Baskery: Haunt You

Continuing with the Halloween theme, today’s song is from a group that I discovered purely by accident last week. The band Baskery consists of three Swedish sisters (Greta, Stella, and Sunniva Bondesson) who play a variety of styles of music ranging from rockabilly, punk, and country. For a three piece outfit, they generate quite a bit of sound. Today’s feature is a song entitled “Haunt You.”

The comments below are for a video that YouTube pulled. I've replaced the video with one recorded from television. Hopefully, the original video will return and the notes below will make sense.

Recorded live at Celtic Connections in January 2009, this band is far from being Celtic. Sunniva, the youngest sister, plays what appears to be a Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar, sings lead, and, as her introduction states, she handles the “screaming’ and shoutin’.”

Stella, the middle sister, covers the low end of the spectrum with double bass, or as Sunniva calls it a ”doghouse” bass and harmony vocals. Finally, older sister Greta sings harmony and plays a six-string banjo (slide style) while playing bass drum and snare (using drum pedals). If you close your eyes, you would swear that there is an extra guitar playing as well; however, it is just the multitalented Greta simultaneously playing lead and accompaniment.

Stella, Sunniva (on a Del Vecchio resonator guitar), & Greta

Don’t kill me, cause you need me.
Oh, don’t you kill me, kill me, cause you need me.
And If you kill me, kill me, you’re gonna miss me, yeah you’ll miss me, boy.
And If you kill me, kill me, make sure you bury me deeper.
Cause now I’ll follow you and track you down, I’ll haunt, haunt, haunt, ha-ha-ha-haunt you.

Don’t hurt me, you hurt me.
Oh, don’t you hurt me, cause you hurt me
And if you hurt me, you’ll regret it doll
And if you hurt me now, hey boy you better beware.
Cause I’ll follow you and track you down, I’ll haunt, haunt, haunt, ha-ha-ha-haunt you.

And I will ha-ha-ha- ha-ha-ha- ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haunt you.
‘Til you fall.

Don’t you trick me, cause you trick me.
Oh oh, don’t you trick me; trick me no, cause you trick me
And if you trick me, you’re an unlucky dog
And if you trick me boy, oh then you better be good.
Cause I’ll follow you and track you down, I’ll haunt, haunt, haunt, ha-ha-ha-haunt you.

And I will ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haunt you.
‘Til you fall.
And I will ha—ha—ha—ha-ha-ha-haunt you.
And I will ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haunt you.
‘Til you fall.
‘Til you fall.
One, two, three, four.

Baskery identifies itself as a live band and, to recapture that sound in the studio, they built a stage and recorded everything live with no overdubs. See the accompanying video for more about the recording of their debut LP. “Fall Among Thieves.”

Baskery is not for everyone; however, their high energy performance is worth a listen.