Tucson Folk

This week I spent on the road enjoying the vistas and freedom of a desert road trip. Since the Old Pueblo is a lonesome wildcat of the South West, it’s culture rarely escapes past the surrounding desert winds and this visit seemed to be a great opportunity to explore some of the border-folk I’d missed out on last time I was in town.

Bob Einweck – Bungalow 2008

A clean vocal-heavy blues/border-folk recording complete with bass and banjo, guitar and dobro, fiddle and friends. These light hearted border-folk themes will be a comfortable remembrance of the dusty Old Pueblo life that still stirs vibrant outside the cement of the desert-cities.

Hector On Stilts – Pretty Please 2000

Hector On Stilts, a band of four, spins melancholy vocals and instrumentales that harmonize in self-satisfying balland-esque culmination seconded by equally minded blues-ballads. Too bad these jokers moved to the frigid winters and humid summers of upstate New York.

The Carnivaleros – Happy Homestead, 12 songs on the paradox of the human condition… and a waltz, 2009

Folky Home-Spun Songs & A Waltz with endearing vocals in chase of the desert wind of the Old Pueblo. This album has the ideal BLT-A combination of strong vocals, instrumentals, lyrics, and composition with a side of percise production and a jalapaño. Check the appropriately mooded epic character sketch-favorite, Dashboard Jesus.

Bob Log III – My Shit Is Perfect

While not traditionally considered folk music by East Coast producers, I like to believe Los Lobos records would understand the artist and one-man-band, Bob Log III, a Tucson institution and certainly part of the desert-folk that’s painted the barrio doors all shades of the sunset.  Bob Log the Third, as it’s said, produces funky rock-folk with a kick-drum symbol set, high-gain guitar, and microphone embebed into a telephone handset glued to his face via a space helmet. More than musician, Mr. Log the Third entertains the locals at venues, like PLUSH, with a strip-tease of his jumpsuit and audience participation during crowd favorite tracks like Boob Scotch.

While this Border-Folk doesn’t touch on the news media’s perception of border issues, poverty, and water consciousness, it does strike at the heart of insanity that sneaks up on all residents of the aird Santa Cruz alluvial plain. Reflective of the mystery of the South West, so the enigma Bob Log III stuns and satisfies audiences with anonymity, culture, and lore. Cuidado Amigos Y Bienvenido a Tucson.

¡Salut!

[itunes id=”314286252″] [itunes id=”304193642″]