Judah Bauer spent the better part of the 90s squirting out guitar licks for Jon Spencer, pausing briefly in 1996 to birth his requisite side project, the scraggly-but-earnest 20 Miles. Having convinced brother Donovan to spend four hours crouched in a studio, cranking out boorish, slappy blues-rock for the In the Red label (the session yielded a triple seven-inch package later that year), Bauer stumbled, unassumingly, into an entirely new musical pursuit: 20 Miles mixes American roots with scrappy blues rambling, fusing bar-band rock with ample rockabilly rolls. Shuffling through a variety of players (no two 20 Miles records boast quite the same lineup-- 2002's was recorded in Bauer's New York apartment, with cameos from friends and neighbors), Bauer also secured himself an artistic outlet that is, shockingly, far more stable than his previous outfit. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's discography is notoriously mottled, and 20 Miles is Bauer's golden opportunity to wail consistent.