Friday, February 24, 2012

Dave Alvin @ The Beachland Ballroom 3.7

I'm heartbroken that I will not be in town Wednesday March 7th when Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones visit the Beachland Ballroom (8PM, $20.) Guitarist and singer-songwriter Dave Alvin made his name in the early ‘80s as a member of Los Angeles band the Blasters. The Blasters stood out due to their love of the kind of rock n’ roll heard on AM radios and jukeboxes of '50s Americana. After four albums, the Blasters split up, with Dave Alvin loaning his guitar skills to bands like X and The Gun Club, groups who put their own muddy and sometimes bloody fingerprints on the traditions of country, soul, and rockabilly. Alvin’s had a long, storied and influential music career as he's turned his music skills to storytelling, writing songs in the California storytelling tradition.

“He’s old and battered and records unfashionable blues and hillbilly songs for a small label, but Dave Alvin is as good a lyricist as any these days. That’s evident on his new album, ‘Eleven Eleven,’ where his sharp-eyed stories of the past are steeled by a hard-rocking rhythm section and his electric guitar.”—Washington Post.
Detroit retro rockers Michael Hurtt & the Haunted Hearts open.

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