"This is the music God hears in his sleep when He has a high fever."
-- Spider Robinson, co-author with Robert A. Heinlein of VARIABLE STAR
“What floors us is the voice, like no other…
A voice that takes to the highway and steals our hearts.”
-- Dona Carlotta, Aux Arts Etc., Zurich
"Seth Augustus, Throaty bluesman, between Mongolia and Charley Patton."
-- Thierry Porée (Radio Libertaire, Paris)
“Every tune here is a gem; sharp, black diamonds flicking with their own sinister twinkle.”
— J. Poet, Crawdaddy Magazine
“This is urban swamp music for which dark alleys and basement speakeasies were surely invented, pure and simple. …What Augustus has created is something uniquely old and new…”
— Ian Fraser, Terrascope (UK)
“This is intelligent, imaginative, and uniquely American music.”
— William Gillespie, Smile Politely
“Augustus has sealed his fate as an excellent modern bluesman.”
— Sarah Moore, Pop Matters
“These dark, snaky, moody pieces may be based in the blues.but they are injected with a decidedly twenty-first century mindset.”
— Babysue/LMNOP
“… gravely chops to match the masters…”
— FensePost
“The apprentice of bluesman Paul Pena has concocted an unusual musical mix influenced by both tradition and experimentation.”
— M Music & Musicians( Mar/Apr 2010)
Seth Augustus paid his early dues in the venerable art-punk and experimental music world of 1980s Boston where he picked up a still-healthy ethic of DIY self-reliance. He migrated to San Francisco in the late eighties, where he befriended the elusive guitar wizard Helios Creed, who became a significant musical and recording influence on Augustus. Creed's approach favors intuition over intellect, and an anything-goes musical inclusiveness that literally opens up a world of possibilities.
In the late 1990s, after a six year hiatus from music, fortune led Augustus to make the most important connection of his creative life. He befriended Paul Pena, the great blind blues-man who penned ‘Big Old Jet Airliner’ and was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, Genghis Blues. Seth became his student, and eventually his road manager, occasional collaborator and, when Pena took ill, his caretaker until the end of his life in 2005. The time in Paul Pena’s company was transformative for Seth Augustus. It was Pena’s encouragement, his advice, his perspective; it was traveling to Tuva and studying throat singing with masters, Chigilchin there, it was learning blues with Pena, learning the blues as something that emanates from inside; it was traveling through Mali and being deeply moved by the musicians there, it was meeting and collaborating with San Francisco musical stalwarts like Jolie Holland; in short, it was the entire thing, this comprehensive re-immersion into music, facilitated by Paul Pena, that propelled Augustus into the fertile zone he currently inhabits.
White Naugahyde Shoes (at T'es Rock Coco : Angers, France 2008)
Let's Get Henry to Drill a Hole (Blue Moon Festival: Visé, Belgium 2008)
Slim Sam (at T'es Rock Coco: Angers, France 2008)
