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Anticipating studio LP No. 7 cascading into a tidal pool near you come October, Dino's Austin-based crew primes the pump of its own new imprint with a vaulted classic. Cut in Munich in 2001 and later released through stalwart German indie label Glitterhouse, Live at Club 2 has lost an encore but gained a whole other show/disc, recorded in Berlin last year. It's a feisty audience recording, longer, but not as compelling as the main course. Showcasing the trio's Tennessee Waltz, upgraded domestically as 2003's On the Shore, this former radio broadcast captures FODM like electrons in a cathode ray. Local friend Bill Elm's pedal steel brands the group's instrumental gothic cry with axeman Mike Semple and nail pounder Dave Lachance. Club 2's solar flares give off molten ebb and flow, erupting like "Ethchlorvynol" or burning like Atlanta on standard centerpiece "Summertime," followed by the prairie fire "Tennessee Waltz." Original "A Place in the Sun" deserves standardization for its own razing. "Chunder," off FODM's 1995 debut – written by the group's original rhythm section, Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino – thunders home, as does six-footer and closer "All the Pretty Horses." Ride 'em, cowboy.
Live at Club 2 (2005)
- For all time
- Main theme
- Inner sanctum
- Ethchlorvynol
- Cabeza de Mojado
- Summertime
- Tennessee waltz
- Chunder
- A place in the sun
- All the pretty horses
- Untitled
- Monte Carlo (Bonus)
The Southwestern soundscapes made by Friends of Dean Martinez, led by the lonesome pedal steel of Tuscon, Ariz., native Bill Elm, shift seamlessly from Santo & Johnny-inspired instrumentals to spaced out and surreal trips through the desert, all of which could serve as the soundtrack to Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Elm, a former member of Naked Prey, assembled the first incarnation of the group in 1994, then called Friends of Dean Martin, with drummer Van Christian and a second guitarist. After joining and touring with Howe Gelb's Giant Sand, the Friends' opening sets caught the attention of Sub Pop, which issued the band's debut single, "Sway" b/w "Seashells," and two subsequent LPs, with guitarist John Convertino and percussionist Tom Larkins. Burns and Convertino left to focus on Calexico, leading Elms to relocate in 1997 to Austin where his mother had grown up next to Roky Erickson. The following year's Atardecer, on which Elm played nearly every instrument was sponsored by NYC's Knitting Factory imprint. The Friends composed an original score to accompany an Alamo Drafthouse screening of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Robert Weine's expressionist 1919 silent film, part of which became 2000's phenomenal A Place in Sun (also on Knitting Factory), whose title track resurfaced in 2006 as part of the original soundtrack to Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation. – Austin Powell