John Michael Dexter Romweber
is an American rockabilly/roots musician from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, best known as one-half of seminal two-piece Flat Duo Jets. He currently fronts the Dex Romweber Duo with his older sister Sara Romweber. He has been credited with "teaching Jack White how to be Jack White."
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DEX ROMWEBER DUO TICKETS
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Biography
John Michael Dexter Romweber was born in Indiana in 1966, the youngest of seven children. His older brother Joe Romweber was the lead singer for UV Prom, while his sister Sara Romweber was a member of Let's Active and a founding member of
Snatches of Pink. Romweber's first band, Crash Landon and The Kamikazes, was started at the age of 11 while attending Culbreth Junior High, with stand-up bassist Tony Mayer (since of the Good Old Chicken Wire Gang Boys Band) and drummer Hunter Landon (now of the Bad Checks). Initial shows at the Carrboro Arts Center were impressive. In high school, such was Romweber's focus on Rockabilly that he chose to do his European History current events report on Denmark, because Rockabilly music was popular there at the time. Dexter began playing music with Chris "Crow" Smith, with material culled mainly from his family's extensive collection of 50s records. Around this time, Dexter moved into a detached garage behind the house, decorated in a manner reminiscent of The Addams Family, which he dubbed "The Mausoleum".
The Flat Duo Jets' first release,
In Stereo
, was recorded live in 1985 and originally released on cassette by Dolphin Records. The band was also featured in a short bit for MTV's The Cutting Edge directed by
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Feris (who later went on to direct Little Miss Sunshine. A short stint in Athens, Georgia landed the band an appearance in the film
Athens, GA: Inside Out
, alongside other well-known Athens bands
R.E.M. and
The B-52's. Though recorded live to two tracks in a garage in the late 80s, the band's full-length debut LP, the self-titled
Flat Duo Jets
, was not released until 1990. In support of the album, the Flat Duo Jets went on a national tour opening for The Cramps, whom Dexter has cited as an early influence. 1990 also saw the band make an appearance on
Late Night with David Letterman, where they performed a fast-paced, high-energy version of Benny Joy's "Wild Wild Lover". Their second LP,
Go Go Harlem Baby
, was produced by
Jim Dickinson in 1992, and has been acknowledged as a huge influence on
Jack White of
The White Stripes, not least in the
Davis Guggenheim documentary
It Might Get Loud. In the film, White plays the record for
Led Zeppelin's
Jimmy Page and
U2's
The Edge, playing their version of the traditional
Froggie Went A-Courtin' and discussing the impact that the band had on him. The film also features footage from their appearance in
Athens, GA: Inside/Out
.
In the late 90's, The Flat Duo Jets signed a major label contract with Outpost Records, a now defunct imprint of Geffen Records. The result was 1998's
Lucky Eye
, produced by
Scott Litt and
Chris Stamey, which demonstrated a markedly different approach from their previous
lo-fi efforts. The album featured a more polished sound for the band, accompanied by horn and string arrangements. Poor album sales were met with disappointment by the band, and it was shortly after the release that, after nearly 15 years as a band, Dexter and Crow went separate ways. Dexter maintains that the primary reason for the split was embezzlement of the band's proceeds on the part of Crow, though Crow disputes this.
Dexter has said that he began to question his idolatry of self-destructive figures like
Elvis Presley,
Jerry Lee Lewis, actor
Errol Flynn, and poet
Charles Baudelaire. He also questioned the role that music played in his life and considered giving it up. Dexter has also said that he contemplated suicide around this time, only to find out that he was incapable of following through with it. In 2001, Dexter finally resurfaced with a new solo album,
Chased By Martians
, followed by
Blues That Defy My Soul
in 2004. Around this time, Dexter's influence was beginning to surface in interviews with artists like
Neko Case,
Cat Power and
Jack White of
The White Stripes. Dexter has referred to his influence as like being "locked away in a Gothic castle for many years" and "living in such isolation that I haven't even noticed." A major change of pace for Dex came in 2006 with the release of
Piano
, which consisted entirely of 13 original classical piano compositions in the style of Chopin.
Also in 2006, a documentary about Dex and The Flat Duo Jets began playing at select film festivals. Upon completion of Athens, GA: Inside/Out in 1987, director Tony Gayton began filming an untitled documentary of the Flat Duo Jets' national tour. After funding for the film fell through, production ceased and the film was forgotten. Funding the rest of the film himself, Gayton met up with Dexter in Los Angeles 16 years later and filmed new interviews with the intention of completing the film. The film, entitled Two Headed Cow, was eventually completed using a recovered VHS version of the original 16mm black and white footage, edited together with new interviews with Dexter, detailing his life and career, as well as performances in and around Los Angeles and interviews with Jack White,
Exene Cervenka of
X, Cat Power and Neko Case. As of 2009, the film has yet to be picked up for distribution, though it had a brief run on
DOC: The Documentary Channel.
Dexter's current band, The Dex Romweber Duo, began as Dexter and drummer
Crash LaResh,who performed with Dexter from 1995-2007. The original Duo toured extensively and recorded several 7 inch releases and co-wrote and recorded two full length Albums("Chased By Martians" and "Blues That Defy My Soul"), Crash LaResh has now been replaced by Dexter's older sister Sara Romweber. In 2009, the pair released
Ruins of Berlin
on Bloodshot Records, which featured guest appearances from Exene Cervenka, Cat Power, Neko Case, and longtime friend and fellow North Carolinian Rick Miller of
Southern Culture on the Skids. The band toured the U.S. twice in support of the record, playing support for
The Detroit Cobras on the second tour.
On the 29th and 30th of April 2009, Dex and Sara were invited to Jack White's Third Man Studio in Nashville, TN to record a 7" as part of Third Man Records' new "Blue Series". The sessions resulted in the Romweber original "The Wind Did Move", featuring Jack White on bass, background vocals and the saw, while the record's b-side was a cover of 1930's blues woman Geeshie Wiley's "Last Kind Word Blues", on which Dex and Jack share guitar and vocal duties. It was released on vinyl on June 9th, 2009, and on iTunes shortly after.
Dexter also fronts Dexter Romweber and The New Romans, an ensemble of 7 musicians and 3 female backing vocalists that began in 2006. They have released one limited CD called "Night Tide" and mainly play shows in their home state of North Carolina, more specifically in
The Research Triangle area of Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham. The music is diverse, drawing influences from jazz, surf, early instrumentals,
Bill Haley,
Ella Fitzgerald, and even
Chopin. The band continues to rehearse and experiment every Thursday night in Romweber's garage.
Discography
With the Flat Duo Jets
- In Stereo
(1985)
- Flat Duo Jets
(1990)
- Go Go Harlem Baby
(1992)
- Safari
(1993)
- White Trees
(1993)
- Introducing the Flat Duo Jets
(1995)
- Red Tango
(1996)
- Wild Blue Yonder
(1998)
- Lucky Eye
(1998)
- Two Headed Cow
(2008)
Solo discography
- ''Folk Songs: Solo Collection (1996)
- ''Chased by Martians (2001)
- ''Blues That Defy My Soul (2004)
- ''Piano (2006)
- ''Ruins of Berlin (2009)
Commentary
From Jeff Arndt's 2001 interview with Romweber
[1]
Much has been said about rockabilly roots-rocker Dexter Romweber over the years, both positive and negative, and sorting fact from fiction is no easy undertaking. Words like "crazy," "possessed," "frenzied," and "demented" get thrown around quite a bit. But so do words like "authentic," "visionary," "genuine," and "genius." Which of these terms most accurately describes the man is up for debate. While that last g-word is thrown around way too often these days, don't be too quick to dismiss this description of Dexter. As for the man himself, Romweber seems to shrug off the attention responding simply by saying, "You tend to get a reputation traveling around, playing rock-n-roll." Indeed. And Dexter's credentials precede him in this department.
Romweber has been "travelling around, playing rock-n-roll" since the mid-1980's. He and drummer Crow made up the seminal roots outfit Flat Duo Jets that hailed from Chapel Hill, NC and, for a short time, Athens, GA. Often pegged by critics and casual fans as simply rockabilly, the Duo Jets were adept at playing in a multitude of styles. Their music stemmed from a love of 50's rock-n-roll artists like Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Elvis, et al., and they played it with passion and abandon-exactly what rock-n-roll is all about.
From the start, Flat Duo Jets shows became legendary for the fierce drumming of Crow and the blazing guitar work of Romweber. The image of Crow lanky and hovering over his tiny kit, staring through his stringy black mane of hair toward Dex as he looks to the ceiling, briefly, before ripping into the opening riffs of a tune etched into the setlist inside his head is indelible. This WAS the Flat Duo Jets.
What distinguished this band from other retro outfits is that the Duo Jets were not really retro at all. While their music was certainly inspired by the rock-n-roll of the 1950's, one got the feeling that nothing was calculated. There was no marketing ploy on anyone's part to capitalize on a trend or movement at the time. Dex and Crow brought the music to life with such vitality and passion that the styles did not seem antiquated in their hands. This was the genuine article. This music was alive and well.
While much of the band's recorded output has a ragged, rushed feel to it, the Duo Jets were able to record some fine discs. Standouts are the Jim Dickinson-produced Go Go Harlem Baby, White Trees, and their last record, Lucky Eye, co-produced by Scott Litt and Chris Stamey. Dickinson played to the band's proven strengths on Harlem- deep grooves and rhythms, driving guitar, the interplay between Dex and Crow. The record has a spontaneous, kinetic feel to it that really captures the spirit of the band. White Trees sees the Duo Jets stretching a bit toward musical territories not previously explored by the two. The band flirts with more conventional rock song structures and a somewhat adventurous use of the recording studio, courtesy of producer Caleb Southern, with varying degrees of success.
References
- http://www.furious.com/perfect/flatduojets.html Dexter Romweber:
Beyond the Flat Duo Jets, Jeff Arnd