Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones Apr 20 2012 7:00 pm iCal

Friday 20th April 2012
Doors 7pm
Tickets £18.50 adv

Only restaurant available call Jazz Cafe box office on 2027 6888899 to book a table

Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones
+ Kasey Anderson

Combining elements of blues, folk, R+B, rockabilly, Bakersfield country and garage rock and roll with lyrical inspiration from local writers and poets like Raymond Chandler, Gerald Locklin and Charles Bukowski, Alvin has mixed his varied musical and literary influences into his own unique, updated version of traditional American music. “My songs are just like California,” says Alvin. “A big, messy melting pot."

A fourth generation Californian, Dave Alvin, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and self-described "barroom guitarist," is widely considered to be one of the pivotal founders of the current Americana music scene. Since forming the highly influential roots rock/R+B band The Blasters, and throughout his long and critically acclaimed solo career, his 30 years of recordings and live performances move through loud, aggressive rock and roll to contemplative acoustic storytelling. His songs have been recorded by a who's who of contemporary roots artists from Los Lobos, Little Milton and Joe Ely to Dwight Yoakam, James McMurtry and X; while they have also been featured in many movies and television shows including The Sopranos, True Blood, The Wire, Justified, Six Feet Under, Crybaby, Miss Congeniality and From Dusk To Dawn.

The rules Dave Alvin has followed throughout his 24 years as a solo artist were discarded during the creation of his 11th album, Eleven Eleven. For the first time in his career he wrote songs while touring and recorded during breaks on his tours in 2010 with the Guilty Women. He used musicians he had not recorded with since his days in the Blasters, and for the first time ever, he sang on a record with his brother Phil, the lead singer of the Blasters. "While we were growing up there was a firm line between Phil and me," Dave says, referring to Blasters' division of labor: Phil sang, Dave wrote the songs and played lead guitar. "The main reason I decided to have him sing with me was that we re not going to be here forever; we might as well have fun. Life is too short." Eleven Eleven features three duets: Phil and Dave on the simmering blues "What's Up With Your Brother"; Dave and Christy McWilson from the Guilty Women on the gentle country number "Manzanita" and the whimsical song, "Two Lucky Bums," the final recording of Dave and his best friend, the late Chris Gaffney. The rest of the material, rich in stories that stretch from R&B royalty to labor history to Harlan County in Kentucky, was written over the course of seven months. As he says with sly chuckle: "The songs are not necessarily true, but they are all autobiographical."

Support comes from Kasey Anderson
www.kaseyanderson.com