Hit Pick

Honesty in music seems to be a lost quality in an age when pre-fab acts are packaged, programmed and presented by labels that are more marketers than musicians. Just how much of a tart is Britney, anyway? Enter Local 33: four blue-collar guys singing the plight of blue-collar life with...

By Dave Flomberg

August 23, 2001

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Honesty in music seems to be a lost quality in an age when pre-fab acts are packaged, programmed and presented by labels that are more marketers than musicians. Just how much of a tart is Britney, anyway? Enter Local 33: four blue-collar guys singing the plight of blue-collar life with a sense of survivors' pride that suggests this is not just another factory-processed alt-country act. Frontman Eric Lowe's plaintive and tarnished vocals aren't rife with emotion, but there's enough feeling that the message is loud and clear. Backed by the smooth slide guitar of Dan Merwin, the dogmatic bass styles of Don Jerome and Sean Watson's steady traps, Lowe has the talent to write the kind of songs a steelworker might hum under his breath as he rivets girders 300 feet above the pavement in sub-zero temperatures -- songs in the key of Americana. Local 33 performs with Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers and Rainville, Friday, August 24, at Tulagi, in Boulder, and Saturday, August 25, at the Bluebird Theater.

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