Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz on Soaking Up Culture and Making Crowds Dance

Gogol Bordello have become staples of the summer festival scene, and their sets are typically weekend-stealers. Their Friday afternoon performance at Lollapalooza was no exception, as Eugene Hutz brought his group's brand of madcap gypsy punk to a rabid crowd at Chicago's Grant Park. Click above to find out how Hutz manages to whip himself into a frenzy for shows and how the group constructs its multi-cultural pastiche songs.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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