Sometimes amateur musicians find middle age catching up with them while hopes of recognition, record label support, and touring have all receded like their hair lines and grasp of reality. In a last ditch effort to keep the rock alive these bands score a weekly gig at some bar that looks like it hasn’t been re-modeled since 1975. They bring beer guts, bad jokes, and some blues riffs to a crowd that is more concerned with getting drunk and hearing Skynyrd covers than digging the solo the guitarist spent two weeks writing. Deke Falcon sounds like one of those bands.

Sand In The Shower, Rust On The Road is Deke Falcon’s, and their record label Happy Mistake’s, first release. At their best, Deke Falcon sounds like Creedence Clearwater Revival minus the energy or the Black Keys minus the heart, while at their worst they sound like a mixture of airport lounge lizards and second-rate smoky bar blues bands.

The band draws on traditional roots rock elements like blues and country, but doesn’t add anything new, let alone demonstrate a mastery of them. The solos are fitting but not very impressive, the bass lines are typical, and the drumming is conventional. The band simply goes through the motions of basic blues and rock structures, while singer Patrick Hayden’s slurred bellowing often comes off lifeless or forced.

“Picking Up Sticks in ‘96” is the standout track here, either because it is the song that sounds most like the Black Keys with its warm fat guitar or because it is the only time Hayden really seems impassioned in his delivery. Either way, it does manage to rock and express an underlying zeal that is prerequisite for the blues, while at the same time it hints at what Deke Falcon is capable of when they shed their bar rock influences.