Tucson desert-rock lifer Howe Gelb has led Giant Sand through three decades and over 30 albums of idiosyncratic alt-country.
MOODS · desert · dusty · idiosyncratic · beatnik · exploratory · alt-country · psychedelic-tinged · wandering · sun-bleached · loose · improvisational · weathered
BIOGRAPHY
Giant Sand began as Giant Sandworms, formed by Howe Gelb in Tucson, Arizona, in the late 1970s. Gelb, born around 1956 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, relocated to Tucson in 1975. The band released the EP Will Wallow and Roam After the Ruin in 1980, then debuted under the shortened name Giant Sand with Valley of Rain on Enigma Records in 1983.
By 1990, drummer John Convertino and multi-instrumentalist Joey Burns had joined the lineup; the pair went on to form Calexico in 1996 before eventually leaving Giant Sand to focus on that project. Over the following decades, guest collaborators have included Victoria Williams, Neko Case, PJ Harvey, Vic Chesnutt, M. Ward, and Isobel Campbell, with Gelb remaining the group's constant creative force.
WHY THEY'RE COOL
Critics have long struggled to categorize Giant Sand, and that's part of the appeal: Billboard's Chris Morris coined the term "desert dream-rock," while Trouser Press praises the band's "play-free-or-die aesthetic" straddling hippiedom and punk. The Boston Globe's Joan Anderman likened Howe Gelb to "art-school Neil Young, or Lou Reed wandering the Mojave Desert." Gelb has released more than 30 albums since Valley of Rain in 1983, and the group's shifting cast of collaborators, from Neko Case to PJ Harvey, reflects an exploratory approach to alt-country that helped incubate Calexico. The 2008 album proVISIONS earned a Metacritic score of 73 based on generally favorable reviews.
