The Dodge Brothers are a British skiffle band from Southampton playing Americana, rockabilly, bluegrass, folk, country and blues music. The band includes film critic and BBC television presenter Mark Kermode, along with Mike and Alex Hammond and Aly Hirji. The band played on the BBC Two programme The Culture Show, which is co-presented by Kermode, on 19 May 2007 and took part in the same show's 'Busking Challenge' on 29 March 2008. The band have appeared on Kermode's video blog 'Kermode Uncut', playing 'skiffle' covers of blockbuster movie soundtracks including Star Wars, Star Trek, The A-Team and Smurfs 3D. The music heard on the 'Kermode Uncut' blog is extracts from The Dodge Brothers' music. They also provided skiffled movie theme tunes for one round of a quiz show on Simon Mayo and Kermode's BBCRadio 5 Live Christmas show in 2010. The Dodge Brothers have played the live accompaniment to classic silent movies at music and film festivals around the country, accompanied by silent movie pianist Neil Brand. According to guitarist Mike Hammond, The Dodge Brothers started in 1996 when Hammond and Kermode were introduced by their wives. "By the end of the night, we were drinking whisky and playing piano," Hammond recalls, at which time Kermode suggested they form a band. They then played local gigs with a third member Pete Stanfield on harmonica, and then as a two piece before soundman Aly Hirji joined on rhythm guitar after meeting Hammond and Kermode at a pub where the duo were playing in 2005. In 2006 they recorded their first album, a self-titled record of covers from "the songbook of weird old America". Drummer Alex Hammond appears on two tracks before joining the band just before their first Culture Show appearance in 2007. In 2008 The Dodge Brothers released their second album Louisa and the Devil, the first with the present line-up and featuring mostly original material "written to sound old". The track 'Died and Gone to Hell' also features Billy Lunn of The Subways on vocals and guitar. The band's third album, The Sun Set, was recorded at the famous Sun Studios in Memphis. Kermode has described the band as "guitars, banjo, slap bass, harmonica – and no drums, which is essentially a hillbilly/skiffle set-up. The music we play definitely leans toward rockabilly, but the choice of material is somewhat older, our set includes Washboard Sam's Who Pumped the Wind in My Doughnut, which remains one of the greatest and rudest songs ever written. I think the best way of describing what we do is to say that we play songs about transport and homicide... with occasional episodes of drunkenness".
