“Boy let me tell you what…you can wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.”
Whenever I think of  PW Long or Mule, the band he once fronted, this is the first thing that comes to mind. They’re lyrics from “Sugarcane Zuzu” off of Mule’s debut long-player on Touch and Go. The self-titled album, released in 1992, pretty much fucked up my notion of what the delta blues should sound like. It was as if a bunch of nutty Detroit denizens latched onto the soul of Blues and filtered it as only punk musicians could. That wasn’t actually what Preston Wright Long III had intentions of doing. The problem was, he ended up with the rhythm section for the Laughing Hyenas and the rest was magic!

After the group’s inevitable dissolution, which left behind a few recordings like the aforementioned S/T debut, The Wrung EP  and If I Don’t Six album in ’94, and the band’s final “Soul Sound”, a split 7″ with Shellac, PW Long went on to release a few more albums. Two of them, We Didn’t See You On Sunday and Push Me Again with his outfit Reelfoot (bassist Dan Maister and ex-Jesus Lizard drummer Mac McNeilly). He later went on to record another EP and two solo albums, 2003’s Remembered and 2007’s God Bless The Drunkard’s Dog (Black Diamond/Southern Records.) It was that familiar voice. While it was in the band WIG where he began his notorious run in music, Mule and his solo material is what’s always had a hold of me. I mean come on, Mule even covered the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” which was the B-side of the single for “I’m Hell.” How badass is that?

P.W. Long

Mule