• CALEXICO W/ Dylan Leblanc- July 19th
• 5:00pm Seating / 8:00pm Show

ABOUT CALEXICO

“CARRIED TO DUST is, at least partially, the story of a writer in Los Angeles around the time of the writers’ strike we had a while back in late 2007,” CALEXICO’s Joey Burns explains. “Our hopper heads out east on a whim and a dry Santa Ana tail wind. Stopping at the Yucca Valley swap meet he buys an old road map with a route already marked with red pen. It leads him to a cabin and from the cabin to a chain of other small town thrift stores, picking up old copies of National Geographic magazines along the way. Stories about snow drops in Moscow, leaning houses in Valparaiso, abandoned neighborhoods in New Orleans, and a manmade lake full of cell phone trees creep their way into his notes. He finds further inpiración at old roadside diners, bending an ear to each waitress and the local news over badly brewed coffee. The break proves to be enlightening. He falls in love with the newly found space and being carried along spontaneity's spark.”

There’s always been intrigue and adventure at the heart of CALEXICO. Ever since they were a largely instrumental duo experimenting with their unique collection of instruments and soundtrack sensibilities, Joey Burns and John Convertino have constantly imbued their music with an unparalleled sense of drama, calling upon the myths and iconography of the American West and its Spanish speaking neighbor Mexico, equal parts Sergio Leone, Larry McMurtry, Carlos Fuentes and Cormac McCarthy. Naming themselves after a town near the California/Mexico border in honor of this cultural mélange, they’ve spent the eighteen years since they met in Los Angeles mapping out musical territory that had otherwise been neglected or at the very least considered the preserve of historians. Now, with CARRIED TO DUST, they have defined that sound, calling upon almost two decades of exploration and an ensemble of musicians that must surely be the envy of bands throughout the world. CARRIED TO DUST represents the pinnacle of their achievement, a thrilling and moving journey through a landscape that draws upon the modern world as much as it does the decayed reminders of times past, stumbling upon unexpected delights whilst always moving forward with a pioneering sense of purpose. It presents a vivid picture of a world in which listeners can immerse themselves much as one is caught up in the tangled narrative of a Steinbeck novel or the imagery of a John Ford film, and confirms CALEXICO as one of the great American bands of the 21st Century.

CALEXICO’s music has always mirrored Burns and Convertino’s penchant for new experiences. From their intimate beginnings on Spoke, their dusty but highly evocative debut album for Germany’s Haus Musik label, they’ve never shied away from embracing whatever inspires them. As their horizons have expanded, through both their relentless touring schedule and growing reputation, they have been able to call upon a growing community of collaborators and an ever-increasing familiarity with music from around the world, integrating both seamlessly into their idiosyncratic sound.

Known for their ability to adapt to working with other musicians – from Nancy Sinatra to Neko Case– the cast on CARRIED TO DUST includes Sam Beam, who appears on ‘House Of Valparaiso’, a furthering of their work together on Iron And Wine’s breakthrough release In the Reins. Tortoise/Brokeback mainstay Douglas McCombs contributes to the ghostly sounds of album closer ‘Contention City’, and Pieta Brown lends her plaintive charms to ‘Slowness’, “one of the album’s few love songs”, Burns admits. Amparo Sanchez (of Amparanoia, whose solo debut was recently recorded in Tucson with CALEXICO and who appeared on fourth album Garden Ruin) guests on ‘Inpiración’, while Jairo Zavala – another acclaimed Spanish artist to benefit from CALEXICO’s production and playing skills on his forthcoming album – contributes to a number of tracks, including the upbeat opener ‘Victor Jara’s Hands’. Meanwhile, on ‘Bend To The Road’, Mickey Raphael – who CALEXICO met while working on the soundtrack to the acclaimed Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There – shows why his understated harmonica skills have not only earned him a place in Willie Nelson’s band since the mid 1970s, but have also seen him work with the likes of U2, Emmy Lou Harris and Neil Young.

Of course CALEXICO these days is a band, something that became most apparent on their 2006 album Garden Ruin, when Burns and Convertino were joined by regular cohorts pedal steel player Paul Niehaus, Volker Zander (bass, upright bass) and multi-instrumentalists Martin Wenk and Jacob Valenzuela (who also takes lead vocal for the first time on ‘Inspiración’ alongside Amparo Sanchez) for the writing and recording sessions. “We knew we wanted to embrace some sweeping changes,” Burns recalls, “and we wanted to experiment more with mixing in a different studio with a producer. We even asked a different artist to help with the artwork. There will always be that desire to move forward with this band. We rarely seek to repeat or return to formula.”

CARRIED TO DUST sees them build on that experience, but – inevitably – refuse to replicate it. “After trying that,” Burns continues, “John and I preferred the more stripped down approach, adding each musician and band member one at a time. They all bring creative ideas to the table, but there is a definite direction and aesthetic that John and I oversee throughout the whole process.”

ABOUT DYLAN LEBLANC

On Dylan LeBlanc’s debut album, Paupers Field, a lost world is brought to life - both in the carefully sculpted songs and rich well of country soul from which those songs emerge. Rough Trade is excited to release Dylan’s album on August 24th, 2010.

Although the Golden era of Alabama’s fabled Muscle Shoals sound had passed by the time Dylan was born in 1990, his ancestral roots and family background connected him to one of the most significant sources in the rich tapestry of American music. His father’s position as a Muscle Shoals session player and songwriter meant that early in life Dylan was privy to the sights and sounds of an unvarnished, vanishing epoch and such legends as Spooner Oldham. “I grew up around a lot of the session players…when I was 11 or 12, I would watch and ask a lot of questions, so for me it was like going to music college,” is how the tall, gentle voiced, lank haired Shreveport, Louisiana native remembers it. “It seemed like a much simpler world - it was romantic to me the way everyone sat in a circle and “took it from the top”. They just played and hit the record button. That’s the path I followed when I made this album.”

Dylan expands…”for me music is about getting together with a group of people who feel like family - you create a bond, feeding off each other. Just a look or a hand gesture and they know what you’re talking about.” Dylan’s progress was natural, organic - learning the ropes as a young sideman helped define his own worldview and artistry through his teens. Despite his age, Dylan’s worn yearning voice already has the mark of aged experience. Neither the feel nor sound of the album, nor the haunted ghost summoning songs he has written, can be faked. “If Time Was For Wasting” seems to be wrenched from the heart of ever-present currents in Deep South life - where the pull of the past is unavoidable. “Admittedly I was drinking a good bit myself, and when I wrote the song I was thinking about an arrogant ignorant man and the woman he was with. It has a lot to do with the culture around here. I pictured a man walking into a room where he lives with an angry wife.”

Heritage springs up everywhere on Paupers Field. Ghosts and demons emerge from the mist in compositions featuring archetypal characters such as “Emma Hartley” and “The Outlaw Billy John”.

Like much great art, Dylan’s work is often rooted in pain and anxiety. “Eccentricity runs in my family, and all the men seem to die very young and all the women live to be very old.” His great great-great Grandfather shot a notorious local bandit, and was in turn slain in an ambush. This killing took place in Palestine, Texas in the early 1900s - a time and place which fits right in with the album’s sepia mood. “There were concerns when I was growing up about how things might turn out, says Dylan carefully. “I wrote music because it made me feel better. I used to get these feelings that would come over me so strong; I felt I was sinking into darkness, like staring out of a large hole in the ground. It scared me and I struggled daily trying to be content in life. In a lot of ways I still do.”

His songs - ominously dark yet tenderly appraising emotions to find light and balm - don’t just open up a world and his personal feelings and experience, they provide their creator with a valuable lifeline. “It helps me…I’d be a lot darker if I didn’t write and it’s almost like playing God writing a song.” It’s a telling comment from the usually modest and soft-spoken LeBlanc. He is not the sort of performer to shout about his arrival or proclaim his talent from the rooftops. Nonetheless, the seamlessly organic and selfproduced Paupers Field presents a fully formed total artist and this record speaks for itself. LeBlanc’s is a voice from the present connected to the past, one sure to outlast passing trends and fads. Soul deep.