JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD Source: The Charleston Gazette Date: 11/2009 Writer: Bill Lynch

Trouble seems to follow blues singer/songwriter Jason Ricci. In May, when he appeared at the Charlie West Blues Festival, he complained about running afoul of the IRS and difficulty getting into Canada.

Ricci returns Saturday to The Empty Glass with his brand of eerie, punked-up blues. Like last time, he's outrunning new problems. Over the summer, he broke up with his boyfriend, replaced the drummer in his band New Blood and managed to get arrested in Kansas.

"They got me for an expired driver's license," he said.  Ricci was stopped for speeding; a charge he argued was bogus. He demanded to see the radar gun. The officer declined, but instead hauled Ricci into town over the license.

The bluesman suspects the way he looked might have had something to do with how he was treated. Call it a hunch, but officers patrolling the roads of little Sedan, Kan., (population 1,222) probably don't see a lot of people who've dyed one side of their hair red and the other side
black.

"I'm sure it didn't help," he said.  A judge later dismissed the charges.  He still has no luck getting into Canada. A drug conviction 11 years ago barred him from getting across the border last fall. Ricci thinks it could be worked out with the authorities, but isn't ready to try.  "I don't know if I can handle going back to Canada emotionally again."  The 35 year-old from Maine with the troubled past and a more than passing interesting in the occult doesn't sound like a typical blues musician, but blues fans have been flocking to him for years. Last May, he was nominated for his first Blues Music Award.

"Yeah," Ricci said. "I didn't win, but I got, like, the loudest cheer."  Harmonica player Billy Gibson took the award, but Ricci says there are no hard feelings.  "I wouldn't have been there if not for him, so there's no reason to get upset," he said.  He laughed. "But I did." Ricci's current album is "Done with the Devil," which is spooky blues with a nod to the carnival calliope and the sideshow house of mirrors.  Released earlier this year, Ricci says it's going to have to hold people for a little while.

"I can't even wrap my head around another album just yet," he said.  "There's been some talk of a live album, which wouldn't really require a lot of new material from me."

He likes the idea because some of the songs he and his band have released have improved with time. If the live album happens, it happens; if not, he imagines they'll get around to writing new songs sometime next year, which might explore some of the new positive influences on his life.  "I've been reading a lot of the esoteric writings of old mystics and occultists from the early part of the 20th century," he said.  "Lots of stuff by Aleister Crowley."