Dustbowl "Goin' Down" 2009***

I thought I'd continue with country-oriented bands from unlikely places, so after Germany and The Bosshoss I'll present a band from my hometown, Athens. I believe I first saw them live some time in 2008 at my favorite neighborhood bar, Closer. Unlike Bosshoss whose approach to country music borders on parody, Dustbowl are seriously immersed in the mythology of the West, without trying to emulate it faithfully. You won't find any fake Texas accents or "yee-haw" yelps here. Instead there's a combination of tasty pedal steel and twangy surf guitars, swampy desert blues and upbeat garage/rockabilly, with lyrics inspired by Southern Gothic literature. When I saw them live, their set was mostly an upbeat mix of rockabilly and Johnny Cash covers, but about half of the tracks here are dark Gothic Americana. Many of these tracks wouldn't sound out of place on True Detective - I'm mentioning this because I just (belatedly) finished watching this series, and absolutely loved the producers' choice of music. Dustbowl often remind me of Mark Lanegan, The Walkabouts, Beasts of Bourbon and -above all- of Jeffrey Lee Pierce (Gun Club). Some of the more garage/rockabilly style numbers include "Lil' Mefisto", "Junkyard Blues", "Lean On Me", and "Marigold Walls". For more traditional country try "Just A Love Song" and "Goin' Down (In A Whiskey Haze)" with its impressive (at least for Greek standards) pedal steel guitar. "Cherry Wine (Lullaby For The Wicked)" is a classic country duet between DD and Lydia, and "Voodoo (That Burns)" a swampy blues tune. The music is really a mix of different elements; in their own words, it's "...mother earth rock. You will find some Americana, alt. country and psychedelic rock influences there". For this particular album, the core band (Nik Fysakis guitar, Dimitris "DD Dynamite" Douranos vocals, Giotis “The Shoeshine Boy” Petrelis Drums, Lydia Grammatikou bass & vocals, and John "Hardy" Houstoulakis pedal steel guitar) are augmented by Phil Shoenfelt on atmospheric ballad "Morning Blue" and by former Barraccuda Jeremy Gluck on garage folk "Mourner". A closer collaborator, Alex K. from Greek garage legends Last Drive, adds vocals and harp on the gospel "Chain Gang Partners", melodic garage "Junkyard Blues", surf/spaghetti western instrumental "Land's End", and the album's sole cover "Death Don’t Have No Mercy" by bluesman Reverend Gary Davis. At the time, Alex K. led a similar desert rock band called Earthbound, and would later join -among others- Dustbowl's Nikos Fysakis and John Hardy in an Athenian supergroup called Thee Holy Strangers. Both of these bands will be presented in this blog on another occasion. To sum up, this album is a great mix of Americana, garage rock, and Gothic country. If that sounds right up your alley, you should definitely check this band out! 

**** for Goin' Down (In A Whiskey Haze), Lean On Me, Mourner, Cherry Wine (Lullaby For The Wicked)

*** for Burden (A-You Can't Bear), Chain Gang Partners, Lil' Mefisto, Morning Blue, Junkyard Blues, Voodoo (That Burns), Marigold Walls, Just A Love Song, Land Ends, Death Don't Have No Mercy (In This Land)