my friend alex spoto of roppongi's ace fame turned me on to maxim ludwig & the santa fe seven about a month ago.

twenty-one year old brooklyn-born/current los angelian, maxim ludwig got his start playing the pots and pans in his godmother's kitchen, and later as a ten year-old harmonica blower playing in blues cover bands in german beer tents.  from then on, he embraced the philosophy that everyone do what they best in a particular song and not have a particular permanent job.

a few years ago he bought a cheep guitar at a police auction and learned to play  guitar  from a "skinny, toothless, heroin addicted" handyman.  the handyman walked up to maxim one day and said, kid, i'm gonna teach you how to play the blues.  the handyman handed maxim a guitar slide (read: toilet paper tube) and they practiced the rest of the day.  maxim never saw him again and never had another guitar lesson.

later, he further embraced his second passion: language/poetry/thought. then as now, he was more "concerned with how words are held in the shape of the mouth than the notes."

maxim, his quick-grow beard, and his band the santa fe seven (incidentally, none of the four members are from santa fe) makes spontaneous music filled with sophisticated lyrics and the intensity of john liver eating johnston.  the band finds influence in hank williams, bob dylan, faulkner, the band, the beach boys and tom waits.

the band's self-titled debut album, released 18 march, 2009 was recorded with 30+ musicians "spanning from the hidden nests of pennsylvania to the burning hot mountains of new mexico."  maxim wrote the lyrics while traveling across country.  as the context changed, so did his lyrics.  he said the temperature, the timing and the humidity changed the tempo;  the lyrics changed meaning when mixed with the local water.

plan on hearing a lot more from maxim ludwig & the santa fe seven in the coming months, they're gonna be huge, you heard me say it.

listen to the album here.  don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website.

check here to see if maxim ludwig & the santa fe seven has any gigs scheduled near you.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.