Spatula City Productions

Whip a big ol’ wooden spoon around in a mixing bowl full of way-cool dangling-ciggy hipster vibe, dusty Beat hobo soul, and sunshiny hippie daydream light, and what you’ll find right there – right there – in the vortex of the swirl is the music of the Bay Area-based Jug Dealers.

A half-dozen years into their musical journey, the Jug Dealers have evolved from a sweet, old-timey thumpa-chicka-whoop-whoop jug band into a full-fledged psychedelic conglomeration of rootsy/jazzy/raggedy-assed Gypsy soul funkiness with jam slathered all over it – and their self-titled debut is the perfect sampler of just that.

When you listen to tunes like the lead-off cut “Take It Down Easy”, it’s easy to think of the Jug Dealers as the bastard children of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks. Vocalist Stephanie Salva deftly winds her way from the background to the foreground and around again as lead vocalist/guitarist Adam Walsh lays it down cool as a cucumber with a pencil-thin mustache: the two of them nail the Hicksvillian groove without ever sounding like imitators. Throughout the album, the horn lines of James Inciardi (sometimes snakey; sometimes big-assed Nawleans) assist in taking the Jug Dealers to a place of their own. So does the vintage cheese-flavored key work of guest Danny Eisenberg and cameos by Barry Sless’ dreamy pedal steel.

At the core of the Jug Dealers’ sound is their rhythm section: drummer Bradley Leach, bassist Aldo Fazio, and Brino Ism (who keeps the pulse going on either a wooden whiskey box or – of course – a jug). Check out the stop-on-a-dime scene shifts in the epic “Big Wind”, which segues neatly into “Spatula City”: Leach and his beat compadres do a marvelous job of swapping out the background scenery on the fly, swinging the mood from hobo happiness to flapper gal sauciness to shitfaced-on-wine-down-by-the-river bliss. (Oh, and dig that sultry sax on “Spatula City” – Inciardi is a dangerous man.)

At times Salva transforms herself into a total soul sister, shaking it up bigtime on “Set Me Free”; Doc Watson’s “Deep River Blues” never smiled as hard as it does here; “This Land” takes off into a total rubber-backboned jazz-flavored freakout; and “Gut Bucket Nail” is Sless’ chance to bang up through the gears and let that pedal steel roll. The Band’s “Ophelia” is delivered with just the right mix of reverence and horniness (not an easy thing to do). Neither is the gumbo of goofiness and heart needed to pull off a song like the album-closing “When You’re Smiling”, but the Jug Dealers do it without breaking a sweat.

Being passionate about your art without taking yourself so seriously that you get in the way of the performance is a very fine tight wire to walk. The Jug Dealers pull it off on one foot with their eyes closed, juggling greased penguins and spinning plates, smiling all the time.

Fun, fun, fun.