Friends of Dean Martinez

A Southwestern alternative rock and roll supergroup of sorts, Arizona’s Close friends of Dean Martinez features past and present people of Giant Fine sand, Calexico, and Naked Victim. Giant Sand head Howe Gelb, though not really a person in the group, has guest keyboards on the debut record, The Shadow of the Smile, a amazingly retro group of guitar-based instrumentals motivated by instrumental and browse rock from the past due ’50s and early ’60s. With a lot of lounge music and desert nation guitar twang tossed in, it’s certainly vintage in feel, however, not revivalist; with Costs Elm’s keening metal guitar on the forefront and periodic insertions of discovered audio and experimental parts, they evoke open up dusty scenery with wit and, one suspects, a little bit of tongue-in-cheek irony. At the very least, it’s a relaxing differ from the frequently too-serious alternative rock and roll paths the fact that musicians pursue within their full-time rings. Retrograde implemented in 1997, and 2 yrs later the Close friends came back with Atardecer. A LOCATION in sunlight made an appearance in early 2000. The group turned to Narnack for 2003’s In the Shoreline and the next year’s Random Harvest, and in addition released Beneath the Waves in the German imprint Glitterhouse. Aero released the concert record Live at Membership 2 in 2005.