"Nikki, Adam, & Dan are exploring dark, moody, angry, revolutional, good time, fuzzed out, skitzoprenic, no rules rock and roll! You get it or you dont. Do you?"
- from
their Twitter page
"Iowa City trio Raw Mojo are yet another rising band from the Midwest, the trio fusing a gritty and powerful blend of rock, blues, punk, and garage rock into a quick listen of infectious riffage and charged basement rock."
- from
a review by
Tom Haugen on
the Daily Vault website
"I really don’t know where to place Raw Mojo as simply, their style encompasses so many different styles and approaches that it would be unfair to put them in one particular category or genre."
- from
Dave Nichols on the Loud Stuff website
“Raw Mojo riff like their lives depend on it”
- from
Kent Williams on the Little Village website
"Raw Mojo is a rock band, full stop. Not to be reductive about what Raw Mojo does, but there’s something really basic and elemental about what they do. Hard hitting drums, loud fuzz guitars fused tightly to a deep bass into 10 strings of fury. Lyrics that don’t try very hard for profundity. To go looking for precursors try the 1970s; there’s a Grand Funk, Joan Jett, Spirit, Jo Jo Gunne and an insouciant soupçon of Black Sabbath.
- from
a review by
Kent Williams in
Little Village Magazine
"Raw Mojo is a 3 piece rock band you may have seen at shows around Iowa City. Their M.O. is to deliver short, concise stabs of pure rock and roll, without frills, pretension or irony... each song comprises the same ingredients — raw-throated singing, overdriven guitar, bass, and heavy drumming... And yet the songs don’t all run together — perhaps relentless brevity pays off. And besides, Angus Young of AC/DC has never done anything but plug a Gibson SG into a Marshall Stack, so there’s a strong precedent for Raw Mojo’s willingness to pick a formula and stick to it.
"As for the songwriting, well here’s the curious thing. I like the songs fine, but there’s nothing stellar about them in and of themselves. The personality, attitude, and execution is the thing with Raw Mojo; it’s as though they don’t want to waste time on song-writing that could be spent on rocking. And on the whole it works... Nikki fully commits to the persona of Rock&Roll Mama, and has the pipes to back it up.
"I’ve only got MP3s of the album so it’s hard to comment definitively on the production, but the choices Raw Mojo made during recording seems to be stripped down and, err, raw. I can hear Miss Nikki’s bass and the kick drum, but the sound is almost all midrange, which emphasizes the sharp edges of their live sound. There’s so little studio trickery on this CD that the few songs on which the vocals get treated with a wet reverb it stands out as a surprising texture. What comes through most of all is how tight the band is, as though they’ve been practicing these songs in their basement forever. And that’s Raw Mojo’s secret: they’ve focused on the pure joy of playing rock music so completely that virtuosity or ‘originality’ or sophisticated song writing would be an unnecessary distraction."
- from
another review by
Kent Williams for
Little Village Magazine
"Independently rocking through your veins since 2006. Sometimes hard n' heavy, sometimes dark and scary, at times slow and heartfelt, always fun. You either 'get' Raw Mojo or you don't...
"Imagine what happens when you mix elements of rock, blues, punk, grunge, and a touch of shoegaze together in a meat grinder. What you end up with is Raw Mojo. Sure, it sounds tasty...but wait until you hear it!
"Hailing from the Midwest, Raw Mojo's music comes straight from their gut - or as they like to call it, 'the basement.' Unlike some bands, Raw Mojo is never afraid to embrace and flaunt their influences. The weird thing is that the band probably shouldn't work when you take each member's individual traits, tastes, and influences. But yet somehow, everything falls into place to create much more than just a sum of its parts. This is a group that writes and plays what they feel: no guidelines, no certain genres need to be met, just pure music. With Raw Mojo it's always music first, bullshit second.
"Raw Mojo is like a family. They stick tight together and support their fans as much as their fans support them. What this family of Mojomongers provides is music for the young at heart (though probably not your grandparents' music). Mainly, the band has a 'take what you will from us' punk like attitude as well as that 'let's leave the stage in burning embers' feeling once they have rawked it. It's this kind of attitude that has many listeners saying, 'I want to hear that again!' song after song. If the band has one bad habit, it’s to leave the stage leaving the audience wanting more...
"There is only ONE band around that brings that genuine, no-bullshit, genre-bending music experience that strives to rock your face! And that band is RAW MOJO!!"
- from
their Facebook page
"Mojo is defined as many things. The one definition that I thought fit this piece was one I found on Urban Dictionary. Their definition of Mojo is 'The word originally means a charm or a spell. But now it’s more commonly said meaning sex appeal or talent.' That definition is exactly how I would describe the band Raw Mojo. Their music is charming, full of sex appeal and talent...
"'Adam (drums) and I have been friends since 5th grade and playing music on and off together since 95. We worked together at a small town fast food joint that year and he was always beating the tables in rhythm so I did what I could to convince him to buy a drum kit and the day he bought them we set up in his bedroom and started an original band with 2 other guys we knew. Flash forward to 2006 after we both had been in several bands, we got together on a recording project I had going with a local songwriter. We did a whole album and started to tour when out of nowhere our bass player met someone online and decided to move to be with her. The project was falling apart but Adam and I were determined to play these songs after putting half a years work into them. One song we had was called “Goosetown” and it just so happened to be the Myspace handle of a woman who came up on our page looking to play bass. This is where we met Nikki Lee. By the time she officially joined the band the old project had fizzled out and we encouraged Nikki to step up and be the musician she wanted. At this point it was clear we were an entirely new band, it felt very back to the garage raw and there was a feeling of magic about playing music again, hence the name Raw Mojo.'...
"'The writing can happen in a number of ways. Sometimes Nikki will have a words and melody she is humming and we figure out what sounds good behind that. There are times we just need to break the repetition of rehearsal so we start jamming on riffs and if it strikes us as fun or interesting we explore what we can do with that. Other times one of us will flat out write something and show it to the band and they "mojoize” it. In the end it has to pass for good by all 3 members or we lose interest and eventually we never come back to it. It’s a good way to filter out what works and what doesn’t.'"
- from
the article, "Raw Mojo - Brickbat Theory", by
Chris Axe on
the Word Krapht website
Lineup:
Nikki Lee - Vocals/Bass
Dan Bee - Vocals/Guitar
Adam Calyton - Drums
Home page:
http://rawmojo.blogspot.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/rawmojoband/
BandCamp:
https://rawmojo.bandcamp.com/
To download the whole podcast, right click on the link below and hit "Save as...":
https://archive.org/download/IowaMusicShowcaseEpisode55/Iowa+Music+Showcase+-+Episode+55_.mp3
