reuss

Given how blues roots have pretty much become the de rigueur, etched-in-stone guitar-god standard, it’s either a wonder (or perhaps an inevitability) that a new breed of inventive players unconstrained by blues-rock templates—like Keith Levine, Gary Lucas, Kristin Hersh, and John McGeoch—has emerged in the post-punk era. But few players cut a more unique or distinct path away from the blues than the late Birthday Party guitarist Rowland S. Howard, who died from liver cancer in 2009 at the age of 50. Armed with little more than a Fender Jaguar, an MXR Distortion +, a reputably broken MXR Blue Box, and a Fender Twin, Howard strangled sounds out of his guitar that few listeners had heard before, both as a solo artist, and with his Birthday partner in crime, Nick Cave.