Rock romantic takes acoustic route

It's a bright Tuesday afternoon, and Bobby Martinez absorbs the sunlight like a solar eclipse.

Sitting on the patio of the Canvas Cafe, he's clad in a black leather jacket, a matching long-sleeve shirt and grayish jeans, a scruffy beard darkening his features, eyes playing hide and seek behind his long bangs.

"Not finishing things," he says between drags of a cigarette, "it kills me."

Martinez is a rock 'n' roll romantic, frequently quoting John Lennon, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Ray Davies and Buddy Holly over the course of a three-hour conversation. He's the kind of guy who skips trips to the dentist and the optometrist to spend his money on his music.

Until recently, Martinez has made waves fronting local psych rockers The Pandas, but the group drifted apart last year, having never recorded a full-length, to Martinez's chagrin.

"With the people in the band, something would happen every other week. It'd be like, 'Oh, I can't make the show 'cause I gotta work or I gotta do this or that,' " Martinez says. "I can't get mad at people for not being able to do it, they've got things to do, and it doesn't pay much. So I just thought, 'How can I still do this without letting people down or canceling shows?' "

And so he launched a new, acoustic-based project, Vietnam Cowboy, which consists primarily of Martinez and his harmonica, though he also has been playing with former Pandas drummer Spencer Burton.

Recently, Martinez hit the studio for a session overseen by Killers bassist Mark Stoermer, a friend of Martinez's, with the end result being the equally haunting and heartbroken "Turn Me Back," a spare yet sweeping tune with touches of cello that sounds like something you could hear on '60s AM radio (check it out at myspace.com/vietnamcowboy).

It's a promising start for Vietnam Cowboy, which just played its first show less than two weeks ago.

"I thought music would leave me when I turned 30," says Martinez, who once played with garage rock revisionists The Warlocks. "I had this sort of complex like, 'God, how long are you going to be rocking out up there before you feel ridiculous?' And I just started thinking of people who still do it really well, like Paul Weller from The Jam or Johnny Cash before he died. They grew with the music. I think that taking a more stripped down acoustic route is what makes me feel like I've grown with my stuff."

Over a couple of beers a few hours later, Martinez sounds increasingly invigorated. He has never had much luck with record deals or stable lineups. But then again, luck is fleeting, it's here one day and gone the next, and Martinez wants his tunes to be anything but.

"I want to make it work without taking the route that everyone else takes," he says firmly. "I have to believe in something," he adds. "And that's what I believe in."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.