Daniel Romano. Mosey. New West Records.

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Mosey, an American equivalent perhaps of the French flaneur, a leisurely amble drinking in the atmosphere of the surroundings. God knows where Daniel Romano’s been wandering of late but his latest adventure, which casts aside any lingering memories of his Nudie suited George Jones fan era certainly lives up to his definition of the genre he has invented. He explained his vision of Mosey in a recent interview as, “It means a lot of things, I guess. Mostly, just keeping away from any kind of boys’ club that I don’t want to be part of, that I might get lumped into just from ignorance. Sometimes you have to set your own ground in order not to be buried in something that doesn’t represent you. But people feel they have to put you in a category.”

Fair enough, it would be a brave man who would lump this record into one category (the irony of this being an Americana based blog is not missed), but it’s folk who know Romano through his excellent reboots of classic country and countrypolitan sounds who will be reading this. In addition, despite Mosey being a singularly Daniel Romano album, it comes trailing clouds of influences, his moseying apparently allowing him time to wallow in various genres and styles all the while indulging in some grand nostalgia.

Recorded in mono with Romano playing all instruments (aside from piano, strings and horns) the album is a kaleidoscopic whirl of sounds. A mixed metaphor perhaps but aside from the retro music here there’s a fine cinematic feel to many of the songs with Romano stirring up visions of spaghetti westerns and swinging London and there’s a definite Bollywood touch to the opening number Valerie Leon. Leon, a Hammer horror starlet, Bond girl and (in the UK) famous for gloriously dated TV ads for Hi Karate aftershave, is an odd totem to hang a song on (and she’s missing from the video) but the mash up of Bollywood and Italian sixties pop (a la Sacri Cuori on Delone with a touch of Morricone added) on top of a supremely melodic hook laden pop song is sublime. Throughout the album Romano hits on those sixties mavericks who had the knack of producing hits that were just a touch, well, kinky. Lee Hazlewood and Serge Gainsbourg come to mind, Toulouse, a wonderfully pun filled number recalls Hazlewood’s duets with Nancy Sinatra (with Rachel McAdams in the Nancy role) while Calexico’s update of Hazlewood is recalled on the widescreen horn driven vista of Sorrow (For Leonard and William), the title perhaps a joke, Leonard and William perhaps Nimoy and Shatner? Meanwhile Mr. E Me is a brassy pop revision of The Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil.

The album is a musical maze with twists and turns. The heyday of American pop psychedelia as filtered through the Brill building is captured on the astonishing brio of Maybe Remember Me and The Monkees like grandiosity of Hunger Is A Dream You Die In, a grand canyon of a song. Another figure from the sixties looms large on (Gone Is) All But A Quarry of Stone but in Romano’s skewed wormhole of time here he recalls Dylan revisiting his roots with a song that could have come from Time Out of Mind with a fantastic ersatz Garth Hudson organ solo. Meanwhile the slow blues burn of I Had To Hide Your Poem In A Song is like a fourth formers attempt at a Dylan song, portentous perhaps but delivered with some fury.

As on his last album, If I’ve Only One Time Askin’, Romano adds musical interludes after several of the songs, brief snippets of Mosey music (I suppose) that support the soundtrack aspect of the album with Tarantino like flashes of twanged guitar and exotic choruses. It all adds up to an intoxicating whole, an album to wander into and attempt to wander out of. Tellingly Romano seems to reference the author of the gnomic novel The Magus on his song The Collector, an earlier John Fowles book from the sixties. Here a butterfly collector incarcerates the girl of his dreams and Romano cloaks the song in a cocoon of gilded sixties menace recalling the work of John Barry and his glacial keyboard sound.
Mosey is an audacious and invigorating album, Romano blasting through preconceptions, digging into the past and blowing it up into an HD reality. He starts a European tour today with a show in Glasgow this Friday at The Classic Grand. Dates here

 

 

The Deslondes. New West Records

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New Orleans isn’t the first place you’d expect to hear classic country music although in the past few years acts such as Hurray For The Riff Raff and Gal Holiday have proved that pedal steel can cut it in the Crescent City. now along come The Deslondes, a five piece band who sound as if they’ve been marinated in old time country spiced up with some blues and soul, the end result a very fine ramshackle sound that can be likened to The Band, The Felice Brothers or even Doug Sahm (on the fiddle sawed Same Blood As Mine). And while they don’t (as yet) achieve the heights of these acts this debut album is a heart warming collection of songs that variously swing, rock or pull at the heart.

Some of the band have been together for several years (recording as The Tumbleweeds) and have strong ties with Alynda Lee Segarra (of Hurray For The Riff Raff) before eventually coalescing as The Deslondes. With several songwriters in the fold and four of the band able to sing lead there’s variety aplenty on the album and despite the country tag we’re pushing here theres’ a definite Big Easy influence at play most evident on the opening and closing songs. I Fought The Blues And Won rides on a Fats Domino like piano riff with a laidback singalong quality. Out On The Rise is starker with the piano more in tune with barrelhouse blues and a clarinet solo nailing the NO vibe although a lonesome pedal steel cries throughout.

Sandwiched between these is the fine country gospel of Those Were (Could’ve Been) the Days and the trucking Less Honkin’ More Tonkin’ (guaranteed to please fans of Junior Brown or Bill Kirchen), the spaghetti western twang of Time To Believe In and the Johnny Cash meets Ricky Nelson chicka boom of Louise. There are laments. Simple and True stumbles and starts fitfully and Heavenly Home is a mighty slice of pedal steel garnished southern grit. Best of all is the lonesome howl of Low Down Soul which is indeed indebted to Hank Williams and well worthy of being mentioned in the same breath.
The Deslondes (Sam Doores vocals/guitar, Riley Downing vocals/guitar, Dan Cutler vocals/stand-up bass, Cameron Snyder vocals/percussion and John James Tourville pedal steel/fiddle) play several UK shows this week, dates here. There’s a fine interview with the band from Uncut magazine which you can read here.

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Howe Gelb interview

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2015 marks 30 years of Giant Sand, the protean band that has been the primary vehicle for Howe Gelb’s restless sonic journey over three decades. Through various incarnations from duo to 12 piece (aka Giant Giant Sand) Gelb has steered the band’s unique path and also found time to release solo albums and recordings under various names (including The Band Of Blacky Ranchette, OP8, and Arizona Amp & Alternator). Heartbreak Pass, released on New West Records on 4th May is the latest Giant Sand offering with Gelb explaining that the album is an attempt of sorts to celebrate the band’s twists and turns. “There are three volumes of 15 songs here representing living two lives for 30 years” adding “Don’t do the math. It doesn’t figure.” Featuring the current Giant sand line up along with contributions from artists scattered across the globe (Tucson, Portland, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Bristol) much of the album was recorded at pit stops as Gelb criss crossed the Atlantic over the past year before being mixed by John Parish in Bristol. Over the course of the album Gelb is joined by the likes of Grant Lee Phillip, Steve Shelley, Jason Lytle, Maggie Bjorklund, Sacri Cuori and The Voices Of Praise Gospel Choir. Gelb was back in Bristol earlier this month for a preview showing of another project he’s involved with, Out Of The Desert, a documentary of the last Giant Giant Sand tour filmed by Peter Triest. We managed to hook up with Howe by telephone as he travelled back to London by train the day after the screening. Despite a poor connection and a lot of background noise Howe began by talking about the film screening the previous night.

It was really good, it went down well. It was a preview, testing to see the audience reaction….how well it’s coming along. He’s (Peter Triest) put it all together with his own money, his own investment before he does a kickstarter or whatever you do now to finish it properly, get a final edit. The first half of last night was me doing a solo set with John Parish on drums and the second half was the film screening. It’s a film of the tour we last did with the big band and then there’s my narration over it. He took excerpts of me reading my tour journal, each passage relating to a show. Now he has to see how it works, maybe trim it down a little bit. I think if he wants it to have a broader scale he needs to make it a film that doesn’t just preach to the choir. I think it’s a hard job to make a film like this entertaining.

Heartbreak Pass is being billed as a celebration of 30 years of Giant Sand. Was that in your mind when you were recording it?

Well I think it was in my mind in the way that I was thinking of how much time I’ve put into it, how much time has passed. I don’t think it’s obvious but I was trying to assemble it with material that warrants three decades, I didn’t want to put in stuff like I did in the beginning. Back then I would put in stuff that was unwarranted so to speak, more playful. I didn’t mind killing time, wasting some time to go to battle with the eighties for example but now I have a shorter story to tell, it’s more to the point

The album was recorded in several locations, often as you passed through on tour.

Yeah, I think that’s the natural way to do things. It might make a lot of sense to just spend two weeks in a studio to make an album, it worked maybe many years ago but I don’t see the merit in it now. That’s the beauty of it, recording wherever you are lets you capture the lightning bugs in the jar at the moment they’re around.

Lightning bugs?

Yeah, those little insects that light up in the night, fireflies. The songs are the fireflies and the album’s the jar.

I get a sense in some of the songs on the album that it’s describing you as a global traveller, missing out on things like family, kids growing up etc. Is it time to do less of the travelling and spend more time at home?

Well the thing is you can’t afford the family without going to work so this is the impossible nature of trying to this… this particular job. It’s a job without retirement or security so all I can do is reflect on the impossible nature of it, not with regret or even celebration that it happened at all or that I’ve been able to do it for thirty years and that three children can be raised up. I think I’m able to pause and consider all the ramifications but at the same time I don’t think I’m ever that obvious in my lyrics, I understand what those songs are about but the listener can just take from them whatever they need

Do you see yourself then as being on some never ending tour, a bit like Dylan?

Well I think he stands as a symbol for just being around so long. I think he decided to just stay on the road to keep him from going senile. If you’re forced to be sharp by staying on the road then with that kind of challenge then you’re not going to get dementia. I think he needs it for an exercise. For me, I’ve taken the blue collar route. You have to tour in order to make a living, I enjoy it more than ever but you have to recognise that travel takes its toll but then if I worked in construction I’d have congested lung.

You spent much of last year on tour with Grant Lee Phillip

Yeah, we just finished a couple of days ago in Florence, Italy, after a year of doing it. We’ve talked about getting together again to record some songs.

Talking of Italy, Sacri Couri appear on one of the songs on the album.

Yeah on that song, Hurtin’ Habit. Well I was in Italy and I just started to write it and they were there so they helped me out.

Getting back to the 30 years anniversary I noticed that at SXSW you joined up with some previous collaborators, The Psycho Sisters, Winston Watson and Scott Gerber. How does it feel when you’re catching up with folk like that from the distant past?

Well life gets so crowded that you can’t spend as much time or at least the time you would want to with people you’ve met along the way. Like with Winston, it was so great to play with him again, it feels so familiar but it gives you a new pulse.

Can I ask you about Lonna Beth Kelley who does a wonderful job on the vocals on Pen To Paper?

Lonna and I have been very good friends for a long time. I adore her, I love her voice and the way she carries a song.

The album’s out in May and I believe you’re coming back to the UK to play some shows with Giant Sand.
In May we’re touring through Europe, Switzerland, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. We’ve got some UK dates lined up in June . Liverpool, I’ve never been to Liverpool so it’ll be good to be there. The others are at The Brudenell Social Club, a great venue in Leeds and Union Chapel in London, one of my favourite places.

With that Howe’s train sped on and we gave up battling with the onboard announcements. Since then Giant Sand have been confirmed to play at The End Of The Road Festival in September. Heartbreak Pass is released on 4th May on New West Records and the progress of the film Out Of the Desert can be followed on its Facebook page

Giant Sand website

Tour dates

 

 

Austin Lucas. Stay Reckless. New West Records.

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If you’re looking for an album that just about sums up the state of Americana these days then look no further. Austin Lucas has a punk background but grew up in a folk and bluegrass loving family.Ttiring of screaming his lyrics over a blitzkrieg of sound he returned to his roots and forged a fine amalgam of country and rock over a series of albums. Stay Reckless finds Lucas ensconced in the mighty bosom of New West Records which should offer him a fair degree of exposure. To top it all he’s blessed enough to have the services of Glossary, one of the finer exponents of the genre these days to hand catapulting this album into a contender for the year end top ten.

The album’s a captivating mixture of light and shade, hard driving country rock and choke worthy country ballads with Lucas’ tremulous voice, shades of Jay Farrar and George Jones flitting in and out, tying it all together. His duets with Glossary’s Kelly Knieser in particular tear and jerk at the heartstrings while he drives the harder numbers with authority. The band meanwhile are more than able to slam headfirst into the turbo charged punk fuelled maelstrom that is So Much More Than Lonely and then down clutch to deliver the wistful country flow of Four Wheels. Todd Beene’s pedal steel work in particular shines throughout the album but there are some exhilarating guitar duels with Joey Knieser with Small Town Heart standing out.

Lucas wrote much of this album in the wake of a divorce and this is reflected in some of the lyrics with Rings being the premier example. Lucas starts off with a solo lament before a sympathetic pedal steel whirls overhead. A restrained fiddle and some halting harmonies from Kelly Knieser add to the melancholic feel. It’s an excellent song given a wonderful delivery and perhaps the standout here despite tough competition from the miniature epic that is Save It For Yourself and the Waylon inspired toughness of Different Shade of Red. All in all an excellent listen.

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