TWO favourites of Bob Harris on his BBC Radio 2 show team up to play York on Wednesday, ahead of the simultaneous British release of the fellow Californians' albums.

Stewboss's fifth record, Take Your Pretty Hands Off My Heart (Stewsongs Records), and Dead Rock West's roots rock debut, Honey And Salt (Populuxe Records) will be out on February 18.

Stewboss recorded their album live "guerrilla-style" in a Victorian house in Escondido, southern California, completing and mixing it in only four days in July 2006. Now, on tour, songwriter Gregg Sarfaty and fellow band member Frank Lee Drennen will be performing stripped-down versions of their turbulently emotional Americana songs that draw on John Fogerty, Woody Guthrie and Steve Earle.

Listen out too for acoustic Stewboss material that usually misses out on a live airing: Heaven Of Mine, The Midnight Shift, A Walk In Spain and Up That Wrinkled Street.

Drennen will be a busy man on the night: he also leads Dead Rock West, whose bittersweet songs are wrapped in the complexities of human emotion: love and loss, self-discovery and disillusionment. Doors open at 7pm, and York band Bo$$ Caine will be on first before the Californians take over. Tickets: £7 advance, £8 door.

  • Stewboss will be in session on Bob Harris's 11pm show on BBC Radio 2 on January 26.