Friends of Dean Martinez
Live at Club 2 (Aero)
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.
This article appears in September 2 • 2005.
