MANCHESTER : Hey! Manchester @ The Ruby Lounge

Monday 28th May, 2012

7:30pm

Event information

We’re excited to be presenting Johnny Dowd’s first Manchester show in over five years.

Texan guitar-slinger and dark, musical visionary Johnny Dowd is set to release his new studio album No Regrets, a record about ‘girls and women’, on 2 April on his own Mother Jinx Records. The Ithaca, New York-based musician has been constantly evolving sonically since his early, lo-fi gothic Americana releases and No Regrets marks another installment for an artist who has become one of America’s finest observers of life in the dark recesses of the American Dream. Recorded at The Shop, his own small recording facility and featuring the likes of Jennie Lowe Stearns, Mary B Lorson, and longtime collaborator Kim Sherwood-Case, No Regrets is one of Johnny’s most personal records to date.

Dowd was almost 50 when Wrong Side of Memphis, his debut solo record of wracked country-folk-rock tunes, drew comparisons to Nick Cave in the alternative press. To a degree, that parallel was justified, as Wrong Side of Memphis devoted itself to murder songs and tales of doomed sinners. Dowd had grown up in Texas, Memphis, and Oklahoma before operating a trucking business in upstate New York, and his songs veered close to the source of American creepiness. Yet gallows humour and Dowd’s crackly voice tended to undercut any traces of self-importance, while his debut album – dominated by his singing and guitar, yet featuring spooky dabs of organ and synthesiser that placed him outside of the rootsy Americana camp – immediately established Dowd as an important cult figure whose weirdness seemed to be wrought from true experience.

On his second album, 1999′s Pictures from Life’s Other Side, Dowd edged slightly away from the cliff, using a full band of musicians and a female backing singer to craft a punchier and less folk-rooted sound. His singing and lyrics, however, remained nearly as disquieting as they were the first time around. Temporary Shelter, issued in early 2001, and The Pawnbroker’s Wife, from the following year, were more accessible records. Cemetery Shoes followed in 2004, while A Drunkard’s Masterpiece (comprised of three opuses that flaunt Dowd’s patented mix of dark, mutant alt-country) arrived four years later.

‘Brilliantly macabre, rib-tickling, poised and admirably raw dirty rock ’n’ roll from the shaded supremo’ – Daily Mirror

‘A Drunkard’s Masterpiece is a creative car crash of Americana, beatnik rock, poetry, prose, jazz rock, rap, screaming metal guitar, retro pop, spoken word and country noir’ – MOJO

This is Johnny’s first Manchester show since a joint headline show with Jim White in 2006. His previous Manchester show, at Night & Day Cafe in 2005, has since been released as a live album. This show is a co-promotion with Classic Slum.

http://www.johnnydowd.com/
http://www.heymanchester.com/

34 High Street
Manchester
M4 1QB

www.heymanchester.com