When Nashville, Tennessee via Massillon, Ohio’s Patrick Sweany came through town earlier this week, he name dropped St. Louis streets and neighborhoods like he’s lived here for years. He payed tribute to our beloved city with a cover of Roosevelt Sykes’ “Woman In Elaine, Arkansas.” Patrick jokes that, “Everyone who lived in St. Louis must’ve sang the blues about someplace else. I guess you all have a blues-singer facilitating environment without actually having to have the blues. Take it from someone who knows.”
The Blues may have originated as field hollers in the Deep South but they’ve evolved in Rust Belt cities, places where industry left and economic decline grew. If you look at an image of America’s Rust Belt, you’ll see Ohio fits the bill more than any other state. It was there in Massillon that Patrick found his voice with The Patrick Sweany Band. He had various hired guns during this time, one of which was The Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach, who briefly played for Sweany during the band’s early years. The two would later collaborate to produce Every Hour Is a Dollar Gone at Akron Analog.
Patrick and his new band of Nashvillains aim to satisfy. They played the usual suspects like “Every Night Every Day,” ”Them Shoes,” and “Working For You.” There were solo moments where Sweany rambled through “Deep Water” and the charming Sykes cover. The extended jam on “Burma Jones” was the kind of thing that makes it so right to trip the light fantastic.
The Maness Brothers rolled through their hometown from tour to show off new songs that they’ll be recording later in the year with someone they met at their annual Whiskey War Festival. Word on the street is that the studio they’ll be using has recorded the likes of ZZ Top and has been used to master Led Zeppelin III. They plan to leave the studio with a record that sounds huge in all the right ways without being overproduced. We’ll have the full story closer to the full-lengths release date.
Mallory Turner of Bandsintown and losteyesight.com was in town for the show and shot these rad photos for us!
