Public Servant Lifestyle

Ex-Man From Delmonte Mike West returns with a brace of new long-players (one now and another one at least on the way) and a new partner in song.

Truckstop Honeymoon by Truckstop Honeymoon

Probably best known in the UK as the frontman behind (much-missed) 80’s Manchester guitar pop combo The Man From Delmonte, songwriter Mike West has a new bride, a new album and he’s heading back to these shores.

These days, the man West rips on a banjo in the company of his musical and marital partner Katie Euliss. The more glamorous half of what is now Truckstop Honeymoon, Katie learned guitar, piano and bucket bass and served her apprenticeship in the streets of New Orleans, playing for tourists and living on smoked oysters for six years.

Small Mindedness

It was then that she met Mike West. Part entertainer, part snake oil salesman, all travelling troubadour Mike had been making his lining picking banjo and selling CDs (see discography, below) that he claimed were a curative for hangovers and small mindedness. Together they began a perpetual tour of both North America and Europe, spending their wedding night in a truck stop, between Lafayette and the Atchafalya swamp. It was here that the band Truckstop honeymoon was born.

It’s over ten years since the Australian born singer fled England – and his last band, the woefully underrated Surfurbia - to take on America armed with just a toothbrush, two clean shirts and a taste for hillbilly music.

"As a kid, I strummed guitar for loose change in train stations." says West, "One day I heard a guy picking a banjo in the street so loud that it drowned out the traffic noise. I knew then that it was the instrument for me." West soon settled in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, took up banjo and mandolin, and began writing songs about his neighbourhood. Since then he has built an international reputation as an energetic entertainer who can get a Mardi Gras crowd clogging, and as an insightful lyricist with a skewed but accurate view of life in South Louisiana.

West lives in New Orleans, where he plays the French Quarter clubs from sunset to sun-up. But the skinny troubadour also shows up on stages in Holland, England and Australia. West gigs three hundred nights of the year across three continents, performing at festivals, schools and bars from Chicago to Wagga Wagga. Exceptional song writing and musicianship have earned him accolades including The Big Easy Entertainment Award for ‘Best Country/Folk Artist’ and several awards for ‘Best Album’ and ‘Best Artist’ from Off Beat magazine.

"Every day tales of marginal folks, imbued with wit and humanity...Mike West is a story teller par excellence." – (Manchester listings magazine) City Life.

Story Teller

In spite of a rigorous touring schedule, West finds time to record with other artists, such as Shawn Mullins (Columbia), Chuck Brodsky (Red House) and Kirk Rundstrum (Bloodshot). He also produces many up-and-coming songwriters at his studio. "Dubbed the Allen Toussaint of the lower Ninth Ward, Mike West has gone from idiosyncratic folk singer to indispensable producer" (The Gambit). On rare days off, he picks mandolin on the steps of his shot gun house, down river from the casino and up river from the oil refinery.

Here's what the critics are saying about Mike West and Truckstop Honeymoon:

“A plangent and pithy songwriter, possessed of a rootsy Country sound, infused with glorious elements of Bluegrass and Cajun” - Time Out.

"Splendid, wry and skewed American songs... a belting mix of Country, good time jug band and plain energy." - Folk Roots.

"West's delta guitar, banjo and lyrics rattle and shake with an unmistakable energy that's simply outrageously good music, under any flag" - Crossroads USA

“If you haven’t seen him live, that’s your fault” – OffBeat Magazine.

"West always succeeds in making you laugh until you cry or cry until you laugh." - Dirty Linen (US magazine).

Mike West has performed all over the place, on his own and with various musical collaborators. He's been spotted at: the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Louisiana; Festivale International, Louisiana; Port Fairy Folk Festival, Australia; Tamworth Country Music Festival, Australia; Folk Roots Festival, Holland; The Naked Song Songwriter Festival, Holland; Broadstairs Folk Week, UK; Severn Revels, UK; Wild Flower Songwriter Festival, Texas. Woody Guthrie Fest, Oklahoma; Cherokee Nation Folk Fest, Oklahoma; Frank Brown Songwriter Festival, Alabama, not to mention road houses, music venues, bars and honky-tonks everywhere.

Mike West’s – and now Truckstop Honeymoon’s - CDs are played on public, college and commercial stations across the USA, as well as in Australia, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden, Yugoslavia and the UK. We take a whistle stop tour through the recordings currently available in the shops.

Follow this link to read a first-class interview with Mike West.

A (Selected) Mike West Discography

Truckstop Honeymoon (Binky/Squirrel Records, 2004)

A collection of break-neck breakdowns and waltzes penned and played by Mike West and Katie Euliss in their incarnation as new travelling outfit Truckstop Honeymoon. Banjos and wash tubs combine with hell-bent songs about Jesus and adultery. "Although (the songs) sound as if they came from long ago, their up-to-the-minute insights reveal their modernity." - No Depression (US magazine).

The full track listing for the new album looks like this (click the links to play the sings!):

1. Neighbor's Lot
2. Letter From The Far Side
3. Crazier Than You
4. Workin’ On A Buildin’
5. Truckstop Honeymoon
6. Weary Blues From Waitin’
7. High Cotton
8. Jesus Ain't Done Jack
9. Good Kind of Trouble
10. No Beer On Sunday
11. We Ain't Proud

The Man Who Could Fall Backwards (Binky/Squirrel Records).

Tales of love lost, possibly the only set of songs in West's extensive back-catalogue not to display his trademark humour. Sometimes strays into territory more reminscent of the alt. country style of Miss Neko Case, or - the less blackly comic - side of The Handsome Family, Blanche, or even SMOG.

New South (Binky/Squirrel Records).

A collection of great tracks. From the opening Dixie, wherein the singer distances himself from the historical racism of The South, anthem’s and all – to the great character – tales of The Piano Lesson and Mrs Ernst's Piano, to the alum closer (and show-stopper) If You Only Knew, every single song is a winner.

"West had the audience howling for his skiffle-hillbilly classics... He made quite an impact also with his throw down anthem I don't play Dixie. This tune is well worthy of West's stylistic debt to Woody Guthrie” - Off Beat Magazine.

His eighth solo album New South tells stories against a backdrop of busted refrigerators and stripped down muscle cars. With a quick wit and fast fingers, he rolls together humour, politics, love, loss and foot stomping music.

Home (Binky/Squirrel Records).

The one with the songs about Oklahoma, Hell and living well on meat, all wrapped up in a striking ‘spray-paint’ picture cover. Gorgeous all acoustic record featuring performances by Jeff Burke, Matt Perrine, Myshkin, Gina Forsythe, Bart Ramsey and more.

Oddities & Rarities - double CD (Binky/Squirrel Records).

33 Tracks across 2-discs, a real treat for fans of Mike’s story songs and humorous take on life and love in the Mississippi Delta. Featuring some songs that appear on other CDs – plus an interview recorded for LouisianaRadio.com - this is a great introduction to Mike’s tunes for new listeners and probably the closest (along with The Good Things In Life) we’ll ever get to a Mike West compilation album.

16 Easy Songs For Drill & Banjo ((Binky/Squirrel Records, 1999).

Recorded in December of 1999 with Ron Black at the controls and a small tight band: Sneaky Pete on bass guitar, Matt Swiler on drums, with guest appearances by Slim Nelson and Ed Skoog.

The Man From Delmonte - The Good Things In Life (Vinyl Japan, 1999)

Contemporary to many of the luminaries of the late 1980s Manchester music scene (the band’s track Australia Fair was the opening number on the now legendary City Life magazine compilation Manchester North Of England in 1988). That scene – which spawned so many: James, Inspiral Carpets, New Morning, Penny Priest, Happy Mondays, The Waltones, Johnny Dangerously (still with us today, now incarnated as the leader of three-piece I Am Kloot) – and who all appeared on that same compilation went on to chart-conquering magnitude as the ‘Madchester’ phenomena went national in 1990.

The Man From Delmonte, the first band Mike West formed – and for which he wrote and sang all the songs - also featured Howard Goody (drums), Sheila Seal (bass guitar and vocals), and Martin Vincent (guitar and vocals). From the bands first single in 1987 the band created an effervescent sound on record – and a great, fun racket on stage.

The songs collected here by Vinyl Japan in 1999 represent most of the band’s recorded output over it’s short existence. Listening to the quality of tracks like Australia Fair, Big Noise, Will Nobody Save Louise, My Love Is Like A Gift You Can’t return or the immensely touching Waiting For Anne “Every tick of the clock sounds like the turn of her key in the lock...” it’s astonishing that the band – and Mike’s songwriting, never found grater acclaim. This was a band whose titles were often better than their competitions’ best songs.

I defy anyone with a soul to hear the heartfelt I Don’t Go Out With Her Anymore, But... without either nodding in agreement/recognition, beaming at the familiar romantic muddle being described, or bouncing round the room - perhaps all three!

The sleeve notes for the original Man From Delmonte 12” EP (BOP 1989), all of the tracks for which appear here and which, along with most of the rest these tracks fabulous prices are currently commanded in collectors fairs – say it all: "They harbour a spunk and a funk, a verve and a nerve, a ring and a swing that will simultaneously confirm The Man From Delmonte's uniqueness and ensure they'll never be as big as Bon Jovi!" And they never were, but we still love them.

The Good Things In Life is available from Vinyl Japan, as two vinyl 12”s and as a single Delmonte-packed CD compilation.

The Man From Delmonte - Big Noise (Vinyl Japan, 1999)

The Man From Delmonte, recorded live at Manchester’s Boardwalk venue in the late 1980s – bashing out storming live versions of many of the band’s best tunes – some not released in any other form until The Good Things In Life compilations the same year. Tracks are: The Good Things In Life, Louise And I, the Country, Bored By You, Casual Friends, M.I.C.H.A.E.L., Monday Morning After, Water in My eyes, Sun Serious, My Girl, Big Noise, Louise, Mathematically Speaking and Lasha Me.

Writing in the sleeve notes to The Good Things In Life in 1999, Mike is characteristically modest about his first band’s output: “Some people hated our songs,” he says, “Some people loved them...I don’t really understand either reaction. Nobody in the band could sing very well. That’s why we decided everybody should sing at the same time, together, in harmony, or not exactly in harmony, but close enough. That way no one would notice we didn’t have a singer. We toured, our parents got to see us on TV, we made records and we broke up. I think most of it was fun.”

Big Noise features a complete, killer live set recorded at The Boardwalk in Manchester in the late 1980s. Long deleted as a BOP vinyl and cassette release the recording is now available from Vinyl Japan as a CD and 12” album.

Redneck Riviera (Binky/Squirrel Records, 1998).

Mike and some fine New Orleans players, 1996. Offbeat Awards Folk/Country album of the year. "Mike West is a master of anecdote...(he has the) ability to hit the nail on the head, to get to the essence of a story and a genre...a waltz, a blues, a rag, you choose." - Roots Town, Belgium, 1998.

Race That Train (Binky/Squirrel Records, 1998).

A jug band, complete with tuba (no jug), 1998. "...songs in a rousing bluegrass mould. Throw vintage '20s and '30s pop music characteristics and the old time country music of Uncle Dave Macon in there, too. In a world of sound-alikes, he's something special." - Advocate, Baton Rouge, July 1998.

Econoline (Binky/Squirrel Records, 1997)

Mike West and Myshkin (Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers’, Dr Plague…, Why Do All The Country Girls Leave? and many more) alone in a nice studio for a week in 1997. Offbeat Awards Folk/Country album of the year. "Myshkin's haunting tale of longing, Catch Up, will raise every hair on your body, and it isn't until seven tracks later with West's Brian, Texas that your heart rate settles back down." - Crossroads Magazine, USA, August 1997.

Interstate 10 (Binky/Squirrel Records, 1994).

Mike's first post Surfurbia, post-Manchester record – and the closest old-school fans from his Manchester days will probably get to anything like the songs from that band and from the ‘Delmontes. Songs like Buddy Holly, Not Angry...Tired and the romance of Dinosaur - that could easily be pre-New Orleans tracks – are mixed in with the shape of wonderful things to come on the later albums – and the hillbilly styling is already there in full view. US magazine Dirty Linen (dated August 1997) called the album: "Ragged mountain music with a British sensibility. The beauty of West's music lies in his sardonic view...If you like a little quirk in your folk, you'll find it here."

For more information on Mike West and Truckstop Honeymoon the following links may be of interest:

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