Having given this new release by Dave Alvin a 3rd listen in the past few days, it finally hit me as to why his music matters so much to me. This new release, "Eleven Eleven" has themes of mortality throughout it as Dave reflects on the losses of Chris Gaffney, Amy Farris and Buddy Blue of the Beat Farmers. But the focus that reveals itself to me is Alvin's California.

It is not the glitzy Beverly Hills or the sun soaked beaches that he sings about, but rather the more essential California that locals know. The smell of sage and eucalyptus that he refers to alongside a more urban apartment that sits beside the 605 freeway. These are the things that Alvin knows deeply, having been raised in Downey CA.

His music is informed equally by the concrete LA basin as by the Bakersfield Sound made famous by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. The blues of T-Bone Walker was also a huge influence to what became a sound that could only happen in LA.

This is the LA that I reminisce about having moved East 2 years ago. It's not pretty, but it's beauty lies in the stories of those who live in its dichotomy.