Stan Ridgway has stories to burn. They burn into your mind, leaving searing images and the memory of hot guitar licks and a hard-edged voice. The Austin Chronicle calls him “one of American music's greatest storytellers, the wild and wily Steinbeck of sad whiskey railroads and rusted, ramshackle American dreams.” NME, the website of England’s venerable New Music Express, calls him “equal parts Raymond Chandler and John Huston, Johnny Cash and Rod Serling.” Berkeley’s own Greil Marcus says that he “has always peeked around corners as a kind of detective ‘of the heart.’ He misses nothing.” And the Washington Post describes him as “a restless creative spirit” whose music mixes “folk, crime jazz, garage rock, electronic music, film scores, big-band covers, and country-inspired excursions.”

Barstow born, California-inspired, Stan co-founded the band Wall of Voodoo in the late 1970s, and after three albums went solo, releasing nine studio albums, including his most recent, Mr. Trouble, as well as several compilations and collaborations. His songs chronicle what lies beneath the safe and sane surface of everyday life. He craftily sets his dark materials to off-kilter and eerie melodies that echo the uneasy action of a cast of characters on the brink. His tales often take place in the microcosmic miasma of L.A. and its outer desert, where his creations try to wrest meaning from the beautiful catastrophe of their lives. "It's a hybrid of all the music I've loved and admired," Stan says. "There are no boundaries on art and no rules to follow in music. A song is really just a strong point of view." Stan has one of the strongest.

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