The Blasters plan for a new album may include a song that will feature all of the guitar players from Blaster history. Unofficially, all the guitar players have showed interest in participating. Hollywood Fats (deceased) will be represented with a sample from an old recording. -- Dave and the Guilty Men will play a festival in Holland in March with Gaffney and Robbie Fulks. They will follow with ten days in Italy and other possible European dates. - Dale Hawkins has a new album issued in Finland called Fool's Paradise. He covers the Blasters' song complete with the original Blasters arrangement with saxophones and that Bill Bateman beat. Legendary guitar player James Burton plays on the disc. --   Dave Alvin is featured in the December issue of Guitar Player magazine. The article features a great color picture of Dave. The title: 'Dave Alvin - A "blues guy with country influences" transforms early American folk songs' --  Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men have contributed one track, MOBILE BLUE  to Frisco Mabel Joy Revisited: To Mickey Newbury. The album was released in Germany on Glitterhouse Records. On October 10, 2000 Appleseed Records released it here. Visit the web site for secure on line ordering.  www.appleseedrec.com/mickeynewbury  -- October 3, 2000   Dave recorded a duet with Peter Case on MONDAY MORNING BLUES for a Mississippi John Hurt tribute album.
- Dave Alvin has been contracted to do music for a PBS Documentary based on the history of a small town near San Diego and the border. The story centers around a racially motivated killing of a Mexican by some kids. Sound recording will begin in December and January. -- WWW.DAVEALVIN.COM Dave says, "Stop by the web site and check out the new pictures I've added. You'll see me and Phil as teenagers. Phil looks like he's 33, he aged young. I look like I haven't even had my first pimple yet (laughs)." - Dave Alvin will be taking a lot of time off in December and January to relax and write some new songs. - Kelly Joe Phelps will spend November and December writing and recording his new album scheduled for a 2001 release.  - Keith Wyatt has been writing an informative series of profiles for Guitar World magazine. Most recent have been on Scotty Moore, James Burton, Chet Atkins, and Lonnie Mack. Warner Bros has released a book/CD version of Keith's instructional video: Jump Jive and Swing. Keith has working on a new guitar instructional web site called truefire.com. It will have downloadable lessons. - When not touring with Dave Alvin, Joe Terry and Bobby Lloyd Hicks have been keeping busy. Both of them and the rest of the Skeletons backed up Dallas Wayne on his very fine HighTone album Big Thinkin. The Morells have anew album in the works and will be touring this winter. Joe Terry just finished a three-day session for the new Robbie Fulks album.

Brantley Kearns, fiddle player extraordinaire, can be heard prominently on Dave Alvin's new Public Domain album, through his fiddle playing and fine vocal harmonies. A trained stage actor as well as a musician, he spent many years playing in the Dwight Yoakam band in the mid-'80s. He extensively toured with  David Bromberg as well as Billy Joe Shaver. He's done arguably his best studio work in his 30 years in the business on Dave Alvin's last two albums, 1998's Black Jack David and the recent Public Domain. Brantley and Rick Shea have struck up a partner ship playing as a duo around L.A. and teaming on session work and on Rick Shea's solo albums. Now Brantley has become a member of the Dave Alvin band and will spend most of the year on the road promoting Public Domain: Songs From The Wild Land.  This interview was conducted in a moldy smelling basement below the Mercury Lounge in New York City on 10/27/00  - - - Billy Davis

-- From the editor - Yes, this newsletter will now be available in a text only version available for free via e-mail. You can choose one or both of the following options:  1.) E-mail. Text only (no photos). Free membership. Send your e-mail address to Davistb@aol.com   2.) Print newsletter (regular mail). Printed stories with accompanying photos, contests to win autographed items, special event admission lotteries, and periodic special fan club merchandise. $10 world wide yearly membership

chorus of the song. Brantley's fiddle leads the song with a few cool solos. His fiddle leads the band jump-starting the rhythm after each chorus. Throughout the tour Dave has kept the Public Domain songs in a segregated group near the end of the set. DEEP SEA would segue into FOURTH OF JULY. Since Dave is playing only acoustic guitar, Rick Shea takes the electric guitar solo. The spot Dave usually takes his electric guitar solo is usually a peak noise section where Dave fights and loses his resistance to keep from leaping in the air. Maybe here in the acoustic show by giving the solo to Rick, Dave can keep himself in check. As Dave has a tendency to do, he will often throw in an extra song not on the set list.  In Annapolis it was the blues arrangement of LONG WHITE CADILLAC. Of course Brantley's fiddle adds something different to the arrangement. Another new and intense flavor is Rick's vibrating drone on the lap steel. With Dave playing acoustic guitar, the lap steel has more space to dominate the sound. The last section of the song has an extended solo which has an almost jazzy feel to it. The set finishes with Dave signature song KING OF CALIFORNIA
Dave returned to the stage and made the mistake of saying, "So, What do you want to hear?" Many requests were yelled up including a girl yelling, "Delia, Delia, Delia." Dave felt he had to grant that request, but he warned, "We haven't played this often, so there might be a train wreck up here." Of course everybody fell in perfectly and that song was a highlight. Dave next played HALEY'S COMET  and EVERYNIGHT ABOUT THIS TIME. Then comes Gaffney Time. Dave: "From Tucson, AZ by way of many other places, Chris Gaffney." There's a pause as Gaffney doesn't appear. Then Dave says, "C'mon you're watching the game, come on out." Then Gaffney appeared with a grin on his face. Gaffney picked up the accordion as Dave sets up the next song, "I'd like to do a song I wrote years ago. There is a family of musicians called the Balfa Brothers from Louisiana. They were a great Cajun group and I thought this was a great song for them. So years later after many interpretations in many bar rooms, a guy by the name of Buckwheat Zydeco recorded it and it became a minor hit. It became a standard in the repertoire of the zydeco bands playing  the beer joints east of Houston and west of Baton Rouge. So now when I meet people like Geno Delafose and tell them I wrote that song, they look at me like, 'Huh?' So this might be the only minor zydeco cajun standard written in Downey, California." MARIE MARIE. What a version this was. Brantley on fiddle and Gaffney on accordion pumped out that zydeco sound. At one point the band quiets the rhythm and Gaff's accordion and Brantley's fiddle chop away at the melody in perfect time -- What a great finish!
When I first heard about this tour, I was told it would include a fiddle player, mandolin and Dave on acoustic. When Joe Terry on piano was added to the tour, I thought it might not carry the same level of traditionalism that I expected. But let me tell you, Joe Terry might have been the glue that held the arrangements all together. With no drums or bass, Joe had to carry the bass line and watch the tempo carefully. He added so much to all of the songs without using any sounds that sounded too modern or overdone. He always produces interesting sounds. He has recently added a modern compact rotating Leslie speaker to his keyboard rig.
October 22, 2000 Philadelphia, PA -- The band arrived in town early so Dave could do a live performance on WXPN radio. Dave had to skip his sound check for the show at the Tin Angel that night. At the radio station, Dave sat in a room with walls lined with records and tuned up as a technician checked the signals. They made the mistake of seating Dave next to the blues section of old records. He couldn't help constantly glancing at the many old blues LP's. He randomly pulled one out of a blues man that was produced in the 60's by HighTone records part-owner and producer Bruce Bromberg. An interesting find.
DJ Gene Shay came into the room and in only a few seconds they went live on the air at 5 PM. Shay talked about the Public Domain album. Dave played two songs live with just his guitar and vocal, DELIA and MURDER OF THE LAWSON FAMILY. It was great to see Dave play these songs unaccompanied, just like the old blues man on the records next to him did. Hearing him here without accompaniment, I could just imagine Dave playing these songs at home for the first time when preparing the songs for recording of Public Domain. Wow! Shay, being a self proclaimed "old-folkie" went on about how impressed he was with PUBLIC DOMAIN. After the 15-minute segment Dave had to rush over to the Tin Angel for the 6:30 show.
The Tin Angel (1^st show) -- The early show saw most of Dave's song favorites. He threw a few rarities in there like ANDERSONVILLE. The song was perfect for the Public Domain theme since it's similar in mood to MURDER OF THE LAWSON FAMILY and TEXAS RANGERS and also because Dave's great-great Uncle is pictured on the album in a union soldier's uniform. ANDERSONVILLE is about that uncle in the Civil

mandolin. So now Brantley had no plug for his fiddle, and had to rely on the fiddle's acoustic sound being picked up in his vocal mike. Joe Terry's keyboard was now totally out of luck, so he played accordion the whole show, tilting his vocal mike down to it for higher volume. The last time Joe played accordion the whole show, was a few years ago in Philadelphia at the Tin Angel. It was a show that gave birth to the name, Dave and the Acoustic Guilty Men. That was a one-time-only thing.
So when Dave stepped on stage, he joked about the instrument changes and said, "Rick is playing the 'Red guitar', and Joe who normally is our 'ace' keyboard player is auditioning for the accordion. Brantley who is normally the drummer is playing fiddle." That got a big laugh. It was interesting to see the sudden on-the-spot changes in the arrangements. The band was worried about the limitations, but I welcomed seeing it knowing the band would challenge itself to get each song right. I find these situations to be exciting. The band meets a challenge and always comes up aces. And the fans get to see something different that may never be seen again.
Rick had to substitute instruments in the songs he would normally be playing lap steel guitar on. Fretting an instrument and using a slide are two different techniques. Rick came up with some cool licks replacing the slide sound, using the red guitar on NEW HIGHWAY, and mandolin on DRY RIVER. Joe Terry took an accordion solo on RAILROAD BILL and looked as if he would barely get through it. He was grimacing and later explained that the heavy pumping action of the accordion requires a lot of strength to do it for a whole show. Still, Joe sounded great and the audience gave the solo a big hand. Dave granted a special request for  EVENING BLUES explaining, "I rarely do this because it has such an odd tuning." But he added, "I'm gonna do it for Sarah and her husband (Barry)." Dave was impressed that the couple from Maine had planned their vacation around the east coast tour. One Public Domain song that hasn't gotten enough exposure was ENGINE 143, which features Dave and Brantley in a duet of the old Carter family song. The harmonizing sounded as good as it does on the record. This was a high point.
A fan jokingly yelled out, "Do Free Bird!" Dave responded, "Don't screw with us, we know it now!" This goes back to a show a week earlier in Virginia when someone yelled it out. It may have been the same guy as tonight. The band gave a disjointed shot at a verse of it for fun. Tonight they got a little better at the verse and everyone had a good laugh. Another great Dave Alvin band show. Brattleboro was a nice place but the nearest place for late night dinner was an all night diner 30 miles away in Massachusetts.
October 25, 2000 Somerville, MA at Johnny D's -  Somerville is a suburb of Boston. Barrence Whitfield opened up the show. He played a song he rarely plays but pulled out for the occasion called IRMA JACKSON. He recorded the song on the Dave produced Merle Haggard tribute album (Tulare Dust, HighTone 1995) Dave played a familiar set of songs from the tour. Dave took some requests as he has been doing on this portion of the tour. Once again someone yelled for FREE BIRD. Who is this mystery heckler who has been to so many shows? A rare gem was the requested BLUE BLVD. Dave played a little of it and stopped when he said that the band didn't know that one. I have a feeling maybe Dave didn't remember the lyrics, but I recall Rick and Joe having played it on recent tours. When playing ABILENE, Dave coincidentally didn't use his regular intro. He claims that he did not know until after the show that the girl that ABILENE was written about was at the show. Dave is glad to report she is now happily married.
October 26, 2000 Piermont, NY at The Turning Point - This little cafe in a small town on the banks of the Hudson River about 60 miles north of New York City. It could be a perfect Christmas town in the winter - old colonial buildings, enormous trees, and the sound of the wind blowing off the river. Dave has played here a few times before, and they were always great shows. Dave greeted the audience, "Thanks for coming out on a week night, on a school night, on a work night, on a parole night, on a hard-to-get-a-babysitter night, but especially on a World Series night!" The rare song for the night was MURDER OF THE LAWSON FAMILY. Dave said, "I'd like to do a song that we haven't done on this tour so far...guys (as Dave glanced back at the band hoping they wouldn't show fear). Something about the area around here makes me think of this one." It was done beautifully and you could hear the wind blowing outside during the quiet parts. Perfect.
In the encore Dave brought another fiddle player up on stage named Phil Block of The Piners, for a twin fiddle attack. The first song of the encore was a definite rarity. MOBILE BLUE from the recent Mickey Newberry tribute album (Appleseed records, 2000). A totally-off-the-cuff tune was next when someone yelled out

FADED LOVE, the old Bob Wills tune. The twin fiddles were perfect for that one and Dave jumped into it remembering most of the lyrics. Brantley is a big Bob Wills fan, so he knew the solo break and the back-up harmonies. That song was a bonus, I'm sure you'll never hear that again. Dave teased a little with a few riffs from the Blasters tune I'M SHAKIN, then called up Chris Gaffney to sing on GOIN BACK TO SAN ANTONE. Dave explained how he came to do this tribute song: "This has been a rough couple of years as far as people we know and love passing away. Last year a guy who was a lifelong influence and hero, and later became a friend of mine, passed away by the name of Doug Sahm. He was one of the great music genre splitters. To him, T-Bone Walker was the same as George Jones -- was the same as Flaco Jimenez. We'd like to do a tribute to Sir Doug - doing a Charlie Pride song that he made his own." This was quite a version with the twin fiddles. It was a wall of fiddle sound, and Gaffney's voice just rose above it all. Next Gaffney grabbed the accordion expecting the MARIE MARIE finish but Dave surprised everybody calling for BLUE WING. The song got a special treatment having the twin fiddles and the addition of Joe's piano. Normally, Joe picks up the accordion for BLUE WING leaving out the piano. When Joe realized the song was starting with the accordion in Gaffney's hands, Joe made eye contact with Gaffney and playfully pushed his lower lip up as if making a sad face about not having the accordion. Gaffney broke out into a big smile, which is rare for him when concentrating on playing. Finally MARIE MARIE finished the set in grand fashion with twin fiddles playing, the crowd stomping their feet and wishing for more.
Oh and by the way, the Yankees won the World Series tonight. Long after the band left the building, a few of us stuck around at the bar to watch the game end and to celebrate the occasion.
October 27, 2000 New York City at The Mercury Lounge - As usual for New York, there was a little more of a rockin' atmosphere than other places on tour. Dave stuck to a lot of the up-tempo songs because of such a rowdy, loud crowd. HALEY'S COMET was a big crowd favorite. Dave has been singing it with a changed lyric in one spot. Instead of 'This Cop walks into a pancake house down in Texas,' Dave sings, 'This Cop walks into a Waffle House down in Texas.' I guess that road weary life can't help spreading deeper into Dave's songs. Waffle House is a chain of all-night truck-stop diners all over the south USA (they have the best hash browns I've ever tasted).
The crowd got real loud and rowdy and started asking Dave questions. Dave answered them all. Asked about his coming birthday (Nov. 11), he said, "I was born on the same day as Laverne Baker, Mose Allison and Kurt Vonnegut." Somebody then yelled out, "Where's the web site guy?" Dave responded with great praise for Scot Kleinman and his official Dave Alvin web site, "The web site is done by an astronomer in New Mexico.He's great to do it because he's busy with the string cheese theory. He's a real sweet man to do it." (WWW.DAVEALVIN.COM)
The rare song of the night was from Public Domain. DARK EYES is a very catchy song and has been a popular favorite off the new album. The twin fiddle idea was so much fun last night in Piermont that Phil Block showed up again and joined the band for the encore. They finished with HONKY TONK and MARIE MARIE. The set ran over two hours, the longest of the tour.
October 28, 2000 New York City -- Saturday morning the band had to get up early to run over to The Museum of Radio and Television where WFMU radio broadcasts their Radio Thrift Shop morning show. The band came into the studio and started warming up. An old friend of the band, Syd Straw, was on the air just before Dave and recruited Rick Shea to join her and her guitar player on the radio studio stage for a song.
The radio show is set in a inclined theatre like a small lecture hall on the second floor of the building. The DJ's are seated behind a table on the brightly lit stage on a polished wooden floor. It reminded me of pictures I've seen of the old live country radio shows. This one allowed a live audience to watch the performances and applaud. As Dave warmed up backstage, the stage manager told him he was scheduled to go on after a gentleman who was warming up on the other side of the room. Dave said, "No I can't do that. Can I go on first? He's just too good. He's gonna play all those Lonnie Johnson licks. That's Paul Geremia, I'm a fan of his." Geremia turned around and was flattered. Dave introduced himself and the two talked for awhile. AllMusic.com comments on Paul Geremia saying he is: "One of the best white acoustic blues men working, for his expressive singing as well as his dexterous playing.  He was one of the few folk/acoustic blues man from the 60's who didn't put down the acoustic guitar when Dylan did."

Dave and the full band were called to the stage. Dave was seated with his sunglasses on and acoustic guitar in hand.  Rick Shea stood with his mandolin along with Brantley on fiddle and Joe on accordion. They played a fantastic set of acoustic songs from Public Domain: RAILROAD BILL, DELIA, and WHAT DID THE DEEP SEA SAY. The interviewers talked to Dave between songs. Dave broke two strings in the course of playing and publicly stated that he was "over his quota for the day." He promised that if he broke any strings later that night at the Maxwell's show, he would buy everyone a beer. The band said their good-byes to Syd Straw, who promised to visit them at Maxwell's that night, and off they went to sound check.
October 28, 2000 Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell's - This small club has been around for years and always brings in great roots rock acts. The performance room is located in the back of a restaurant and has achieved sort of a legendary reputation. At around 11:30 PM, Dave stepped up to the mike with a beer and a cigarette and without a greeting said, "I haven't been in Hoboken in 10 years. In fact, ten years ago when in Hoboken, I played an acoustic gig with another band on the bill called the Skeletons. That was the night I met this handsome young man--the great Joe Terry, the Skeletons keyboard player. If you see tears in our eyes just play along (laughs)." Then Joe Terry whines in the microphone, "I love you man!" and the crowd breaks up laughing. Then Dave launched into the opening song OUT IN CALIFORNIA. Later on, ROMEO'S ESCAPE was a stand-out song. In the middle of the song Dave sings, "Tell me baby what you're trying to say, she said. . . " Normally the band pauses for only about four seconds as Dave continues the lyric from the girl's point of view. This time Dave completely stopped to gulp a beer in total silence. The band didn't know what was gonna happen next in the delay. Dave decided to elaborate in an extended dialog as the band stood silent, "She said, 'I hate to tell you Dave, but we need to talk. We're not communicating like we used to. Where did the fun go? I expected more. I know you don't have an easy lot, but you have to expect that - So do I. But, we all have needs that need to be met.' So I said one last time, trying to be honest, trying to be the man she wanted me to be in every way possible; physically, intellectually, and spiritually, I'm a good guy. Maybe not tonight, but in general I'm a good guy.  So I said, 'tell me what you're trying to say.'  She looked at me with those eyes that she looked at me with on our first date with truthfulness, love, and.... Oh, I don't know. . ." Somebody in the audience tried to finish Dave's sentence yelling, "With ignorance?" and Dave just looked at him with an evil look and said, "If this were a Blasters show, you'd be dead!" Then Dave yelled back into the song, "She said, 'I hate to tell you Dave, but Romeo was here today and he plays for the Yankees. Romeo!" It caught the band a little off guard but they fell in and finished an explosive end to the song.  KING OF CALIFORNIA finished the set but not before Dave broke a string on his guitar.
In the encore, Dave brought up Syd Straw: "She is one of my dear friends and is close to my heart." Syd came up and said  immediately, " Dave, I'm so proud of you, But I think I heard on the radio that if you broke a string you were gonna buy everyone at Maxwell's a beer?" The crowd roared and Dave quickly came back and said, "I said, I would buy everybody a beer. But I didn't say where. I'm gonna do it over at the Plaza diner in Secaucus later. Then Dave and Syd sang a George Jones song they recorded on Dave's King OF California album in 1994 called WHAT AM I WORTH. Dave says they have only sung the song together live maybe one other time.
It was a great encore to finish the tour, seven songs totaling 25 minutes. Dave finished MARIE MARIE and told the Hoboken crowd, "You guys have been a gas. We'll see you again in about ten years."
What a spectacular tour: You have to catch these guys when they hit your town. Give these guys credit they did 18 shows in 22 days on this eastern half of the US tour with lots of driving. The tour was unofficially sponsored, or should I say fueled, by Red Bull energy drink. Whew!!
With the same appreciation and honor as Dave has cited "Great Americans," I'd like to name Dave Alvin first as a Great Californian. The things he does for California Country music is a credit to the man. Bringing other great singers like Chris Gaffney and Rick Shea with him on the road and letting them sing their own solo songs and sell their solo CDs is very generous. Big ego singers would never risk being upstaged. As Brantley Kearns points out, "It's an honor to play with him and he honors good musicians. He gives them the opportunity to work and stretch out."  Dave is always first to recognize other artists. Dave Alvin is the greatest. ~~AM

Marshall Crenshaw is one of the finest singer/songwriters to emerge in the last 20 years. He has mixed pop, rock and soul influences on a dozen albums. He played Buddy Holly in La Bamba, the film biography of Ritchie Valens, and wrote the Buddy Holly entry for the Encyclopedia Britannica. He also recorded WANDA & DUANE, a Dave Alvin song from Blue Blvd. Rhino Entertainment recently re-issued Marshall's first album with nine bonus tracks and This is Easy: The Best of Marshall Crenshaw, a collection of 22 songs. In August, he spoke with Tom Wilk, an American Music subscriber and copy editor with The Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., by phone from his home in Brooklyn.
The Blasters and Marshall Crenshaw were musical contemporaries in the early 1980s.  The Blasters self-titled debut album on Slash Records cracked Billboard Magazine Top 200 best-selling albums, peaking at No. 36 in May 1982. Marshall Crenshaw's self-titled debut album on Warner Brothers earned critical praise nationwide and was on Billboard's chart of Top 200 best-selling albums for 27 weeks, peaking at No. 50.
Marshall is best-known as a songwriter but has recorded songs written or popularized by such artists as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Richard Thompson, the Isley Brothers and the Bobby Fuller Four. He has retained an appreciation for good songwriting, both as a fan and a musician.  "I bought Blue Blvd. shortly after it came out (in 1991)," Marshall recalled. "I thought it was one of the best singer/songwriter albums in the post-Bob Dylan era or whatever you want to call it."
  "In a really compelling way, it holds up really well," he added  What really caught his ear was WANDA & DUANE, the album's Chuck Berry-driven rocker and a tale of two frustrated lovers.  "I really dug the shit out of that song," Marshall said. "It reminded me of people I know and the boredom of suburbia."  Planning to go on tour in California, Marshall decided to include it in his set list. "I learned it to play in at McCabe's (a club in Southern California)."  The audience response was favorable and it remains in his repertoire to this day. "I didn't think I'd be playing the song eight years later," he said. Marshall would later play the song as a guest on Conan O'Brien's TV show.  In October 1994 at Philadelphia's North Star bar, Dave Alvin used this intro on stage before playing his version of WANDA & DUANE: "I'd like to nominate a new great American. I'm sitting at home a few months ago and for some reason I'm watching the Conan O'Brien show. Out comes this great songwriter who has written three or four hundred songs. Instead of doing one of his songs he did one of mine. Do you know what royalties are for network TV? Basically this guy paid my rent for three months! So I'd like to nominate to the status of Great American, Mr. Marshall Crenshaw."
When Marshall signed to Razor & Tie, Marshall decided to do a live album as his first release for the label. Live!. . . My Truck Is My Home, released in September 1994, consists of 14 songs recorded between 1982 and 1994. WANDA & DUANE, recorded at the Bottom Line in New York City in January 1992, is the second track on the album.  The album probably holds the distinction of including songs by Dave Alvin and ABBA on the same release. Marshall included his version of KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU after a fan shouted out a request for it at a 1992 show in Newark, Delaware.
Marshall and Dave have used co-writers on song at various stages in their careers. Did he and Dave ever discuss collaborating?  "We have talked about it; he asked me at one point during his time in the Blasters. 'I can't get this pop thing,' he told me. But nothing came of it."  Later, he sent some melodies to Dave, but that didn't work out. "I can't write a set of lyrics to a prescribed melody," Dave told Marshall.  ~~AM