Blood & Dust announces the release of “Charlie Dixon,” a live performance video shot at Ex’pression College in Emeryville.
With the face of singer Doug Tieman alternately basked in sunlight and obscured in the shadow of the brim of his hat, the dapper gentlemen of Blood & Dust whipped with the sound and energy of a steam engine. The clanking rhythm of the tune could only have been further exemplified were it recorded live on top of a locomotive.
Drummer Jason Slota expertly wrangled the fiery energy of the room, pounding the beat into his thigh with a tambourine and into the floor with a kick drum.
Shots of the stretching neck of the double-bass met the intricate thrumming fingers of bassist Paul Geoghan as he nodded insistently to the beat.
Motes of dust ricocheted across the rust-colored wall, no doubt launched by the sliding twang of Brandon Venable on steel guitar. The metallic body of the instrument casting him in an eerie glow, the guitarist looked almost nonchalant as his strings cracked out a solo that split the song in half.
While the scraping melody flicked from his acoustic guitar, Doug’s sliding honey vocals rushed from his smiling face:
“Charlie stared that crowd right down and he started to sing. He said, I’m a hungry man.. and I’m gonna chew you up and swallow you whole, but I ain’t going home till I get my fill.’”
Doug sang, as unabashedly as the protagonist of his song.
In those devil-may-care words, in that careening orchestration and crashing rhythm— filmmaker Kevin Willing and sound engineer Allen Antoine captured the energy of lightning bugs in a jar, of Blood & Dust.
