A rebel within rebellion

Ed
Hamell is bald. I mean Yul Brynner, cue-ball, Kojak bald. A regular
guitar-wielding chrome dome. Yet when he mailed me a copy of his cool new disc,
Tough Love, the package included an
official Hamell On Trial comb. Yup, this Ed Hamell is an anti-folk smart aleck.

            Hamell, who has performed solo as
Hamell On Trial for the past 12 years, is a rebel within rebellion. He rages
urgently and honestly about and against a multitude of things within a format
he doesn’t really associate himself with. Though endorsed by the likes of
anti-folk superhero Ani DiFranco (his current Righteous Babe label boss),
Hamell is an unlikely singer-songwriter.

            “I don’t mind those guys,” he says
over the phone from his Big Apple crib. “I just never really listened to them.”
This is probably why Hamell, as an outsider, sounds fresh within this sometimes
overrun, overwrought genre without really trying. When someone is boisterous
and forceful, it’s often assumed they’re rebelling.

            “Honestly, I’m not rebelling against
that stuff,” he says. “The singer-songwriter people that do that, I wish them
the best of luck. Many of them are doing far better than me.”

            Whatever Hamell does choose to sing
about certainly isn’t prototypically folk. His off-center approach comes across
genuine and personal. The importance of singing with honesty recently dawned on
him while spinning Loretta Lynn’s controversially empowering classic “The
Pill.”

            “I’m listening to it and I go ‘Wow,
this is really amazing but also very organic.’ It’s obviously, instinctively,
intuitively, genuinely her. If she had sung about, whatever, it would have been
false and would have rung false. And the same with me, I’m very skeptical of
all that peace and love stuff.”

            Rest assured, there ain’t no peace and love when Ed Hamell’s on
stage. He is a one-man hurricane, rhythmically shredding his acoustic guitar as
he paces furiously: complaining, inciting, and drawing out his listeners.

            His color and onstage profanity
isn’t simply a lame shot at shock value but instead comes from genuine angst
and political exasperation.

            “Multi-national corporation
boardroom filled / apologizing for all the people they killed / to make amends,
schools they’d build / and The NRA, as if on cue / killed themselves, it was
the least they could do,” he sings on “There Is A God.”

            But it isn’t just The Man pissing
Hamell off, it’s also the vacuous pop culture minions that pay The Man’s
salary. Hamell attacks them head-on in the song “Halfway.” “So you pucker your
mouth and you show lots of thigh, coy celebrity sexy, teasing cleavage / take
the movie’s name, tattoo it on your labia / spread your legs for the camera /
what difference would it make? / I mean fuck it, why go halfway?”

            “There’s a lot of people that feel
the same way and they’re sort of afraid to feel it,” he says. “Really my
feeling is to say what you feel because supposedly we have free speech in this
country.”

            Despite his frank, controversial,
contrarian stance, Hamell doesn’t get into too much trouble as an underground
talent. “I’m under the radar, so I don’t have that much to lose if I come out
and say what I truly believe.”

            Hamell on Trial’s solo approach is
“primarily economic,” he says. He also points out that the drive needed to lead
a full rock band has necessitated his one-man show.

            “It really was more difficult to
carry a whole band around, economically and spiritually, although that’s all I
ever listened to,” he says. “As you get older it gets difficult to sorta keep
that gang spirit that you had when you were a kid. It’s so difficult now to get
a band together, to get all the gear. The days of that Get In The Van thing, that whole Black Flag, Sonic Youth,
Minutemen, early eighties Husker Du thing… that’s no longer there. The bars
have closed. It’s a bygone era.”

            Hamell hopes budding musicians,
frustrated with the obstacles, will take his lead.

            “Maybe I can provide a possible
outlet for them to go ‘hey, I can be one person and be infinitely more
autonomous in all that applies’.”

            “I remember seeing Farm-Aid with
Neil Young and he was playing ‘Rocking In The Free World’ with his acoustic guitar,”
Hamell says. “He was out in the middle of the crowd and rocking infinitely more
than most of the acts that day that had full bands.”

            Young’s performance, coupled with
some early Roger Manning records, made a light bulb go on in Hamell’s head.

            “I thought ‘whoa, I could be The
Clash, but this is going to be a lot easier, logistically’.”

            Hamell is well aware of what he’s up
against. People don’t flock to downtown clubs like they used to. Those that do
are treated to clubs crammed with inane dance drivel or lame cover bands. The
city sense of adventure is waning. Even Hamell himself is a little hesitant.

            “I know if you were to say to me
‘hey, let’s go down see this guy. He’s bald, he plays the acoustic guitar, he
yells and screams, he tells a lot of jokes,’ I might be skeptical to come to
the show too,” he says. “I know it’s a tough sell. I know there’s a lot of
visceral angst, but it really is a good time.”

Hamell
On Trial plays with John Lardieri on Thursday, September 11, at Milestones, 170 East
Avenue, at 8 p.m. (Tix: $8-$10, 325-5880), and with Am I Lost on Sunday,
September 14, at Mohawk Place, 47 East Mohawk Street, Buffalo, at 8 p.m. (Tix:
$10, 716-855-3931).

This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2003.