Nothing will ever make up for the fact that the one time the Devils played in my town I didn’t blow off my English paper and go see them instead. It’s small consolation that I did graduate with said degree. After all, it was a short paper. How much could my grade have suffered? This incident probably serves as eternal fuel for me to find everything accessible about them anywhere I can. With the wealth of info that is the internet, this has gotten easier. That English paper thing is still regrettable, however.
The other evening I was rabidly surfing the web for all things Devils-related, when I happened across some Youtube videos featuring Lester Butler in his solo work with the band 13. The existence of such videos is not new to me, having owned some of them in one form or another for several years. However, as I idly watching some familiar clips for the umpteenth time I glanced over to the right under the “Related Videos” box, and saw one labeled “Lester Butler Bolwerk.” It didn’t sound familiar, but I didn’t think much of it as so many videos are merely identical content with different names. I have to check these things out, though, so I clicked on it. What came up didn’t look immediately familiar. Interesting. After several minutes of viewing I was pretty happy to realize that I’d actually found something I’d not seen or heard of yet, and with only about 450 hits to it since its posting on June of 2008, it looked like no one else had either.
The videos in question are from Lester’s 13 tour. He has Eddie Clark on drums, Alex Schultz on guitar, and I believe it’s Mike Hightower on bass, although I only saw Mike live once, and it’s hard to make him out in the dim light of the video. There are two separate clips, one is Automatic. The other is titled “Onbekend” on the video, which is obviously a foreign title, and I can’t readily assign a title to it myself. I heard Lester do a song similar to this when I saw him live at Lynaugh’s in Kentucky, but it’s not off of the album 13. Anyone with information relating to it is welcome to drop a line here at Nofightin.com and enlighten the masses. The video quality is fairly decent, if not pro, and the audio is above average, though not studio quality by any stretch.
Naturally, I feel it’s my duty to share these new findings with any and all fans of the Red Devils and their related groups/artists. Enjoy. Maybe I’ll watch them again and pretend I was at this show instead of writing a paper or something not nearly as personally fulfilling.
No Fightin' 
This is some great-quality stuff; the audio is very good.
The second video seems to be called “Down in New Orleans” on most videos or bootlegs I’ve seen, including the new 13 DVD from Moulin Blues 1998.
It’s funny, and I want to post about this later, but how often Lester goes to a stockpile of lyrics — how many times does he sing about “way on down behind the sun”? It’s on this cut and also on the similarly grooved and themed “Way Down South” on the 13 record. Funny thing is, on the new radio show I found, the 2 Meter Sessies, he sings “Louisiana Blues” (ostensibly a Muddy song, but it is actually the Wolf “Smokestack Lightin” groove and familiar Wolf lyrics), and never sings the “behind the sun” part as is on Muddy’s original version!
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I think they made a mistake in the listing of songs. I have a bootleg where they do play the “Louisiana Blues” like Muddy did. It’s on a bootleg of moulin blues 1993. I have them only in mp3 format. I heard they did release a bit of footage of ’93 with the DVD of 13, which was shot in ’98.
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Hi Bluesplayer, thanks for writing.
Yes, the 2 Meter Sessies do have some mistakes in the listings of songs: The presenter announces “Like a Water Roll”; I’m assuming he means “Blackwater Roll.” However, that’s not the song they do anyway!
Bluesplayer, if you have any info about the 2 Meter Sessies, please contact me at jjperry@nofightin.com — I plan to write a post about that show soon, and would love to hear more about it, or even your review!
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