Grifters & Shills

A knock-down dragout party at Dan Electros Guitar Bar. Deep blues and high lonesome heavy metal for your ass. 9pm.

MARK "PORKCHOP" HOLDER & MPH: Mark “Porkchop” Holder originally turned the blues on its head more than a decade ago as a founding member of punk/blues band Black Diamond Heavies. While he’s been tearing up juke joints, festivals and dive bars since then with his own fiery brand of the blues, it wasn’t until earlier this year that the Tennessee musician released his own debut solo album, Let It Slide, an acclaimed effort that No Depression described as, “...fire in a barrel. If the Rolling Stones camped with Howlin’ Wolf and Billy Gibbons on trucker speed for the weekend with a fuzz pedal, this would be its precious procreation.”

RAY CASHMAN: Ray is a blues singer, songwriter and guitarist, who performs mainly solo or as a duo and occasionaly with a electric band. Armed with a National guitar, stomp box and a Fender amp he performs a blues gumbo repertoire that can conjure up the ghosts of the Mississippi delta. Cashman grew up outside of Conroe, TX, listening to older black men play guitar, sing and drink. “They would sell us BBQ sandwiches and Budweiser beer. We would sit around and listen to them play music and tell stories", and the influences of that are certainly everywhere in his music. Filled with years of experience from travel and inspirations of Southern Gothic literature his songs are filled with passion and feelings and honesty and subtly be damned.

GRIFTERS & SHILLS: High Lonesome Heavy Metal. Amplifyin' and testifyin' for your soul. His was hard rock and heavy metal. Hers was the classic sound of the East Texas piney woods. Theirs was a fiery collision, bearing forth a sound that was at once novel and instantly familiar--nodding to roots seated deep in high lonesome harmonies and back porch blues, while peering out at a scorched path bound by modern assertions and contemporary commentary. This two-person, dozen-instrument act provides a show full of sound a fury, punctuated with raw, quiet vulnerability. Come welcome them as they bring you back home.