“Elk River Blues” can be used as a road map to the solo music of Nathan Bowles. In 2012, as an end to his first album, A Bottle, A Buckeye, the song—written by fiddler Ernie Carpenter as an instrumental lament about the flooding of his boyhood home after U.S. Army Engineers built a dam—is wistful if a bit […]

In his review of Nathan Bowles’ latest LP Whole and Cloven for Aquarium Drunkard, writer Tyler Wilcox asks: “Is banjo futurism a thing? Probably not, but if it was Nathan Bowles would be leading the charge.” Wilcox makes an excellent point. Like his previous solo records have demonstrated — in addition his work with the […]

September 29th, Aquarium Drunkard presents an evening with Steve Gunn and special guest Nathan Bowles at The Living Room in Long Beach. Like the Amen Dunes show earlier this year, this is a house show with limited seating. Tickets available here, and we have a couple pair to giveaway to AD readers. To enter, just […]

Is banjo futurism a thing? Probably not, but if it was Nathan Bowles would be leading the charge. Over the course of three solo albums, the picker/percussionist (you may know him from work with Pelt, Jack Rose, Black Twig Pickers and Steve Gunn, among others) has made music that’s at once deeply rooted in traditional […]

For good or ill, the banjo has become the ultimate signifier of old timey Americana. You want to sprinkle a little down home “authenticity” into a song? Put a banjo on it. To bring anything free of cliche to the table it takes a seriously skilled and imaginative musician. Nathan Bowles is definitely that musician. […]