Cult calypso-blues guitarist Tom Rodwell visits Artworks Theatre on Waiheke Island on March 4th with his leftfield rent-party band Storehouse. "Singer/guitarist Tom Rodwell’s extraordinary revision of blues and gospel always gets the joint jumping", says Metro magazine. "Sheffield's answer to Lightnin' Hopkins", says the NME.

Roots guitar music is rarely as evocative as on Tom Rodwell’s Wood & Waste, an album that moves easily between raw pre-rock structures and darkly sensual grooves, just as his on-stage group Storehouse speaks a secret language of rhythm & blues - vivid, propulsive and uncommon.

Although the LP charted on US radio (notching up 7 months of rotation), gained international media coverage and secured distribution with the legendary Cargo Records UK, Wood & Waste flew mostly under the radar in New Zealand, launching just as Omicron washed ashore.

The album was tracked and mixed with no computers at all, entirely on analogue tape at Neil Finn's Roundhead Studios, with mastering and vinyl lacquer-cutting by legendary LA engineer Kevin Gray. This all-analogue approach ensured the album has been picked up by audiophile specialists such as Groovy Wax (London) and Elusive Disc (US).

The Listener’s Graham Reid was one who did take note, naming it one of his top albums of the year. “The subtle and supple shapeshifting Wood & Waste reveals depths and delights at every turn,” he wrote.

Consequently, a much-anticipated 14-date NZ concert series over late summer seeks to redress the balance, trafficking rolling and tumbling treatments of Wood & Waste material, alongside new tunes from recent tape studio sessions, stretches of improvisation and sacrilegious dives into a greasy barrel of calypso and gospel obscurities.

“We’re pleased to be able to bring it all to a lot of different towns this time,” says Rodwell. “The live experience is a special one, and we aim to make each night a distinct kettle of fish.”