Slim Cessna’s Auto Club Heads West w/ Kid Congo Powers & the Pink Monkey Birds
- by Adam Bailey
- in Latest
Rising from the fertile ground of the Denver country gospel scene, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club fever-drenched sound is steeped in the finest Pentecostal raving of a vengeful God and straining toward an unlikely redemption.
As Allmusic wrote, “ Slim's the main singer here, his half-crazed voice like one of a man who's been pushed too far one too many times . . .” while allowing that “There's a dark liveliness, a rebelliousness to the music, one that Slim Cessna has always exhibited, shown not only in the lyrics and vocal inflection but in the instrumentation, which is sprawling and tight at the same time, electric and acoustic, and the entire effect of which is absolutely captivating.”
The Auto Club are hitting the road this spring with Kid Congo Powers & the Pink Monkey Birds, heading west for California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado Shows.
6/4/2019 Colorado Springs. CO The Ivywild
6/5/2019 Albuquerque, NM Launchpad
6/6/2019 Phoenix, AZ Valley Bar
6/7/2019 Tucson, AZ 191 Toole
6/8/2019 Flagstaff, AZ Orpheum Theater
6/9/2019 Las Vegas, NV Backstage Bar & Billiards
6/10/2019 San Diego, CA Casbah
6/11/2019 Los Angeles, CA Echo
6/12/2019 Long Beach, CA Alex’s Bar
6/13/2019 Albany, CA Ivy Room
6/14/2019 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
6/15/2019 Sacramento, CA Harlow's
6/18/2019 Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge
6/19/2019 Fort Collins, CO Surfside 7
6/20/2019 Denver, CO Hi-Dive Club
Praise for Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
The Auto Club and 16 Horsepower also share a love for fevered country gospel. But unlike Edwards' severe, Pentecostal-inspired sound, Cessna and company exude more joy and openheartedness. Sure, there lurk dark echoes of Deliverance in the bounding banjo of "This Is How We Do Things in the Country," from 2004's The Bloudy Tenent Truth & Peace. But its a stylized darkness that allows room for both zealotry and playful, tongue-in-cheek commentary. Cleveland Scene
Familiar Americana musical tropes shift like quicksand, revealing lyrics that sound like they were written at the height of a fever (or whatever.)
-No Depression
Are they reaching out to the punk rockers with the hand of salvation, or are they coaxing the devout into the black pit, cloaked with the shrouds of His music? Could the two frontmen be at cross-purposes themselves, playing chicken with the other's eternal soul?
-Punk News
Slim Cessna's Auto Club:
More people would probably go to church if it were anything like Slim Cessna's punkish, backwoods tent revival, where Old Testament-style wrath reigns supreme.
-Popmatters
