The Brass Rail – Fort Wayne Indiana – Rock Club dressed up as a dive bar

Hillgrass Bluebilly Presents: Black Diamond Heavies, High Plains Drifters, Key of Skeleton

Tuesday July 21st, 2009
Hillgrass Bluebilly Presents:
Black Diamond Heavies
High Plains Drifters
Key of Skeleton
10PM
$4

The Black Diamond Heavies hail from the southern States of America but spend most of their time in a blue Van or a white van unleashing their punk-ass bues all over the world “This Tennessee-Hailing Duo have produced a debut of filthy Southern blues that makes the Black Keys seem like choirboys” –NME ********************************************************** ***************************************************************

“the Heavies like to keep things as raw and ground-up as dirt – drums with a trashcan rattle that sound huge and far away (like they were recorded in a wide-open space down the street) and overdriven Fender Rhodes. That’s all there is to it, but then again, there’s so much more.” –Phoenix New Times .*********************************************************

“Gospel-blues-punk preacher-isers John Wesley Myers and Van Campbell baptise you in beatific raptures of Hammond, Rhodes and Drums, literally stripping the sound down to its scantily-clad soul. Almost too perfectly Myers is the literal son of a (Baptist) preacher man, whereas Campbell descends from a Bourbon-distilling family. As it is, you can absolutely bloody tell too, such is the whiskey-swilling testifying herein. Voodoo shuffles its sinicious way through…” “… swigging, swaggering and setting the VU meters swinging right through the red like a shamans trance-eyes for the entire ceremony till the closing corpse-raising broadsides you with it’s mutant Tina Turner chicken-dancing on a Motown mamba mantra. Funky cactus-caressed wagon-train blues….” “… aren’t so much like Canned Heat as they heat yer can, violate viscera and turn your pupils to pulp direct from the pulpit. “…draped in ditch-dirt and paying the tab at the Devils Inn with small change from the confession box, while swabbing woulds with sandpaper.” — Stu Gibson ********************************************************** **********************************************************

High Plains Drifters Biography

The High Plane Drifters are a Psychedelic Garage Blues two piece from Nothern England consisting of Wesley Stephenson on Drums and Timothy Oxnard on vocals and guitar.

Together they have inspired and excited many with their exciting live set, betraying their audiences ears with their full sound. Their music is nothing new, but comes from so many sources that it renders the music fresh, though it echoes half a century of rock and roll heritage, The High Plane Drifters are totally original.

Described as “like having all your birthdays arrive at once, well that’s if you like your tunes packed with what sounds like a bastardised concoction of raw as you like early primitive JMC going head to head with the more gritty garage ensembles, imagine John Spencer and Co dropped dead centre of the 60’s beat scene – yeah that f**king good, listen a little closer and the detachment of early Warsaw / Joy Division begins to eke into view”.

Their self released output of Two E.P’s and an LP have sold around the globe. Although they have had interest from many major and minor record labels their LP was financed by the winnings of the PRS ATOM AWARD , a nomination only award that they won, being only one of three winners in the UK, the only band from the North of England to do so.

They have also landed themselves a publishing deal in the United States with Hunnypot Publishing , based in Los Angeles, who approached them to sign the deal, they have had music used in C.S.I Miami and Breaking Bad as well as being touted for Tarantino movies amongst other things. They join a staple of artists as diverse as Clutch and The Victorian English Gentlemens Club .

Shortly before he died John Peel was impressed enough to play their demo version of “Trouble In Mind” , and this was long before they released any records, they have also been played by Mark Lamarr on Radio 2, Vic Galloway on Radio 1 and good underground stations like Artrocker and Resonance, plus a host of other stations in America, New Zealand, Ireland, Croatia, Portugal, France, Israel, Malta and Argentina .

They have toured all parts of the British Isles and are now set to tour Europe and the United States after invites from promoters there including Chris Johnson from The Deep Blues Festival in Minnesota where the band are set to perform in 2009. They have played gigs with Stateside bands such as the The Black Diamond Heavies, The Immortal Lee County Killers, The Soledad Brothers, The Hentchmen, Whirlwind Heat, The Bravery, Dooley Wilson who they also released a Split E.P with, as well as acoustic artists such as Benjamin Wetherill and Serious Sam Barrett .

“This pair sound like a three-, even four-piece band at times, and they achieve this more subtly than by just blasting the room with wall-to-wall racket. Drummer Wesley John Stephenson’s fulsome and varied percussive palette is crucial to this illusion – as is frontman Timothy James Oxnard’s use of his guitar alternately as rhythm engine, lead instrument, surrogate bass, even as a kind of modernist cello when he grinds a bow futuristically across six strings, propelled by appropriately Krautrock express-train drums”.

Considering this is a group that have achieved this with their self released records on their own label, and have organised their own tours with limited resources and hard work they remain optimistic, open minded and excited about the future and what it is to offer, and it seems right now that the world is ready to offer it a great deal more than obscurity.

RELEASES…

“Hot Property E.P” – Vinyl 7”

“The High Plane Drifters and Dooley Wilson Split E.P” – Vinyl 7”

“Georgian Ghosts, Archer Street Blues and The Candy Factory” – Vinyl LP and CDR

COMPILATIONS…

Blighty’s Still Smokin’ (Free Compilation with Issue 30 of Carbon 14 Magazine)

The Ballroom Of Romance (Free Compilation Issued at The Lower Deck, Dublin, 28th April 2005)

Spearhead In The City (Promotional Compilation sponsored by Orange and Generator North East)

CONTACT INFORMATION…

If you would like to book the band get in touch through myspace or

thehighplanedrifters@hotmail.com

The debut LP titled “Georgian Ghosts, Archer Street Blues and The Candy Factory” is now available to buy along with the previous “Hot Property E.P” and “THPD and Dooley Wilson Split E.P” . The records are available to buy online from the Don’t Tell Clare Webshop.

www.donttellclare.co.uk/shop.htm

Alternatively you can order releases from all good record shops with Cargo Distribution or contact the band directly and to see what they can do.

If you want to know anything else just get in touch! THPD are always looking for gigs and opportunities to release more records and they would love to hear from you if you have any Videos / Photographs / Reviews.