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How do you write a bio about a musician who has spent more than 30 years defying musical conventions? You could trot out all the cliched rock-critic terms: seminal, hyperbole, incendiary, eponymous, masterful, achingly poignant, priceless, alt-country, old-school, outlaw. Some of those might even fit if you shoehorned them into context.
Howe Gelb long has been saddled with such titles as "godfather of alt-country" and "elder ambassador of desert rock." When confronted with such accolades, he clears his throat, amused and a little embarrassed, and he ponders. His summer-sun squint turns into a twinkle when he finally asks his questioner, "What do you think of it?"
In three decades he's managed to mash elements of rock, country, blues, punk, garage, lo-fi, jazz, gospel, avant-garde noise and flamenco gypsy music.
Guitar and piano are his weapons of tumult. He sings like a gruff angel, a town crier tapping you on the shoulder, reminding you that the world need not be seen in the conventional ways to which we revert when the world goes blurry. He weaves impressionistic imagery into personal narrative and indulges listeners in expansive observations of the world. In his early years there had been comparisons to artists along the paradoxical lines of Neil Young, David Byrne, Bob Dylan and Captain Beefheart, comparisons that all fit clumsily. Nowadays, other artists get compared to Gelb.
He was born October 22, 1956 in Pennsylvania - to which only a grey-tinged beard attests - and moved to the desert as a young man in the mid 1970s. When not on the road, he lives with his family - two kids in school, another grown and on her own - in an old barrio in downtown Tucson, Arizona. "Endlessly restlessly wanderlusted encrusted", he's well settled in the desert caliche where it takes him an hour to dig a small hole, and 3 days to change the cooler pads.
He's collected bands in Denmark, Spain and one with a full gospel choir attached in Canada, but they call his music Americana anyway. Howe just says he's "from Earth".
In 1980, Gelb formed the post punk band Giant Sandworms, with his close friend Rainer Ptacek; renowned blues-oriented slide guitarist and beloved Tucson icon. Rainer died from brain cancer in 1997, and you can't talk long with Gelb without his name coming up. They went on to record together for years before his untimely demise.
Giant Sand emerged in 1983 and released that group's debut album, 'Valley of Rain' in 1985. In the 25 years since, he has released an estimated 40 albums or so. He's not sure of the exact amount.
Since his first record release came about by handing his demo tape over (in a less then lucid state) to a touring band's manager passing through Tucson in the early 80s, so had Howe continued the tradition by accepting the demos and facilitating the first releases of Grandaddy and M. Ward along the way.
Gelb's most recent project is A Band of Gypsies, with which he recorded in Cordoba, Spain during the last several years. The group, featuring guitarist extraordinaire Raimundo Amador, has released an album, 'Alegrķas', that is, quite frankly, stunning.
The newest editions to the ongoing Giant Sand reissue series are; 'Cover Magazine', 'Is All Over The Map' and 'Backyard BBQ Broadcast'.
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