Stomping Nick

Stomping Nick is back at 12 Bar with his dirty guitars and wailing harmonicas, stomping on his drums and moanin' the blues.

Stomping Nick Jackman is a one-man-band from Lyttelton who fuses primitive garage punk with blues and Appalachian folk. His sound has been described as “pounding rhythms, searing blasts of harmonica, and a gutsy roar that reach back decades beyond the last fad.”

Stomping Nick sings and plays harmonica, guitar and drums all at the same time, the old school way, without the aid of loop pedals, backing tracks, or any of those other fancy tricks. He is a master of neck-rack harmonica, the difficult art of playing harmonica and guitar at the same time. A number of influences shape his harmonica style. As well as the blues harp masters such as Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson, other influences as diverse as bluegrass fiddle and Jimi Hendrix can be heard when Stomping Nick gets his jaw swinging. Underpinning the harmonica, Nick’s feet and hands provide a solid rumble of drums and growling guitar to get the people in the groove, while he sings, amongst other things, songs about trains and trainwrecks, magic whiskey, getting high, sinking low, and dancing with the devil.

Stomping Nick is an experienced, battle-hardened performer, having played hundreds of shows in diverse places including bars, festivals, house parties, country halls, flatdeck trucks, beer tents, sheds, shacks and street corners. Over the years he has worked as a drummer, a guitar picker, a bassman, a harmonica player, a banjo plucker, a washboard scrubber, a tambourine jangler and a spoon rattler. Somewhere along the way he learned how to ditch the band and do it all himself.

12 Bar is the place to be for quality blues and brews. We host live music every Friday and Saturday and you can grab some dinner from the Beat Kitchen foodtruck.