“Baskery” is a Swedish acoustic country punk band, if you will, who consists of three sisters Greta, Stella and Sunniva Bondesson. I’ve always had a soft spot for lady rockers and this trio is the shit folks. A buddy of mine, James “Music Man” Killen,  leaned to me after the set they did and said : “This is what happens when you plant Dixie Chick seeds in Scandanavia!” I blurted out it sounded like “AC/DC meets a banjo”!

Their musical style has been dubbed “killbilly” or “mud-country” and they’ve been called the “Dixie Chicks on steroids”! Whatever you want to call it, it shreds live! What Greta does on this new fangled 6 string banjo is unreal. Girl plays lead guitar and ROCKIN’ banjo  (BANJITAR!)  from one minute to the next.

Baskery’s single from their album, “Fall Among Theives”, “One Horse Down”, has spawned the video of the same name running around the internet. Check it out!  These girls have a weird connection to the USA. Their roots come from listening to old American blues and country from the American South thru their parents growing up. The true spit fire of this trio is the youngest, Sunniva. She speaks for the band when saying their music as a group can be described as “careless” and do not “play by the rules”.

It is our benefit that Baskery has chosen to assault North America in order to make it back home. Go figure. And assault they do. Man I was so pumped for this gig since I saw them last March and they slammed me into the roof all night. Only setback was a broken guitar string on Sinniva’s guitar on the 2nd tune. With Greta also handling tamborine, bass drum and snare while sis Stella bottomed big time on stand up bass,  these three sound like more than that on stage.

Highlights were a scorching “Haunt You”, said “One Horse Down” and “Here to Pay My Dues”! By the end of the first set, I was wondering what I had just seen. Other smash mouth faves this night were “The Brave”, a weird ass showcase of their talents on the Scandanavian drinking song “Out of Towner” plus a shredding cover of the “Kings of Leon” hit, “Sex on Fire”. Their song playing style of build up at first and then Stella’s bass bomb drop is an effective technique for sure.

And if all this was not enough, ask resident music mad man Kenny Pipes (Pope of the Almost Austin House series) about this band. I had the pleasure of turning him on to these ladies and he jumps in his rig and hits the follow-up gig the NEXT night over 4 hours away in Louisiana !  These girls range in age from 25-30. Hardly in their prime for sure. Looking forward to them visiting next year in the spring, reportedly for SXSW with visits to H-Town again!  Long live ass kickin’ chick rock in my book always…Peace & enjoy life thru music !