Busy, blues rockabilly guitarist reflects rather than tours
Usually, with a new album on the way, hard-working blues-rockabilly guitarist Dave Alvin would be out on tour. On his own or with his various bands — X, The Blasters, The Knitters, The Flesh Eaters or alongside Jimmie Dale Gilmore or his vocalist brother Phil Alvin — he’s never wasted time getting the word out. But 2020, of course, has altered his routine. As his latest anthology “From An Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Recordings” was released Nov.20, he was relaxing at home in L.A.’s Echo Park neighborhood, savoring one of his favorite comfort foods: old-school, nothing fancy doughnuts from a local mom-and-pop shop he’s been frequenting for years. He’s enjoying sentimental favorites from childhood, like silver frosting with chocolate sprinkles on white cake, even though, during the pandemic, he has to point to what he wants to a guy behind the counter in gloves and a mask, and there’s a big plexiglass shield between him and the customers. Lockdown has given Alvin time to reflect on his colorful 43-year career, he adds, since COVID-19 canceled spring concerts for his latest project, The Third Mind, with Camper Van Beethoven bassist Victor Krummenacher, which was scheduled to play The Chapel in San Francisco on April 15. Mentioning that he was “always gone” last year, he says this year has been the polar opposite. The L.A. punk scene that birthed The Blasters in the early 1980s — with X, Rank and File, The Gun Club, Lone Justice — was just a magical time.
