Song of the Day 2/26: Gabriel Sullivan, “The Rust, the Knife”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by Alby on February 26, 2022

Guest post by Nathan Arizona

The desert, with its big sky, endless waves of sand and scattered cactuses, has inspired a lot of music lately. It’s no surprise that dry and dusty New Mexico and Arizona are the center of this hybrid of Mexican-flavored rock guitars,Tex-Mex trumpets, Latin cumbia and spaghetti western/noir moodiness. Even the Killers and Bruce Springsteen have lately been drawn to the sound.

Calexico is probably the best-known of the desert bands, but a lot of the other groups are worth a listen; many of them include musicians who are in or work with Calexico. The band’s Joey Burns (bass) and John Convertino (drums) join Dean Owens on a new album recorded under Owens’ name.

Owens is Scottish but spends much of his time in Arizona. He’s one of several international musicians who have been lured to the American southwest by the music. Guitarist Naim Amor relocated from Paris to add a little French flavor to the mix.

Gabriel Sullivan has been a Tucson guy all his life. His latest album, “Black Crow,” was mixed by a producer of the instrumental guitar band Friends of Dean Martinez. Burns and Convertino are former members of that group.

Here’s a desert rocker from an earlier album.

Dean Owens is more mellow, but he and the Calexico guys are very sharp on this song from the new album, “Sinner’s Shrine.”

Woody Jackson, yet another former Friend of Dean Martinez, writes and records in L.A. — sometimes for video games. He wrote the Morricone-like soundtrack for the popular game Red Dead Redemption. Here’s an instrumental he wrote for the usual market, but his video game soundtracks are similar. No beeps or pings.