Treachery, revenge and blood: The Murder Ballad Ball is back

A night filled with intrigue, vengeance and homicide. Acts committed by characters with dubious pasts and shady motives. Blood on the walls. Kris Bruders means to deliver all this at the Murder Ballad Ball, December 6 and 7, at the Living Room Theatre.

Now in its fifth year, the event unites varied musical allegiances in what Bruders considers a celebration of storytelling.

“I was listening to Reverend Gary Davis one night, and it just kind of struck me to have a show based on murder ballads, a style of songwriting which I’ve always been a big fan of,” Bruders says. “Not a lot of people do much with murder ballads these days — short of Nick Cave, back in the ’90s — and it’s always been a big influence of mine.”

Bruders, a guitarist and singer for Cadillac Flambe (a local band specializing in Delta blues), tells me this as we share an impossibly lopsided table at Harling’s. Every time he lifts his arm to take a swig from his bottle of Negra Modelo, the soft wood leans away from him. The surface tilts again, and I ask him how he first discovered murder ballads and traditional folk music. It all started, he explains, while he was playing bouzouki at New Mexico’s ZoukFest years ago.

“There was a guy there that played Son House’s song ‘Death Letter’ on the bouzouki with a slide, and it was such an amazing song. I was just about moved to tears,” he says. “I went up to talk to him afterwards, and he wrote down a list of all these old blues musicians, and I never picked the bouzouki back up. I went out and I bought all these records of this early, traditional blues music. I just dove into it headfirst. That’s when I really got into murder ballads, when I got into early American music.”

Bruders cites an early murder ballad, “Stagger Lee,” which tells the story of a man, Billy, who is caught cheating at cards. Stagger Lee takes matters into his own hands and slays Billy in a barroom. The song is based on a crime that took place in 1895, and dozens of versions of the ballad are known. It’s among the more famous of the hundreds of songs that have their origins in similarly gruesome circumstances with similarly gloomy outcomes.

Not that murder ballads must be morbid. Rather than reveling in dirty details, Bruders says his event emphasizes a great American tradition. Local musician Cody Wyoming, who joined Bruders as a co-organizer for the ball this year, tends to agree.

“The tradition of the murder ballad is strong enough and runs such a strong current through all genres of music, that it often gets overlooked as a genre itself,” Wyoming says. “There are murder ballads in heavy metal, in rap, in country. It can transcend all kinds of genres, but it’s interesting to go back to the origin, specifically. This year, we’ve got psych-rock bands, we’ve got country-blues bands, we’ve got acoustic performers and blues bands — people from all different kinds of genres who are performing.”

Wyoming continues: “People like to get together for a theme, and on a Halloween kind of tangent, murder ballads are something dark and sinister that people like to play with without actually engaging in. You don’t actually want to hear about someone drowning their girlfriend, but it’s interesting to hear it told well.”

Bruders adds, “There’s also a lot of lessons involved in the murder ballad. Sometimes it’s a warning. These people were punished for doing these heinous crimes, generally. It’s not necessarily glamorizing crime or murder. Four years in a row, it’s made for something very fascinating.”

Fascinating doesn’t quite cover it. The Murder Ballad Ball is more than just a concert. It’s a theatrical experience, a dark-hued descent into crimes of passion. And, as in years past, Bruders has a specific theme in mind, and has designed and built a set around it.

“This year’s event is titled ‘Plead the Fifth,’ in honor of our fifth year,” he says. “There’s a courtroom theme. There will be a giant gavel overhead and a witness stand.”

“We may or may not make people testify in it,” Wyoming adds with a grin.

For the first time, the event has been broken up into two evenings. Friday, December 6, is a “preshow,” Bruders says, featuring three one-hour acts: Freight Train Rabbit Killer, High Magic and American Catastrophe. The pace picks up Saturday with 14 acts set to perform from 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.

“It’s all going to be roughly 20-minute sets. They’re short, so that the thing is constantly moving,” Bruders says. “We’ve got all kinds of fun surprises that happen in between specific acts. Things will happen in the room to create this experience.”

Naturally that means people dressing for the occasion. All Murder Ballad Ball attendees — not just the players — are encouraged to gussy up. In the past, Bruders and Wyoming say, costumes have included Southern gothic and antique Civil War garb.

“It’s all about creating atmosphere to let the songs be told,” Bruders says. “I’ve noticed over the years of throwing this ball that a lot of musicians come to me and say that it’s their favorite event of the year. I think it’s the participation and the anticipation of it. Everyone gets all fancied up and tells these stories.”

“The stories really are what make it,” Wyoming says. “Whenever a story is told well, I don’t care what it is, you’ve got me. You feel it in your bones.”