WANT TO GO?

"Mountain Stage" with Ben Kweller, Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, Cyril Neville, Samantha Crain and Midnight Shivers and The Duke and The King

WHERE: Culture Center Theater, State Capitol complex

WHEN: 7 p.m. Sunday,

TICKETS: Advance $12.50, at the door $18

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Guitarist Dave Alvin bemoans the fact that his life's philosophy can be summed up by a Doris Day song.

"Yeah, I hate to say it," he said. "'Que Sera, Sera' is kind of how I live. I'm not a planner."

It just doesn't sound cool, even though he covers the song on his new album, "Dave Alvin And The Guilty Women."

Still, he can't say the easy-going approach hasn't worked. Alvin's 30-plus years playing have taken him all over the musical spectrum, from rockabilly and punk with The Blasters, X and The Flesh Eaters to solo projects that have embraced Americana, blues, bluegrass and roots music.

His latest outing is called Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, a gender flip from his last group Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men. They appear Sunday on Mountain Stage.

Alvin said putting together the band wasn't a novelty; it was a necessity. Speaking from his hotel room in Toronto, Alvin said, "I needed a change. Last year, my best friend, a guy by the name of Chris Gaffney, died and I was kind of blue -- to put it mildly."

He was in a funk, he said, and needed something to shake things up when the organizers for San Francisco's "Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass Festival" called. Alvin said he's appeared at the festival often, though usually he varies what he brings.

"Over the years, I've played with my all-male band and various other projects from solo acoustic to a full rock 'n' roll band," he said.

They asked Alvin if he wanted to bring something different this year.

He told them, "Yeah, an all-women band."

Committed, Alvin said he spent all of a day calling around and assembling the band. He knew plenty of players and the band is made up of female musicians from a wide background. Some he'd produced albums for; others had appeared on albums he'd produced; a few he'd jammed with.

"They were some of the best musicians I knew," he said.

Dobro player Cindy Cashdollar, for instance, has played across the musical spectrum, but is best known for Western swing due to her nine-year association with Asleep at the Wheel. Fiddle player Laurie Lewis, he said, comes from the world of bluegrass and bassist Sarah Brown has toured with blues giants Albert Collins and Buddy Guy.

"I wanted a band that could play anything I threw at them."

As if to test the theory, the band didn't rehearse before the festival. Getting together wasn't feasible. The group was scattered from Austin to Seattle. Instead, he sent them the music and stepped out on faith. 

Their first gig was in front of 12,000 people, and Alvin says it was amazing. He liked the organic feel of what resulted. So he took them into the studio and recorded an album, hoping to maintain the same feeling. Again, there was no rehearsing. Alvin says while they were recording, every day he'd bring in a song. They'd start from there and in three or four hours, they had a finished track.

"When you have this many people together," he said, "you have to leave a little bit to the hand of fate."

The music grew and is still growing with every performance, he says.

Dave Alvin and The Guilty Women have been on the road now for five weeks. Everybody seems to be having a good time, and he's thinking about recording a second album with the group, if their collective luck holds out. He's making no firm plans yet. They've supposed to be on the road for another three months and he thinks they might tire of him.

Que Sera, Sera, he says.