With its travelogue of vistas and panoramas, the new lyric video for Dave Alvin’s “King of California” — premiering exclusively below from the 25th anniversary edition from his album of the same name — could well be a tourist department promotion piece. “Except there’s death and disappointment in that song, so probably not,” Alvin says with a laugh.
“We don’t have the money to hire actors and to do location shooting back east and in the desert and then in California,” he adds. “So we thought we’d show some pretty images of the state while I sing a sad song.”
Alvin can only be happy about the legacy of King of California album, however. Released May 1, 1994 — and recorded with producer Greg Leisz just after the Northridge earthquake that January in Los Angeles — it was Alvin’s fourth solo album away from the Blasters and took Alvin in a quieter, acoustic-flavored direction. “In hindsight I was trying to really establish myself as a singer-songwriter rather than being the loud, mid-level guitar player who jumps around onstage like a goofball,” Alvin recalls. “I wanted people to think, ‘Here’s a guy that can write OK songs,’ so it was kind of like my first singer-songwriter record, I suppose. I think some people were surprised.”
It worked, however. King of California scored rave reviews, and it opened Alvin’s audience beyond the Blasters’ rock crowd. “One of the reasons I left the Blasters was when you’re in a band, the band decides what a song sounds like and that can sometimes be a plus and sometimes be a minus,” he says. “I wanted to let the song decide what it was going to sound like and follow that. King of California was where I decided that the songs from now on will rule the decision-making.”
The expanded 25th anniversary edition of King of California comes out June 28 on Craft Recordings, with the album available on vinyl for the first time. It adds three additional tracks — the unreleased instrumental “Riverbed Rag,” a cover of Merle Haggard’s “Kern River” recorded for the 1994 tribute album Tulare Dust that Alvin co-produced and “The Cuckoo,” a duet with Katy Moffatt from her 1999 Alvin-produced album Loose Diamond. “There’s rarely a lot of bonus tracks on my records — I don’t have the best budgets for that,” Alvin says. “I don’t go into the recording studio with 35 songs and then cull out the best 12. If I go into the studio I’ve got the best 12 already. I’ve got to go in and get it done as cheaply as possible.”
Alvin is currently on the roads with dates booked into August, playing a few King of California shows with Leisz and also performing with Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Alvin and Gilmore also plan to make a follow-up to their 2018 collaboration Downey To Lubbock while Alvin is also working with the reunited Flesh Eaters. And he’s recorded “this weird record” with members of Counting Crows, Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker and Richard Thompson’s band that he expects to have out “fairly soon.” “It’s the total opposite of King of California,” Alvin reports. “It’s sort of folk rock, but it’s like folk rock for everybody that smokes weed and took LSD — for lack of a better term it’s psychedelic. It would sound great on a co-bill with Quicksilver Messenger Service at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966. It’s really fun, and I’ve always wanted to make a record like that.”
Alvin’s upcoming tour dates include:
July 9 – Cedar Cultural Center – Minneapolis, MN
July 11 – City Winery – Chicago, IL
July 12 – Beachland Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
July 13 – The Arc – Ann Arbor, MI
July 14 – Natalie’s – Columbus, OH
July 16 – Club Café – Pittsburgh, PA
July 18 – Daryl’s Club House – Pawling, NY
July 19 – City Winery – Boston, MA^
July 20 – World Café Live – Philadelphia, PA^
July 21 – City Winery – New York, NY^
July 23 – Birchmere – Alexandra, VA^
July 31 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA
August 1 – Old Church Concert Hall – Portland, OR
*w/Jimmie Dale Gilmore
^w/Greg Leisz