And BTW, could someone give me a crash course in Alejandro Escovedo? Stephen King was raving about his song "Castanets" in EW a few weeks ago; KPIG is playing that one, and Little Steven's "Coolest Song in the World" tonite was Escovedo's "Always a Friend" from (I'm assuming) the same CD -- produced by Tony Visconti, of all people..
Oy, where do I start? He's a member of the musical Escovedo family (Pete and Coke are his brothers, Sheila E. is his niece). He played in the SF punk band the Nuns in the 70s, then moved to NY and joined the cowpunk band Rank & File for a time. Then moved to Austin where he formed the True Believers with his brother Javier, and has a solo career since the early 90s, with a side jaunt in the thrash-glam band Buick MacKane. In the late 90s, No Depression Magazine proclaimed him the Artist of the Decade. Yes, they were biased, but yes, he's really good.
Album recommendations: With These Hands (96) is my favorite, with Gravity a close second, but the live More Miles Than Money will give you a better overview of his catalog thru the late 90s. His live show runs the gamut from quiet folkier tunes to stomping rockers, and always a good handful of covers, usually heavy on 70s glam/punk artists: he does a stellar take on Ian Hunter's I Wish I Was Your Mother as well as Irene Wild; I've seen him do several Bowie and Stones songs, and he pretty much always plays the Stooges I Wanna Be Your Dog. (And Buick Mackane was, of course, named for the T. Rex song.) So the association with Visconti is probably his own personal wet dream.
He was on hiatus for several years fighting hepatitis C, but ironically, his illness brought him to the attention of a larger portion of the music business, as well as the public. He seems to have recovered and is enjoying a much more high-profile career resurgence since then. His last album, The Boxing Mirror, is good, and was produced by John Cale. I last saw him at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass a couple years ago, and he just flat out rocked the place.
And his website says he's opening the Dave Mathews Band tour this summer. Again, oy.
