Brothers Phil and Dave Alvin formed the Blasters in California 23 years ago, and after various splits, solo ventures and re-formations, the original quartet (plus pianist Gene Taylor) is back to remind everybody what the fuss was about. Although the group emerged into a Los Angeles punk scene that featured the likes of X and the Circle Jerks, they were always pursuing something more timeless and fashion-proof. Hence, Blasters-world has remained blissfully immune to the coming of grunge or hip-hop. Over the years the band has become so steeped in the heritage of blues, R&B and original rock'n'roll that you could saw slices off them and discover half a century of musical history, like the rings on a redwood tree. Appropriately, their debut album was called American Music, which is what they play and what they have always played.
Led from the front by vocalist and harmonica specialist Phil Alvin, a man built like the Rock of Gibraltar, the band have developed the kind of rapport that lets everybody step out for solos for as long as they feel like it, while never losing contact with the Blasters mothership as it whirls along behind them. A piratical-looking Dave Alvin shuffled through his box of tricks on lead guitar, from glassy high-register soloing to fat, greasy riffs at the bottom end of the fretboard. Pianist Gene Taylor, with long white beard and pork-pie hat, rolled out thick carpets of boogie-woogie, barrelling rock'n'roll and clonking blues, occasionally taking the microphone so a perspiring Phil could take a breather. While they have mastered the art of ancient 1950s boogie, they are at their best when they give themselves a bit more rope, as in Border Radio, a sliding, shuffling arrangement of Fever, or in the spooky minor chords of Dark Night.
For starters, there was a pulverising set by Robert Randolph and the Family Band, in London on their way to the Cambridge folk festival. Randolph sat centre stage behind his 13-stringed pedal steel guitar, but we could forget any notions of country music. He used the instrument to play crunching blues and howling quasi-metal, most spectacularly on a version of Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile that might have had its author stroking his chin and wondering how he did it. Randolph has a new album called Unclassified, which describes his music perfectly.
