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***Howlin Rain came together with the intention of making a good, old-fashioned, free-wheeling rock album with a bared soul and a body that hangs joy, hysteria and darkness on the same rambling bones. They play unfiltered music in all its grit and all its glory; music to beat the steering wheel of your van to or sing along with while drinking whiskey in the bathtub with your dog on a Saturday night. Formed in 2004 in San Francisco, the band features Ethan Miller (singer and guitarist for Comets on Fire), John Moloney (shaman leader and percussionist for Boston's Sunburned Hand of the Man) and Ian Gradek (bassist, iron worker, banjo-picker and world traveler). For a group of musicians who spend most of their time playing napalm-wrecked avant-rock or underground improv, this is an opportunity to downshift and ease into some classic good-time jams-- some yin to the more experimental yang of their better known projects. Howlin Rain makes music that's not out to blow your mind but shit that's ingrained in your heart. They draw from the resonance of The Dead, The Allman Brothers, Richard Brautigan, Exuma, Terry Reid, Golden Earring, CSNY (as well as Neil Young and Crazy Horse), Bob Dylan, Blue Cheer, CCR, Simon and Garfunkel, Randy Holden, White Heaven, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Walsh and anyone who's played piano on an album without actually knowing how to. They're equal parts dust, groove, folk, rock, dirt, mercury, earth, beer, watermelon, the Eel River and the great land that surrounds it. |
