HACIENDA March/April US tour with The GREENHORNES, plus JAMES LEG TOUR DATES and more!

HACIENDA ON TOUR WITH THE GREENHORNES
March 24 @ Radio, Radio – Indianapolis, IN
March 25 @ Double Door – Chicago, IL
March 26 @ Triple Rock – Minneapolis, MN
March 27 @ High Noon Saloon – Madison, WI
March 28 @ House Of Rock – Eau Claire, WI
March 29 @ The Cactus Club – Milwaukee, WI
March 31 @ Mad Hatter – Covington, KY
April 1 @ The Beachland Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
April 2 @ The Magic Bag – Ferndale, MI
April 3 @ The Legendary Horseshoe – Toronto, ON
April 5 @ La Sala Rossa – Montreal, QU
April 6 @ Brighton Music Hall – Boston, MA
April 7 @ North Star Bar – Philadelphia, PA (Hacienda only)
April 8 @ The Bell House – Brooklyn, NY
April 9 @ Maxwell’s – Hoboken, NJ
April 12 @ Rock n Roll Hotel – Washington D.C.
April 13 @ King’s Barcade – Raleigh, NC
April 14 @ The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
April 15 @ JJ’s Bohemia – Chatanooga, TN
April 16 @ The Mercy Lounge – Nashville, TN

MORE TOUR DATES!

BRIAN OLIVE
May 29 @ Smith’s Ole Bar – Atlanta, GA
June 11th @ Bonnaroo Fest- Manchester, TN
with Dr. John & Dan Auerbach

TWO GALLANTS
April 23 @ The Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA
April 24 @ The Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA

T-MODEL FORD & GravelRoad
April 16 @ 2011 Juke Joint Festival – Clarksdale, MS
April 21 @ Sparky’s BBQ – Hatch, NM
April 22 @ KTAO Solar Center – Taos, NM
April 29 @ Emo’s – Austin, TX
June 2 @ Radio Radio – Indianapolis, IN

JAMES LEG
March 24 @ JJ’s – Chattanooga, TN
March 25 @ JJ’s – Chattanooga, TN
European dates
March 31 @ Le Galion – Lorient, FR
April 2 @ La Vieille Tour – Mont Contour (St Brieuc), FR
April 3 @ Le Chaland Qui Passe – Binic, FR
April 5 @ 2to58 Club – Grenoble, FR
April 6 @ Mistral Palace – Valence, FR
April 7 @ Deep Inside Club – Dijon, FR
April 8 @ Le Remorqueur – Nantes, FR
April 9 @ Garorock – Marmande, FR
April 10 @ 5th Avenue – Brive, FR
April 11 @ St Ex – Bordeaux, FR
April 12 @ Zic Zinc – Limoges, FR
April 13 @ La Boite à Musique – Lille, FR
April 15 @ Kaffe T Hoff – Middleburg, NL
April 16 @ Patronaat – Haarlem, NL
April 17 @ Db’s – Utrecht, NL
James Leg record release
April 23 @ Northside Tavern – Cincinnati, OH

LEFT LANE CRUISER
April 21 @ The Stirfry – Kingsport, TN
April 22 @ The Bohemian – Greenville, SC
April 23 @ The Northside Tavern – Atlanta, GA

THE SIGHTS
March 24 Live At PJ’s – Ann Arbor, MI
April 1@ Simon’s After Dark – Allen Park, MI
April 15 @ Reggie’s – Chicago, IL
April 16 @ Euclid Records – St. Louis, MO (early show)
April 16 @ Off Broadway – St. Louis, MO (late show)
May 7 @ New Dodge – Hamtramck, MI

BUFFALO KILLERS
Apr 1 @ Motr Pub – 2 sets – Cincinnati, OH
Apr 15 @ Blackout Fest – Athens, OH
Apr 16 @ The Happy Dog – Cleveland, OH
Apr 29 @ Canal Street Tavern – Akron, OH
Apr 30 @ Musica – Akron, OH
May 5 @ New Vintage Showcase @ ZaZoo’s – Louisville, KY
May 6 @ V Club – Huntington, WV
May 27 @ Peach’s – 2 sets – Yellow Springs, OH
July 29 @ Whisky A Go Go – West Hollywood, CA
August 1 @ Hemlock Tavern – San Francisco, CA
August 2 @ Jambalaya – Arcata CA
August 4 @ Sunset Tavern – Seattle, WA
August 5-7 @ Pickathon Festival – Happy Valley, OR

PAUL COLLINS
Australia tour in March/April
April 30 & May 1 : Power Pop-A-Licious Fest

HENRY’S FUNERAL SHOE
Mar 25 @ The Corries – Brecon, UK
Apr 30 @ Area81 Rock Club Bristol – Bristol, UK with The GROUNDHOGS
August 13 @ Brecon Fringe Festival @ The Clarence – Brecon, Wales

Coming soon : T-Model Ford & GravelRoad, Left Lane Cruiser, Reverend James Leg

LEFT LANE CRUISER "All You Can Eat!!" recent reviews

Following 2008’s Bring Yo’ Ass to the Table, All You Can Eat assimilates the Mississippi Delta blues laid down by guys like Big Joe Williams and Son House and cultivates it into a country punk ‘n’ blues speedball. “Hillgrass Bluebilly” is a frenetic juke-joint stomper that finds Freddy J IV hollerin’ out a reference to the Who’s “Squeeze Box”. “Ol’ Fashioned” is a country-picking blues flashback with washboard, while the primal trio of “Black Lung”, “Broke Ass Blues”, and “Putain!” finds the boys strutting through stoner-blues country with bravado. It doesn’t get a lot better than this. – Alan Brown / PopMatters

All You Can Eat!! is old fashioned music without the slick production that I, for one, have grown so used to — and quite bored with. It reminds me of live Cramps, RL Burnside, and even old Henry Rollins. If CBGBs was still open that would be the venue I could see Left Lane Cruiser playing. Amid the dirt, the history, and the gritty smoky fog. – Lynda Lippin / Blogcritics

First cut "Crackalacka" comes scootin’ out of the gate with some cool guitar noodle while "Ol’ Fashioned" adds some wiry slide guitar and gravelly vocals, and "Black Lung" is its younger, tougher, more tweaked kid brother. Later, on "Poopdeflex" (song title of the year?) the vocals get more guttural and desperate and at that point you realize one thing about Left Lane Cruiser: they mean it, man. – Tim Hinely / Blurt

Some boxers are like Roy Jones Jr. in his prime and are damned near impossible to hit, some are like Pacquiao and just overwhelm opponents with power & handspeed, while others are like a young Tyson and eschew all style points for pure power. Left Lane Cruiser are like Tyson, and with All You Can Eat, their second album with Alive Records, they’re throwing haymakers from the opening track “Crackalacka” and their power is showing no signs of waning some 9 tracks later as they close with “Waynedale”. - Nine Bullets

This is good, this is very good, certainly not the putting in of a twenty and the taking out of a forty here, the good is there in these Broke Ass Blues. There’s just two of ‘em, broken down old scratchy electric guitar, gravel throats and drum kit. There’s some great You Tube footage if you have the time to go look. They got bags of soul in there, they got it all nailed, real deal stripped back raw broken bottle stripped to the bone blues goodness. – Organ Magazine

This would be a great soundtrack for a cage fighting medley and is definitely not something for the faint hearted.
Left Lane Cruiser tick all the boxes from the relentlessly hard hitting sound to their cool names. This is not something for the faint hearted. Rest assured this is more than you can eat! – Will Bray / Blues In London

This is a CD that any Guitarist or Drummer can appreciate with such RAW emotion behind every track grabs your attention and holds you too it till the next…and that doesn’t happen to often. AWESOME isn’t a big enough word to describe this band. – Neus Subjex

Five New Songs We Love: September 23, 2009 – Blender

But for the most part this is big, bold, in your face, industrial blues with a country punk attitude. "Waynedale" pounds along at such a torrid pace, it seems like the perfect music for the next Grand Theft Auto.
Producer Jim Diamond, who worked on the first two White Stripes CDs, should be credited for the full, fuzzy sound. He provided lots of old amps and a bunch of microphones in front of each one to record each muffle and crackle. The result is Megadeth if they had grown up in Louisiana listening to Delta country and blues. - Al Kaufman / Atlanta Music Guide

It’s a rumbling tinnitus-inducing musical vertigo of swampy Mississippi-style ghetto electric blues that’s greasy, grimy, gritty, and basically un-fucking-real. It’s the kind of music that should be played in dark, sweaty, dive bars while yer pounding shots of Wild Turkey. What you really need to know is that All You Can Eat has been in steady rotation since it came across my desk about a month ago and ain’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon. – Can You See The Sunset?

If this Indiana duo’s debut album, Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table, was merely an invitation to sample their bill of fare, then this follow-up certainly lives up to its title. All You Can Eat is another taut 35-minute blast of raw garage blues built upon the gigantic riffs of guitarist/shouter Freddy J IV, and the equally towering swagger of drummer Brenn "Sausage Paw" Beck. There’s a bit more of a streamlined quality this time through producer, and early White Stripes mentor, Jim Diamond, who obviously was enamoured with Freddy’s guitar playing. Its dominant place in the mix leaves everything else cowering in its shadow. That’s hardly a bad thing, as tracks like "Black Lung" and "Hard Luck" rock harder than any band with three times as many members could ever hope to. This is exactly the album LLC fans hoped for: another solid collection of material with just enough refinement of their sound to ensure that they have a vision for the future. – Jason Schneider / Exclaim

Left Lane Cruiser is the real deal. They are blues at its best, filth at its finest, with just two men who are evoking enough inner demons to populate an entire circle of hell. Raising a ruckus, punching throats, and blackening eyes all the way from Ft. Wayne Indiana, Left Lane Cruiser makes a bigger and louder racket than most five-man operations, never once sacrificing songwriting or musicianship for the sake of bombasity. – Andrew Bryant / Disc Exchange

Freddy J IV is actually quite the demon on the six-string – he plays like he’s visited a crossroads or two, with Kenny Brown by his side and a Lucifer bearing a strong resemblance to RL Burnside. He can do the grunged-out Zeppelin thing, too, when he’s of a mind (cf. Black Lung and Hard Luck), but he really comes alive getting his hands dirty. Frankly, Freddy’s not much of a singer, but when he digs into the frets it doesn’t matter. The songs are perfectly adequate for LLC’s purpose, which is to rock every room like it’s a deep South juke joint (despite the duo being from Fort Wayne, Indiana). – Michael Toland / Sleazegrinder

The band blends styles that wouldn’t normally be compatible, but when the two musicians come together — Evans with his slide guitar and vocals that sound as if his diet consists of swallowing sandpaper and chewing gravel, and Beck with his collection of hubcaps, trash cans, ladders and whatever garage accessory you can drum a beat on — the result is hard, rusty blues that Beck guarantees will get you moving. – Katie Saltz / Kentucky Kernel

LEFT LANE CRUISER - PopMatters

From the greasy slide-guitar-and-drum-pummeling intro to opener “Crackalacka”, you either jump in and let Left Lane Cruiser take you on a hell-raising hayride or plain get out of the way because Freddy J. Evans IV (guitar/vocals) and Brenn “Sausage Paw” Beck (drummer/“trash”/vocals), a powerhouse duo out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, are roots-music revolutionaries who take no prisoners on their second outing for Alive Records. Following 2008’s Bring Yo’ Ass to the Table, All You Can Eat assimilates the Mississippi Delta blues laid down by guys like Big Joe Williams and Son House and cultivates it into a country punk ‘n’ blues speedball. “Hillgrass Bluebilly” is a frenetic juke-joint stomper that finds Freddy J IV hollerin’ out a reference to the Who’s “Squeeze Box”. “Ol’ Fashioned” is a country-picking blues flashback with washboard, while the primal trio of “Black Lung”, “Broke Ass Blues”, and “Putain!” finds the boys strutting through stoner-blues country with bravado. It doesn’t get a lot better than this. – Alan Brown / PopMatters

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Jazz & Blues magazine

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Exclaim

If this Indiana duo's debut album, Bring Yo' Ass To The Table, was merely an invitation to sample their bill of fare, then this follow-up certainly lives up to its title. All You Can Eat is another taut 35-minute blast of raw garage blues built upon the gigantic riffs of guitarist/shouter Freddy J IV, and the equally towering swagger of drummer Brenn "Sausage Paw" Beck. There's a bit more of a streamlined quality this time through producer, and early White Stripes mentor, Jim Diamond, who obviously was enamoured with Freddy's guitar playing. Its dominant place in the mix leaves everything else cowering in its shadow. That's hardly a bad thing, as tracks like "Black Lung" and "Hard Luck" rock harder than any band with three times as many members could ever hope to. This is exactly the album LLC fans hoped for: another solid collection of material with just enough refinement of their sound to ensure that they have a vision for the future. - Jason Schneider / Exclaim

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Nine Bullets

Some boxers are like Roy Jones Jr. in his prime and are damned near impossible to hit, some are like Pacquiao and just overwhelm opponents with power & handspeed, while others are like a young Tyson and eschew all style points for pure power. Left Lane Cruiser are like Tyson, and with All You Can Eat, their second album with Alive Records, they’re throwing haymakers from the opening track “Crackalacka” and their power is showing no signs of waning some 9 tracks later as they close with “Waynedale”.

Those familiar with Left Lane Cruiser know exactly what I am talking about. Those that aren’t familiar with this duo from Fort Wayne, Indiana, I gotta ask…why not? Left Lane Cruiser is Freddy J. Evans IV on vocals and guitar assault, while Brenn Beck is responsible for drum abuse and an array of other sounds including washboards and mouth harps. Folks that come around ninebullets with any regularity know that I’ve been singing the praises of these guys since before they were signed to Alive Records, and I can assure you that I will not be stopping with All You Can Eat. Matter of fact, one could say that the band has actually gotten better thanks to the production talents of Jim Diamond. The recording quality of All You Can Eat is night and day better than the previous albums, leaving every instrument clear and audible at high volumes (and believe me, I’ve put it to the test).

So, next time you find yourself in the need of blues-fueled, rock-driven cd in the midst of a whiskey rage, then this, the newest entry to the 9b.net Essential Listening list, is exactly what the doctor requires. You like this site? You’ll love this disc…trust me. - NINE BULLETS

October tour dates

HACIENDA
DAN AUERBACH w/ The Fast 5
Oct 3 @ ACL Aftershow – Austin, TX
Oct 4 @ ACL Aftershow – Austin, TX
Oct 5 @ The Mohawk – Austin, TX
with ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO
and Los Lonely Boys
Oct 5 @ The Birchmire - Alexandria, Virginia
Oct 6 @ The Birchmere - Alexandria, Virginia
Oct 7 @ Keswick Theater - Glenside, PA
Oct 9 @ Pollack Theatre Monmouth UW- Long Branch, NJ
Oct 10 @ Shea’s Performing Arts Center - Wayne, NJ
Oct 11 @ Highline Ballroom - New York, NY
Oct 14 @ Palace Theater - Manchester, New Hampshire
Oct 16 @ Merrill Audotorium City Hall - Portland, Maine
Oct 17 @ Zeiterion Theater - New Bedford, MA
Oct 19 @ McCarter Theater - Princeton, NJ
Oct 20 @ The Historic Avalon Theater - Easton, Maryland
Oct 22 @ The Buskirk-Chumley Theater - Bloomington, IN
Oct 23 @ Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL
Oct 24 @ Northern Lights Theater - Milwaukee, WI
Oct 25 @ Alltel Center - Mankato, Minnesota
Oct 27 @ Oneida Casino - Green Bay, Wisconsin

BLACK DIAMOND HEAVIES
Oct 10 @ Bohemian Cafe – Greenville, SC
w/Left Lane Cruiser
Oct 14 @ Lee’s Palace – Toronto, Ontario
Oct 15 @ Petit Campus – Montreal, Quebec
Oct 16 @ Music Hall of Williamsburg – Brooklyn, NY
Oct 17 @ V Club – Huntington, West Virginia
European dates
Nov 13 @ Nove Fonte Velha - Rio Maior, Portugal
Nov 14 @ Porto Rio - Oporto, Portugal
Nov 17 @ Oficina Munic de Teatro - Coimbra, Portugal
Nov 26 @ Libanim - Nimes, France
Nov 27 @ Barakason - Nantes, France
Nov 28 @ Blues S/ Seine Fest. - Mantes La Jolie, France
Nov 29 @ Le Galion - Lorient, France

T-MODEL FORD w/Gravelroad
Oct 1 @ Chabada - Angers, France
Oct 2 @ Astrolabe - Orleans, France
Oct 3 @ AB (with Tinariwen) Belgium
Oct 5 @ El Lokal - Zurich, Switzerland
Oct 6 @ Bad Bonn - Dundingen, Switzerland
Oct 7 @ The Trabendo – Paris, France
Oct 8 @ 106 - Rouen, France

BRIMSTONE HOWL
Oct 17 @Vice Scion Garage Festival - Portland, OR
OCT 23 @ Barley St. Tavern – Omaha, NE

BUFFALO KILLERS
Oct 2 @ Ravari Room – Columbus, OH
Oct 3 @ Dayton Music Festival – Dayton, OH
Oct 16 @ Peach’s – Yellow Springs, OH
Nov 6 @ The Southgate House – Newport, KY
Nov 7 @ Gerstle’s – Louisville, KY
Nov 13 @ 180 Main – Dubuque, IA

BRIAN OLIVE
Oct 23 @ Beachland - Cleveland, Ohio
Oct 30 @ The Comet - Cincinnnati, Ohio

OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY
Oct 19 @ Bateau Ivre – Tours, France
Oct 20 @ BT59 – Bordeaux, France
Oct 22 @ El Camino – Caen, France
Oct 23 @ La Peniche/Ground Zero Fest – Lille, France
Oct 24 @ Le Kaluma – Cherbourg, , France
Oct 25 TBC – Rouen, France
Oct 26 @ Les Lucioles – Le Havre, France
Oct 27 @ La Nef – Angouleme, France
Oct 28 @ Trabendo – Paris, France

LEFT LANE CRUISER
Oct 5 @ The Northside Tavern – Cincinnati, OH
Oct 6 @ The Green Lantern – Lexington, KY
Oct 7 @ Hal and Al’s – Columbus, OH
Oct 8 @ The V Club – Huntington, WV
Oct 9 @ The Garage – Winston Salem, NC
Oct 10 @ The Bohemian – Greenville, S
w/ Black Diamond Heavies
Oct 12 @ The End – Nashville, TN
Oct 13 @ JJ’s Bohemia – Chattanooga, TN
Oct 14 @ The Hideaway – Johnson City, TN
Oct 15 @ Visulite Theater – Charlotte, NC
Oct 16 @ The Star Bar – Atlanta, GA
Oct 17 @ Knoxville, TN
European dates
Oct 30 @ La Boule Noire – Paris, France
Oct 31 @ La Peniche – Chalon s/Saone, France
Nov 1 @ Le Galion – Lorient, France
Nov 4 @ Peniche Sonic – Lyon, France
Nov 5 @ Queen Kong Club – Neuhatel, Switzerland
Nov 6 @ Caves Du Manoir – Martigny, Switzerland
Nov 7 @ Le Transformateur – Fribourg, Switzerland
Nov 8 @ El Lokal – Zurich, Switzerland
Nov 9 @ My Way – Freibourg, Germany
Nov 11 @ Cortinan Bob – Berlin, Germany
Nov 12 @ The Paradison – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Nov 13 TBA – Stockholm, Sweden
Nov 15 @ Popdium – Sneek, The Netherlands
Nov 16 @ Little Devil – Tilburg, The Netherlands
Nov 18 @ Club Keller – Frankfurt, Germany
Nov 19 @ DB’s – Utrecht, The Netherlands
Nov 20 @ Grand Wazoo – Amiens, France
Nov 21 @ L’Appel D’air – St Brieuc, France
Nov 22 @ Le Chalan – Binik, France
Nov 24 @ St Eupery – Bordeaux, France
Nov 25 @ Sant Des Seins – Toulouse, France
Nov 26 @ Cafe De Paris – Perpignan, France
Nov 27 @ Barakason – Nants, France
w/ Black Diamond Heavies
Nov 28 @ Festival Blues Hauts De Seine – Mantes La Jolie, France
w/ Black Diamond Heavies

THOMAS FUNCTION
Oct 1 @ Webster Hall – New york, New York
Oct 2 @ Bruar Falls – Brooklyn, New York
Oct 3 @ Garfield Artworks – Pittsburgh, PA
Oct 4 @ The Summit – Columbus, OH
Oct 5 @ Lager House – Detroit, MI
Oct 6 @ Brass Rail – Fort Wayne, IN
Oct 7 @ Ronny’s – Chicago, IL
Oct 8 @ Club Garibaldi’s – Milwaukee, WI
Oct 9 @ Vaudeville Mews – Des Moines, IA
Oct 10 @ Replay Lounge – Lawrence, Kansas
Oct 11 @ Larimer Lounge – Denver, CO
Oct 12 @ House Concert – Provo, UT
Oct 14 @ Funhouse – Seattle, WA
Oct 15 @ The Den – Tacoma, WA
Oct 17 @ Vice Scion Garage Festival – Portland, OR
Oct 19 @ Stork Club – Oakland, CA
Oct 20 @ Hemlock Tavern – San francisco, CA
Oct 21 @ Blue Lamp – Sacramento, CA
Oct 23 @ 5 Star Bar – Los Angeles, CA
Oct 25 @ Pink Elephant – San Diego, CA
Oct 26 @ Modified – Phoenix, AZ
Oct 27 @ Train Yard – Las Cruces, NM
Oct 30 @ Lounge On Elm Street – Dallas, TX
Oct 31 @ Beerland – Austin, TX
Nov 3 @ Saturn Bar - New Orleans, LA
Nov 4 @ Alabama Music Box - Mobile, AL

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Blender : Five New Songs We Love

Five New Songs We Love: September 23, 2009

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Organ Magazine

LEFT LANE CRUISER – All You Can Eat!! (Alive Natural Sound) – Some right there in the zone, raw, blistered, no messing, slide-guitar freight-train riding blues. Oh yes, Hillgrass bluebilly hard working good honest black-lunged blues music delivered with a nail on the head righteous punk-fried attitude. They’re from Fort Wayne, Indiana, they sound like Seasick Steve for Rose Tattoo heads in need of an Ol’ fashion lo-fi five dollar shoe-shine... This is good, this is very good, certainly not the putting in of a twenty and the taking out of a forty here, the good is there in these Broke Ass Blues. There’s just two of ‘em, broken down old scratchy electric guitar, gravel throats and drum kit. There’s some great You Tube footage if you have the time to go look. They got bags of soul in there, they got it all nailed, real deal stripped back raw broken bottle stripped to the bone blues goodness - www.alivenergy.com or www.myspace.com/leftlanecruiser Some YouTube: Left Lane Cruiser perform at Wooden Nickel Music in Fort Wayne, Indiana back in 2006. - Organ Magazine

LEFT LANE CRUISER new album "All You Can Eat!!" out now

US TOUR DATES
Oct 5 @ The Northside Tavern - Cincinnati, OH
Oct 6 @ The Green Lantern - Lexington, KY
Oct 7 @ Hal and Al's - Columbus, OH
Oct 8 @ The V Club - Huntington, WV
Oct 9 @ The Garage - Winston Salem, NC
Oct 10 @ The Bohemian - Greenville, SC w/ Black Diamond Heavies
Oct 12 @ The End - Nashville, TN
Oct 13 @ JJ's Bohemia - Chattanooga, TN
Oct 14 @ The Hideaway - Johnson City, TN
Oct 15 @ Visulite Theater - Charlotte, NC
Oct 16 @ The Star Bar - Atlanta, GA
Oct 17 @ Knoxville, TN
EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
Oct 30 @ La Boule Noire - Paris, France
Oct 31 @ La Peniche - Chalon s/Saone, France
Nov 1 @ Le Galion - Lorient, France
Nov 4 @ Peniche Sonic - Lyon, France
Nov 5 @ Queen Kong Club - Neuhatel, Switzerland
Nov 6 @ Caves Du Manoir - Martigny, Switzerland
Nov 7 @ Le Transformateur - Fribourg, Switzerland
Nov 8 @ El Lokal - Zurich, Switzerland
Nov 9 @ My Way - Freibourg, Germany
Nov 11 @ Cortinan Bob - Berlin, Germany
Nov 12 @ The Paradison - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Nov 13 TBA - Stockholm, Sweden
Nov 15 @ Popdium - Sneek, The Netherlands
Nov 16 @ Little Devil - Tilburg, The Netherlands
Nov 18 @ Club Keller - Frankfurt, Germany
Nov 19 @ DB's - Utrecht, The Netherlands
Nov 20 @ Grand Wazoo - Amiens, France
Nov 21 @ L'Appel D'air - St Brieuc, France
Nov 22 @ Le Chalan - Binik, France
Nov 24 @ St Eupery - Bordeaux, France
Nov 25 @ Sant Des Seins - Toulouse, France
Nov 26 @ Cafe De Paris - Perpignan, France
Nov 27 @ Barakason - Nants, France w/ Black Diamond Heavies
Nov 28 @ Festival Blues Hauts De Seine - Mantes La Jolie, France
w/ Black Diamond Heavies
more European dates coming soon

Bar brawling blues.

Scampering out of Fort Wayne, Indiana comes a seriously hard punching, punk blues duo. Freddie J Evans IV and Brenn 'Sausage Paw' Beck make up the engine and driver of Left Lane Cruiser with their third release.

The record hits the ground running opening with Crackalacka. Jumping straight into a crisp, fast electric slide guitar and firecracker drumming makes up a perfect intro to this album. Heavily overdriven boot stamping riffs, growling hoarse vocals and leaving nothing to the imagination is exactly how LLC lead on. Each track brings its own edginess to the table. Hillgrass Bluebilly, a bottom lip biting stomp, Ol’ Fashioned, a classic, gritty, finger picking guitar which has inherited a fantastically authentic buzz and Hard Workin Man is a big kick of dirty, power blues which makes you drive your car fast. The whole record is just as it should be. High velocity, vicious, thumping, ass-kicking punk blues delivered with passion and depth. This is an out of control locomotive which is about to run off its rails.

Freddie J's vocals are frighteningly raw, mixed with his rampant guitar playing style puts him at the top of the pile of charismatic front men and with Beck’s machine gun drumming makes this an awesome pairing. An image of a smoky, whiskey stained basement and a bunch of stolen equipment is undoubtedly the setting for the recording of this album. A good full on record, no messing, in your face head splitting punk blues. This would be a great soundtrack for a cage fighting medley and is definitely not something for the faint hearted.

Left Lane Cruiser tick all the boxes from the relentlessly hard hitting sound to their cool names. This is not something for the faint hearted. Rest assured this is more than you can eat! - Will Bray / Blues In London

SXSW 2009 - Alive showcase

ALIVE SHOWCASE @ SXSW
Wednesday, March 18th @ Headhunters, 720 Red River St (8th St Entrance)
with HACIENDA, THOMAS FUNCTION, TRAINWRECK RIDERS,
OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY, LEFT LANE CRUISER, BLACK DIAMOND HEAVIES
+ special guests

Alive FREE digital sampler on Amazon

Get the FREE Alive digital sampler from Amazon.com
For a limited time only!

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Bagatellen

The template may be quotidian as dry toast but the differences come with the influences. LLC sound like early ZZ Top, if Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard had dropped Dusty Hill and headed off on an extended sabbatical to the Mississippi Hill Country to soak up the lineage that runs from Fred McDowell through R.L. Burnside, firsthand. The latter man is in fact an anointed hero in their pantheon and comes out in Freddy’s fuzz-saturated slide and the thundering fife/drum beats of Breck’s junk pile kit, a loose conglomeration of duct-taped plastic buckets and metal garbage pails. Purposefully primitive, but surprisingly pithy in their use of trance-inducing riffage, the songs waste little and leave little wanting. “Big Momma” and “Busket” contain breaks custom-built for bruising head banging amidst the coiled coarse-grain leads, lyrics barked in a raw-throated croak. “Justify” burns on the friction of a stentorian backbeat tied to more venom-spitting fret play, a 21st century retooling of the Diddley staple “Hush Your Mouth”. - Bagatellen

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Can You see the Sunset?

Fuck man, this is awesome. I think I probably heard about Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Left Lane Cruiser from the good folks over at Nine Bullets (a great site you should check out BTW) and once I picked up a copy of their latest album, Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table, I haven’t been able to turn it off. Their swampy Mississippi ghetto electric blues just rumble like an earthquake inside my head. I’m not even sure how Joe Evans and Brenn Beck (yeah, a two piece) can actually coax this much ferocious noise from their instruments. I love it.

If you can’t tell what I think of Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table from the few sentences above, here are a few more to convince you. Evans’ blistering electrified slide guitar, his whiskey soaked vocals, and “Sausage Paw” Beck’s thumping are raw like broken, blistered, and bleeding hands splintered and holding a fifth. This shit is greasy, gritty, grimy, and un-fucking-real. I mean, the sweat just drips off this this record thick like motor oil. Left Lane Cruiser is the real deal folks so tap yer toes, stomp yer feet, nod yer head, or do whatever it is you do and go get a copy of Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table. - Can You see the Sunset?

LEFT LANE CRUISER video - Wash It

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Blogcritics

Left Lane Cruiser plays North Mississippi style blues like a lot of blues bands do these days, they just play it louder and harsher than anyone else, and that includes the North Mississippi AllStars. There's nothing subtle or sophisticated about LLC. Their music lunges straight for your soul, and puts a stranglehold on it until you're involuntarily rocking along.

When I first heard them, I thought they were a three or four piece Southern band presenting a rawer version of the Black Crowes. Turns out, it's just two guys from Fort Wayne, Indiana. But this ain't no Black Keys. Joe Evans plays a righteous and riotous slide guitar with snarling lead vocals, while Brenn Beck plays a bass drum, cymbal, washboard, harmonica, and a homemade kit of various thingies to bang on. The dude is just a human multi-percussion machine.

Their debut album Bring Yo' Ass To The Table came out at the beginning of this year and the dozen originals sound like they were composed on a front porch in Tupelo with a Marshall amp set next to the rocking chair. Even when performing at some record store (as in the video below), their sound comes across big enough to fill a stadium.

Pico / Blogcritics

LEFT LANE CRUISER - Organ, All Music Guide, Les Inrocks, Slug

LEFT LANE CRUISER – Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table (Alive) – One of them there lo-fi slide guitar street corner broken string wooden box for a drum two piece greased up whisky drenched hobo blues bands outfits. R.L Burnside, Seasick Steve, trash cans, hub caps, meth smoking two dollar pawn shop mics and all sounding as cool as that all sounds – sound, pass me that square bottle with the number seven on it while I go put this sucker on line – Organ

In another life, Freddie J IV could have been a good ol' fingerpickin', porch-playin' blues guitarist. Basking away in the sun, he could have whiled away his time exploring the many shades of blues, from country hit whittling to Delta swamp wading. But there was fire in his belly and a flame in his soul, and in his hands the blues were transformed into an assault weapon. Bren "Sausage Paw" Beck was perhaps every mother's nightmare, a boy who seemingly just couldn't sit still. In a world pulsing with rhythm -- from the blood pounding through our veins to the cacophony of traffic in our towns -- Beck had to drum back in response at every turn, on anything and everything available. He is a continuous tattoo, battering out the beats of his own internal drums. Fatefully, one day the two met, and so was born Left Lane Cruiser, an astounding two-man blues band. Lo-fi is a totally inadequate term to describe their sound, a sizzling mix of Beck's pusillanimous drums, claps, percussion, and hoots and hollers and Freddie J's blistering guitar and husky vocals. This is the blues in their purest form, rough and ragged, rubbed raw by too much hard living and too many tough breaks. The blues' African-American progenitors could bare the pain in their souls, but dared not express the anger that underlay it. Cruiser, however, are under no such constraints, and on the trio of songs that close the set the music bristles with barely repressed rage that immediately brings the Stooges to mind. In contrast, the exuberant crash and bash of "Wash It," the dizzy stomp of "KFD," and the gleeful hook of "G Bob" all roil with a grand joie de vivre, with the exhilarating "Set Me Down" the perfect band anthem. Then again, every track on Bring Yo' Ass to the Table ripples with energy and an electric charge of creative frisson. Whether celebrating a plate of "Pork n' Beans," "Big Momma"'s delights, or "G Bob"'s steel guitar playing, the Cruisers rumble through the back streets of life, focusing on the small details, although the scathing "Amerika" does look at the bigger picture. A thoroughly unique journey down a well-traveled road; best now to sit yo' ass down a spell and listen to this stunning album. - Jo-Ann Greene/All Music Guide

Left Lane Cruiser have four years under their belts now and its about time they put out another doozy of an album. The energy of these guys is really intense, almost death metal-ish, and oh-so-perfect. When listening to the record, you can close your eyes and almost picture them onstage in front of you. All of the riffs and solos are fuckin' amazing, and the fact that they use anything else they can to make more noise (i.e., ladders, hub-caps, trash cans, etc.), only sweetens the sounds coming from the musical device. This is high-quality music from a group who practiced in a heatless garage in Indiana, and whose philosophy in music is "Let your soul drive what you do". Pretty good philosophy, if I say so myself. - Adam Dorobiala / Slug

LEFT LANE CRUISER - RocknReel