Buy this album on |

Plying the choppy sonic waves between the best aspects of the roots rock ghetto, mid-80's Minneapolis punk and the vaunted Chicago noise guitar scene is Dollar Store's gritty, self-titled debut CD. Deano and the boys take old school chord progressions and slather them with textures, volume, and loose, angular noise to make them thick and greasy in the finest rock and roll tradition.

Featuring special guests guitarist Dave Alvin (Blasters, Knitters) and pedal steel master Jon Rauhouse (Neko Case, Kelly Hogan), Dollar Store have created a sound rooted in, and worthy of, the exciting fertile traditions from which they are drawing. The songs are full of characters staggering through a world that has let them down -- they are pounded down by work, abandoned by the world of mainstream music, and robbed of dignity by the government -- and they play them like the stage is on fire. There's even a killer cover of that long unheralded roots icon Cher.

"Dollar Store stir up a rootsy bar-band boogie that occasionally drifts into downtrodden common-man balladry; if the Jayhawks and Wilco stayed up real late getting ripped on cheap wine and bashing out Gram Parsons songs, it would sound something like this." Splendid-Ezine

"Even though fans of the Waco Brothers will clutch Dollar Store's disc to their hearts, Deano leaves himself enough room to maneuver beyond territory he's already staked out... there are hints of the desperado earnestness associated with Gram Parsons and the burly sensitivity of old man Haggard." New City

"There's little in the way of wasted space here as Schlabowske's songs are meticulously given the treatments that work best from song to song. Throughout Dollar Store's range, the trio's playing is impossible to ignore. Like it should, the CD also sits mighty fine with a pint and room on the dance floor as well." Shake it Up