Album Notes

Steeped in the musical traditions of the old, weird America, the Kerosene Kondors are polishing off the sounds of our shameless and glorious past with spit and elbow grease. Their songs, mostly originals by young troubadour Willie Rubio, take you from the bordellos of 19th century St. Louis to the dark hollers of Appalachia to the street corners of 1930s Memphis, and take you there dancing. Rubio’s songs consistently demonstrate that dark and literate lyrics can coexist with danceable music, whether it be hillbilly cabaret, graveyard ragtime party anthems, or folk-songs slathered in the bacon-grease of country rock . With a punchy and relentless rhythm section, hot accordion and piano, and the stellar guitar work of underground legend Buddy Stubbs - who has played with such luminaries as Crazy Horse, Gene Clark, and Levon Helm - the Kondors are proving once and for all that there is no “old-timey” music - that the music of yesteryear is also the music of now. The Kondors all reside in the dense wilderness of Northern California. They have opened for such acts as Wayne "The Train" Hancock, Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks, Todd Snider and Utah Phillips.

"The Kondors play what it is, not what they imagine it to be." - Recording artist Phil Lee

"The voice of Kerosene Kondors frontman Willie Rubio is as ruggedly beautiful as the northern California coastline from whence it first rumbled and swooned, and where the Kondors currently deliver their rustic country and western jug band blues. Their second album is playfully titled New American Standards, which promises not the latest hi-fi haute cuisine in an avant-garde reduction, but rather the meat-and-potatoes-and-whiskey-and-more-whiskey of homegrown continental sounds served up by true believers. Rubio and company are well-versed in a variety of forms, from the sass and squawk of “The Mean Old Jug Band Blues”, which well sums up the band’s central ethos, to “The Ballad of Chelsea Jones”, which morphs seamlessly from Harvest-era Neil Young NoCal (indeed, lead guitarist Buddy Stubbs has played with everyone from Crazy Horse to Gene Clark and Levon Helm in his long career) to a cowboy version of an old English murder ballad. And you’ve never heard a lyric about a severed head sung as hypnotically and seductively as by guest Angela Rose on the standard “In the Pines”. If the words “country music” ever revert to describing music about the country, the Kondors will soar high above the sorry carcasses of big-hat and big-hair wearing pretenders from sea to shining sea." - Popmatters

"They have such a unique sound with songs that are at the same time dark, humorous, and make you want to dance!" - Bayly Marret, Americana Radio Agent for Shut Eye Records