The winners of “Best Local Band” in the 2024 East Bay Express Readers Poll, Joe Rut & The Sunshine Shovelers live shows have been garnering the group praise for their upbeat sound that harkens back to 60s/70’s Country Rock with occasional forays into a jammier psychedelic landscape. The driving rhythm section of drummer Tim Rowe (Crying Time, Trip Shakespeare) and bassist Russell Kiel (Ruby Lee Hill, Crying Time) careen like a an 18-wheeler searching for a runaway truck ramp on a windy 6% grade, while guitarist Jamie Duncan (The Dogweeds, Aaron Burnham & The Brushfires) drops jaws with his rapid-fire, jazz-infused Telecaster twanglin’.

Bay Area veteran songwriter Rut’s new batch of tales, tall and otherwise, are inhabited by human-scale superheroes and the broken and bent yet open-hearted strangers you meet on the road. There is a vague sense that there is something beautiful waiting just over the next hill, and even if there isn’t, you can always find Jesus after eating a bad gas station tunafish sandwich.

Their January 2026 album release party at The Ivy Room , a sold-out affair serving up hearty chili-con-carned of Cosmic Americana songs informed by Rut’s semi-vagabond lifestyle, set the bar high for good-time up-tempo Bay Area country rock.

Need someone to ride shotgun while you drive cross-country after a bad breakup? Joe Rut & The Sunshine Shovelers might just be your band.