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Sunday 7 November 2021

No Depression #38 - The Flatlanders

 


No Depression - The Bi-monthly Journal of Alt- Country
#39 - May to June 2002

As you can see my photographs of the front cover of the magazine are beginning to get slightly straighter.

It is alt- country supergrpoup time as this edition features The Flatlanders from Lubbock, Texas
As the picture indicates there are three of them who started of as a band in 1972 and who all have gone on to enjoy successful solo career getting together sporadically to record and perform as The Flatlanders.
There are significant gaps between their records - 1976.1980,1990.1995,2002,2004,2009.2012 and 2021
A trivial fact about each one of the members:

  • Jimmie Dale Gilmore played a bowler called Smokey in The Great Lewbowski
  • Joe Ely toured with The Clash and sings backing vocals on Should I Stay or Should I Go?
  • Butch Hancock is a talented photographer who has a gallery called Lubbock or Leave It

They are cover stars as they had just released an album called Now Again on one of Alt- Country's favourite labels New West. It is not one that I have. The only one of theirs that I have is a burn of 2012's The Odessa Tapes. 

I saw them playing in the Arches in Glasgow either around 2002 or 2004 when I was joined by a couple of friends of friends from Leek. One of them (I can't remember which) claimed that their name was derived from the fact that the land was so flat that you could see 100 miles in any direction and 200 if you stood on top of a sardine can.
More recently I saw Jimmie Dale Gilmore playing with Dave Alvin to promote their Downey to Lubbock album.
One from the band and one each from the band members for you 

It was a toss up between Tift Merritt and Patty Griffin fro the One from the Top slot with Patty winning out  as she is the only one who shares a name with a Glasgow pub which is sadly temporarily closed at the moment. One of the many that was visited during the Glasgow Bloggers Convention which allegedly inspired COP26.

Jimmie Dale Gilmour - White Freight Liner Blues

Joe Ely -Letter to Loredo

Butch Hancock - Mario y Maria

Patty Griffin - That Kind of Lonely

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