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I don’t always make new musical discoveries via Uncut magazine CDs. But when I do, I blog about them.
Which brings me to Rich Hopkins.
I don’t actually know much about him, except that he’s based in Arizona and has been making music for almost 30 years, 21 of them with a side-project band called The Luminarios, which released their 14th album, Buried Treasures, earlier this year.
And I wouldn’t know any of that if I hadn’t heard this track from that album on an Uncut sampler disc.
Listen.
The debt to Neil Young and Crazy Horse may be a bit too obvious, but the rest of the album has more in common with Thin White Rope than Shakey – standard but reliable Southwestern indie rock.
And in any case, the topic of the above track is a spell-binding show-stopper in itself – hearing about a mass shooting and then finding out you knew the guy who pulled the trigger.
FUN FACT: I’ve actually been in that situation, although it wasn’t a mass shooting, just a guy who shot his wife in a domestic argument.
I was in the Army at the time, living in a house off-base with some platoon members, and one of them came home and said one of our squad leaders was in jail for shooting his wife.
We all said, “No fucking way.” Then we saw the news on TV.
To be clear, the guy in question wasn’t a loner with problems – he was one of the coolest, friendliest cats I knew in my military hitch, and the last person you’d expect to shoot anyone (outside of a military situation, I mean). Hence our astonishment.
Someone you know,
This is dF
Which brings me to Rich Hopkins.
I don’t actually know much about him, except that he’s based in Arizona and has been making music for almost 30 years, 21 of them with a side-project band called The Luminarios, which released their 14th album, Buried Treasures, earlier this year.
And I wouldn’t know any of that if I hadn’t heard this track from that album on an Uncut sampler disc.
Listen.
The debt to Neil Young and Crazy Horse may be a bit too obvious, but the rest of the album has more in common with Thin White Rope than Shakey – standard but reliable Southwestern indie rock.
And in any case, the topic of the above track is a spell-binding show-stopper in itself – hearing about a mass shooting and then finding out you knew the guy who pulled the trigger.
FUN FACT: I’ve actually been in that situation, although it wasn’t a mass shooting, just a guy who shot his wife in a domestic argument.
I was in the Army at the time, living in a house off-base with some platoon members, and one of them came home and said one of our squad leaders was in jail for shooting his wife.
We all said, “No fucking way.” Then we saw the news on TV.
To be clear, the guy in question wasn’t a loner with problems – he was one of the coolest, friendliest cats I knew in my military hitch, and the last person you’d expect to shoot anyone (outside of a military situation, I mean). Hence our astonishment.
Someone you know,
This is dF