In this review/article on AMC’s drama series Hell on Wheels, Margot Miffin mentions one of the character’s resemblance to Olive Oatman. Olive was kidnapped by Yavapai Indians in southern Arizona (then Mexico) in 1851, and is the subject of Olive Oatman from the Phantom of the Black Hills record Ghosts, a song, Ms. Miffin maintains, would work beautifully on Hell on Wheels. Read the article HERE.

Congrats to Dan Stephens of Thompson’s Station, TN who correctly named Big Nose George Parrot and then was drawn from the correct answers to win a copy of the Phantom of the Black Hills cd “Born To Gun”. Here’s a bit on the death of Big Nose George and the interesting use of his corpse:

“In 1880 Big Nose George Parrott and his second, Charlie Burris or “Dutch Charley”, were arrested in Miles City by two local deputies, Lem Wilson and Fred Schmalsle, after Big Nose and Charlie got drunk and boasted of killing the two Wyoming lawmen, thus identifying themselves as men with a price on their head. Parott was returned to Wyoming to face charges of murder. Parrott was sentenced to hang on April 2, 1881, following a trial, but tried to escape while being held at a Rawlins, Wyoming jail. Parrott was able to wedge and file the rivets of the heavy shackles on his ankles, using a pocket knife and a piece of sandstone. On March 22, having removed his shackles, he hid in the washroom until jailor Robert Rankin entered the area. Using the shackles, Parrott struck Rankin over the head, fracturing his skull. Rankin managed to fight back, calling out to his wife, Rosa, for help at the same time. Grabbing a pistol, she managed to persuade Parrott to return to his cell. News of the escape attempt spread through Rawlins and groups of people started making their way to the jail. While Rankin lay recovering, masked men with pistols burst into the jail. Holding Rankin at gunpoint, they took his keys, then dragged George from his cell.The 200-strong lynch mob strung him up from a telegraph pole. Charlie Burris suffered a similar lynching not long after his capture; having been transported by train to Rawlins, a group of locals found him hiding in a baggage compartment and proceeded to hang him on the crossbeam of a nearby telegraph pole.

Doctors Thomas Maghee and John Eugene Osborne took possession of Parrott’s body after his death, to study the outlaw’s brain for clues to his criminality. The top of Parrott’s skull was crudely sawn off, and the cap was presented to 15-year-old Lillian Heath, then a medical assistant to Maghee. Heath became the first female doctor in Wyoming and is said to have used the cap as an ash tray, a pen holder and a doorstop. A death mask was also created of Parrott’s face, and skin from his thighs and chest was removed. The skin, including the dead man’s nipples, was sent to a tannery in Denver, where it was made into a pair of shoes and a medical bag. They were kept by Osborne, who wore the shoes to his inaugural ball after being elected as the first Democratic Governor of the State of Wyoming. Parrott’s dismembered body was stored in a whiskey barrel filled with a salt solution for about a year, while the experiments continued, until he was buried in the yard behind Maghee’s office.”

Ed Gein’s got nothing on this guy. Enter this month’s contest  HERE

An interview with Phantom of the Black Hills
James Carlson

Roots Music Examiner
Phantom of the Black Hills
“Cross Yourself (Before You Cross Me)” is off of Phantom of the Black Hills’ latest album, 2010’s “Born to Gun,” on Ratchet Blade Records.
When it comes to the music of South Dakota’s doom country and hellbilly punk desperadoes Phantom of the Black Hills, two worlds couldn’t collide more violently, with plenty of bluegrass banjo pickin’, backwoods mandolin and upright bass thumpin’, together with loud punk guitar, hard-hitting drums and dirty, snarling vocals. This definitely isn’t your grandpappy’s country music, that’s for sure. And let me tell you, these fellas don’t look like the strummers and singers your grandpappy watched at the Grand Ole Opry or Louisana Hayride; instead, with cowboy hats pulled down over menacing outlaw masks, button-down shirts with suspenders, jeans and leather boots, these bandits look better suited to rob a stage coach or hold up a bank than lay down their hellfire songs.

Speaking of Phantom of the Black Hills’ songs, they pretty much go down like burning swigs of old Appalachian hooch; but they also make you want to move your legs a bit, like the twitching limbs of a condemned man danging from the gallows. On both albums — Ghosts and Born to Gun — it quickly becomes clear that their songs are much more mechanical than organic, with loops and sampling, and with a lot more distortion than twang. Even more than that, their songs amount to a soundtrack for unleashing one’s inner sinner and going forth into a night of transgression, where one loses oneself in drunkenness, violence and debauchery, at the end of which one very well might have ruined one’s chances at heaven.

Phantom of the Black Hills is a loose and ever-changing assemblage of evildoers and musicians, with but two anonymous core members. These modern-day outlaws are the sort who pick buckshot out of their meals, guzzle firewater, hide out in seedy saloons and gambling shacks and brothels, hoot n’ holler and fire their six-guns at the moon. They’ve got the devil in ‘em, and it shows in each and every song they write and play.

Last year I came across a Phantom of the Black Hills song for the first time, “Roses on a Grave,” on a compilation from Devil’s Ruin Records titled Rodentum: Dark Roots Music IV. While I was impressed with all four of the compilation volumes, I found myself listening to select songs over and over, among them the one by Phantom of the Black Hills. As a writer and music enthusiast, it didn’t take long before I contacted them and asked if they would be interested in being featured in one of my roots music pieces. Not long after that I received a press package containing their second full-length release, Born to Gun, on Ratchet Blade Records. And as far as the individual tracks on Born to Gun, I am especially impressed with the opener ”Scratchin’ at My Door,” “Cross Yourself (Before You Cross Me),” “Thief in the House,” “Whorehouse,” and “That’s How I Pull Rank.” MORE

From the Phantom:
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
FINISHING OVERDUBS, THEN MIXING, THEN RELEASING “ENEMY”, THIS ONES A KILLER!