Japanese Bluegrass Band sings "Man of Constant Sorrows"

Man of Constant Sorrows (traditional, public domain)

So we are new to Rumble but in giving the band's page a little more life we thought that from time to time we should tell some of the history that has made the Janzen Boys. We often say that the Boys were "made in Japan" as they grew up there for most of their young lives. This was due to the fact that dad had an adventurous streak. While growing up on the farm in Middle-of-nowhere, Manitoba, he had a strong tendency to want to see what was over the next hill.

This led to strange moments like the one you see in this video. Japan has so many people crammed into such a small space that you can find almost any foreign sub-culture imaginable. In the city we were in you could go to a reggae festival, a celtic-punk concert, a German Oktoberfest... I even knew of a festival that focused on classic country and featured a guy in a 10 gallon hat driving around in an old Ford pickup (which you couldn't even buy in Japan – that one had to have been specially imported!).

Here you see our favourite club, the Armadillo. That's dad Janzen you see performing, when he had hair and a few less pounds. The band was called "All That Grass." They had been playing together for 20 years, every Friday night, and they were probably the most skilled bluegrass band on that side of the pacific, at least we never saw anything like them before or since. They'd sing all their songs in English, with a Tennessee twang accent I might add. But they didn't even speak English! Only had the vaguest idea of what they were singing.