Dexter Romweber

A unique, firebrand talent of American roots music, Dexter Romweber is best remembered as the leader, guitarist, and vocalist with the Flat Duo Jets, a (usually) two-man band who fused rockabilly, country, blues, jazz, surf, exotica, and any number of other influences as they roared through their performances with enough energy to power a small city. Though Romweber was generally more interested in passion than precision, he was an inspired guitarist and songwriter with an appetite for music of all sorts (and a fine judge of cover material), and the Flat Duo Jets' self-titled debut album, issued in 1990, was a vital outline of his creative world view. After the breakup of the Flat Duo Jets, Romweber continued as a solo artist with eclectic efforts like 2001's Chased by Martians and 2004's Blues That Defy My Soul before he teamed up with his sister Sara Romweber to launch the Dexter Romweber Duo with 2009's Ruins of Berlin. John Michael Dexter Romweber was born in Batesville, Indiana, on June 18, 1966. The family moved from Indiana to Florida before settling in Carrboro, North Carolina in 1977. Romweber's mother was a music lover and a pianist, and she encouraged her children's creative ambitions; she helped Dexter finance his music gear. Romweber was only ten when he formed his first band, Gary & the Resistors, with his friend Hunter Landon and his sister Sara Romweber. (Young Dexter was already a good judge of talent; Landon would go on to play in the Bad Checks, and Sara drummed with Snatches of Pink and Let's Active.) When he was in junior high, Romweber launched another combo, Crash Landon & the Kamikazes, and at the age of 17, he teamed up with drummer Chris Smith, aka Crow, to form the Flat Duo Jets, a stripped-down, two-man rock & roll band who mined America's musical past for inspiration while Romweber and Crow attacked their instruments with frantic intensity. In 1985, a small North Carolina label issued the Flat Duo Jets' debut release, a six-song cassette recorded live to two-track and fittingly titled In Stereo. That same year, the duo made a memorable appearance on MTV's alternative music show The Cutting Edge, giving them national exposure. In 1986, the Flat Duo Jets had relocated to Athens, Georgia, in time to make an appearance in Tony Gayton's documentary about the town's fabled music scene, Athens, GA: Inside/Out. I.R.S. Records issued a soundtrack album that featured two cuts from the duo, "Hazy Crazy Kisses" and "Jet Tone Boogie." In 1989, Jefferson Holt, then manager of R.E.M., founded Dog Gone Records, and Flat Duo Jets became one of his first signings. Flat Duo Jets, issued in 1990, was recorded live to two-track in a garage, and was one of their rare recordings as a trio, with Tone Mayer (aka Tone) on bass. The album won rave reviews and did well on college radio, and for their second full length release, 1991's Go Go Harlem Baby, they signed with another Georgia-based indie label, Sky Records. Sky (which reissued the In Stereo EP) folded not long after releasing 1993's White Trees, and later that year, Norton Records put out Safari, a collection of unreleased cassette recordings documenting the band from 1984 to 1987. Norton and the Flat Duo Jets were a great fit, and they would team up for two studio albums, 1995's Introducing Flat Duo Jets (produced by Norton co-founder Billy Miller and recorded in a single day), and 1996's Red Tango (also produced by Miller on a comparatively lavish three-day schedule). To the surprise of many, Flat Duo Jets made the jump to a major label when they signed with Outpost Recordings, a subsidiary of Geffen Records co-founded by producer Scott Litt. 1998's Lucky Eye, produced by Litt and Chris Stamey, was easily Romweber's most elaborate recording project, complete with horns, keyboards, and string arrangements, but the album was poorly promoted and failed to break the band to the mainstream audience. Romweber was disappointed with the album's lack of commercial success, and after the release of a live collection on Norton, 1998's Wild Blue Yonder, he had a falling out with Crow that led him to break up the Flat Duo Jets. A live album, Two Headed Cow, appeared in 2008, a concert filmed for a documentary of the same name on Romweber's life and music. Romweber had already released a solo album during the Flat Duo Jets era, a collection of odds and ends recorded over the space of several years titled Folk Songs: Solo Collection, issued in 1996. After the band dissolved, he cut an album with drummer Crash LaResh for Manifesto Records, 2001's Chased by Martians. 2004's Blues That Defy My Soul, released by Yep Roc, was produced by Rick Miller of Southern Culture on the Skids, and featured LaResh on percussion. 2006 saw Romweber take on two unusual projects. He had become fascinated with the classical piano compositions of Frédéric Chopin, and the album Piano contained 13 piano pieces Romweber wrote in the style of Chopin. While he tended to prefer minimal accompaniment, he debuted Dexter Romweber & the New Romans in 2006, a seven-piece band that featured three female backing vocalists. While the group rehearsed frequently, they played out only occasionally in North Carolina, and they issued an album in 2012, Night Tide. Neko Case, a longtime fan of Romweber's guitar work, invited him to play on her 2006 album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and she returned the favor by lending backing vocals on "Still Around," a track on the first album from the Dexter Romweber Duo, 2009's Ruins of Berlin, which also featured contributions from Cat Power, Exene Cervenka, and Kelly Hogan. The Duo featured Romweber and his sister Sara, and another fan, Jack White (who acknowledged he was strongly influenced by Romweber and the Flat Duo Jets), invited them to perform at his Nashville record pressing plant and performance space, Third Man Records. The show was recorded and released by White's Third Man label in 2010 as Live at Third Man. (White also sat in with the duo for a limited-edition single, "The Wind Did Move" b/w "Last Kind Word Blues.") Bloodshot Records released the second Dexter Romweber Duo set, Is That You in the Blue?, in 2011, and Images 13 followed in 2014. Romweber struck out on his own again in 2016 with a solo project, Carrboro, another Bloodshot release. In 2017, the long out of print debut album from the Flat Duo Jets was reissued in expanded form as Wild Wild Love. The Dexter Romweber Duo came to an end in 2019 with the death of Sara Romweber, and in 2023, Romweber returned as a solo act with the LP Good Thing Goin', issued by Propeller Sound Recordings. It proved to be the last album he would issue in his lifetime. Dexter Romweber died on February 16, 2024, at the age of 57.
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