Rock n' Roll Purgatory
Record Reviews: April 2008
Boxcar Satan & Ghostwriter "Hobo Nouveau"
Dogfingers/End Of The West
This really isn’t so much a split CD as a full-on collaboration between San Antonio’s Boxcar Satan and Austin expatriate, Steve Schecter, better known under his One Man Band moniker: Ghostwriter. It is an American folk album for the deconstructed and disillusioned 21st century, borne of hardship and hope and emanating the all warmth and weariness of the current zeitgeist. Planted among the rows of new crops are old tunes by Elder Charlie Beck, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, Merle Travis, and Woody Guthrie. The sounds run the gambit from refashioned delta blues and modern dustbowl ditties to smokestack spirituals and wayward work songs. As always, whenever I hear Boxcar Satan I get a feeling of Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart, but that’s good company to keep.
– Ben