Austin, Texas is boiling over with musicians. Somebody has to fill the insane number of stages in the so-called live music capital, after all. While that means that there’s no shortage of people sympathetic to the fact that you’re eating beans and rice in between your countless side hustles as you try and turn music into something you do for a living, it does make it more than a little bit hard to stand out. On that front, a big co-sign from one of the city’s favorite sons can’t hurt.
And that’s exactly what Walker Lukens got when he ran into Spoon drummer Jim Eno in a bar. Eno found the time to work with Lukens and his band The Side Arms, working around his schedule with Spoon being low-key greats. And when you hear “Where Is Thunder Road?” off of the EP they made together Ain’t Got A Reason, it’s easy to see why Eno found the time.
This track — which we’re premiering today — is a monster slab of garage-y blues that manages to sound fresh by very subtly bucking convention. The blues as a whole is a genre with a rigid set of codes and 12-bar exercises, but Lukens and his band break out of that by peppering in a healthy dose of discord over their grimy and soulful arrangement. The intro piano clinks and clanks before the full force of The Side Arms and Lukens’ smooth voice come bursting in, but the off-kilter attitude remains throughout thanks to some dissonant and distorted guitar stabs. The song closes with a brass tune-up that gradually becomes a honking riff just in time for Lukens to close out the track with one last ask. If you don’t find yourself smashing the replay button immediately, then your resolve is stronger than mine.
Walker Lukens’ Ain’t Got A Reason is out on April 7. In the meantime, if you want to catch Lukens and crew live — and honestly, after hearing that, who doesn’t? — then check out his tour dates below:
02/27 — Orlando, FL @ Will’s Pub
02/28 — Jacksonville, FL @ Jack Rabbits
03/01 — Gainesville, FL @ High Dive
03/02 — Sarasota, FL @ The John & Mable Ringling Museum
03/03 — Punta Gorda, FL @ Punta Gorda Funk Fest
03/04 — St Petersburg, FL @ Local 662
03/07 — Atlanta, GA @ 529
03/09 — Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
03/10 — Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover
03/16 — Austin, TX @ South By Southwest Music Festival
03/23 — Hot Springs, AR @ Valley of the Vapors 2017
04/01 — Houston, TX @ Houston Whatever Fest 2017
06/15 — Dover, DE @ Firefly Music Festival
