Has it really been two years since MAGNET poked around in Howe Gelb’s garbage? Sharp-eyed readers will recall, of course, our in-depth look at Gelb and Giant Sand way back in issue #45—at the time the Chore Of Enchantment album had just been released by Thrill Jockey—not to mention assorted reviews, views and comments on the Tucson, Ariz., band as well as Sand offshoot Calexico (bassist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino’s much-lauded group) in subsequent issues. (Tellingly, during a recent MAGNET staff luncheon, we were accosted at a subway stop by a homeless person reeking of patchouli and South Philly merlot who, in an unsteady and vaguely menacing tone of voice, inquired, “So, how many Calexico references ya gonna have in the new issue, punks?”)

Obviously, it’s time to update the file via the following bull session with Gelb. And we’ll let you in on a dirty little secret of magazine publishing, too: You just can’t review every record by every band every time around, much less have full features. (OK, Guided By Voices is an exception, never mind that Bob Pollard’s alumni association is a major contributor to MAGNET’s charity of choice, the Save The Record Collector Geek Foundation.) That’s why God created the Internet, and for the time being, until AOL/Time Warner figures out a way to levy property taxes in cyberspace, Web turf is incredibly cheap compared to magazine pages. So keep your browser pointed to www.magnetmagazine.com, and meanwhile, enjoy the Sandage herein.

Following the release of Chore Of Enchantment—an album whose long, tortuous gestation just about killed Giant Sand—Gelb started making up for lost time. In between solo gigs and road treks with Giant Sand, he shifted into an extraordinarily productive phase, issuing no less than three solo albums—Down Home 2000, Confluence, Lull—and three Giant Sand archive releases—The Rock Opera Years, Selections Circa 1990 - 2000, Unsungglum—in less than two years. Several of these titles are available exclusively at shows or at www.giantsand.com; the elaborate Web site is another recent manifestation of Gelb’s personal resurgence.

Gelb, Burns and Convertino also did some much-needed air-clearing and fence-mending following a turbulent period that by all accounts was fraught with fractured communications. One day in 2001, following respective Calexico and solo Gelb tours, the trio convened in a Tucson studio and started screwing around with a handful of left-field cover tunes, stuff like “The Beat Goes On,” “King Of The Road,” Johnny Cash’s “I’m Leaving Now (Adios),” even Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand.” Assorted guests turned up at odd times to lay down tracks as well, yielding such deviant delights as Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” (Matthew Ward plus members of Tucson’s Libre de Gracia), X’s “Johny Hit And Run Paulene” (PJ Harvey, who also performed the song live with Giant Sand one memorable night in Tucson when she had a break from the U2 tour), Harvey’s “Plants And Rags” (Ward again) and a medley of “Wayfaring Stranger”/“Fly Me To The Moon” (Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, who rolled into town late one night when everybody had left the studio except Gelb, who greeted them at the door with beers and microphones).

The resulting album is called Cover Magazine (Thrill Jockey), quite naturally enough, although advance copies floated the original title Retirement with sufficient market penetration to spark concerned calls to the record label along the lines of, “Is this the last Giant Sand album? Are they breaking up?” In point of fact, the group did have discussions on whether to soldier on. As you’ll read below, both Calexico and Gelb as a solo act had become the respective members’ financial security, not the mothership’s operations. Yet instead of forcing Giant Sand out into the pasture, these matters—along with the intense pleasure the trio had recording the cover tunes—served to inject a newfound dose of freedom into the group. So press reports notwithstanding, Giant Sand lives.

Albeit as a seven-piece. In the past, Giant Sand has practiced the healthy art of collaboration, both on record and in concert. To that end, the lineup for its recent U.S. tour looked like this: Gelb, Burns, Convertino, violinist Susan Voelz (Poi Dog Pondering), trumpet player Noah Thomas (Libre de Grasa), guitarist/vocalist Saholy Diavolana and bassist/vocalist Laureline Prod’homme (the latter two appear on Cover Magazine). The lineup debuted in November at London’s Barbican Hall as part of the venue’s Americana-flavored “Beyond Nashville” concert series. The event, dubbed “Howestock” by the British press, featured guests Harvey, Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse), Evan Dando, Vic Chesnutt, Kurt Wagner (Lambchop) and John Parish & His Big Band.

So as with all things Giant Sand, nothing is permanent, yet everything somehow stays the same, too. That’s good, by the way.

I moved from Tucson to North Carolina last summer but had kept in touch with Gelb pretty regularly. We agreed to chat by phone recently to get the current lowdown recorded on tape as only a professional journalist and musician can do. (Full disclosure: a small segment of the Q&A below comes from an brief interview we did last year about the Giant Sand Web site and his Internet-only releases. As it addressed some matters pertinent to Gelb’s current situation, I decided to include that here.)

Sure enough, as the interview begins, Gelb immediately starts telling me to hold on. He’s distracted, first by the loud banging and sawing noises I hear in the background, the result of a new addition being added to the Gelb family’s barrio abode. Gelb drops the bombshell that he and his wife Sofie are expecting their second child, a daughter, so extra space is required.

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