LONESOME SHACK

  • CURRENT RELEASE

    • Release
      DESERT DREAMS
      March 1, 2019
      BUY

  • Tour Dates

    • 12/09/23 GA-20 in Homer, NY at Center for the Arts
    • 12/10/23 GA-20 in Burlington, VT at Higher Ground
    • 12/29/23 GA-20 in Fall River , MA at Narrows Center For The Arts
    • 12/31/23 GA-20 in Saratoga Springs, NY at Saratoga NYE Fest 2023
    • 02/04/24 SAY SHE SHE in Seattle, WA at Neumos

    View All

    • CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD RECENT HI-RES PHOTO OF LONESOME SHACK’S BEN TODD (CREDIT: MOLLY ADELER) AND “DESERT DREAMS” ALBUM ART

    LONESOME SHACK TO RELEASE THEIR NEW STUDIO ALBUM “DESERT DREAMS” MARCH 1, 2019 VIA ALIVE NATURALSOUND RECORDS

    With a sound that is raw, expressive, and strange, Lonesome Shack’s music is part hill country blues, part urban folk rock, and owes as much to Alan Wilson’s Canned Heat as it does to Junior Kimbrough.

    Formed in Seattle, and currently based in London, the trio is led by Ben Todd, a finger picking guitarist who has spent time living in a shack in the New Mexico desert. Alone in the Gila Wilderness, Ben learned how to play old blues and banjo tunes from vintage and traditional recordings.

    Desert Dreams is a singular and poetic album of modern American music written at the tail end of a long, challenging winter in London. The result sounds like rock city meets backwoods boogie, desert blues meets jungle grooves.

    Lonesome Shack is Ben Todd (guitar/voice), Kristian Garrard (drums), and Luke Bergman (bass).

    Lonesome Shack’s Desert Dreams will be available March 1, 2019 on Limited Edition Vinyl, CD, digital and streaming formats via Alive Naturalsound Records.

    DESERT DREAMS TRACKLISTING:
    01 On The One
    02 Past The Ditch
    03 New Dream
    04 Lonely
    05 Only One
    06 Too Bad
    07 King Clone
    08 No Way Back
    09 The City Is A Desert
    10 Desert Dreams

    Lonesome Shack’s Ben Todd (credit: Molly Adeler)

    FOR MORE INFO ON LONESOME SHACK:
    http://lonesomeshack.com

    FOR MORE INFO ON ALIVE NATURALSOUND RECORDS:
    http://www.alive-records.com

    FOR MEDIA & INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
    Tony Bonyata
    Pavement PR
    e: tony[AT]pavementpr.com
    https://pavementpr.com

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    PRESS RELEASE FOR LONESOME SHACK’S 2016 LP “THE SWITCHER”

    LONESOME SHACK’S NEW STUDIO ALBUM “THE SWITCHER” OUT JUNE 24, 2016

    Lonesome Shack started in the early 2000’s when songwriter Ben Todd developed his musical voice in the isolation of rural New Mexico. After moving to Seattle in 2007, Todd teamed up with drummer Kristian Garrard and they found an instant chemistry. As a duo they released Bound To Die (2008) and Slidin Boa (2010) and brought their primitive boogie to every corner of the USA. In 2011, Lonesome Shack were joined by bassist Luke Bergman and the trio released the live album City Man (2012), which was recorded in one night at their favorite neighborhood bar, Cafe Racer. With More Primitive (2014), Lonesome Shack continued to hone their skills as an elemental rock group: stripped down, raw, expressive and danceable.

    Lonesome Shack’s latest album The Switcher is their most ambitious and complete work yet. The Switcher’s 14 songs add dimension to the band’s vision. The album is by turns dirty and raucous or slow and expansive, with resonant lyrics and inventive songwriting. The record was recorded with Johnny Goss, who also manned the board for More Primitive, and an effort was made to make the music sound just as it does at a live show. The album took over a year to complete, pieced together from three different periods of recording sessions. The sounds and feels are varied, but the message is clear – everything is held together by the groove.

    Lonesome Shack’s The Switcher will be available on Double Vinyl LPs, CD and digital formats on June 24, 2016.

    FOR MORE INFO ON LONESOME SHACK:
    http://lonesomeshack.com

    FOR MEDIA AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
    Tony Bonyata
    Pavement PR
    p: 262.903.7775
    e: tony@pavementpr.com
    https://pavementpr.com

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    2014 PRESS RELEASE FOR LONESOME SHACK’S PREVIOUS ALBUM MORE PRIMITIVE

    More Primitive finds Seattle’s Lonesome Shack exploring the depths of boogie and country blues. The trio’s sound is raw and immediate with finger-picked guitar lines, soulful crooning and big danceable grooves. Ben Todd’s introspective lyrics take the American blues tradition to a new level, examining personal history, loss of friends and a burning desire to get to the primitive core of life.

    The band began in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness where Ben Todd hunkered down in the shack he built and studied the music of the American folk and blues lineage. In 2008 Todd joined up with drummer Kristian Garrard in Seattle, and in 2011 bassist Luke Bergman became the third member.

    Lonesome Shack’s More Primitive will be available on CD, digital formats and limited edition vinyl on May 20th through Alive Naturalsound Records.

    CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO WATCH THE PREMIERE OF LONESOME SHACK’S NEW VIDEO “WRECKS” VIA THE BIG TAKEOVER

    LonesomeShackStill442

    MORE PRIMITIVE TRACK LISTING:

    01 Wrecks

    02 Head Holes

    03 Old Dream

    04 More Primitive

    05 Die Alone

    06 Medicine

    07 Chompin At The Noose

    08 Trying To Forget

    09 Big Ditch

    10 Evil

    Ben Todd-bone_442
    LONESOME SHACK’S BEN TODD (photo: Andrew J.S.)

    FOR MORE INFO ON LONESOME SHACK:
    http://lonesomeshack.com

    FOR MORE INFO ON ALIVE RECORDS:
    http://www.alive-totalenergy.com

    FOR MEDIA AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
    Tony Bonyata
    Pavement PR
    p: 262.903.7775
    e: tony@pavementpr.com
    https://pavementpr.com

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  • Here’s what critics have been saying about Lonesome Shack:

    • “More than anything else the blues is meant for dancing. The guys in Lonesome Shack seem to know this deep down in their bones. Their new 10-track album, "More Primitive," is the group's first for Alive Naturalsound Records, the label that discovered The Black Keys and released that now platinum-selling group's first album. It has an authentic, lived-in feel. At the same time it's more accessible than the group's previous work, and you could see it appealing to fans of blues miners like The Keys, Jack White and the North Mississippi Allstars.” - ASSOCIATED PRESS
    • Veteran rockers Lonesome Shack are known for their no-frills, dirty blues rock. Their upcoming album, The Switcher, promises to be an ambitious step forward. The band challenged themselves to create a collection that packed the same pulverizing punch as their live show. The result is some of their finest work yet. - PUREVOLUME
    • Though Lonesome Shack hail from the Pacific Northwest, their “haunted boogie” immediately brings to mind the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta with occasional flourishes of what almost sounds like Malian guitar. But it’s also anything but traditional, and that is immediately clear from the lyrics of songwriter and frontman Ben Todd. It’s the kind of stripped down, raw, expressive and danceable music that’s well suited for a dark bar. - GLIDE MAGAZINE
    • The Switcher is a record that can hold equal audible weight in 1965 as 2065. Rock-n-roll forever and ever, Amen. - NO DEPRESSION
    • … heartbreakingly beautiful – SECRETLY IMPORTANT
    • Lonesome Shack's new album, The Switcher, is rough and scratchy, drenched in feedback, and perfectly imperfect — their best record yet. – SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY
    • … in the vein of the Black Keys’ best work. – SEATTLE WEEKLY
    • Like the band’s previous album, 2014’s More Primitive, The Switcher is built on a foundation of Hill Country blues, drawing on the wiry, lean grooves of Junior Kimbrough or R.L. Burnside and the sound of Texans like Lighting Hopkins and Blind Lemon Jefferson. But the new album finds Todd boiling down his stylistic influences even further, droning on country blues riffs, but finding ways to connect the threads between Southern blues and the desert blues traditions of Malian groups like Tinariwen and Ali Farka Touré. - TUCSON WEEKLY
    • Dirty blues albums aren't usually this catchy, but Lonesome Shack have put together a double-album worthy of the extended tracklisting on The Switcher. - EXCLAIM!
    • The entire time you listen to this, you keep expecting it to just explode into this complete breakdown, like a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion album would. But it never does. It just keeps building and building to a climax that never truly comes, all without changing tempo. You wait for a release that you never get. It's both frustrating and glorious. And you can somehow dance to it. - IF IT’S TOO LOUD
    • Like the cover of The Switcher, elegant but simple, primitive, and full of negative space, Lonesome Shack occupies a lane all its own, built on sounds that haven’t been heard, in the vein of Junior Kimbrough, or R.L. Burnside, but without pastiche or pantomime. - AMERICAN STANDARD TIME
    • Lonesome Shack is not easy music to categorise as they have a pretty unique sound. It is blues music but nothing like you’d expect. - MAXIMUM VOLUME MUSIC
    • “This bluesy trio calls Seattle home, but you'd swear that Lonesome Shack hail from the deepest Mississippi Delta based on this teaser from their forthcoming album More Primitive. ‘Medicine’ ambles along at the tempo of a stroll, or a heartbeat, with the rhythm battened down tight by Kristian Garrard's steady rolling drums and Luke Bergman's insistent baseline. But that's the only easygoing thing about it; frontman Ben Todd howls at the monkey on his back and tries to stab it with jagged edges of guitar. Going cold turkey never sounded so good.” - SPIN
    • "Lonesome Shack may be from the Pacific Northwest, but they sound like a great swamp blues band from the Southern regions of the US. The grooves are relaxed as are the vocals, suggesting the soundtrack to a lazy, hot summer day with just a little angst in the air, lingering a little beyond reach. It’s a great sound that, in places, recalls some of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s more stripped down, rootsy recordings." - POPMATTERS
    • “Lonesome Shack are refreshingly subtle -- the band's touch is light and dynamic, with a clear appreciation of the virtue of open spaces and low-key grooves rather than Blueshammer-style overstatement. Ben Todd's guitar work is about mood, not fretboard pyrotechnics, and the purposeful drift of the ten tracks on More Primitive comes from Todd's picking, while bassist Luke Bergman and drummer Kristian Garrard thankfully also embrace a "less is more" aesthetic, laying out rhythms that are simple, measured, and unrelenting. - ALL MUSIC
    • “Although this group is decisively from the Pacific Northwest, its newest platter, “More Primitive” has the groove of Canned Heat-style blues from the South.” - MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
    • Lonesome Shack have that rare power you need in a blues band—they start playing, and the whole room follows them. The reason More Primitive is singularly great is that it is pure expression. A best of the decade type record. – AMERICAN STANDARD TIME
    • “Lonesome Shack’s newtrack ‘Wrecks’ is a doozy. Grab your partner, and do that hip shake, babe! - BLURT
    • “Tired of the Black Keys’ gritty-but-then-cleaned-up-for-the-arena blues chug? Then you are in luck. Lonesome Shack haven’t left that grittiness behind” – The Stranger
    • “A treasure trove of mind-blowing grooves that go somewhere beyond the traditional.” – Relix/Jambands
    • “Scruff Blues band out of Seattle that keeps it real and unpretentious” – Cincinnati City Beat
    • “Lonesome Shack’s back-porch blues sounds just about as authentic as it comes…they have devoted themselves to the study of true roots.” – Seattle Weekly
    • “Lonesome Shack is faithful to their name: aesthetically distant, unpretentious and full of lyrics of restless isolation…poetically devoted to that fading Americana sound.” – Arkansas Times
    • “… delivers a danceable brand of stripped-down blues rock that recalls work by the Black Keys and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.” - CHICAGO DAILY HERALD
    • “Despite its northwest origins, Lonesome Shack's music is inspired by the grit 'n' greasy Mississippi Hill Country blues of folks like R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. What's distinctive about Shack's approach is a certain whispery breeze that subtly cools the palpable humidity inherent in the original stuff.” - MINNEAPOLIS CITY PAGES
    • “Todd's songs forgo the bombastic indie blues currently in vogue, instead favoring sparse grooves and reverb-soaked vocals. It's raw but not rudimentary.” - PHOENIX NEW TIMES
    • “Although this group is decisively from the Pacific Northwest, its newest platter, More Primitive has the groove of Canned Heat-style blues from the South.” - MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
    • Lonesome Shack have that rare power you need in a blues band—they start playing, and the whole room follows them. The reason More Primitive is singularly great is that it is pure expression. A best of the decade type record. – AMERICAN STANDARD TIME
    • “Lonesome Shack’s newtrack ‘Wrecks’ is a doozy. Grab your partner, and do that hip shake, babe! – BLURT
    • “ … highly charged music.” - RHYTHM & GROOVES
    • “… combines the sounds of post World War II electric country blues with a new approach to boogie.” - RED BEANS & LIFE: NEW ORLEANS
    • “Lonesome Shack’s More Primitive album is about as good a set of boogie-blues and countrified rock as you’re likely to hear this year.” - MAD MACKEREL: UK
    • “…chock-full of soulful country blues steeped in American tradition.” - A JOURNAL OF MUSICAL THINGS
    • “…known to stir a subdued crowd into a fevered dance party.” – CINCY GROOVE
    • “I urge you to find a phonograph, pour a bottle of Blanton’s original single-barrel bourbon, and cozy up in this lonesome shack.” - THE FIRE NOTE
    • “… a great sound.” – LA.com
    • “This isn’t just one of Lonesome Shack’s best albums, this is easily one of the best albums of the year.” – SECRETLY IMPORTANT
    • “Lonesome Shack’s latest album may be titled More Primitive, but the fact of the matter is it’s the Shack’s best-sounding studio recording to date. Don’t worry – all the stuff you love about Lonesome Shack is still here: the raw grit ‘n’ grease; the marrow-thumping grooves; the sepia-toned time machine vignettes, clouded with 2-AM-in-the-juke-joint smoke and spilt hooch. It’s just that the mix on More Primitive sets you down right in the middle of those scenes, loose floorboards under your shoes and all. This, boys and girls, is a lesson in doing so much with so little … something Lonesome Shack are undisputed masters of.” - JAMBANDS
    • [4 STARS OUT OF 5] “While never failing to generate basic blues mojo, guitarist Ben Todd keeps things consistently fresh with distinctive guitar figures on each track here.” - ROOTS MUSIC REPORT
    • “… it’s music that never gets old.” – THE BAY BRIDGED
    • “For those who love the blues, this could well be the album of the year.” - EXPRESS UK
    • “Music of this kind is in shorter supply these days, so enjoy the primitive sounds while you can.” – VINYL UNDER REVIEW
    • “Lonesome Shack goes to the very deepest roots of rock and blues on their album More Primitive. Superbly envisioned and painstakingly realized, it’s an intense work of focus and dedication.” - RUST MAGAZINE
    • “These songs have the contemporary immediacy of the Black Keys without the studio gimmicks. But Lonesome Shack is infinitely more cool than the Black Keys have ever been. There's a slinky, slithery quality to this hypnotic album that will have you blasting it on repeat.” - ADOBE & TEARDROPS