Marquette musician Jeff Krebs is back with a new album and a new band, The Stumpsitters.
Kurt Hauswirth spoke with Jeff about his new project:
Jeff also brought his acoustic guitar to the studio to play a few tunes for us:
(The interview and live songs were originally broadcast as a part of The Shuffle on Saturday, March 23rd, 2024)
Music journalism intern Andy Hansz wrote this album review for "Consider This" (edited for the web by Kurt Hauswirth):
Nothing beats the feeling of doing something you love, and for close to 30 years, Jeff Krebs has done just that. His group “Jeff Krebs and the Stumpsitters” cooked up their new album “Consider This” in June of 2023 and released it on March 20th, 2024. The folk project plays into numerous aspects of natural beauty in life. This includes the whiplash of feelings from heartbreak and missing someone you once loved, even tying this to the compelling nature of birds. I had a great time diving into this album, and with each listen came more and more meaning.
This album is put together very well, starting with “Hummingbird,” alluding to birds and their similarly adjacent feelings to those of our own. The song features a great deal of the squareneck resonator guitar (played by Sven Gonstead) giving the song a brilliant break between vocals and instrumentals. The second track “Sweatin’ Buckets,” with its slow-paced, brush-sticked drumming (played by Stephanie Whiton) tells of the feeling of warmth and sometimes the intimidation of being with someone you love. The next track "Why do I care?'' brings out a ‘doo-wop’ style of background vocals. The lyrics ask “Why do I care? Why do I try? They say love is fair, but I don’t know why,” showing how love can sometimes be more deceiving than expected. This leads us to the next track, “I Don’t Care.” The uptempo walking bassline (played on upright bass by Sarah Middlefehldt) creates the jumpy and bittersweet feeling of finally getting over someone, even by telling yourself “I Don’t Care.”
Starting the second half, “I’ve Had Enough for Awhile,” tells us of waking up with someone else, and the realization that it's time to be on your own. The song utilizes the banjo along with stacked harmonies by all 4 vocalists, which adds an amazing amount of vertical extent to the piece. Following this, comes the 6th song “Aura Two-Track/Best Piece Of My Heart.” The strictly acoustic instrumentals on this piece play together nicely in a slow, drumless tune, bringing in light additions of ukulele and acoustic guitar (played by John Gillette.) Krebs lyricizes the feelings of missing the best piece of his heart, claiming that he can’t live without it. In the second to last track, “Bluebird,” we are brought back to the bird to the first minor scaled song in the album. With the words “Bluebird, I heard, you’ll be singing a new tune, Bluebird.” This interpretation can be compared to the inevitable feeling of one going away to be with someone else and that there’s not much you can do to fix it. This brings us to the title track, “Consider This.” The theme brings a final plea to “consider” that you were never apart in the first place. Pulling everything together in the very well-written line of “a fish in the sea, a bird in the tree, a star in the sky above; such beauty to see, it means nothing to me, if I can't see my love, consider this.” These final lyrics can show that there is nothing better than the love between one another, and how comfortable it is to just consider the feeling of it.
The 5 piece group creates a unique and untapped sound that goes further beyond playing separately while together, but instead playing a combined sound that adds a vast amount of depth and light to the vocals of Krebs. Made up of Sven Gonstead, Sarah Middlefehldt, John Gillette, Stephanie Whiton, and Jeff Krebs; each of these talented musicians add to the group in their own beautiful ways that couldn’t be replicated otherwise. With that, I think it’s appropriate to say, consider this: you should absolutely listen to this release. - Andy Hansz
Listen to Jeff Krebs & The Stumpsitters online on his Bandcamp page or on Spotify:
