Dex Romweber

Thanks to all of you who came out December 19th to Chicago's Double Door to benefit the "Get Well" funds for the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir and Lawrence Peters.  Thanks to you all we raised over $4000 for them AND gathered a couple bins worth of canned good for Catholic Charities.

Hope you enjoyed yourselves.  We're looking forward to new music in 2010 from all the bands that played: Dex Romweber Duo (baby, that killer cover of the Xavier Cugat nugget "Brazil" is still jumping in my head), the Blacks and the Detroit Cobras.

Happy New Year from your hard working pals at Bloodshot.

Here's a nifty new video for the song "People, Places and Things" from the Duo's release Ruins of Berlin.  It's on YouTube and Vimeo. It's got some oooooolllldddd footage of Dex, too.

That's Right!  More anniversary tomfoolery, but this time for a good cause!

December 19th at the Double Door in Chicago we're throwing another affordable bash and 100% of the door goes to the recovery funds of Scotland Yard Gospel Choir** and Lawrence Peters*

Playing will be The Detroit Cobras, Dex Romweber Duo, The Blacks and the Lawrence Peters Outfit.

There will be a canned food drive (bring a couple of cans and get something nice) and you can do all that last minute Christmas shopping at our booth of wares.

Join us for some holiday cheer and some fine rock and roll.

** Read about Scotland Yard's horrible van accident here

* Who is Lawrence Peters? Lawrence is probably best known for singing The Old Black Hen on the first Magnolia Electric Company album. He also sings, and/or plays drums, or washboard, with The Golden Horse Ranch Band, Plastic Crimewave Sound, The Velcro Lewis Group, Mar Caribe, Eiren Caffall, Hardscrabble and more. Perhaps you know him as a bartender at the Hideout, or with his singing on a Bloodshot comp with Nora O'Connor and  he DJs all over.  He broke his foot in an accident this year and was unable to work and is spiralling into debt due to his medical bills.  It's our way of helping out of the unsung heroes of the Chicago scene that makes this city so great.

The Lawrence Peters Outfit is a dyed-in-the-wool honky tonk band, with bluegrass influences, in the tradition of Webb Pierce, Jimmy Martin, George Jones, Roger Miller, and Loretta Lynn. Lawrence sings, and plays snare drum, leading the band through his classic originals, and a choice selection of vintage material. The group gets it just right, with plenty of fire on the faster tunes, and that sweet country smolder on the moodier songs. This is for fans of the deep-rooted, heart-felt kind of country music that you don't often hear anymore.

Bloodshot Digest: The "Moving Pictures" Edition

• Bobby Bare Jr and some friends (namely, Bobby Senior, Jon Langford, Sally Timms and Will Oldham) celebrated one of Chicago's sons, Shel Silverstein. The celebration, aptly called A SHEL-ebration, had the motley crew of musicians showcasing Shel's songs (few people know Shel was the songwriter of "A Boy Named Sue") in Millennium Park. Earlier in the day, Bobby was on WBEZ's 848 to talk about his releationship with Shel as a kid, and as a young songwriter -- you can listen to it here.
  
  Also of note (and mentioned before in these pages), Bobby and his dad executive produced a tribute to Shel Silverstein that will be released later this year on Sugar Hill/Vanguard and features performances by: Emmylou Harris, Black Keys, George Jones & Ray Price, Allison Krauss, Band of Horses, Dr. Dog, Andrew Bird, Kris Kristofferson (backed by members of the Silver Jews) and My Morning Jacket.

• Ha Ha Tonka stopped by the Hear Ya studios and recorded a few songs from the new album -- listen to the session (and check out some video) here.

• The Blacks (who will be reuniting for our 15th anniversary show in Chicago later this summer) are featured in the indie film LEFTY, which has its Chicago premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center on July 24 (add'l showings will be on July 28 and July 30, too). Support local cinema!

• More film news! IT MIGHT GET LOUD, a documentary on the electric guitar -- as told from the points of view of The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White -- will be released in theaters next month. While the subject matter itself may get a few of you into the theater, we hear that Jack White waxes about one of his guitar heroes during the doc -- Dex Romweber.

• And since Rob's been recommending food, I'll recommend a short film: TREEVENGE (Warning: Language, gore). I saw it before the amazing Nazi Zombie horror flick, Dead Snow, at the Sundance Film Festival earier this year, and it was easily one of the festival highlights. Seems others agree, too -- TREEVENGE has been touring the festival circuit, gathering accolades and fans. So, take 15 minutes and watch TREEVENGE, okay?

The "Happy Birthday America" edition, wherein we celebrate the brash de-shackling from our colonial overlords by sitting by the kiddie pool, one hand in the beer cooler, the other holding a lit match to a fuse to blow shit up.  Independence Day, indeed.

• Read Bloodshot Rob rant about the term "alt-country" in the Pittsburgh Tribune as they hype the first of the 15 Year Anniversary festivals.

• Dex Romweber portrait in a North Carolina pizza parlor.  Yeah, you read that right.  How cool is that?  The only portraits in pizza joints we have here in Chicago are of Capone or Ditka.  Read about it here.

• The Boston Phoenix has done their annual 50 Best New Bands in 50 States feature here.  Other than being a quality read, it also named Ha Ha Tonka as the representative from Missouri.  We hope they do well in the swim suit competition (ladies, stop your swooning).  Check up on YOUR home state, too.

• Rob's Recommendation of the Week: Having spent a great deal of time as a teen pyromaniac,  I mean, connoisseur of aerial star spangles, I feel fortunate to be so close to the off ramp fireworks superstores of Indiana, just over the border.  Now, mind you, I do not condone the launching of 500 gram Supercakes, that have 156 red, white and blue comets shot in rapid fire that burst in waves at the finale, or the SKY THUNDER with its gigantic bursts of alternating green and silver, red and silver and yellow and silver, or the Victory Shot that kicks up a sparkling gold brocade that ends with a volley of loud explosions,  but they sure beat the hell out of sparklers and snakes.

Enjoy and be safe.

Snippets of interesting Bloodshottiness for your weekend perusal:

Happy Mother's Day! Mom is likely SICK AND TIRED of flowers, chocolates and dinners at Outback Steakhouse. Get her a Bloodshotglass or a Detroit Cobras album instead. Trust us, you'll become her favorite after that.

• The Detroit Cobras and Dex Romweber Duo kicked off a 6 week US double bill this week in Chicago. All us Bloodshot drones had a fantastic time. Go here for a review of the show and lots of excellent photo

• Last week the book Amplified was published by Melville House. It is a collection of short stories by songwriters like Rhett Miller (Old97s), Robbie Fulks, Jon Langford, Rennie Sparks (Handsome Family), Jim White and more. Here's a video of Ben Weaver reading his story "Humanesque"

• Firewater is currently tearing it up in Europe. Here are some photos from a Dutch festival they played on May 5th. I would translate all the text on that site for you, but I hate to show off..

• As you may have heard, Jack White (White Stripes) recorded a single with Dex Romweber and we'll have it for sale in early June. There's all sorts of news out there on it already, but I thought I'd cite one article from Jack's (and mine) hometown of Detroit--we need some good news out of there

• Our punk-history-loving intern Kentaro was enthralled with Bloodshot Rob's collection of old flyers and set about to immortalize them in Ones and Zeroes. If you'd like to see what he was up to in the early 80's instead of preparing himself for a normal life and a normal career go here.

• Rob's Recommendation of the Week: Last Sunday, I was lucky enough to catch Robbie Fulks' show at the Old Town School with Danny Barnes, Nora O'Connor and more supporting his new digital only release, the 50 song 50-Vc. Doberman. It was truly a wonderful show and the songs were just breath taking. Do yourself a favor and go to his site and check them out. Buy 'em a la carte, or get the whole massive batch. You can sample songs and read his liner notes, which are worth a visit on their own. It is truly a sad commentary on our culture that Robbie is not treasured and that Jessica Simpson is.

That's all for now. Have a good weekend!

The Detroit Cobras and the Dex Romweber Duo just announced a 30 date tour together starting in early May that snakes (no pun intended) from coast to coast.

Now THAT is a high octane rock and roll double bill, friends!

Go here for details.  To stoke the fires in your nether rock and roll regions, CDs and LPs by both have been put on sale for May!  It's too cheap NOT to rock.  Seriously.

Stay tuned for info on how to win tickets.

Dex went into the studio to record this podcast, which features him playing some of his favorite songs, some cuts from the new album, hyping the Valentine's Day CD release show and giving a shout-out to Camille (who really was an ex-girlfriend).

Dex Romweber Podcast - Dex Romweber Duo

The Dex Romweber Duo appeared on the NBC affiliate show My NC Today.

Check them out here as they play 3 songs from their new album, talk about Lux Interior of the Cramps and it sounds great.