Gideon Smith and The Dixie Damned
30 Weight
Small Stone

With one of the most recognizable voices in all of heavy music, the swamp wizard himself, Gideon Smith, returns to howl at the moon with 30 Weight, another album of psychedelic motorcycle blues that has me (and no doubt others of my ilk who have also previously written about The Dixie Damned’s Southern boogie doom) tripping over myself trying to come up with a fresh way to sell the North Carolina band’s super-charmed snake oil. Just like previous full-lengths, 2004′s Southern Gentlemen and 2008′s South Side of the Moon, 30 Weight mixes the spiritual fire-eating of The Cult and the steely-eyed machismo of Circus of Power (see, I’m doing it already) for a deadly concoction of outlaw riffs and acid groove where songs like “Feel Alive” and “Shining Star” are this album’s “Whiskey Devil” and “Shimmering Rain,” respectively. That would also make the song “South” quite self-explanatory, as well. However, Gideon manages to add a few new ingredients to his brew this time around, like a female back-up singer on “Ride With Me” and a couple of covers, including a slow cooked version of Saint Vitus’ “I Bleed Black” and G.G. Allin’s “When I Die,” a poignantly raw country and western song in which Gideon strips it all down, even his voice. While GS&TDD fans will find a familiar comfort in 30 Weight‘s cattle skull savagery, the inexperienced can start here and work their way back down the dusty highway the band has forged without feeling like they’ve arrived late to the midnight ritual dance.

Listen to “Black Fire” from 30 Weight!

“Merlin wasn’t real.”
“Fuck you Merlin wasn’t real.”
“It’s a story.”
“Merlin was part of King Henry’s court and he fucking won all the wars for him ’cause he cast spells. Fuck you, man. That shit’s real.”
“He was part of King Arthur, not King Henry…”
“Yeah, it’s a fable. A fable is history.”

Ah, FUBAR. Amazing. But you know something? Deaner got it absolutely right. A fable is history. The divide between truth and fiction has long since vanished and wizards walk — or, rather, rock — amongst us. I know. So what you’re about to read, everything I’m about to tell you of the outlaw Gideon Smith and his court of motorcycle madmen, The Dixie Damned, may sound like pure cowboy fantasy, a Southern-fried fairy tale full of tumbleweed, rattlers, whiskey, blood, dust, ghosts, and backwoods psychedelia, but it’s simply this: the narcotic we desire most.

Gideon, the Charlotte, North Carolina native, began life as a wizard when he apprenticed at the faithful and frenzied school of Destructo Maximus as a roadie while under the bloody-faced tutelage of Jeff Clayton and his band of wrestlin’ lovin’ murder junkies, ANTiSEEN. The years he spent in that chaotic foxhole, surrounded by barb wire and explosives, arm in arm with the Confederacy of Scum, would spark in him a desire to branch out on his own. So, in 1997, Gideon took that giant leap into outlaw territory with some former Animal Bag members, now dubbed The Dixie Damned.

Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned spin a swampy brand of blues-infused doom rock, a heavy dose of Southern boogie n’ groove with a hairy chest and meat cleavers for hands. They mix the super-sized spirituality of The Cult with the chain gang riffs of Circus of Power and end up with a shamanistic brand of trippy, bad-ass, redneck biker rock. Gideon’s vocals might be some of the most recognizable in all of rock n’ roll, rolling out of his diaphragm like they’re coming up from the bottom of a well, where Elvis’ bloated carcass floats face down in bong water. The band released a self-titled EP some time after forming, but it wasn’t until 2004′s full-length, Southern Gentlemen, that word came down that there was a new wizard in town.

But, like a wizard is wont to do, Gideon vanished for a few years, appearing only on various tribute albums and compilations. He spent his years in exile dealing with death and cultivating is outlaw way of life, recording some spoken word/poetry stuff on such themes as paganism, the occult, the power of positive thinking, beauty, creativity, and strength, and writing his manifesto, Way of the Outlaw Spirit. Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned returned to the fold with a six-song EP, Dealin’ Decks, and their second full-length in 2008, South Side of the Moon.

So, what’s Gideon up to now? How goes it in the world of this particular wizard, this rock n’ roll outlaw? What bearded mischief has he been up to? Well, I take council with the man himself, my brother in both wizardry and beard, and we discuss such epic matters as his new album, what it means to be an outlaw, what it means to be a wizard (and how we can’t actually discuss anything to do with wizardry because it’s all top secret), and, of course, beards. There’s even an uncomfortable moment when I mention something about a girl and some chains. This is the stuff you crave, my friend. This is the fable of truth.

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