Draft:The Overall Brigade

The Overall Brigade is a German accoustic band that plays hobo, hillbilly, rebel workers and union songs in english and german language.

The Overall Brigade released the first Joe Hill Songs ever translated to German ("The Tramp" as "Landstreicher und Vagabunden", "The Preacher and the Slave" as "Freibier und Pastete") and other popular IWW and Hobo songs in German.

Their style oscillates between folk punk, country, ska and blues.

The band describes their attitude as "punk with a human face" or "music with meaning played by red-blooded bindlestiffs".

As a hobo band The Overall Brigade travels by train with a very small equipment. They play on stage but also do busking on the streets and support workers on strike or political activists at demonstrations.

History
Since 2024, the group has been playing as a trio with Berlin double bass player Howie What. The group began with tea chest bass player Fritz Habegger, followed by Chad Hawkins on double bass and, for a while, Marc Hieronimus on drums.

The Group was founded in 2011 out of a Cologne branch of the IWW by accordion player and singer Jessi Landlos and banjolele player and Singer Elmore Why.

The Overall Brigade organised three shows in 2015 in Germany to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Joe Hill's tragic death — at the Technoseum in Mannheim, in Berlin and Potsdam — with Geigerzähler, Donald Dalton from Salt Lake City, ewo2 and others.

Origin of the name
The Overall Brigade's name is borrowed from an Industrial Workers of the World agitation posse that traveled on trains around 1908 around Spokane, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, sometimes as far away as Chicago, promoting membership in the radical union and its goals.

The historic Overall Brigade was led by James H. Walsh and Haywire Mac. This is also where Joe Hill got his start. They operated with some success among harvest, forest and dock workers.

Haywire Mac became famous for the hobo anthem The Big Rock Candy Mountains. The Overall Brigade translated the lyrics into German as "In den Kandiszuckerbergen".

EPs

 * Freibier & Pastete (Pie in the sky (2022)
 * They go wild over me (The popular Wobbly) (2021)
 * Demo - Smail Studio Berlin (2015)

Albums

 * Joe Hill ain't dead (Live in Mannheim) (2021)