Gina Villalobos at the Dogs Bolix and Aqua Velvet

Gina Villalobos writes a gritty type of country rock.

Gina Villalobos isn't the first to have a song entitled California, but her hymn to her home state, which opens her second solo album Rock'n'Roll Pony, with her keening voice cutting through a flurry of pedal steel guitars, is surely one of the most evocative.

It is an ode to the sunbaked, long-highway, wide open spaces between the territory's famous urban sprawls.

On the phone from Melbourne where she is touring before heading across the Tasman, Villalobos says she was trying to capture the feel of the drive from Los Angeles up Ventura Freeway to Santa Barbara.

She knows the road well, having grown up in the canyons behind the Malibu coastline.

Much of the rest of Rock'N'Roll Pony also has one foot in the breezy West Coast country-rock tradition, the other in something grittier.

"I was born and raised here. I definitely feel connected to the landscape of California and know it has been a big influence on me and my music."

Rock'N'Roll Pony is her second solo album. She had released a string of albums and EPs with previous bands Liquid Sunshine and the Mades before heading out alone in 2002 with debut solo album Beg From Me.

On the back of the two albums and much touring, Villalobos has started attaining a "best-kept secret" status, especially in Britain where she has won frequent favourable comparisons to the likes of alt-country queen Lucinda Williams.

After the politics of bands and record labels she prefers being in control of her own career. "It was the best decision I have ever made. I can tour as much as I want, write the songs I want ... and most importantly I can record the songs how I want."

And on Rock'N'Roll Pony that included a cover of Put the Message In the Box, originally by 90s British outfit World Party and songwriter Karl Wallinger, whose She's The One boosted the career of one Robbie Williams.

She has always liked the track from the small amount of airplay it got on its original release in the United States. But it took on a deeper meaning after she suffered an accident which has left her blind in one eye.

She was working a dayjob as a freelance camera assistant on a film set - her father is a cinematographer - and fell from a camera truck, hitting her head so hard it caused a detached retina in her right eye.

Villalobos underwent numerous operations. "I heard the song on the radio after one of my surgeries and it really hit me in the heart."

Villalobos says she has suffered some down times in the wake of the accident, and her impaired vision causes some problems performing.

The trauma has manifested itself in her songwriting - on I'm Alright she sings "I think I need an operation/ Come on and cut me up" as a blackly comic, come-hither line.

But Villalobos says it has made her the more determined with her music.

It sounds like she is happy her career might be picking up its own momentum and that word is getting around with her international touring which will keep her on the road - and one a long way from the Ventura Freeway - for the rest of the year.

Who: Gina Villalobos
Where & When: Dogs Bollix, Newton tonight; Aqua Velvet, Raglan tomorrow