Rock heroes rarely come more mysterious than Howe Gelb. Since the early 1980s, the Arizona songwriter and musician has released 30 albums, under a bewildering array of pseudonyms. His band Giant Sand invented their own sub-genre, desert rock: a scorched and spooked sound, evocative of the Arizona landscape. Gelb, meanwhile, has been credited as the godfather of alt-country, the movement which reclaimed country and western from Nashville's syrup and sequins. He can draw an audience of 2,000 to the Barbican, yet his name seldom appears in rock encyclopedias and even the internet yields no biographical details.
Hosting an evening of leftfield US songwriters, the bearded Gelb cuts a suitably enigmatic figure. Between each performer, he changes his shirt and unleashes abrupt bursts of music from a CD player: Hank Williams, the haunting blues of Giant Sand's late guitarist Rainer Ptacek. For reasons unexplained, a woman with skull face-paint sits onstage, holding a bunch of gladioli. Gelb's own set is captivating and wildly esoteric, jumping from a screeching cover of LA punk band X's Johnny Hit and Run Pauline to tinkling piano instrumentals recognisable as the kind of music that stops playing when the villain walks into the saloon in old cowboy films.
Of his guests, Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous draws the loudest cheers with spectacularly desolate versions of Eyepennies and Homecoming Queen, but the most surprising is former Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando.
An early 1990s indie pin-up before drug problems derailed his career, he plays stark versions of old Lemonheads tracks like My Drug Buddy - but his new, country-inflected material is revelatory. Outdoor Type is warm and funny, the closing Wine Coloured Grass a lovely two-line lament. Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner performs with Vic Chessnut. Wagner's meditations on the everyday are perfectly complemented by Chessnut's dry wit.
For all the mystic aura surrounding its host, the evening boasts a generously fraternal atmosphere. The musicians share a bottle of wine between songs while Polly Harvey is less special guest than all-purpose helper: she operates a shortwave radio during Gelb's set, plays bass with John Parish's Big Band and duets with Linkous. The warmth emanating from the stage pervades the audience. "Thank-you for coming," smiles Gelb at the end. "No, Howe!" shrieks a voice. "Thank-you!"
