• Alejandro Escovedo & Joseph Arthur
• 9:00pm

Alejandro Escovedo has the musical Midas touch. Every band and every album his hand so much as grazes turns to gold. He is a founding member of the pioneering San Francisco-based punk band The Nuns in the mid-70s. In the early 80s he moved to New York City where he joined forces with fellow Bay Area punk scene veterans Chip and Tony Kinman in Rank & File, a band that forged the early 80s country-punk sound. Next, Escovedo relocated to Austin and formed True Believers with his brother Javier. The critically acclaimed group disbanded in the late 80s.

In 1992, Escovedo embarked on a solo career with his debut album Gravity. Subsequent solo albums have included Bourbonitis Blues (1999) and A Man Under the Influence (2001). His last album released in 2006, The Boxing Mirror, was produced by John Cale and traces Escovedo’s journey from the brink of death at the hands of Hepatitis C to renewed wellness and artistic creativity.

This Pairing indulges our fantasy of Escovedo’s genre-forging sound rubbing elbows with the gilded Joseph Arthur. As an Ohio teen experimenting with the sequencer on a keyboard, Arthur’s mother thought he was paving the way for a new sound, too, but not the electronic-rock one he’d been aiming for. “She'd be like, 'It sounds like Chinese music,' and it would crush me. I wanted her to say, 'That's the most genius thing I've ever heard.'"

Leaving home to sell guitars and play at clubs in Atlanta got Arthur some more understanding fans. Arthur’s first EP passed under the ears of Peter Gabriel, who signed him as the first American artist under his label Real World Records. His 2000 mini-album Vacancy earned a Grammy nomination for best recording package.

Since, Arthur has become a favorite among musicians. He is loved by Lou Reed and toured with Tracy Chapman in 2003 and 2008. Although Michael Dorf just produced an R.E.M. tribute filled with covers by top-notch friends and fans, it is Michael Stipe who covered Arthur’s song “In The Sun” in 2006. The EP includes a version of Stipe singing with Arthur and a remix by Justin Timberlake. His latest album Temporary People is the second with new backing band The Lonely Astronauts. For a tasty live jam session of some Temporary People songs, visit the archive of January 27, 2009 Rolling Stone Smoking Section online.