like Rainier and my shirt stinks like secondhand smoke. A laughing gang of musicians are on stage and they’re playing decidedly American music with a relaxed, unadorned joy that seems anything but American per the contemporary catastrophic zeitgeist. I hear the opening cowboy strum on the “The Loudest and Proudest” and before I know it I’m swept up in the strut of the band. The horns are sad and friendly and probably a few Rainers deep themselves. Casey’s charismatic yowl crests in the bridge before the “bop bop bop do da do da” chorus takes me gently out to sea. Wily whistling opens up “Deep Sea Diver,” a country shuffle adorned by back-to-back piano and guitar solos that bring down the house. Things get a bit less playful with “Real Fun Funeral,” another full-band burner that slips in the question “what’s been given / by everything taken away?” before handing center stage to another hot-shit guitar solo.
A lonely piano melody opens the ballad “(Seriously) Stop Me From Loving You” that shows another side of Casey’s ample talents: heartbroken crooning. “Move Me” takes a turn toward R&B with a groovy bass vamp and electric piano, but the vibe is tense and a little dark, like the second act of a crime movie. There’s a brief little horn part halfway through the 6 minutes of the song that’s intricate and rad, another example of how Casey built a sonic cathedral around his gritty grace on The Casey Ruff and the Mayors of Ballard LP.
“Born to be Dead” is frantic truck stop prog that twists, turns, and chugs throughout its brief 2:38 runtime, stopping only briefly to take a breath before charging through the outro. Closing things out is “(It’s Hard to Live in) Hardin, Montana (But It’s Still Better Than Hysham),” a personal, parochial epic that winds through hard times in towns too small to see on most maps complete with false endings, codas and all sorts of maneuvers.
Casey Ruff is a Seattle music institution, the friendly phantom of Ballard Ave, a charismatic Palidan entrusted by the throne to deliver and protect the party (in both senses of the word). “Casey Ruff and the Mayors of Ballard” LP is his thesis statement about good times with your friends and the bad times when you’re alone. The Mayors are a machine matched to Casey’s charm and guts, making this collection of songs worthy of really digging into.
Don’t believe me? See for yourself this Friday night at the Sunset Tavern when Casey takes the stage as the electric ghost in Seattle’s wooly trinity alongside the Foghorns and Sam Russell and his heavenly Harborrats.