CD release: Golden Boots

Ryen Eggleston (Credit: Samantha M. Sais/Metromix)

You’ve likely heard of local band Golden Boots, because this is one group that, over its seven-year history, has played any place it could.

Any place?

“We did a show in an office building for AmeriCorps at 9 a.m. under florescent lights during a coffee break, where employees came to watch us play” says Ryen Eggleston, who founded the band with Dimitri Manos.

 That’s dedication to the craft, folks.

“At another show, our amp blew up on stage,” Manos adds, “which, by all accounts, is a pretty good sign that you’ve arrived.”

Another good sign came Jan. 27 with the release of Golden Boots’ latest album. And “The Winter of our Discotheque” (Park the Van) is more than just a clever take on a Shakespearean quote; it’s the next mutation of their self-described “alt-gothic country” sound.  

“Each album is different,” Eggleston explains. “I would describe this one as more ‘woody’ sounding.”

“This album is more of a strange, angular creation” Manos offers. To see what they mean, check out their MySpace page for a sample of tracks off the album.

The band—filled out for the last couple of years by Nathan Sabatino and James Grip—has eight or nine albums, Eggleston estimates. (“There’s some contention between me and Dimitri on this,” Eggleston says.”) All have been self-recorded, with “Winter of our Discotheque” captured, he says, at the former Scrappys space downtown.

As with all their albums, it was mixed at Sabatino’s Loveland Studios.

Highlights include “Knife” and  “Ghosts,” both of which have videos, and “Country Bat High II,” though we’re not completely sure if the song is a true sequel or even what a "country bat" is, for that matter. Manos seems reluctant to elaborate, merely saying that “Country Bat High II” came about as a Willie Nelson-style ditty that he began working on after the rest of the band had gone to lunch. It was re-discovered later in the recording process and made the final cut for the album.  

We asked about the name Golden Boots and if it referred to the Academy Awards of the Western used to honor cowboy movie actors. Wrong. It actually refers to a lyric in one of their early songs, and they embraced the name after receiving compliments about it and feeling that it fit.   

This go-with-the-flow ethos brought the two here in the first place. Though they met in the Old Pueblo, both Eggleston and Manos hail originally from Philadelphia and kind of meandered their way to Tucson.

“I was heading out to California, and stopped in Tucson, and just ended up really liking it,” Manos says.

Eggleston, who says he arrived a year later, in 2000, had a different approach.

“Well, I was wandering around the country, hitchhiking, and ended up in New Mexico for a while. I was looking for a city that felt like it had a smaller feel to it. Tucson fit the bill.”

Lately the two have been listening to such diverse artists as Dead Sea, John Denver and the noise band Harry Pussy and Motown in general. So if that’s any indicator as to what the next Golden Boots album will sound like, it will be interesting to see how the duo weaves them into their ever changing soundscape. And, with more than an album out every year, we may just find out soon.