Let’s go down to the river
Take me right now … oh yeah

Down to the River with Blood Sucking Maniacs

Let’s do gown to the river … The Ganges. The Nile. The Mississippi. The Seine. The Rio Grande.

Today living legends Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, along with their children and grandchildren, share “Down to the River,” the second song made available from the self-titled debut album by their new project, Blood Sucking Maniacs, a multigenerational family band, out on April 24th.

“Down to the River” is Jo Harvey’s moving duet with Terry, a paean to their love of, and through, travel and the record’s spiritual centerpiece, containing its most singular and breathtaking image. We are suddenly transported to the Bay of Bengal, “Where bonfires reflect the slow dark oxen / Where a hundred blue sails draw against the dawn.” (It is no surprise that Jo Harvey, the family’s foremost poet and actor, offers the richest and most dramatic language on the record.)

“Down to the River” follows the February album announcement, which came accompanied by the release of the album’s title track and theme song, “Blood Sucking Maniacs.” A Release Show is set for May 21st in Austin, TX at The Paramount Theatre (Tickets and Info HERE). The Allens will also perform two nights, in different configurations, at Big Ears in Knoxville, TN, with the Truckload of Art Road Show (an intimate book reading/signing, concert, and discussion/Q&A) on March 26th and with the full Panhandle Mystery Band on March 27th (Tickets and Info HERE).

Blood Sucking Maniacs, helmed by patriarch and matriarch Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, spans five generations and 121 years, including (among others) their sons Bukka and Bale Allen; grandsons Kru, Sled, and Calder Allen; Panhandle Mystery Band mainstays Charlie Sexton, Lloyd Maines, and Richard Bowden, and frequent collaborator Will Sexton. The wild and wide-ranging songs collected on their eponymous album are miscellaneous and multiplex, comprising heartrending ballads and arch in-jokes on a spectrum from sublime to unabashedly sentimental. The unifying principle here is not so much blood harmony as blood entropy.

Get sucked …

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The Allens will also perform two nights, in different configurations, at the fabulous Big Ears festival in Knoxville, TN, with the Truckload of Art Road Show (an intimate book reading/signing, concert, and discussion/Q&A) on March 26th and with the full Panhandle Mystery Band on March 27th. See y’all there.

“The Allen family’s life has been as much an inspiration for me as Terry’s wonderful art and music.”

– David Byrne

“Terry Allen is my hero.”

– Kurt Vile

Live Maniacs

March 26: Knoxville, TN – Big Ears – Truckload of Art Road Show (anintimate book reading/signing, performance, and discussion/Q&A)

March 27: Knoxville, TN – Big Ears – MemWars (a concert with Terry Allen and the full Panhandle Mystery Band)

May 21: Austin, TX – Paramount Theatre – A Night with Blood Sucking Maniacs (Album Release Celebration)

More dates TBA.