Rolling Country 2008 Thread

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Here we go, Rolling Country '08. I hope everyone's got their black-eyed pea recipe of choice on the boil. Mine's pretty basic, no hoppin' john, just a few cow peas, a smidgen of pork, water and plenty o' rice.

Here's the link to '07: Rolling country 2007 thread

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 1 January 2008 15:23 (seventeen years ago)

My '08 c&w list so far (I wrote about some of these toward the bottom of Rolling Country '07; the '07 albums below are ones I connected with after sending in my '07 Idolator/Pazz&Jop/Nashville scene ballots, which hereby makes them eligible for the new year):


Mechanical Bull – A Million Yesterdays (Woodstock Musicworks ‘07)
Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
Finn and the Sharks – Breakfast Special (UpSouth reissue)
Horror Pops – Kiss Kiss Kill Kill (Hellcat)
Chris Cagle – This Is Chris Cagle (Capitol promo ’07)
Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (New West)
Kim Richey – Chinese Boxes (Vanguard ’07)
Terri Clark - My Next Life (BNA unreleased promo '07)
Chuck Wicks – Starting Now (RCA)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 1 January 2008 15:46 (seventeen years ago)

Of those, Horror Pops -- who call themselves a psychobilly band -- stretch the "country" definition the most.

Terri Clark's album took me forever to get around to, partly because it starts out really slow and kind of meh (even despite an okay opener where Terri says that in her next life she'll do some things different, for instance she'll leave her shirt on at Mardi Gras.) But it picks up by the fourth or fifth track. Favorite songs are "Dirty Girl" (self-explanatory), "Nashville Girls" with Sara Evans, Martina McBride, and Reba McEntire (which claims there's a reason Nashville girls have big hair -- apparently because it doesn't go out of style or something), and "Live From America (It's Saturday Night)" (which sounds like a cross between Zevon/ Rondstadt's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" and Kenny Loggins's "Whenever I Call You Friend," and which contains a reference to the title of Chris Cagle's "Wal-Mart Parking Lot.") Also like "Happy Yet" (post-breakup song where she's not going to call her ex back until she's not happy anymore, with a cool '80s AOR-pop synth beat percolating beneath) and "Gypsy Boots" (hard kinda funky blues); best slow one is probably "The Only Time You Call" (is when you're drunk). Doesn't seem any less consistent than several albums Nashville put out last year; not sure why it was shelved, except that Nashville really likes shelving stuff (Bomshel, Phil Vassar, Ahsley Monroe) and sending it back to the drawing board, often indefinitely, these days. (Maybe that's not a new development; just weird how often labels send advance promos out then change their minds.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 1 January 2008 15:58 (seventeen years ago)

I'm still batting around 2007, as always won't send my Nashville Scene ballot in and until the last second. Albums are a quandary, not as good at the top but way deeper than my list last year, singles almost as good at the top but not nearly as deep, possibly having nothing to do with the year but just that I waited until the last second to go searching out the heaps and heaps of singles I hadn't listened to earlier in the year. But also the record companies and I diverged even further than usual on the subject of what album track deserved to be a single.

So, I decided to disqualify Ashley Monroe since her album still hasn't been released and she was mainly on my list to prevent it from being shitty. And eliminated 2007's Bettye LaVette on account of the album being mostly a gigantic bore. Good soulful voice doing standard soulful things, most interesting fact about it was the admirable insertion of psychobabble that hadn't previously made its way into classic soul. A few tracks started off gripping but lasted long enough to lose their grip. One or two that I'll describe as "minor-key blues" (which is a wrong description, I know, since the blues are neither major nor minor, but these feel minor-key for finding their way to the doleful side of the chords) (or something) hung on for me, so I'll return sometime.

Anyhow, my 6 through 10 slots are wide open with about 14 contenders, but I'll eliminate the Sarah Buxton EP, which has one great track (her version of "Stupid Boy"), one quirkily good ("That Kind Of Day"), a couple more not bad, and one that I haven't heard. Also eliminating Richard Thompson, though his album was way better than I was expecting. I described him over on poptimists as the man with the deep gargly masculine manly voice, with a dramatic delivery that always seems slightly comic (or maybe that's my projecting the idea that such drama should be comic). In the past I've had trouble hearing the deep gargly voice as all that musical, which is why I liked him best with Sandy Denny singing lead or harmony. I still have that block against the those rocks in his throat, but he came up with a load of nice melodies, and his voice connects to them fairly well. Van Zant's My Kind Of Country puts a great ringing guitar sheen on Southern rock going Cougar-Springsteen, and I'm mostly willing to put aside my antipathy to the dull and boring and uninteresting and tedious and tiring and dull and boring audience pandering of their lyrics, but the singing's not quite good enough. John Waite, high-voiced Babys pop 'n' all, was way more penetrating in a blues-soul way than Bettye, not enough good songs. The Carrie Underwood has more good songs than I thought at first but her big brassy voice is actually too much for a lot of them. I kept wishing that Ashley Monroe were singing (I read somewhere that Monroe co-wrote the album opener on Carnival Ride, but I never checked).

So that leaves Little Big Town, Jack Ingram, Toby Keith, Black Angel, Schultze Gets The Blues, Taylor Swift (for her Xmas EP), Blake Shelton, and John Anderson all scrapping for the final five spots. (I arbitrarily decided that the Kid Rock alb wasn't country enough, though I just as easily could've said the same about Black Angel, but I'd spent more time on the latter so kept them in the running.) So which three will get voted off the island? Stay tuned.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 02:15 (seventeen years ago)

I'm still puzzled that Chris couldn't hear Miley Cyrus's "See You Again" as rockabilly. Maybe "rockabilly" is the wrong word, since I'm not referring to the "Mystery Train" blues-based styles but more the heavily reverbed, menacing half-ballads that I associate with someone like Johnny Cash. Except I'm not that well-listened in Johnny Cash, and the style doesn't come from Cash alone, by any means. The song I keep citing is Jace Everett's "Bad Things" from last year, but when I heard that song I felt there were hundreds of previous songs like it. (Could someone here point me to one of them?) Whether it's called "rockabilly," it's somewhere from the old intersection c. 1960 of rock 'n' roll and country. But as for "See You Again" (second song down on her MySpace), the reverb, the biting guitar, the melody, the chords, the delivery all place it here in "rockabilly" (or whatever you want to call it). I mean, it practically jumps up and screams WE ARE PLAYING ROCKABILLY GUITAR, USING ROCKABILLY REVERB. Maybe someone who knows music theory better than I do can help me explain what I'm hearing in the chords that make them "rockabilly." The key is A minor, with F a crucial chord, F being the subdominant of C, which is A minor's relative major. Having just said that, I have no idea if it's significant or not. I know some music "theory," but not in a way that I can put to any useful critical use. The F-E-Am progression when she sings "I can't wait to see you again" seems most emblematic.

I wouldn't say that Miley's singing is menacing at all, or that the song is menacing, but that reverbed guitar automatically puts foreboding into the atmosphere. Which is interesting, since the song's lyrics are optimistic - she's figured out that he can't wait to see her again, and she's sure that next time she's not going to go all stammering and short of breath, but...

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 15:16 (seventeen years ago)

Meta post:

The Little Big Town alb has the handicap that I only got it recently, and the Jack Ingram that I only just now started paying much attention; Black Angel might benefit from my having first heard it last week, since I might decide in the long-run that the sketchiness of J.C. Martin's voice cripples everything, whereas at the moment my reaction is that it's a swamp-shaking rocker with a sketch of a voice on top. It (O' Santa Barbara; I haven't yet heard the Xhuxk-preferred O' California) is an alb that benefits from my All-Albums-Are-EPs Rule; so does Schultze Gets The Blues; whereas the Taylor Swift Xmas EP, being an EP, suffers from the role - as a three-song single it's ace, however. Still, three ace songs from a wonderfully fetching, slight, vengeful voice certainly works in its favor, as does its not having eight or so superfluous songs' worth of noodling around like the Black Angel (though of course I can use the memory button to erase those eight from the historical record, so to speak).

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 17:18 (seventeen years ago)

suffers from the role = suffers from the rule

(She actually does quite well in the role; note to Taylor Swift suitors: if you love her and leave her you will end up in a song.)

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 17:21 (seventeen years ago)

When Black Angel get their whole wheezing, murked-up apparatus pumping in its groove the record is fine, the niggling-scratching guitar lines working like Cezanne, strokes-in-motion, teeming with mites and grubs. Are like James Williamson-era Stooges piss 'n' pulse tracks ("Penetration" and "Death Trip"), though not as good, of course. Problem is the slow tracks that go songish, the stuff that makes it most country, actually, that takes after Stones twanged and yowled yuk-yuks like "Dear Doctor" and "Sweet Virginia" and "Dead Flowers" and "Country Honk," which were my least favorite tracks from the '68-'72 Stones anyway. If I jigger my rationalizations to get this album on my list, it'll be by reasoning that the Exile swamp groove makes it country-by-association (w/ Brooks & Dunn), as do the country yuks, even if actually the Stooges-like piss throwers are what get it my ranking. Standout track: "I Never Get Over You."

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 17:46 (seventeen years ago)

Also, despite Martin's vocal limitations, he should forbid "Audrey Turner" and Lois Mahalia from doing anything but singing in the background, as their Tina Turner tropes get in the way when they take center stage. Is why the three Stones covers don't come off.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 17:56 (seventeen years ago)

BIRD REPORT: While compiling my country's singles list yesterday, I heard three bird flips in one day. Sarah Johns flips a bird ("The One In The Middle," duh), Sarah Buxton gets the bird flipped on her ("That Kind Of Day"), and so does Craig Morgan ("International Harvester").

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 19:02 (seventeen years ago)

Blake Shelton Pure BS. Strong, state-of-the-art, likable, intelligent guy; doesn't have the prettiest or most distinctive voice (not a John Anderson or a Gary Allan), so he puts out. I don't know why most of this doesn't connect for me. The tracks that do are the weepers: "I Have Been Lonely," the sort of rock 'n' roll lament that Gary Allan was doing well a couple of albums ago. I wish there were some like it on the new Gary Allan, but I also wish it were Gary Allan singing this. "Back There Again" I wrote about last year; it still touches me, quiet sadness then gets loud and expressive without losing its feeling of loneliness. There's something sophisticated in the chord pattern that one of you will have to explain better than I can - reminds me of the sort of ambitious pop that someone like Charlie Rich could pull off. Blake strains a bit on it, but he does well.

I like the intent of the rockers on here, they just don't manage to kick through the door.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 19:27 (seventeen years ago)

Someone on livejournal suggested Duane Eddy in relation to the Miley song, which I can definitely hear in the guitar tone and also the way the guitar curls at the end of verses in "Shazam" being similar to Miley's voice on "I can't wait to see you again." (Also like how much the bass player looks like George Sanders.)

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 21:35 (seventeen years ago)

Frank Kogan's Country Music Critics ballot

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2007:

1. Miranda Lambert Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Columbia Nashville)
2. Travis Tritt The Storm (Category 5)
3. Gretchen Wilson One Of The Boys (Columbia Nashville)
4. LeAnn Rimes Family (Curb)
5. Brooks & Dunn Cowboy Town (Arista Nashville)
6. Various Artists Schultze Gets The Blues soundtrack (Normal Release)
7. Black Angel O' Santa Barbara (Outsiders)
8. John Anderson Easy Money (Raybaw/Warner Bros.)
9. Toby Keith Big Dog Daddy (Show Dog Nashville)
10. Taylor Swift Sounds Of The Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (Big Machine)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2007:

1. Miley Cyrus "See You Again" (Walt Disney)
2. LeAnn Rimes "Nothin' Better To Do" (Curb)
3. Taylor Swift "Teardrops On My Guitar" (Big Machine)
4. Miranda Lambert "Gunpowder And Lead" (Columbia Nashville)
5. Reba McEntire f. Kelly Clarkson "Because Of You" (MCA Nashville)
6. Gretchen Wilson "You Don't Have To Go Home" (Columbia Nashville)
7. Sarah Johns "The One In The Middle" (BNA)
8. Toby Keith "High Maintenance Woman" (Show Dog Nashville)
9. Gretchen Wilson "One Of The Boys" (Columbia Nashville)
10. Tim McGraw "Last Dollar (Fly Away)" (Curb)

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2007:

1. Neil Young Live At Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise)
2. The Stanley Brothers The Definitive Collection (Time Life)
3. -
4. -
5. -

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:

1. Toby Keith
2. John Anderson
3. Travis Tritt

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:

1. Taylor Swift
2. LeAnn Rimes
3. Miranda Lambert

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2007:

-

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2007:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Rivers Rutherford

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2007:

1. Brooks & Dunn
2. Black Angel
3. Little Big Town

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2007:

1. Ashley Monroe
2. Sarah Johns
3. Rissi Palmer

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2007:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Travis Tritt

COMMENTS:

Sorry Geoffrey, I waited until the last minute and have no real time for comments. "See You Again" qualifies as country not 'cause of Miley Cyrus's last name or her Tennessee heritage but because of the reverbed rockabilly guitar and the way her raw throat takes on a menacing half-ballad melody worthy of Johnny Cash. And she makes my number one because of the way she brings her goofy sweetness to this, with lyrics that are essentially about shyness - exuberantly about shyness!

Happy New Year.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 January 2008 05:25 (seventeen years ago)

I've been listening to the Wink Keziah record, and I really like it. He truly ain't much of a singer but his songs are good, basic and somewhat terror-stricken yet resilient essays into that hammer-coming-down feeling when you know you're gonna walk in your door into some shit with your woman, a song about traveling in Texas at high speeds, and songs about being in a bar.

I see Frank voted for Miranda Lambert at #1. Hmm. I didn't, and here's my best albums/singles/reissues from my ballot:

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2007:

1. John Anderson, Easy Money (Raybaw/Warner Bros.)
2. Charlie Louvin, Charlie Louvin (Tompkins Square)
3. The Greencards, Viridian (Dualtone)
4. Billy Burnette and Shawn Camp, The Bluegrass Elvises Vol. 1 (American Roots Publishing)
5. Johnny Bush, Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston’s Country Soul (Icehouse)
6. Cole Deggs & the Lonesome, Cole Deggs & the Lonesome (Sony/BMG Nashville)
7. Travis Tritt, The Storm (Category 5)
8. The Hackensaw Boys, Look Out! (Nettwerk)
9. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand (Rounder)
10. Sarah Johns, Big Love in a Small Town (BNA)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2007:

1. Keith Urban, "Stupid Boy"
2. Gary Allan, "Watching Airplanes"
3. Sarah Johns, "The One in the Middle"
4. Elizabeth Cook, "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman"
5. Sara Evans, "As If"
6. Miranda Lambert, "Famous in a Small Town"
7. Kenny Chesney, "Shiftwork"
8. Toby Keith, "High Maintenance Woman"
9. Jason Michael Carroll, "Livin’ Our Love Song"
10. Taylor Swift, "Tim McGraw"

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2007:

1. John Anderson, 2 (American Beat)
2. The Stanley Brothers, The Definitive Collection: 1947-1966 (Time-Life)
3. Moby Grape, Moby Grape (Sundazed)
4. Dolly Parton, Coat of Many Colors (Sony)
5. Gene Clark, With the Gosdin Brothers (Sundazed)

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 3 January 2008 15:31 (seventeen years ago)

Okay, I was waiting for somebody else to go first. Here's mine (I left Taylor Swift off my album list and the Trikont Records: Dirty Laundry: Soul of Black Country compilation -- technically released in 2004 in Germany! -- off my reissue list even though I'd voted for them in P&J/Idolator because Geoff's letter seemed way more strict about release dates, but worrying about release dates for singles that impacted this year seeemed pointless):

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2007:
1. Little Big Town – A Place To Land (Equity Music Group)
2. (Various Artists) – Motel Lovers: Southern Soul From the Chitlin Circuit (Trikont)
3. Flynnville Train – Flynnville Train (Show Dog)
4. Miranda Lambert – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Columbia)
5. Kid Rock – Rock n Roll Jesus (Atlantic)
6. Jack Ingram – This Is It (Big Machine)
7. The Bellamy Brothers – Jesus Is Coming (Curb)
8. Blake Shelton – Pure B.S. (Warner Bros.)
9. Toby Keith – Big Dog Daddy (Show Dog)
10. (Various Artists) – Shultze Gets The Blues (Normal/Filmkombinat)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2007:
1. Tim McGraw “Suspicions” (Curb)
2. Toby Keith – “High Maintenance Woman” (Show Dog)
3. Taylor Swift – “Our Song” (Big Machine)
4. Pat Green - "Way Back Texas" (BNA)
5. Rissi Palmer - "Country Girl" (1720 Entertainment)
6. Dierks Bentley - "Free And Easy (Down the Road I Go)" (Capitol)
7. Miranda Lambert – “Famous In A Small Town” (Columbia)
8. Keith Urban – “Stupid Boy” (Capitol)
9. Sarah Johns - "The One In The Middle" (BNA)
10. Black Angel – “One Beer” (Outsiders Record Company)

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2007:
1. Charlie Rich – The Essential (Epic/Legacy)
2. . (Various Artists) – Goodbye Nashville Hello Camden Town: A Pub Rock Anthology (Castle)
3. .(Various Artists) – Art of Field Recording: Volume 1 (Diesel + Dust)
4. John Anderson – John Anderson 2 (American Beat)
5. Dr. Hook – Greatest Hooks (Capitol)

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:
1. Toby Keith
2. John Anderson
3. Travis Tritt

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:
1. Taylor Swift
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Gretchen Wilson


COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2007:
1. Little Big Town
2. Flynnville Train
3. Black Angel

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2007:
1. Flynnville Train
2. Cole Deggs & the Lonesome
3. Sarah Johns

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2007:
1. Little Big Town
2. Taylor Swift
3. Miranda Lambert

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 January 2008 15:36 (seventeen years ago)

(Diesel + Dust)

Probably the tenth time I've got that wrong; I don't know what my problem is. Should be Dust-to-Digital! I've also been liking that label's Black Mirror: Reflections In Global Musics CD, by the way.

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 January 2008 15:38 (seventeen years ago)

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:
1. Toby Keith
2. John Anderson
3. Travis Tritt

Frank and I voted exactly the same in this category! I voted for the best vocalist categories more on the basis of singing per se' than I have in the past, so Anderson and Tritt got my votes (as did Gretchen Wilson in the female category) even though I found their albums (all of which had some songs I liked a lot on them) too spotty to give votes to.

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 January 2008 15:44 (seventeen years ago)

I'd have voted "Stupid Boy" for sure except I was counting it as last year (when I should have voted it but listed it about 18th). And "Tim McGraw" I did vote last year.

Here are my 11 through 20: (11) Eric Church "Sinners Like Me" (Capitol Nashville), (12) Rissi Palmer "Country Girl" (1720 Entertainment), (13) Carrie Underwood "So Small" (19 Recordings/Arista Nashville), (14) Faith Hill "Lost" (Warner Bros.), (15) Sarah Buxton "That Kind Of Day" (Lyric Street), (16) Big & Rich "Between Raising Hell And Amazing Grace" (Warner Bros.), (17) Alan Jackson "Small Town Southern Man" (Arista), (18) Tim McGraw "Suspicions" (Curb), (19) Rodney Atkins "Cleaning My Gun" (Curb), (20) Billy Currington "Tangled Up" (Mercury Nashville)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 January 2008 19:28 (seventeen years ago)

Anthony's ballot and commentary here.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 January 2008 19:33 (seventeen years ago)

Here's mine:

xxx

I didn't do one. Thanks for sending me a ballot anyway, Frank. It woulda been all Mexicans and Chicanos anyway, plus maybe Adrienne Young and Eilen Jewell and Gary Allan. Oh well, country music, it's been fun re-discovering you, but you're not doing anything for me anymore, and I've found someone new.

Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 3 January 2008 19:37 (seventeen years ago)

the Taylor Swift Xmas EP, being an EP, suffers from the role - as a three-song single it's ace

But Frank, which three songs?? Don't leave us hanging!

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 January 2008 20:15 (seventeen years ago)

"Christmases When You Were Mine," "Santa Baby," "Silent Night," and "Last Christmas," in that order, and that's four not three. And the other two aren't bad either.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 January 2008 20:23 (seventeen years ago)

hmm, here's my almost-the-same-as-Chuck's-and-Frank's best male vocalists:

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:

1. John Anderson
2. Toby Keith
3. Trace Adkins

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 4 January 2008 14:42 (seventeen years ago)

I once got a mocking letter-to-the-editor at the Voice for saying that Rodney Atkins had more of a higher register than Trace Adkins did.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 4 January 2008 14:56 (seventeen years ago)

"See You Again" up to 48 on the Hot 100, but still nowhere on country radio, which prefers the boring duet with dad.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 January 2008 02:35 (seventeen years ago)

Been listening to the first two Black Angel albums, from before they started naming all their albums O'Someplace. The first one, 13 Stories, is a compilation of stuff recorded between 1991 and 2000, when they were apparently technically called the Black Angel Girls, and indeed all the songs are sung by women doing the Tina Turner thing and vaguely gospelish stuff (Lois Minato, Andrea Buchanan, and Shawn Larsen get vocal credits), and the album doesn't have memorable tunes and the songs lack momentum and it's basically a washout, though songs sounds might improve if J.C. Martin sang them. It does initiate one trend which is carried to rather absurd extremes on the much better (if annoying named) second album Real Music For Real People from 2003 -- namely, songs about breasts, frequently naked ones. Actually there may be only one line to that effect on 13 Songs (namely a song where one of the singers says you'll never get to touch them), but several more, and not always clever or funny or sexy ones unfortunately, on the followup. I am amused by "I'm a Fool (for a Selfish Girl With a Good Pair of Breasts)," though. Still, RMFRP is a good record, if nowhere near the level of O'Whatever albums. Good country-Stones swamp-honkers include "Broke Dick Dog" and "Drive, She Said" and especially "Inglewood Jail" (unlike Frank, apparently, I can usually get sucked into these kind of Black Angel songs on the basis of the pretty melodies alone); "Rock'n'Roll Chick (With a Bad Attitude)" and "Rock Star" (which has more energetic hooks than the Nickelback one though maybe not words as good, who knows) and the goofy "Yummy Friend" are pushier, harder rocking Stone rips; "I Never Got Over You" has the sort of riff that I expect Frank would say verges into Raw Power Stooges territory; "I've Got My Eyes On You, Baby" is a great vamp with not much of a song attached; "Stoned in Los Angeles" is almost mid/late '70s art-punk new wave (sort of sounds like it could have come from Cleveland around then) that turns into a irritatingly obvious list of famous people (Cobain, Belushi, Joplin, Jim Morrison, Keith Richards so obviously not all dead ones) who "were stoned." Songs I like least are probably the blatant funk attempt "I Just Wanna Funk Ya" and the blatant mush attempt "Blonde Adventure" (where the singer begs that said blond adventure also be his "topless dancer"). So yeah, just like the Holy Modal Rounders, Black Angel apparently like boobs a lot.

xhuxk, Sunday, 6 January 2008 14:47 (seventeen years ago)

some songs might improve, I meant.

and an irritatingly obvious list (obviously).

I also relistened to the Jason Michael Carrol album from last year on New Year's Eve, for some reason, and I want to say that "Lookin' At You," the song that had briefly reminded me melody-wise of Ryan Paris's '80s Italo-disco classic "Dolce Vita" last year (see January 15, 2007 rolling country thread post) still does. Said song also contains a line about driving cars into mailboxes, just like "Chicks Dig It" by Chris Cagle. So maybe that's a new trend.

xhuxk, Sunday, 6 January 2008 14:55 (seventeen years ago)

I have driven a car into a mailbox, several mailboxes.

Did we talk about Further Down, the Jonesboro, Ark. Southern rock band featuring two cousins of grey eminences in Southern rock and classic rock--Tommy Shaw and Jim "Dandy" Mangrum? I can't remember. Anyway, they're playing Nashville and sent me their debut 7 Years Hard Luck which appears to have come out in '06. Man, some of this made me really happy, great churning Motor City-style overload on some songs and some nice fat hooks on almost all of it. Sounds great too, recorded at Ardent in Memphis. My favorite song on a record full of quotable lines is the one called "Power of Revelation" which isn't about what you might think but rather kind of about what you might think--the guy wants this girl and to convince her he says that Jesus would have used the exact same pickup lines as he is using! "I know that your Savior said the things I said," and the girl is a barfly with bad cigarette cough and so forth, so the advice he gives her, to unburden herself of everything including underwear, is perhaps merited. "Maiden, she takes off her Sunday dress/Oh, my maiden, when she gives me Sunday's best" are amazing lines. The opener is called "Black & Bleach" and it's a vengeance song about how he's coming down off the mountain to burn down this other woman's town, but first he tells her, god-dammit: "So come back down [ed.note: off the mountain] and bring me cash/And tell me what you want me to get/Because the dark side of your life is where I live." Did we talk about this one already?

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 6 January 2008 20:05 (seventeen years ago)

Real Music For Real People

This title is familiar! Perhaps I heard the album. Or perhaps the phrase's familiarity is due to its being a familiar phrase.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 January 2008 21:35 (seventeen years ago)

Someone on livejournal suggested Duane Eddy in relation to the Miley song, which I can definitely hear in the guitar tone

Yeah, that's pretty blatant, now that you mention it. I forget if Frank had burned me "See You Again" on one of his mix CDs or not; if so, it somehow didn't jump out at me from them. But it definitely jumped out at me while I was listening to Z-100 in the kitchen today, and yeah, the rockabilly in Miley's vocal inflections wasn't hard to hear, either. What hell, maybe it will make my 2008 top ten singles list, since it will have more impact this year anyway. So...naive, uninformed question that I could easily research myself: Is "See You Again" off the Hannah Montana album from this year, or what? And what about "GNO Girls Night Out" (which Frank definitely did burn, and which I also like, though probably not as much)? Are they on the same album, or just spare tracks from somewhere, or what? I've got the first Hannah Montana album, which has nothing as good as these two songs on it, I don't think, but that's it. I am so out of it. (Among the other stuff I liked, very belatedly, on Z-100 today was Britney's "Pieces of Me," Fergie's "Clumsy," Rihanna's "Shut Up And Drive," Taylor Swift's "Teardrops On My Guitar" {on top 40 radio! In New York Fucking City! How weird is that? Okay, maybe not so weird after a year of "Before He Cheats"...} and some other girl-song I couldn't place, though I assume it's obvious and my ignorance is going to inspire guffaws and chortles from people who have been paying closer attention to pop radio than me in recent months: It sounded vaguely Pink-like, but definitely Pink in rocker -- maybe even slightly rockabilly too? -- mode, and I feel like it had one part that went something like "now I've got you where I want you." Any ideas, anybody?)

xhuxk, Sunday, 6 January 2008 21:59 (seventeen years ago)

Okay, yeah, just checked Amazon; both songs are on Disc 2 of Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, which also has "East Northumberland High," which has a great title and which I've heard good things about but not to my knowledge actually heard per se'. Anybody have any opinions about how good the double-disc is? Or is Disc 2 available separately in any big-box establishment exclusive? (Should I bother?)

xhuxk, Sunday, 6 January 2008 22:09 (seventeen years ago)

I spent the afternoon at the PBR bull riding championships at Madison Square Garden, and I don't think I heard a single country song over the loudspeakers the whole time. It was all Def Leppard, Metallica, ZZ Top, and whatever that hip-hop song from this year with the steel drum sample is. The national anthem was sung by the lead vocalist from Long Island-based Lilith-fair-headliners-if-it-still-existed Antigone Rising.

unperson, Sunday, 6 January 2008 22:19 (seventeen years ago)

Weird! And I'm jealous; that sport is really to watch on TV. This PBR soundtrack from seven years ago was almost all country (well, country-rock, including Montgomery Gentry covering Bon Jovi), but maybe that's changed in recent years:

http://www.amazon.com/Dancin-Thunder-Official-Professional-Riders/dp/B00005O68X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1199658059&sr=8-3

By the way, I just re-posted my Miley questions on the rolling bubblegum thread, where they are more applicable; answers might make more sense there, too.

Latest entertaining addition to the girl-rockabilly-singer-with-lounge tendencies sweepstakes (see also: Devil Doll, Sarah Borges And the Broken Singles) is Fingerprints by Britt Savage & Twang Deluxe, who says on her cdbaby page that you will like her if you like Blondie, Amy Winehouse, and Nancy Sinatra, and wears mini-skirts with mod patterns to match. Real strong singer, capable of pop stuff (which she's apparently done in the past) as much as country, which helps her -- Ballads like "Broken" (belted almost Laura Branigan style) and "Truce" are preferably to most of the competition's ballads (though "This Town Can't Keep A Secret" is too much reverent kitsch), but the faster Carlene Carter style pub-rockabilly cuts (especially "Last Flight To Vegas" and "Fearless" so far) are preferable to the ballads, and she does what's probably the best version of "Secret Agent Man" I've heard since Devo's in the early '80s. Also like how "I Found Love" progresses from rockabilly guitars to gospel backup choruses. Very professional, non-anorexic production for a self-released record, too; she evidently has some connections in non-low places:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/brittsavage

http://www.myspace.com/brittsavage

xhuxk, Sunday, 6 January 2008 22:34 (seventeen years ago)

oops: that sport is really fun to watch on TV

xhuxk, Sunday, 6 January 2008 22:36 (seventeen years ago)

The only other Real Music For Real People album I found in a quick look online was a compilation by DJ Language (whoever he is); there is also Real Music For Real People From Kankakee To Malibu, which was compiled by Doug Rapier, James Riordan, George Lord, and Thomas & Nancie Evoniuk. Then there's a whole series of "spectrum" records: ____ Spectrum: Real ____ For Real People, e.g., Jazz Spectrum: Real Jazz for Real People, and ones for Disco, Latin, and Funk. Then there's Real Music For Abstract People, which is a house and techno compilation.

Other notable hits while searching Amazon included a book entitled Real People Working In Mechanics, Installation, And Repair and (35th listing in Amazon) The Accidental Evolution Of Rock 'N' Roll: A Misguided Tour Through Popular Music by Chuck Eddy, with this sentence fragment highlighted from p. 61: "In contrast to 'real people's music' like blues, rock was ersatz..."

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 January 2008 22:53 (seventeen years ago)

Haven't heard the full Hannah/Miley double disc; both Greg and Dave - two strong fans of "See You Again" - feel mixed about it over all. Xhuxk, I included "See You Again" on The Girls Are Here And We The Swingflies in September (along with Miley's "Start All Over," which Disney actually is promoting on Radio Disney while insanely refusing to play "See You Again"). "East Northumberland High" is good as well. "You're my type of guy I guess if I were stuck for the rest of my life in East Northumberland High for the rest of my life, but people change, thank God I did. Just because I liked you back then, doesn't mean I like you now," sung by someone who's probably only just now starting high school. All three of those tracks are on the "Miley" rather the "Hannah" disk. Co-writers (with Miley) on "See You Again" and (without Miley) on "East Northumberland High" are Antonina Armato and Tim James, the producers and writers of most of Hoku's album back in 2000 and producers and sometimes co-writers of Aly & A.J.'s Insomniatic and also of Aly & A.J.'s "Not This Year" and "Chemicals React." Miley isn't in the credits of "Start All Over," but Fefe Dobson is. I think "G.N.O. (Girls Night Out)" is as good or better a song as "See You Again" but her voice on that one just seems to be barely showing up. (She co-wrote that one too along with Tamara Dunn and Matthew Wilder, whom I don't know anything about.) She's got an interesting tone in general, though: it's got more strain than prettiness, and she uses the strain well, gets a raw feistiness out of it. Most of what I've seen from her "live" performances on YouTube seems to be lip synched. Maybe keeping a consistent voice is hard for her.

Of the few I've heard from the "Hannah" half of the release, I like "Nobody's Perfect," despite its being written by the dreaded Gerrard and Nevil. Dave doesn't particularly like "G.N.O." or "Nobody's Perfect," so maybe he's wrong about the album.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 January 2008 23:31 (seventeen years ago)

(I had one too many "for the rest of my life"s in those lyrics. She didn't want to be stuck in East Northumberland High in a previous life, either.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 January 2008 23:33 (seventeen years ago)

BIG twanging rock boogie guitar sound worthy of top-tier Nashville productions on "Lonely Town" on Britt Savage's album, which song would not be out of place on a Gretchen Wilson album, tossing of the kitchen sink into the truck and all. "Fearless" is frantic, funny rockabilly, with a lyric that starts out with Britt being afraid of spiders and snakes, then progresses through the rest of The Pop Up Book Of Phobias. Title opener "Fingerprints" is an instrumental, Duane Eddy at the Space Age Bachelor Pad...so yeah, that explains the Tarantino namedrop on her cdbaby page. Her ballads gain gravity, in general, by sounding countrypolitan. Real nice album.

xhuxk, Monday, 7 January 2008 00:24 (seventeen years ago)

Xhuxk, "Teardrops On My Guitar" is number eleven in the country in CHR-Pop airplay, where it's been for a while, so there's no surprise its getting on Z-100. What's really interesting is that Miley's "See You Again" (number 33 in CHR-Pop airplay) is number 3 over the last seven days on Z-100, in a virtual dead heat at top with Alicia Keys and Rihanna.

Listening to Britt Savage's MySpace. I like her voice, and I'll want to hear more, though there's a precious '60s retro-ness to her - the era of Emma Peel and Secret Agent Man, the first a MySpace friend, the second a cover song - that makes the music more emotionally distanced than it ought to be. But I've always loved the "Secret Agent Man" theme song. Don't think Johnny Rivers can be beat, however.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 7 January 2008 00:35 (seventeen years ago)

"I Never Got Over You" has the sort of riff that I expect Frank would say verges into Raw Power Stooges territory

In fact, I said this very thing in an email to Tom et al. yesterday. I've got the version of "I Never Got Over You" on O' Santa Barbara, on which it's the best thing. In fact I like it more than "One Beer," though the latter is an exception to the Black Angel Suck When They Get Slow And Ungrooveful Rule.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 7 January 2008 00:43 (seventeen years ago)

there's a precious '60s retro-ness to her

Well, like a lot of this stuff (from Amy Winehouse on down), there's a precious '60s retro-ness to her trappings (i.e., that mini-skirt, the Nancy Sinatra and Tarantino references), but, in general (with the exceptions I named above -- and I actually like the instrumental despite its space-age-bachelor-padness), I'm not sure how that hurts her music (less than it hurts Winehouse's, Devil Doll's, Sarah Borges's, and maybe even Mechanical Bull's, though I do prefer the latter's album to the rest.) In fact, in the case of Savage, Devil Doll, and Borges (and Finn and the Sharks for that matter), the '50s/'60-retro-ness actually adds energy to their music, during their more rocking rockabilly songs at least. I can think of plenty of un-retro albums that might be helped by more rockabilly; it provides a bounce that even plenty of the country-rock out of Nashville these days tends to lack. And Savage's production, at least, doesn't feel retro to me; it's way too bright and poppy for that.

xhuxk, Monday, 7 January 2008 00:58 (seventeen years ago)

But yeah, I can understand how trappings like hers might make even the less blatantly schticky tracks seem like music between quotemarks, which might cut into the emotional effectiveness. I see that in theory, anyway; I'm less sure that it actually happens. I've never bought the idea that current styles are more emotionally affecting by definition, just because they're current. And I like mini-skirts. It's not like they suddently turned stodgy.

xhuxk, Monday, 7 January 2008 01:10 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, have made my way to the Britt Savage CDBaby page. Wish there were more pictures, given that Billy Block of Western Beat Entertainment says "Britt Savage is a totally captivating talent of enormous proportion," and I'd like to see some of those proportions. Track Four, "Last Flight To Vegas," is the first song that's really hitting me, also the first thing that sounds like it might be commercially viable on a current country station. But I do think it needs stronger production, someone like John Rich - and, honestly, think it needs a louder singer: is the sort of thing Sarah Johns could drive home.

I like "Fearless" as a song but the band is too heavyset and not swinging enough, though I like 'em in the break, where they're not getting in her way. I understand what you're saying about the band's retro-ness actually adding energy by way of aggressive guitar and organ. Not pulled together all that well on this song (better on "Vegas"). "Broken" a good song, but again, I think it needs a bigger voice, larger proportions. I'm hearing promise in this, but actually more in the songwriting than the performance (I'm assuming that everything but "Secret Agent Man" is original, but I could be all wrong about that). "This Town Can't Keep A Secret," with that distanced lounge kitsch, is good songwriting, if she'd only done it straighter. I wonder what Elizabeth McQueen would do with it?

Ah, "Lonely Town" may be the other partial exception to that complaint (along with "Last Flight to Vegas"); would like to hear LeAnn Rimes do it, though (whose album would probably have replaced Gretchen's on my Pazz & Jop if I were voting today). "I Found Love" is strong in a gospel-style with twang-guitar included, though it's middling as song.

(Remember, I do tend to underrate things on first hearing, but so far I'm only finding two keepers - in these versions, that is. As I said, I might hire these people on as songwriters.)

Frank Kogan, Monday, 7 January 2008 01:24 (seventeen years ago)

xp By the way, since I only mentioned Mechanical Bull on the '07 rolling country thread a couple days before it ended, and since I'm going to be listening to it a lot more this year, I shall now revive that post; heck, I'll revivie HorrorPops while I'm at it, too, since that's actually an '08 album. Not Drive By Truckers, though; they don't need my help here:

Mentioned Mechanical Bull a few paces upthread; like them even more now. Advance CD sleeve shows a young hipster looking guy (apparently Adam Widoff on guitar/bass/ drums/B3/clavinet/shaker) and young hipster looking girl (apparently Avalon Peacock -- great name, or annoying one, take your pick) from Woodstock, NY; so maybe they're considered a duo, but the cover credits also list six more musicians (on mandolin, pedal steel/dobro, guitar, guitar/vocals, dums, banjo/sax), plus John Medeski (jazz/fusion/jam band guy from Medeski Martin and Wood who I've never really listened to, right?) playing B3 on the song "Luke Warm Coffee," which is one of the ones Avalon sings, or rather purrs, and is an attempt at a seedy sort of smokey-lounge torch ambience ("lukewarm coffee and a filter cigarette" -- I don't smoke, but doesn't that just mean one you didn't roll yourself?), and therefore cornball by definition, and one of my least favorite songs on the album, but that said I still like it okay; it does the ambience as well as, I dunno, Amy Winehouse or Devil Doll or Sarah Borges do, maybe better.) But on this album, it is also, fortunately, atypical. And Annette (who does ethereal to the male singer's earthy -- good match) only sings a few of the songs (incluing "Desert Air," where she manages a good Grace Slick quiver amid some ominous spaghetti western psychedelia and the chants turn almost Gregorian by the end, so yeah, they get a good desert sound indeed); the rest are sung by a guy, who I had been assuming was Adam until right this second but I just noticed that "vocals" are not among his credits, so maybe it's Chase Pierson? Need to check, I guess. Whatever; whoever it is has a good deep voice with plenty of gravity -- reminds me of Cooley in the Drive By Truckers (yes, I am finally able to tell the DBTs' voices apart; sorry it took me so long.) And Southern Rock guitar jams like "Crazy Lady" would doubtlessly appeal to Truckers fans, too, but the other act the male voice and songs keep bringing to mind are much less authentic Brit techno-country collective A3 (at least on their late '90s-ish debut album that had the Sopranos theme on it), except without the techno. (The hipster boy/girl duo acting rustic thing might also put Mechanical Bull in the White Stripes/Kills/ Raveonettes genre, whatever that's called these days, but I don't really hear sonic similarities to any of those acts.) Anyway, songs I like I a lot (1) "Debts" ("...that no honest man can pay" -- that's a cover, isn't it? Though here, like most of the other songs, it's credited to guitarist-vocalist Chase Pierson, who okay, if he writes the songs, I wouldn't be surprised if he sings them too, and maybe that's even him not Adam in the photo, which is really confusing seeing how Adam's name and all his multitudinous credits are right under the photo); (2) "The End" (existential country -- I just made that probably meaningless subgenre name up; it also includes certain early Joe Ely songs like "Bhagavad Decree" and "I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown" and yeah some A3 too, okay? -- about how you're good at starting things but not finishing them); (3) "Find A Home" (more existentialism about how "I don't look for trouble/trouble finds me on its own," very Cooley actually and the guy ain't got no home); (4) "Biggest Nerd In The Class" (closest thing to a blatant novelty joke here, except it's not, really; concerns the eternal high school popularity contest and the kid who gets picked last for kickball and carries the big bookbag falls in love with the girl who doesn't pay attention to what anybody thinks of her and they both wind up attactive people; very Revenge of the Nerds obviously and maybe Nada Surf's "Popular" too I'm not sure and okay there's probably some connection to White Stripes' walk-to-school songs on their first couple albums too come to think of it); (5) "Left Turn in Jersey" (= nearly impossible just like understanding the girl the singer is singing to: great metaphor, and "you've got your barbs in me like a porcupine" is a great line; anyway, this two-step is the second most blatantly "funny" song on the album and it's funny to me anyway and by the way did I say that these mostly all have really good melodies? well, they mostly all have really good melodies -- with hooks and energy and plenty of prettiness attached); (6) "Million Yesterdays" (good wistful memory drone with more Gregorian sighing in it; Avalon is watching the children in the park going round and round on their merrygoround while she herself goes round and round on the windmills of her mind and voices in her head as tears go by -- too bad Lee Hazlewood died; he would have liked this song I think); (7) "Goodbye Woodstock" (nice summers but harsh winters there and every year is the same so where will they move now? -- reminds me a little of that song on the new Vampire Weekend debut album, only song I like on there really, where they leave Cape Cod, but this song is better). So anyway, those are my notes, and sorry there are so many of them. Good album. Their myspace page, again:

http://www.myspace.com/mechanicalbullpen

-- xhuxk, Sunday, 30 December 2007 14:24

(Actually, those two songs I call Joe Ely songs are quite possibly actually Butch Hancock songs, but Ely's versions are the ones I know, assuming Hancock ever actually sang them. Also, with the Bhagavad one -- assuming I even spelled it right -- I realize that conflating Eastern religion with existentialism may well be a contradition in terms, but so be it. It still feels existential to me, somehow.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:04 PM

And okay, Mechanical Bull's myspace page (which for some reason also only shows two people in its photo) says the lead male singer is definitely Pierson:

Band Members CHASE PIERSON-Lead Vocals/Guitar CHRIS ZALOOM-Steel Guitar/Electric Guitar ADAM WIDOFF-Electric Guitar/Bass/Drums DAVID MALACHOWSKI-Electric Guitar GEORGE QUINN-Electric Bass JBIRD BOWMAN - Drums/Vocals AVALON PEACOCK-Vocals

Influences: Dysfunctional marriages, alcoholism and the american dream

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:19 PM (

And I've also been wanted to proclaim my love, or at least like, here for the upcoming early '08 album by the Horror Pops, lady-led Eurogothskasurfabillies on Hellcat; as with labelmates Tiger Army earlier this year, they'd never hit me before but somehow seem to have finally come into their own. Good glam-rumble bottom underneath, and the singer (sorry, don't have her name in front of me) does a good Lene Lovich hiccup on top, and she likes exciting movies (as evidenced by the excellently surf-guitared "Thelma and Louise" and the somewhat torch-kitsched but still real good big ballad "Hitchcock Starlet" as in "tonight I'll die in black and white like a Hitchock starlet") and other tales of girls living or at least driving fast and dying young ("Highway 55," probably my favorite), and "Missfit" has cool Madness "Our House" quotes and "Boot To Boot" has cool oi! shouts and "Horrorbeach Part 2" has cool Link Wray style guitars and "Kiss Kiss Kill Kill" has a cute '80s modern-rock melody, and the schtick dates way back to the Cramps at least but all told I sure don't recall No Doubt ever being this much fun. (Qualifies for thge country thread thanks of course to the rockabilly element, which No Doubt lacked.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007 8:04 PM

Apparently the singer's name is Patricia Day; HorrorPops is only one word; they are from Denmark but currently based in L.A.; and have Warp Toured:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=6058446

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007

Also, there is the idea that, thanks to Miley Cyrus and HorrorPops et. al., rockabilly suddenly may be starting to feel current again. Which seems to happen every 20 or 30 years or so, I guess.

xhuxk, Monday, 7 January 2008 01:27 (seventeen years ago)

Remember, I do tend to underrate things on first hearing

And I tend to do the reverse, which means we'll probably end up liking the album exactly the same.

xhuxk, Monday, 7 January 2008 01:32 (seventeen years ago)

here's another entertaining addition to the girl-rockabilly-singer-with-lounge tendencies sweepstakes as Xhuxk sez and speaking of all this countrypolitan madness.

Jesse Dayton & Brennen Leigh's Holdin' Our Own and Other Country Gold Duets, on Stag Records, and I think it's just out now. On the cover, he looks like Conway Twitty and Brennen looks like the best-looking extra in Hee Haw, in other words real country and kinda sultry. But there's not exactly rockabilly on this one except maybe "Long Legged Guitar Pickin' Man" which isn't really rockabilly. They sound tense in a way, these two duet partners, but not in the rockabilly fashion. A pretty well-done rip on '60s -politan duets with a George and Tammy cover. "Let's Run Away" chugs along in that familiar Texas Sir Douglas mode, a bit of drollery with just enough organ. He sings a lot like George Jones on most of this, Leigh sounds very country, since she apparently has been a bluegrass performer for a while. "Two-Step Program" is nice, "Somethin' to Brag About" is like weird mid-'60s Nashville stuff like Henson Cargill and does the hapless-guy-redeemed-by-love song well. He gets his suits from Penney's, she wears a minidress on her job as waitress and has "17 pages of Top Value stamps." I think it's passable, they do that duet think mostly without shtick. Still, this is kinda alt-country's view of what this music should be, and that's not a totally bad thing except I think the "accuracy" of what are basically pastiches (and some covers) is the selling point, and the best thing on the record is the most impure, a nice 3/4 white-soul-gospel thing with slightly altered chords that to my ears are idiomatic--of, like, a late-'60s Parsons song or something more calculated by a rocker going country, or maybe like a Leon Russell song, where it's a basic format but it's those little alterations that make it pop. Pop gospel, and pretty good, mentions church-funded marriage counseling.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 7 January 2008 17:17 (seventeen years ago)

Listening to the Dayton and Leigh "We Hung The Moon" on the Jesse Dayton MySpace, and I agree with you about it's sounding alt, though if someone disagreed I'm not sure what I'd say to them. And I agree that it doesn't sound particularly "accurate" either; seems patchwork, the thrift-store version of music, or maybe just impoverished. Anyway, it's deliberately off, as if the style were irrevocably a foreign language that they could appropriate bits of but they could never feel it was quite theirs. So, whether it's their intent or not, there's a feeling of alienation, of having to create a world out of parts that are given to you, but not having the models at hand to do so, so you try this one, then that one. (I guess this is different from what you're saying.) But part of what's going on is that Jesse's willing to make his voice strain and miss. Or, OK, maybe he's just not that technically good. Anyway, I'm not really liking it, though I don't hate listening to it. This isn't to say that this kind of alt/alienation can't be good. It's what the White Stripes trade in, basically sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Not that the White Stripes are alt-country. But like this duo, the White Stripes are willing to throw themselves in the direction of a style without particularly worrying about hitting the bullseye (or even hitting anywhere near the target).

Now listening to "Let's Run Away," and I hear the Sir Douglas organ, but still not feeling enough from the vocals. I like Dayton's solo tracks more ("I'm home getting hammered while she's gettin' nailed"), especially his countrified cover of the Cars' "Just What I Needed." But a slicker voice would actually be better. Maybe I'm spoiled by modern production values. But I don't think he's getting anything particularly expressive out of his missed notes.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 07:52 (seventeen years ago)

But anyway, what's on my mind, for the column I'm going to write tomorrow morning, is that mainstream country thinks it has a sense of an overarching balance and rightness in God's universe. But am I right? You guys know the genre better than I do. I'm listening to Dayton's version of "Pancho and Lefty" - not a bad version, and from the picture that MySpace posts with it, it looks as if Johnny Bush is the guy duetting with Dayton. The song maybe doesn't quite assume a "rightness" to the universe - hard for "outlaw" to quite take that position. Yet somehow it's comfortable in its world. It knows its world (even if it's a world of myth and legend). (Am I making sense?)

Anyway, for my column I'm trying to rationalize why I think that Kelly Clarkson's "Because Of You" is outside this assumption that mainstream country makes, that there's an overarching rightness, or at least sense, to the universe. My question is why do I include, say, "Gunpowder and Lead" and "Independence Day" in this overarching rightness/sense, but not "Because Of You"? "I watched you die I heard you cry every night in your sleep/I was so young, you should have known better than to lean on me/You never thought of anyone else, you just saw your pain/And now I cry in the middle of the night for that same damn thing/Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk/Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt/Because of you I try my hardest just to forget everything/Because of you I don't know how to let anyone else in/Because of you I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty/Because of you I am afraid." I would say that "Because Of You" seems to cross a barrier, except I don't think anyone in country particularly felt the song was controversial or notice it crossing a barrier. Maybe the song does assume an order to the universe, the order of modern-day psychotherapy or something. But it seems pretty despairing to me. My argument I guess is that "Gunpowder and Lead" and "Independence Day" still have an overall perspective, even if the perspective is outside the song. Whereas "Because Of You" has no outside. There's nowhere to find perspective. (Maybe you can tell me what I'm trying to say.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 08:16 (seventeen years ago)

By the way, what do you guys think of the White Stripes' version of "Conquest"? White utterly mauls the song, but I think he expresses something, simultaneously desperate and exuberant.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 08:53 (seventeen years ago)

Anyway, I'm thinking of the country music theme of "continuity," the daughter in "Wide Open Spaces" splitting for "Wide Open Spaces" and the mother remembering when she too yearned for "Wide Open Spaces." Or Trisha Yearwood's "She's In Love With The Boy" (her dad says that when it comes to brains her boyfriend got the short end of the stick, and mom interjects and tells him that that's what her dad said about him when they were dating). Or a funnier continuity, like in "Cleaning My Gun," where the kid was terrorized by the dad of the girl he was dating and now that he's grown up he's going to terrorize the young man dating his daughter. Or more complexly we've got "Sinners Like Me" where the guy drinks and messes up just like Grandpa, but Jesus will hold his hand in the end anyway. Or the Montgomery Gentry and the Jack Ingram songs where the stubborn kid and the stubborn dad tear the relationship apart and then a decade later repair it (often at a time of distress or death). Tropes of continuity, often a phrase (Ingram's "Measure of a man") that seemed relevant to the rebel circumstance and now is relevant to the reconciliation.

Anyway, those are continuity songs, and you guys know a lot more of them than I do, probably. So my point is that "because of you I am afraid" is a very different kind of continuity.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 09:14 (seventeen years ago)

Okay, for one thing, I would say what I always think, which is that Frank listens to lyrics way more closely than I do -- more closely than they usually tend to warrant. What my gut would have told me up to this point is that that main thing that sets "Because of You" apart from most of the country songs he's naming is that "Because of You" is just way more vague; I'd think that Frank is cutting it slack for what it's missing -- namely, specifics in its lyrics. I'll listen to it more closely, eventually, but up to this point I guess I'd just thought of it as "another Diane Warren type power ballad" (for all I know, she wrote it, though she probably didn't -- Kelly must at least get a co-writing credit, right? Too lazy to check right now, though.) The one line that has stuck with me goes something like "because of you I've never strayed to far from the sidewalk"; maybe I have it wrong? Guess I always assumed that it was directed to an ex, though I suppose that particular lyric, assuming I have it right, might make more sense being directed toward a parent. (Which is what the lyrics which Frank quotes a couple posts above, which I'd never paid attention to before -- I would say because the music or singing never drew me into paying attention to them as lots of the country songs he names do -- suggest.) Which would put it in the great line of I've-got-psychological-problems-my-parents-are-to-blame songs, from the Supremes and Panics and Eminem and Hank Williams Jr and people like that. (I've got a chapter about those in my second book. I'm pretty sure Frank has said that some of the teenpop shemo gals -- he didn't use "shemo," but that's what they are -- like Pink have done similar songs, but those songs have never particularly hit me, at least none that come immediately to mind have.) Anyway, why that theme would be relevant here, of course, is that "Sinners Like Me" by Eric Church and some of the other songs Frank names fall in the same family-tradition tradition. And I guess what Frank is saying is that the country songs, um...Frank, what are you saying again? I guess that Eric Church says his family tradition has messed him up and that's normal, but Kelly is saying her family tradition has messed her up and that's not normal? I suppose that distinction makes sense -- though I have idea whether you clould generalize that one stance happens more in country and one doesn't; I need to ponder that question more. (This is an old Frank argument -- way back in Radio On more than a decade and a half ago, he argued that Garth Brooks's "Thunder Rolls" and Skid Row's "18 and Life" are very similar songs-- they even sound alike -- but Skid Row acknowledge that the world is fucked up outside the house the kid in the song gets kicked out of, whereas Garth pretends the world outside is normal but only what's happening in the house is fucked up. Though actually I doubt Garth actually mentions the world outside -- which means it's not fucked up? Frank, let me know if I got that wrong, but I think that's your basic gist, right?) Anyway, the main thing I'm noticing is that all this stuff still suggests that "Because of You" is more thematically similar to "Sinners Like Me" than thematically different. And I don't know if pop and rock songs are more likely to let parents off the hook than country songs are -- and even if they do, if that by definition would make them better, especially if figuring out what they're saying is so much more work. (Not that it always is, of course, but I do think that country songs gain something from their specificity and proper nouns and place names and so on; "Because of You" still hits me as generic, somehow, and interchangeable with lots of other songs in its ilk, in a way several of the country songs that Frank names do not. Though, of course, now I'll start thinking about "Because of You" more, and it will never sound generic to me again. Though that may well be more Frank's doing than Kelly's, really.) Finally, just real quick (look ma no paragraph breaks!), does something like "Stays in Mexico" by Toby Keith (to pick one random example) really assume a moral or perspective or continuity or rightness-with-the-world? (Beyond loose lips sink marriages, I mean? Sort of like "Deny Everything" by mid '90s all-girl punks Fluffy -- hey Frank, ever heard them? You'd like them!) I dunno, maybe it does.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 13:26 (seventeen years ago)

As for the White Stripes' version of "Conquest," I actually re-listened to it last week, and sure, I like it. Mariachi bullfighter music move; "Hunter Gets Captured By the Game" type lyric -- what's not to like? Well, the precious frantic old-Western-showtune over-emoting, maybe, but that doesn't really bug me. The turning the tables on genders thing is swell. But I honestly don't know that I've ever heard the original version, and when I'd first noticed it was by somebody named "Robbins," I'd assumed it must be a song I'd never heard before by Marty Robbins -- who defintely had his over-emoted mariachi bullfight moments, much to his credit -- but nope, it's a different Robbins. To me, that's what's surprised most about it so far.

As for White "utterly mauling" the song, I don't especially hear it that way, though maybe that's because I don't know the original -- I'm not sure what Frank means, really (he wrote this in one of his Vegas columns a couple months ago) about White Stripes being one of the last bands to get doing-music-wrong right; they get music pretty right, as far as I can see. They're part of an old enough tradition (as Frank acknowledges) that it seems kind of weird to set them up against, say, a mainstream pop-rock tradition of singing and guitaring that's got nothing at all to do with them, especially when their own old weird tradition has constituted a different part of the mainstream for so long itself. I'm a fan (with reservations) of White Stripes, and I gather that Frank is too, but I just don't get the yardstick. For what they do, they don't sound "wrong" in any way that jumps out at me (and they do it way better than most other bands in the indie/alt/bohemian/whatever world. Not that that would, say, get them onto country radio. But I'd rather country radio bend to them than the reverse.) (Or would I? I dunno. At this point -- now that they've made basically the same album several times in a row, and I know what I'm getting from them and that I'll like it but there's no way it's going to excite me -- it might be fun to see them bend. And yeah, Meg still isn't much of a drummer, obviously. Though that's never hurt their music much, really.)

I also, obviously, don't hear the shortfalls in (for instance) Britt Savage's singing that Frank does. I'm extremely cynical about lifeless alt-country voices and rhythm sections, obviously, but I in her case, I hear plenty of life in both -- and where self-released records often sound way too small to me, I'm not hearing that in Britt's case, either. (Both Frank and I are probably spoiled by modern production techniques, but Frank is probably more spoiled than I am. Or, at any rate, I don't hear "missed notes" anywhere near as often as he does, because I'm not usually musically astute enough to get how the notes would have sounded if they hadn't been "missed." I'm looking more for energy and tunefulness, I guess, than for singers singing "on key" all the time, maybe I'm saying.)

Which reminds me, Frank, that you should check out that Mechanical Bull myspace, since you're now in the myspace-checking habit. Curious what you'd think.

I also realized that two of the albums I voted for in Pazz & Jop and Idolator in 2007 -- the ones by Gore Gore Girls and Sirens, both of which bands Frank has a fondness for, at least -- use a retro schtick that helps their rock'n'roll more than it hurts. So maybe retro schticks just aren't bugging me so much these days. (And I also don't hear the Sirens as inept players like Frank does, at all. I mean, I realize Slade were probably a great band, but how much of a virtuoso do you have to be to play glam rock? To me, it sounds like they can play! But then, I'm not a musician myself. Though George is, and he likes the Sirens album even more than I do.)

Country song of the day: "Sweet Jeremiah," bonus track on CD reissue which came out a couple years ago of the first (1976) Starz album; excellent Skynyrd rip. Not sure when it was recorded, though; it was a demo, apparently, but doesn't feel like one. (I only have CD-Rs, with colored Xerox covers.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:01 (seventeen years ago)

two of the albums I voted for... use a retro schtick that helps their rock'n'roll more than it hurts

Or four albums I voted for, if you count Flynnville Train and Kid Rock (though they're maybe slightly less kitschy about it in their trappings than the Sirens or Gore Gores are. Or maybe not, if dressing up as a '70s Southern rocker counts. It is notable, also, that three of these albums come from Detroit.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:08 (seventeen years ago)

I have idea whether you clould generalize

= I have no idea whether you could generalize

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:12 (seventeen years ago)

It should also probably be noted here that I just realized this week that the Starz' song "It's A Riot" (from their 1978 Colliseum Rock album, most recently heard by me on their 2006 Live in Cleveland CD) is sort of answer song to Rodney Atkins's "Cleaning This Gun," almost three decades before the fact, seeing as how the singer stands up to the dated daughter's shotgun-wielding dad and all.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:17 (seventeen years ago)

(And White Stripes' "Conquest" is of course doused in retro kitsch schtick as well -- which oddly, is probably more what I find irritating, inasmuch as anything does, about the song than any performance mauling. Jack really sounds like he's acting on this one. But I am probably contradicting myself.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:27 (seventeen years ago)

And nobody will believe this, maybe, but I actually called the song "bullfighter" music here before looking at its video (even though no bulls are actually mentioned in the lyrics, to my knowledge.) Until now, I'd only listened to it on the album. (Also, there may not be any actual mariachi per se' in it. But it's still in that general neighborhood.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:36 (seventeen years ago)

Sirens rock like mothers (and better than the Mothers), so there's a sense in which they always can play, very very well, but whether everything else goes kerblooey varies from song to song; and when stuff does go kerblooey, which seems to be deeper than just singing or playing out of tune, though maybe that's it (but I'm not that hyper-sensitive to out-of-tune; the Shirelles weren't always in tune, James Chance was almost always out-of-tune (those are just two examples), don't think it hurt the former's music at all, did hurt the latter, but not critically), the force of the music is weakened considerably too. "Rock 'N' Roll Preacher" seems the most together in pitch (and least demanding) and is the one that rocks the hardest.

But yeah, I am being inconsistent and need to invoke the Boney Joan Rule (i.e., escape clause), I suppose.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 17:09 (seventeen years ago)

My original sense of the White Stripes "doing it wrong" probably had more to do with Meg than with Jack, actually. And you're right there's a tradition of that within rock which (at least on and off) makes it a tradition within pop, too.

I do think that the White Stripes are getting worse, and that I'm also getting tired of them, but it isn't like they've fundamentally changed.

Original version of "Conquest" is Patti Page, who's not the most galvanizing singer in the history of music. I'd assumed there were scads of other versions, since the song sounded very familiar the second I heard the White Stripes version, and I'm not exactly a Patti Page aficionado, but allmusic.com only lists the Page and the White Stripes versions as being by Cory Robbins. (When I saw "Robbins" in the credits I though Marty too, since he plausibly could have written it.)

Anyway, I like the White Stripes version; there is one spot where Jack's not just a little off, he tries to rise with the melody and misses by a note or more, it sounds like a car running into the opposite lane. Obv. he could have corrected this by resinging, and chose not to.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 17:22 (seventeen years ago)

The Patti Page version

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 17:42 (seventeen years ago)

Interesting that Xhuxk is kind of recapitulating my own discovery of "Because Of You," my starting off thinking the track was fairly standard (I way underrated it) in both its romantic you-left-me-broken theme and its mainstream balladry. Anthony and I talked about this a bit on Rolling Country in December 2005-January 2006. Anthony'd said that he'd been watching Kelly Clarkson on MTV, "the video that looked like some lost melodrama, all blonde on black, with heartbreak and a sort of undersung sadness/meloncholy... i dont remember the song, but how it was sung was more country and less girl singer, more lambert and less lohan..." He'd meant "Because Of You," which I claimed could easily be country with or even without a few tweaks, and Anthony said, "the best proof of its country tendencies is its obsessive seeking of solution wrt domestic melodrama."

But then I actually listened to the words and went "Oh." Except my "oh"s are lengthier than other people's, this being just an excerpt:

I think it is out of bounds for country. Which is to say that though I can imagine Faith singing in this style she probably wouldn't go for this melody or these words; and though I can imagine LeAnn going for both the melody and these words and totally nailing it in performance, she'd probably decide that it would be bad for her country career at this point to release it.

First the words: it isn't just that they're unremittingly despairing, since you could say the same about country classics like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "The End of the World." But those don't feel like despair, or they take a different approach to despair, or something. (I've always considered "End of the World" a beautiful, sweet delight.) In general, country's "life falls apart" story belongs to its standard romance cycle: "My heart is broken, now I'm drunk, now I'm going to fuck up again and again," is mined for a lot of rue and a lot of comedy. It's something country is comfortable with. Whereas "the relationship was fundamentally pathological and has left me unfit to live" is not standard for country, even if it's fine on Oprah and adult contemporary and Radio Disney...

Note in 2008: So what about that John Conlee song where he ends up in a mental institution? Well, those lyrics are just "He Stopped Loving Her Today" set in the booby hatch. OK, but isn't "He Stopped Loving Her Today" kind of pathological too? Er, um, no, well yes, of course, but country music doesn't seem to know this, and what took John to the nuthouse wasn't that he obsessively continued to love for the rest of his life, which apparently is quite sane (cf. Conlee's "Miss Emily's Picture") but that he was suffering from sorrow-induced amnesia, where he was forgetting that he still loved her or that he even knew her. Oh, and I'm hearing a question from the peanut gallery. "How is the relationship in 'Gunpowder and Lead' or the one in 'Independence Day' not fundamentally pathological, leaving the characters unfit to live, in fact leaving some of them dead?" Er, that's just being abused and, you know, killing people and stuff. Sorta not getting over something.

Look, I'm making a generalization, and no generalization is perfect, OK?

Further down that thread I talked about "Independence Day" and said, "Its despair and vengeance seem within country's ken (and aren't divorced from murder-ballad conventions, though the song is certainly something different). Not that it's a simple song. It doesn't pretend to answer the questions it raises." Maybe if I'd said why its despair and vengeance seem within country's ken I wouldn't still be puzzling about it now. If I knew why. Anyway, I think I'm right about the despair in "Because Of You" being different from the despair of "Independence Day." I just don't know why I'm right. I mean, I feel that I'm right, damn it! But the whole point here is to talk about legacy, which "Independence Day" hints at by having the song being narrated by the daughter of the abused mom and abusing dad's but then avoids by not saying what eventually happens to the little girl, except that she's shuttled off to the county home. I think that "Independence Day" implies, like a lot of country, oh, this is what some people are like, but it adds, maybe fairly new for country at the time of its release, that it's not necessarily all right or the permanent state of things.

And Xhuxk, you actually mentioned Hank Jr. back then, too, and I said to myself, "You know, I really need to go back and listen to a lot of Hank Jr." So, I really need to go back and listen to a lot of Hank Jr. Someone mentioned Dolly as well, and I'm almost as ignorant there. My guess is that even if the legacies in their songs are horrific - are they? - they still take place within an overarching sense of right and wrong, or this is what our world is like, or some such. And I'm not saying that "Because Of You" refutes that overarching sense, just that it lacks an overarching sense itself. (I'm just repeating myself now.) (Now?)

(Of course, as I said above, if "Because Of You" crossed some country boundary, then you'd think someone'd have made a big deal of this, which no one has, as far as I know.)

I do think there's something more haunting in the melody to "Because Of You" than a Diane Warren would usually go for. Apparently, the initial version of the song was written by Kelly at something like age 16, then at the time of Breakaway she brought it to the two ex-Evanescence guys to rework (one of whom she now would never wish bad things but she does not wish him well, and she hopes the ring he gave his wife turns her finger green, etc.), who maybe added that slight air of ghostliness.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 18:05 (seventeen years ago)

By the way, what's Roy Kasten doing these days? (I was reminded, looking back at those old posts, that I haven't seen him here lately.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 18:11 (seventeen years ago)

According to the ever reliable world-wide-web, the original version of "Conquest" was performed by Corky Robbins & Johnny Bosworth.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 18:29 (seventeen years ago)

From Billboard

Country, Pop Stars Set For Livestock Show

January 07, 2008, 11:00 AM ET

Ray Waddell, Nashville

Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus and Rascal Flatts are among the 21 artists slated to play the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo at Reliant Park from March 3-22.

The Rodeo has long been one of the premier live country music events in the country and has increasingly broadened into more diverse entertainment offerings. In addition to Cyrus, John Fogerty, John Legend and Fergie represent non-country acts booked into the Rodeo for 2008.

The complete talent lineup is McGraw (3), Hill (4), Kevin Fowler (5), Alan Jackson (6), Legend (7), Martina McBride (8), Montana/Cyrus (9), Sugarland (10), Rascal Flatts (11), Fogerty (12), Toby Keith (13), Clay Walker (14), Brad Paisley (15), Duelo/Los Horoscopos de Durango (16), Miranda Lambert (17), Big & Rich (18), Fergie (19), Dierks Bentley (20), Pat Green (21) and Brooks & Dunn (22).

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 18:31 (seventeen years ago)

Btw, have there been recent (or even not-so-recent) instances of pop songs crossing over to country radio rather than (as with "Because Of You") getting there on a cover version? What I mean here isn't something like the Bon Jovi/Jennifer Nettles duet, or material we think of as being pop, but of a track that hit first in pop and then went country? My feeling is that country radio isn't too strict about the sound of something but is very strict about the performer being a country performer - or accompanied by a country performer, or doing a country album. Which is to say I'm not at all shocked that country stations aren't playing "See You Again."

(Elvis may have had songs that went pop then country, or went both simultaneously. And maybe Bobby Bare had a few things that were released pop even before they were released country. I don't know.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 18:36 (seventeen years ago)

Los Lonely Boys' "Heaven" crossed over to #46 on the country charts, after going pop, a couple years ago. (I know it because I just researched it over the weekend for a long article I've been working on.) But #46 isn't all that high, obviously. And off hand I don't know if Mellencamp has gone higher than that. (Does the Waite/Krauss "Missing You" count? But that was never actually a pop hit, was it?)

Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk/Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt/Because of you I try my hardest just to forget everything/Because of you I don't know how to let anyone else in/Because of you I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty/Because of you I am afraid."

Actually, I suppose this could be sung about a fucked-up romantic relationship as much as a fucked-up parent-and-child relationship, come to think of it. And one could easily be "so young" in either.

I have no idea if Tom T Hall's "Pay No Attention to Alice" is fundamentally pathological enough for Frank or not, but I'll quote its lyrics here anyway:

Pay no attention to Alice, she's drunk all the time,hooked on that wine,bunches of it, And it ruined her mind.
Pay no attention to Alice, they say she's a sot, sane she is not, but she loves it, And it's all she's got.

She made that apple pie from a memory, Made them biscuits from a recollection that she had.
She cooked that chicken too long but she don't know that, Oh what the hell, it ain't too bad.

(CHORUS)

Don't talk about the war, I was a coward,
Talk about fishing and all the good times raisin' hell.
Empty that one down, we'll get another one,
It's getting late, you might as well.

Though we ram your car into a ditch, man don't sweat it,
I know Ben down at the shell station and he'll get it out.
Alice, put your ashes in that ashtray, I swear woman,
you're gonna burn down the house.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 18:40 (seventeen years ago)

Re up thread, in the last week of the year I finally caught up with the Gore Gore Girls and thought it was a good to great album. Way too late to even consider doing anything with though. Garage band that comes down on the good side of execution and production. Most of that genre wears me out after two listens. It has traces of revved up honky tonk in it.

Concerning glam, the mold was set in large part by production and arrangement choices. Mike Leander for Gary Glitter, Chapman and Chinn for Sweet, and Chas Chandler with Slade. Those choices emphasized the pop song, the block chording, the rhythmic puncuation -- handclaps and so on. Dynamics where the band doubles its energy in various parts of the song to give you that surge of excitement even in a bold delivery.

Sweet didn't like it, wanted to write more and more of their own material and show they were musicians. Except when they were musicians they were less captivating. Didn't help that the singer got in a fight in which someone punched his throat, ruining some of his ability for the rest of their duration. So while I like their hard rock/metal album -- the one with the big tonearm on the cover, it's not the same ...

With Slade, even when Chas Chandler wasn't producing, they didn't get away from the idea that their tunes ought to explode, as opposed to telegraphing how clever and sophisticated musicians they were. Which they were, or at least Jimmy Lea on bass was, and that's pretty much proved on In Flame, the soundtrack album to their movie. Nobody's Fools, their last in American on their first run, also spans a gamut of Americana that most American bands of the time chose not to play. (Brit music hall, too.) On In Flame they also showed quite an ability to get at some of the essence of late period Beatles. Plus they were able to turn the Hokey Pokey -- a wedding staple that triggers the gag reflex -- into a real good short rock tune. The Sirens ought to cover it some day.

And I didn't have any trouble with the execution and performances on the Sirens' More is More. The record's an improvement from their first, which wasn't bad either.

Gorge, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 19:02 (seventeen years ago)

Pathology and morbidity have always been a big part of country music, in a lotta ways (also forensic examinations of relationships etc. As far back as what Rodney Crowell calls the "dead baby and bad tooth" ballads of his Appalachia-to-Arkansas-to-Port-Huston heritage Poverty (what was that book, One Third Of A Nation), and when there are more jobs, the travelling, work-drink cycle, and maybe you get past that a bit, but still both those phases have some lasting, passed-along effect (and not like they don't co-exist, like title-pawn and other "money stores" around here, among the trasnplanted auto industry-related offshoots) So concerns with normalcy can get a bit obsessive, even in Burbtown, vs. the hungry hordes (anxiety over/dependence on los illegales just a recent part of that)(not too mention sweatshops just over the border and further afield, and those who know how much we depend on Chinese buying US Gov debt, just another part of the debt market, economy of debt on every level, speaking of effects passed along, whatever the awareness/acknoledgement of morphology). Braddock's "He Stopped Loving Her Today" described by Music Row mainstay Alice Randall as exemplary "dramatic stasis"(and everyday Southern Gothic, pathological yeah)Sorry of all this is too obvious; I'll read the prev posts more carefully when I have more time. Some interesting folkie stuff on PTW today, incl me on The Battle of Land and Sea, incl discussion of their take on "Harden My Heart," although that's not the featured/download/stream here:
http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=1294

dow, Wednesday, 9 January 2008 16:22 (seventeen years ago)

Just heard Jewel's country track "Stronger Woman," and it's terribly boring. The voice - weak and girly, sort of - could be a bubblecountry good thing if she had the verve of Alecia Elliott, which she most certainly doesn't on this track. The words are platitudes about her being her own best friend, believing in herself. An OK line about wanting to be the woman she'd want her daughter to be, but in general the lyrics are crap and the music is mediocre.

Don, I think that Battle Of Land And Sea woman could be OK if the music didn't add all that "weird" insecure indie echo mysteriousness and she didn't sing with that Feist passive-aggressive delicacy. At first, hearing the tune, I was wondering why you rated it so low (7); then I wondered why you were rating it so high, so 7 is probably right.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 10 January 2008 00:07 (seventeen years ago)

No, just listened to that Battle Of Land And Sea track again, and 7 is too high, as by the end of the song I wanted to strangle the woman to put her out of her misery and to end my own.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 10 January 2008 00:12 (seventeen years ago)

So, here's my column on "Because Of You" (a lot of which was cut and pasted from this thread):

The Rules Of The Game #26: Because Of You I Am Afraid

Frank Kogan, Friday, 11 January 2008 00:38 (seventeen years ago)

Weird thing is that if you see the video of the Reba and Kelly version you can't really make sense of what's happening if you don't know the backstory provided by the original Kelly video; so you have to figure out that in the Reba version Kelly is playing Reba's mother, whom the grown-up Reba is going into the past to observe in her travails. (And in the Reba video there's no domestic violence for a child to observe.)

Frank Kogan, Friday, 11 January 2008 15:37 (seventeen years ago)

I also realized that two of the albums I voted for in Pazz & Jop and Idolator in 2007 -- the ones by Gore Gore Girls and Sirens, both of which bands Frank has a fondness for, at least -- use a retro schtick that helps their rock'n'roll more than it hurts.

I've never even heard the latest Gore Gore Girls. They've made my Pazz & Jop twice in the past. I thought the original lineup* was the one to put the most motion into the music. And actually the retroness may put a limitation on them, which is that there's something safely in the past and nonvirulent in the whole horror movie/old rock 'n' roll "wildness." Not that I can even imagine a way for rock to be anything but nonvirulent at this point (maybe some L.A.-style sleazesters can pull it off), and since I basically like the Gore Gore Girls, I wouldn't know if an alternative approach would work - something that drew as much on the girl groups and the Stooges but with less, I don't know, reliance on the old signifiers, maybe? I would have liked to hear "All Grown Up," an old Greenwich-Barry number that's one of my favorite tracks on a previous Gore-Gore EP (and I gather it's on the latest album too), with updated words that a modern teenager could sing, rather than a past's portrayal of a past teen life; of course, updated lyrics might make 'em seem emo.

*The lineup on their first album Strange Girls, anyway.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 11 January 2008 15:57 (seventeen years ago)

Battle of Land and Sea is all about battles, seeds of self-destruction and over-taxed will, the baad gene of endurance (and yeah art-damage) like I said about Bettye's character--maybe this wasn't the best track to pick, out of context(which in terms of recombinant identites, insomniac imagizm, in conflict, reminds me of Lynch's Mulholland Drive), but like I say in the review, I get the power vs. authority hidden battle in there--the song knows more than the voice does--but you don't like that kind of vocal approach anyway

dow, Friday, 11 January 2008 22:35 (seventeen years ago)

Although not *all* about liking, o course: I don't like Flannery O'Connor worth a shit, because she seems to like to stick pins in her characters, in the name of Jesus of course, but I know she's first-rate and I'll read her complete works if she doesn't stick too many pins in me first. And I might get sick of The Battle of Land and Sea a lot sooner, but not so far (though I keep my distance from the persona, she's trouble)

dow, Friday, 11 January 2008 22:50 (seventeen years ago)

I would have liked to hear "All Grown Up"...with updated words that a modern teenager could sing

Well, seeing as how who the Gore Gore Girls' great version mainly made me think of was my daughter, who is 18 this year rather than 40 or 50 years ago (and who likes the Gore Gore Girls, though not as much as she likes, say, the Shangri-Las or Chuck Berry last time I checked, but definitely more than she likes Hannah Montana), I have no idea why Frank thinks the song couldn't be sung by a "modern teenager." I'm not saying that said teenager would necessarily be Aly or AJ or Miley or Skye or Taylor, but they're hardly the only teenagers out there. And actually, I can imagine Skye or Miley or Taylor singing the song, with conviction -- and with humor, which is part of what the song's ponytails and high hair and high heels give you. And I'm not sure whether, with teen-pop artists in general, they wouldn't necessarily improve if they sang it. They'd certainly rock harder, and quite possibly catchier than they do now, though maybe there are teen-pop bands who rock as hard as the Gore Gores do. If so, I want to hear them! (That said, I ranked Taylor's and Aly & AJ's and Miranda Lambert's albums higher than the Gore Gores in my top ten -- not saying the latter are perfect, either; I agree, their earlier lineup had more swing, and their '07 album could possibly have had even more kick if they'd had the budget for more professional production, which I'm not so sure Amy Surdu would opt for even if some major label gave the chance to do so, so, right, the Gore Gores' aesthetic can be limiting -- and I'm not saying the Gore Gores couldn't necessarily "update" the song somehow. Just not sure really sure what they'd gain from it.)

xhuxk, Friday, 11 January 2008 23:32 (seventeen years ago)

Speaking of Detroit, I respect the 3-song EP by this dude Billybob (who compares himself to Hank Jr and Eric Church on his cdbaby page), though I like the fact that he calls himself "heavy metal country" more than I like his music, which I wish had more heavy metal in it. But it does have good keyboard parts in it -- best in the third song, where the piano has more Jerry Lee boogie woogie, and which features an unfriendly woman like all his songs seem to. And I wish his Kentucky woman song was as good as Neil Diamond's, though I do like the (maybe unintentional!) pun in the line (which I may not quote exactly right) "Kentucky woman makes whiskey in the hills/Kentucky woman I'm jealous of her still." Has anybody ever written a song about being jealous of a whiskey still before? Also, when he sings about going slow through the snow, I think of Gordon Lightfoot for some reason. (Gordon makes me think of "snow", though I'm not sure whether he ever actually sang about it, despite November's bitter winds on Lake Gitche Gumee). The third song, which involves entering a bar and ordering a gin and soda and being jumped, which results in a shooting of some sort, is his still best though. And still not that good -- the singing is just way too rigid; the production nonexistent. So, a demo, but an okay one.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/billybob

xhuxk, Friday, 11 January 2008 23:49 (seventeen years ago)

Er...actually, wait, I meant "Hollywood" is the best song: Listed first on the myspace page, though it's third on the actual CD; "Wichita Snow" leads off the CD. Not as good as Jack White's Wichita song, much less Glen Campbell's. And "Hollywood" (listening to it now) still sounds kind of clunky and cardboard, somehow. Though I bet Eric Church could pull it off.

xhuxk, Friday, 11 January 2008 23:55 (seventeen years ago)

Also, Billybob is not from Detroit, duh. Not sure what gave me the idea he was -- Probably I got him confused with some other recent cdbaby country guy.

Meanwhile. Most country songs on Dust-to-Digital Records's Black Mirror: Reflections In Global Musics (1918-1955) compilation: Pipe Major Forsyth's "Mallorca" (from Northumbria-England -- East Northumbria High, maybe??) and Patrick J. Touhey's "Drowsy Maggie" (from Ireland), both of which are excellent. Other, less country, favorites of mine include Thewaprasit Ensemble's "Phleeng Khuk Phaat, Part 2" (from Thailand, just a weird repetitive Gamelan-like drone); Gong Belaaloewana Bali's "Kebyar Ding, I" (from Bali, very minimalist, and probably even more Gamelan-like, being from Bali and all); Paul Penjda Ensemble's "Ngo Mebou Melane" (from Cameroun, and super catchy); Hutzl Ukrananian Ensemble's "Welsini Meloydi" (from Hutsul-Ukraine, which may or may not be where Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz's ancestors came from, but this one partakes in an eerie use of space nonetheless); M. Nguyen Van Minh-Con's "Nam Nhi-tu" (from Vietnam with cool plinking sounds); Edwin Fisher's "Handel's Chaconne, Teil I" (from Switzerland/Germany, and all the Handel I need to own probably or maybe not); Sathoukhru Lukkhamkeow's "Nakhone Prayer" (from Laos, great vocal drone); and Sinkou & Kouran Kin's "Songs in Grief" (from Japan, and highly reminscent of "Don't Kyoko Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand in the Snow" by Yoko Ono, I swear to God.)

I probably spelled lots of those words wrong.

xhuxk, Saturday, 12 January 2008 00:12 (seventeen years ago)

Most country song on Chingo Bling's 2007 They Can't Deport Us All is "Do the Lasso" (rhymes with El Paso, don't be an asshole, let your ass show, do it like the winner of my last show), which is not as good as his previous hillbilly music parody "Pop Tailgate...Wooooooooo!" But my favorite track on his current CD is "They Can't Deport Us All" itself, "Werk That (Funky Manosa)" (for the Manu Dibango influence), probably followed in some order by the partly screw-chopped "Still Goin Down" featuring Fat Pat, "In Case They Forget" featuring Latasha, "Lil' Marvin", the Cheech Y Chong worthy skitlet "Ese Lil Choco Strikes Again," and "Tirra Te Patrazz" featuring Ice. At least according to my notes. On the cover Chingo is wearing a cowboy hat, and jumping over a concertina fence with his pet chicken. An immigration officer is on his trail.

xhuxk, Saturday, 12 January 2008 00:22 (seventeen years ago)

(I meant my favorite tracks are the title cut and the Dibango rhythmed one, if that wasn't clear.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 12 January 2008 00:24 (seventeen years ago)

(Also, in my Gore Gore post a couple posts up, delete both times I say "necessarily" in your head, since the word confuses what I was trying to say):

I'm not sure whether, with teen-pop artists in general, they wouldn't improve if they sang it.

and

I'm not saying the Gore Gores couldn't "update" the song somehow.

xhuxk, Saturday, 12 January 2008 00:30 (seventeen years ago)

>>and I'm not saying the Gore Gores couldn't necessarily "update" the >>song somehow

Production choices, guitar amps, guest stars-of-the-moment brought in for the sake of the name, auto-tune on the vocal, producer, use of ringers to play parts not deemed executed radio/TV friendly pro enough. Way more 21st century compression until it blares out of the player at you, everything as loud as everything else. It's mostly a money and influence thing, what you would get if your Top Tenners chose to cover the tunes.

Because of this, it's one of the reasons I can only listen to modern country records for so long, even the ones I like, before I have to take a time-out with something 70's-80's or poverty case lo-fi.

I suspect one of the reasons the Gore Gore Girls are liked here, perhaps subconsciously, is precisely because their latest record -does not- have all that aural super-folderol on it while still managing to get a bit beyond the usual poverty-case garage rock delivery.

Gorge, Saturday, 12 January 2008 00:49 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, I'm probably somewhere between where George and Frank stand on the big-budget production issue (and less articulate than either of them about the specifics of it). I mean, I can think of many instances (especially in country's case) where a studio budget seems to give the music more energy; and I do think there was something muffled about last year's Gore Gore Girls album, as much as I liked it -- even compared to their first two albums. But I do agree with George that, if major label sparkle is all I got, that wouldn't be nearly enough. (Just played the Clorox Girls album from last year, and have the Times New Viking album on now, and I can't honestly say that either would be improved if they were "cleaned up". Auto-tune wouldn't make them more tuneful, either.)

I also want to mention to Frank that, right, "go on a date" (one of the quaint old-style lines in "All Grown Up") is probablyu not how most teenagers today talk. At least not in every day conversation, with no irony meant in the phrase. But since when did (1) teeangers talk with no irony and (2) music have to mirror every day conversation? The Gore Gore Girls are playing dress up, sure. So do lots of teens! And that's a song about dressing up in the first place! It's part of rock'n'roll, or whatever you want to call it. There's a lot more than "direct emotion" at stake here; reducing it to that would bore me stiff.

xhuxk, Saturday, 12 January 2008 01:54 (seventeen years ago)

"go on a date"...is probably not how most teenagers today talk

Unless they do talk that way (and I bet plenty do, whether they see humor in the phrase or not.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 12 January 2008 02:01 (seventeen years ago)

Actually, I have a fantasy where I'm the impresario of a club show where Amy Surdu (Gore Gores) and James Williamson (best version of the Stooges) are the guitar players in the house band that accompanies all the performers in a Pop Revue that features Blog 27, Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, and Britney Spears in a one-off gig. (Part of the fantasy is that I get Britney and Lindsay to do a duet on "Stars Vomit Coffee Shop." They are the only two singers in the world I would want to do it.) Wouldn't mind hearing those singers accompanied by guitars that are clawing their way through several walls of concrete.

Or if Amy is unavailable, I could get J.C. Martin of Black Angel.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 13 January 2008 04:43 (seventeen years ago)

TMI Frank

Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 13 January 2008 05:07 (seventeen years ago)

How so?

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 13 January 2008 20:08 (seventeen years ago)

I have no idea what "TMI" even stands for.

Robbie Fulks tries to rap, about people who died in 2007; not as funky or funny as Jim Carrol or Adam Sandler -- what does Xgau see in this guy again?

http://cdbaby.com/cd/fulksrobbie

xhuxk, Monday, 14 January 2008 00:00 (seventeen years ago)

PAUL THORN - Not hating this guy; may even catch him live when he plays in New York this week. But his kinda deep white soul strain (aiming for Van Morrison via John Hiatt maybe? Unless I'm missing somebody obvious en route) (er... late Springsteen?) is stodgy by definition. The words about Holiday Inns and flat tires (outside of Tupelo, but just his luck, at the first door he knocks for help there's a pretty and willing young lady there) are no special surprise, at least inasmuch as they draw me in; maybe there's more interesting stuff I'm not picking up on. Sometimes the groove recalls Jackson Browne circa Running on Empty (without melodies or singing to match unfortunately), and "A Long Way To Tupelo" actually builds to some healthy guitars (though Hiatt at his new-wave-era best had more boogie in his sound, as I recall, and Thorn rarely heats up so much). Anyway, the guy has potential, I guess, and if somebody claims I'm missing something, I'll go back and listen more to see what, exactly:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=34636681

xhuxk, Monday, 14 January 2008 00:57 (seventeen years ago)

Thorn's 2006 album was okay, nothing to write home about.

Frank I'm just kiddin' ya.

Dimension 5ive, Monday, 14 January 2008 01:13 (seventeen years ago)

Oh wait...Too Much Information, duh! (I still don't get it.)

My Amanda Shaw review from Billboard, fwiw:

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/content_display/reviews/albums/e3i5d4ee6c1f9636327b152d68a94061ee1

xhuxk, Monday, 14 January 2008 01:18 (seventeen years ago)

Brandi Shearer covers this old Jeannie C. Reilly song, "Oh, Singer" and it's good. "I want to know how people lived before the big corporations," she sings to a perfectly not-really-country but country backing. Close to Dark is probably as good as the retro-jazz-loungeapolitan genre has ever gotten, beating the hell outta k.d. lang or any of those Madeleine Pie-rouge kind of things. Larry Klein produced this and it's got plenty of fuzzed-out and just-arcane-enough guitar for that fusiod sheen on stuff like "Swampland," which also beats Tom Waits or, Amy LaVere. In fact in retrospect this is the kind of record Amy LaVere would make if she sang like Shearer, who is impressively floating-contralto and superbly full-bodied yet ironic, sorta like Sarah Vaughan meets k.d. lang in Norah Jones' liquor cabinet with a picture of Bobbie Gentry on the wall in there somewhere. "Congratulations" is all about a phone call Brandi makes to someone in the small town she has left, and compared to most retro-Americana-diva-country it's miles ahead. The arrangements are really varied and the songs, mostly by BS, are really about how Brandi is a "city girl now" and cannot go home. She's got a big voice that built-in martini-noir ache and she knows how to use it, which one can't blame her for, but the overall vibe is one of forebearance, thoughtfulness, sexy asceticism. The people who made this record really knew what they were doing and Brandi fits in with no sweat.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 14 January 2008 21:35 (seventeen years ago)

Don forwarded me this yesterday -- Interesting; guess I need to check out that Josh Turner song:

(Nashville, Tenn. - January 14th, 2008) For the fourth consecutive year, Marco Promotions' Club Connection surveyed over 200 country nightclubs and dance instructors nationwide to determine the most played and most requested club and dance titles of the past 12 months.

The fight for the number-one spot on Club Connection's 2007 Top Club and Dance Songs chart was a close battle between two songs that ran away from the rest of the pack. In the end, Josh Turner's "Firecracker" narrowly beat LeAnn Rimes' "Nothin' Better To Do," finishing the year first and second respectively. Both songs are current singles.

Three songs that were seemingly made for the club scene claim the third, fourth and fifth places on Club Connection's chart. In third place, Blake Shelton is raising glasses with "The More I Drink." Trace Adkins is giving club-goers confidence in their pick-up lines and dating techniques with "I Got My Game On," ranking fourth. Rounding out the top five is Cowboy Troy in his effort to get all the ladies on the dance floor, "Hick Chicks."

Current CMA Male Vocalist of the Year Brad Paisley landed at Club Connection's number six with his number-one hit "Ticks." In spite of doing repair jobs and selling turnips off the back of a truck for a living, relationship-challenged guys head to the club to find hope and reassurance in the seventh and eighth spots on the Club Connection chart. Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" charts at number seven, and Billy Currington's number-one song "Good Directions" lands at number eight.

Country newcomers round out Club Connection's top ten for 2007. Luke Bryan's debut single "All My Friends Say" from his album "I'll Stay Me" takes the number nine position. Finishing up the top ten is Rissi Palmer's "Country Girl," which entered the club scene late in the year, but still managed a top-ten spot on the club chart.

Steve Holy's "Brand New Girlfriend," the number one club song for 2006, continued its popularity in 2007 to take the number one re-current position. Rodney Atkins's 2006 number one song "If You're Going Through Hell" earned the second highest re-current rotation for 2007.

Club Connection's Top Ten Club And Dance Hits Of 2007 are:

1. Josh Turner, "Firecracker"
2. LeAnn Rimes, "Nothin' Better To Do"
3. Blake Shelton, "The More I Drink"
4. Trace Adkins, "I Got My Game On"
5. Cowboy Troy, "Hick Chicks"
6. Brad Paisley, "Ticks"
7. Toby Keith, "High Maintenance Woman"
8. Billy Currington, "Good Directions"
9. Luke Bryan, "All My Friends Say"
10. Rissi Palmer, "Country Girl"

xhuxk, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:38 (seventeen years ago)

I really like Rissi.

Bob Frank's Red Neck, Blue Collar's backing doesn't do a lot for me, altho it features some great Memphis musicians. But he's a good storyteller and "Judas Iscariot" is a pretty cool talking blues featuring Jesus, who tells Judas to "pass that pipe, I've had too much wine," and the song turns out Jesus got crucified just because Judas I. made a bet with the Romans. So Jesus gets back to his party before it's too late, and then the song has a trick ending. Some of this is sort of Red Sovine for potheads, but I like Frank's voice. And Jim Dickinson's liner notes are typically funny: "Bob went to Vietnam and Nashville. I don't know which was worse." Real working-class music, as on the excellent "Monroe, Louisiana Pipeliner's Brawl" on which he travels around and can't take his wife with him.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 15:48 (seventeen years ago)

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment,would you capture it or just let it slip?

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 17 January 2008 08:15 (seventeen years ago)

It touched my heart so much. It's such a relatable song that a lot of people can relate to. I just started cryin', and she looked at me - oh! - and she had to come over and hug my neck 'cause I was cryin'. ("Because Of You" on Oprah.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 17 January 2008 21:12 (seventeen years ago)

who is ashton shepherd? just heard her not-bad late-'07 kiss-off single "takin' off this pain," and noticed she has a debut album coming out in march, but mostly couldn't get over the incredible resemblance between the chorus melody of the single and the verse melody of "sweet child o' mine."

fact checking cuz, Friday, 18 January 2008 20:33 (seventeen years ago)

Those Taylor Swift doing Eminem clips are a trip and a half.

Shelby Lynne doing Dusty Springfield, however, is a snoozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzze and a half. ("Anyone Who Had a Heart" was not awful, though, admittedly; doubt I'll get all the way through the rest.)

New Chris Cagle album (the real one, out next month, as distinguised from the press-only promo sampler that came out late last year or didn't come out as the case may be) starts strong (first three songs) then has trouble keeping up, but that's better than if it was the other way around, I guess.

Canadian band the Road Hammers have their first U.S. fit, finally -- sort of, since "I Don't Know When To Quit" (which I haven't heard) is at #60 on the Country singles chart in Billboard this week.

Danielle Peck (whose album from last year I finally heard) sounds way too genteel and prissy, way too much like early '90s Lorrie Morgan than a pretty young country girl should in 2008. And she doesn't have a "Something In Red," I don't think. The not-so-prissily titled "Sucks To Be You" and "Kiss You On The Mouth" (as opposed to, um, where??) are probably better (and less Lorrie Morgan like) than some of the rest, though; I need to listen more.

And I sadly have no idea who Ashton Shepherd is.

xhuxk, Saturday, 19 January 2008 00:36 (seventeen years ago)

Guess I need to check out that Josh Turner song

Uh, it's nothing all that interesting--even for Josh Turner. Certainly nowhere near as good as the Leann Rimes single it beat.

mulla atari, Saturday, 19 January 2008 00:41 (seventeen years ago)

Okay, so Shelby is okay, I guess, on "Look of Love" and maybe "Breakfast in Bed"; just wish she hadn't drunk all that codiene cough syrup before hitting the recording studio. ("I Only Want To Be With You," an apparent attempt to get "jazzy," has been done better by at least 300 different people, I predict.)

Speaking of snoozzzz, I also want to register the fact here that I attempted to listen to this new Philly (I think) phreak pholk album by Ex Reverie, who are as sleepy as Shelby but without the tunes that Shelby set out so ably do de-energize, even. Though I guess "Days Away" might have a certain Kate Bush over marching drums appeal, big frigging whoop.

xhuxk, Saturday, 19 January 2008 01:22 (seventeen years ago)

And okay okay, Shelby's "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" sounds quite ominous -- could wind up being my favorite cut, and the fact that I don't think I've ever heard the original probably doesn't hurt. Album may even be a keeper, despite my misgivings, hmmmm.

xhuxk, Saturday, 19 January 2008 01:40 (seventeen years ago)

Nah, never mind, on third thought -- Defintely not a keeper. Just way too reverent and de-energized and who-cares. Only has 10 songs (a good number), but the tempos are so sluggish it still lasts way longer than it should. An okay use of space from Phil Ramone, but nothing transcendant. She does better with the two Bacharach/David songs (especially "Anyone Who Had a Heart," not like the world especially needs another version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart") than most of the rest; "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" (apparently a Tony Joe White song), on subsequent listens, sounds like a way-too-drowsy version of what's probably been a real good song in others' hands, even if I've not heard it. The old fallacy: Make the music "intense" by draining it of life. A shame -- Shelby's a good singer. Always has been. Just not sure she's ever made a good album.

xhuxk, Saturday, 19 January 2008 15:39 (seventeen years ago)

PAUL THORN - Not hating this guy; may even catch him live when he plays in New York

I did, and he's actually a surprisingly funny fella, talking between songs (about, like, his boxing match with Roberto Duran in the late '80s where Duran kicked his butt but they wound up in the same amb-yoo-lants, and how many people can say that?); too bad the humor isn't really dedectible on his album (at least the new one). Also wasn't aware that he had written "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" (which he closed the show with a fairly rousing version of) that Sawyer Brown had a hit with; also, Tony Keith covered Thorn's "Double Wide Paradise" on Dream Walkin' 11 years ago. Anyway, an entertaining show, though I doubt I'll investigate his CDs more.

xhuxk, Saturday, 19 January 2008 17:24 (seventeen years ago)

Another sort of stodgy alt-countryish singer-songwriter type guy who showed some promise in his heavy folk gun waltzes and jiggy train songs, might ultimately didn't cut it for me: Randy Thompson.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=130484228

xhuxk, Sunday, 20 January 2008 01:01 (seventeen years ago)

"...BUT ultimately didn't..."

xhuxk, Sunday, 20 January 2008 01:13 (seventeen years ago)

Shelby's a good singer. Always has been. Just not sure she's ever made a good album.

My friend Mark Fenster once told me that the best Shelby albums are the first ones, before she broke free of "country."

Listening on her MySpace, I had the same reaction that you did to her new Dusty stuff. I'm not sure the problem is reverence though. I don't know what the problem is, actually; I don't think the lifeless-behind-glass-feel is deliberate. But somehow her voice isn't creating enough flow of emphases and de-emphases for me to really get any kind of engagement with a voice trying to say something. Something's putting me at a distance, anyway. I don't think the distance is deliberate. Maybe she chokes a lot.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 20 January 2008 19:32 (seventeen years ago)

Why does Taylor Swift always wear dresses? I think she looks great in them - really fetching, and the way she moves within the dresses, with her tall thinness, gives her a sense of rippling motion. But she might well look just as great in jeans and cowgirl blouses. So what do you think she's going for by wearing dresses? How's she trying to look? What's she trying to symbolize?

And how would you characterize the dresses? Here she's glitzed up but in a way that's not upscale "elegance," but not inelegant, either.

While here she's in a summer dress, 'cause it is summer (or late spring So Cal), but I think she tends to go for a "summer dress" look in general, wherever and whenever, her movements making her dresses move as if in a breeze.

Here's a sample of a bunch of her looks.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 20 January 2008 19:57 (seventeen years ago)

(Actually, I just google mapped Turlock, and it's not in Southern California but due east of San Jose in the Central Valley, between Stockton and Fresno. Gets real hot there in the summer, but this is still spring, obviously a shirt-sleeve day.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 20 January 2008 20:02 (seventeen years ago)

let me look at Taylor's fashion statement in a minute, Frank. in the meantime, I got a few tracks into Alan Jackson's new Good Time and I dunno...who is this guy? He wrote all 17 songs on this one himself and you get the idea he just hummed them into his digital recorder on the way to the session after listening to some Chuck Berry remakes by Chuck Berry himself, I had one of those records once where Chuck cut some stuff he cut earlier, these were new recut versions that artists sometimes do for the oldies market only Chuck probably wasn't that old when he did 'em for the money. Title track is pretty much like a syllabically jammed Berry tune and pretty rockin', actually, and I had hopes for one called "1976" but it's pretty boring, about how life was simpler then and Alan had to get out of town to be a success, just like Jimmy Carter. It's like he's there but not there--he definitely can sing and he's a real country singer, and I suppose he's a lot smarter and more energetic than he's letting on. And I mean the single, "Small Town Southern Man," is all right. So maybe this is his or his label's version of a no-sweat followup to a record that was a stretch, conceptually Like Red on a Rose, which I think really went somewhere and really gave his lack of affect a context (of nostalgia, dolefulness, something) that this music simply lacks, for all its skill.

Ross Johnson's new comp on Goner, Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson, collects Memphis singles the former Panther Burns drummer cut down there starting in the late '70s and on into today, basically. A Brother Dave Gardner for an era already over (indie Southern shit in the Clinton go-go years) in which he bemoans middle age and fights it on spoken-word-with-rockabilly-mutant-free-jazzoid-Sonny Sharrock-shred-Brit Invasion-fife-and-drum-drum-parade-drumming, and that's not the half of it. Some of the mutant jazzoid whatevers like "Wet Bar" with a big slobbering overstated 6/8 bronto-billy riff and a tale of divorce because of alcohol abuse and leading to same, and "Nudist Camp" which beats R. L. Burnside, Jon Spencer, Jad Fair or any of them in pure unfettered skronk (with accordion), are choice, and he's funny on marriage ("What about starting a second family while you're still hitched?" he asks on the last song, which is about being a drunk and 50 and with kids that you're afraid you get too drunk to father, so it's real comedy--serious shit played for laffs. "It Never Happened" lays those big parade drums under some equally crazed shit--rockabilly for real, all agitated and macho and insane--about how Elvis didn't actually die and how Elvis' eyes were like "two pissholes in the snow," while the other great cut, "Nudist Camp," details a visit by the 11-year-old Ross to two sexually precocious twins, Donna and Dora. "Twelve years old, and she was a woman. Do you take my meaning? Do you take my meaning," he asks. On "Mr. Blue (Cut Your Head on X-mas)," Ross visits a pet cemetary and runs into a guy drinking out of a broken Olde English quart bottle, mourning the death of his poodle, and they reminisce about beloved dogs and racism, stuff like that. Comedy record of the year.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 20 January 2008 21:33 (seventeen years ago)

So the one halfway memorable song from Danielle Peck's debut last year, only one that really ever jumps out at me, is "I Don't," the chorus of which notably goes "Jesus loves you, I don't." Beyond that, meh: I get the idea she's got a big, deep, sturdy, steadfast very Lorrie Mogan-like singing voice (not what you'd expect to look at her), but needs better songwriting, production, whatever.

New Chris Cagle album, as I said, starts out strong: rocker parsing the many shades of the adjective "gone" (his current hit); partially talked rocker about a guy Chris meets at the bar who wants to hear any kinds of songs (from Chris or anybody else) except love songs; funky country rocker with words working as rhythm (as the sort of do in "No Love Songs" too actually), sounding like it could be from Big N Rich's second album: "Guess who's back in town/Back in my old stomping ground." Most of the rest is okay -- a bunch of power ballads, "I Don't Live" and "My Heart Move On" (hey, isn't that almost a Celine Dion song title) somewhat rousing in their buildups. In "Keep Me From Loving You," Chris gets C's and D's in school and connects with a girl who gets A's and B's. Catchiest song outside of the first three is "Little Sundress, where Chris gets excited about some girl's skirt (see also: "Outfit" by Starz, which I was listening to last week) and her "golden Tropicana tan," which makes it sound like she looks like an orange juice can (doesn't sound like all that natural a tan to me), but hey, whatever suits his fancy. Also, he likes how she dances to reggae. Songs I like least are the final two -- "My Life is a Country Song" (title cut), where he does the usual pandering schtick of dropping names of Older Country Songs You Will Know, none remotely surprising, and "Change Me," sensitive male new-age mush for the laydeez, yucko. Decent album, though -- maybe better than his sampler CD.

xhuxk, Monday, 21 January 2008 15:55 (seventeen years ago)

(The one song should be "I Don't Wanna Live," actually. And "My Heart Move On" is weird syntax, but that's what it's called on my advance CD -- could be a mistake. And one thing I didn't mention is that "No Love Songs" is actually pretty funnny.) (Also "Keep Me From Loving You" is nowhere near as good as song about school grades as Soulja Boy's new single, or the end of its video anyway, where he gets all F's on his report card then tells the teacher to "throw some D's on that bitch," then ends the video with a disclaimer telling the kids in the audience he really gets all A's, so stay in school.)

xhuxk, Monday, 21 January 2008 16:02 (seventeen years ago)

Mando Saenz's Bucket is hi-definition rockin' country. "Pocket of Red" proves my long-held point that the Gin Blossoms are a huge and under-reported influence on modern country. Big almost glammy Bowie drag drums, various percussions and those big epic chord changes. Kind of like Freedy Johnston or something--who put out one recently that was all covers and was somewhat under-produced. I hear it as good commercial alt-country, Western Mythos Division. Actually, of course, cut in Nashville with R.S. Field, who also did Justin Earle's new one--which I have yet to hear, he's called Justin Townes Earle now. Anyway, Saenz is really fucking produced, like alt-program music, and tastee indeed. Not sure yet if he's just another sensitive dude mildy rocking into endless space, sounds pretty drugstore cowboy to me.
"I left New England and a sundress was talking begging me for more" he sings in "PIttsburgh," which just sounds like the fucking House of David to me (studio where he made this sappy shit). So I dunno, the songs really are pretty nondescript to my ears--schmaltz-country.

Great cut: Karen Dalton's "It Hurts Me Too" on Cotton Eyed Joe: The Loop Tapes--Live in Boulder 1962.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 21 January 2008 22:44 (seventeen years ago)

So the one halfway memorable song from Danielle Peck's debut last year, only one that really ever jumps out at me, is "I Don't," the chorus of which notably goes "Jesus loves you, I don't."

i like danielle's debut a lot more than xhuxk does, despite the fact that she broke my man josh beckett's heart. i really dig her voice. but what was most notable to me about "i don't" was its similarity to lyle lovett's much better "god will," which notably went "god does but i don't / and god will but i won't / and that's the difference between god and me." also notably, it came out around the same time as eric church's great "before she does," which addressed the same relationship from the other side: "i believe the bible is cold hard fact / and i believe jesus is coming back / before she does."

fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 00:02 (seventeen years ago)

(actually danielle may not have actually broken josh beckett's heart. good info on sports coupling tends to be harder to come by than pop and hollywood coupling.)

fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 00:14 (seventeen years ago)

"My friend Mark Fenster once told me that the best Shelby albums are the first ones, before she broke free of "country.""

I wish I could say the same thing, but, alas, after I became enamored of I AM SHELBY LYNNE, I found one of her earlier big-hair country CD's in a cutout bin. The only good thing about that disc is her voice, but if it ain't got the good songs to back it up, why fuck with it? I sold that one later on...

Rev. Hoodoo, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 05:12 (seventeen years ago)

Taylor Swift's got a live version of "Umbrella" available on iTunes, though I way prefer her on this other version of "Umbrella," on YouTube, despite its pitch problems.

In this YouTube one Taylor makes the song sound sad and fragile and slightly desperate, as if she's the one caught in the rain, and she needs the guy to come to her as much as he needs her protection.* And Taylor sounding sad, fragile, and desperate still has some sort of... not sure what the word is, "aggression" being too aggressive and "moxie" too plucky. Anyway, some sort of energy, so she's not remotely self-pitying even in her sad songs; there's assertion and even spite in "Christmases When You Were Mine," for instance, and in "Tim McGraw" she's not just wondering plaintively whether she left a mark on the boy, but rather, to make sure she'll leave a mark, she's sending him that letter she wrote three years ago - the letter presumably contains the same combination of bitter and sweet that the song does. (And we know from "Should've Said No" that she's someone who'll dump you in a flash if she thinks you've wronged her.)

Other covers by Taylor that you can find on YouTube: Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," John Waite's "Missing You," Avril Lavigne's "Anything But Ordinary."

*But then, Rihanna's delivery of the original also has a sadness so that the invitation "come into me" doesn't forget the rain that was used as the pretext for the invitation in the first place.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:17 (seventeen years ago)

Kinda digging this Jake Owen tune, "Starting With Me." He needs a makeover to un-Billy Ray himself pronto though

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:22 (seventeen years ago)

I think Alan Jackson sings beautifully on "Small Town Southern Man," but the lyrics pander to the insecurity of the audience, "And he bowed his head to Jesus/And he stood for Uncle Sam/And he only loved one woman/Was always proud of what he had." The problem here isn't that he doesn't believe exactly what I believe, but that he's content to simply heave the same old signifiers for a predetermined effect. I don't believe in Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take The Wheel," either, but that song puts out, delivers, explains itself, earns its sentiment.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:39 (seventeen years ago)

Speaking of Rihanna, and Chuck Berry, among the ten or twenty things Rihanna's doing on "Lemme Get That" (my second-favorite track on Good Girl Gone Bad) is to insert these half-speaking parts that follow Chuck Berry vocal cadences, so you almost think she's about to break into "Too Much Monkey Business."

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:45 (seventeen years ago)

I barely remember Panther Burns (they were neorockabilly gone "crazed" and pumped-up and blood-spattered, right? rather than the cowpunk coming out at the same time by Rank And File?), but you've intrigued me with your description of the Ross Johnson alb: "spoken-word-with-rockabilly-mutant-free-jazzoid-Sonny Sharrock-shred-Brit Invasion-fife-and-drum-drum-parade-drumming."

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:59 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, that description makes me interested, too!

I had a Shelby Lynne Best of the Epic Years compilation for a while a few years ago, and on balance, I did't think it was markedly better or worse than her more critic-approved later stuff -- livelier, maybe, but also somehow more generic. She had at least a tentative Western Swing thing going on, but I'm not sure how deep she went into the jazz or r&B mixing -- a perusal at AMG shows shows her covering Ellington and Charlie Rich, at least. There was one video she did, off of the Temptation album I think, that I really liked at the time; had her on a riverboat sipping mint juleps, maybe. Good song, too. I wrote about it some fanzine, running down songs on a mix tape I'd made for myself. (The zine was dedicated to mixtapes, back when those were actual mixes you made on tape.) But I'm blanking out on the song title, and youtube's not helping.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 15:27 (seventeen years ago)

Ha, found it! "Slow Me Down" -- off Restless ('95), not Temptation ('93). My description was not exactly right above, either. But definitely has an energy that most of her later "to heck with the Nashville I make my own rules" stuff lacks:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FbmLU6r6PX0

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 15:33 (seventeen years ago)

xpost (as many of my posts are)

A couple years ago I heard some of Karen Dalton's early '70s alb, In My Own Time; varied from harsh and haunting to almost unlistenable. I like "Katie Cruel" (first track up on the MySpace for In My Own Time). I may be misremembering, since I don't own the book, but I think Bob Dylan in Chronicles mentions being really taken by her singing back in the early '60s.

And the MySpace for Cotton Eyed Joe streams "It's Alright" from 1962. Voice is more flexible than on "Katie Cruel," and has more nuance and less shtick than, say, Amy Winehouse, but also less oomph. Sings with the same floating Billie rhythms that Amy would later use. (I think Amy's been underrated in these parts - last year's rolling country and rolling teenpop - but of course has been overrated elsewhere. If "Rehab" had defeated "Umbrella" in Idolator/P&J I'd have considered seceding from the universe.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 15:35 (seventeen years ago)

Fanzine was called Tapeworm, right? Or am I misremembering? In any event I wrote for it too.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 15:37 (seventeen years ago)

And I definitely like "Slow Me Down," but even on that one there's something self-contained, perhaps (still not sure what), about Shelby's voice that makes it good but not all that immediately engaging. Track works well, but I think the background singers are what really give it warmth. Maybe she's going for authority more than warmth.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 15:52 (seventeen years ago)

Okay, this is weird. I just noticed that, in a review of John Anderson's album 10 that I wrote for the Voice in 1988, I quote a song called "I Hope Things Aren't Like That Tomorrow" as going "I don't wanna hear how times are hard/I've gotta pull the weeds from my own backyard." Aren't those the same lyrics as in his song "Weeds," from last year? I wonder if he just changed the title...

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 16:28 (seventeen years ago)

"I had a Shelby Lynne Best of the Epic Years compilation for a while a few years ago, and on balance, I did't think it was markedly better or worse than her more critic-approved later stuff -- livelier, maybe, but also somehow more generic."

GENERIC = bingo!

As far as being more "livelier," well lively wasn't the point with I AM SHELBY LYNNE, so that don't hardly make any difference.

"She had at least a tentative Western Swing thing going on, but I'm not sure how deep she went into the jazz or r&B mixing -- a perusal at AMG shows shows her covering Ellington and Charlie Rich, at least."

It was probably always in the back of her mind, though. I seem to remember reading something in Pulse magazine, back when she was still a generic Nashville vocalist, that her tastes and influences ran deeper than whatever country radio was playing at that moment. I could sorta tell, even then, that she was gonna flip out and make a Rebellious Alt-Country Record one of these days.

Rev. Hoodoo, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 16:59 (seventeen years ago)

same lyrics, Chuck, and "Weeds" written by JA and Lionel Delmore, long-time collaborator on many of Anderson's classics (passed away, I believe), so could be an old idea reworked. Great song, very much like the '81 "I Just Came Home to Count the Memories."

far as Shelby Lynne goes--I have yet to receive my copy. So reserving judgement, with the admitted prejuidice that says you can't beat Dusty Springfield, and the question: what did the people who made this record think they were actually doing? Because anyone can interpret anything, as Dusty did, and seems to me we've entered an age where the referent is more alive than the, blah blah blah, you get my point. Dusty in Memphis works because its singing is insanely subtle and perfectionist and because the backing is so spare and insanely subtle. Apparently, the Shelby record is pretty spare, too. I guess jazz singers do it all the time, interpret material in the same way that some mythical jazz singer from the past has done, so a sophisticated audience would hear the new versions with the old ones in mind. I dunno, I guess I need to hear it.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 17:01 (seventeen years ago)

After an afternoon of concerted Web searching I have learned this about why Taylor Swift wears dresses.

"Dresses are my weakness, seriously."

She loves Forever 21 and BCBG. From this I surmise that she's not going for a goth look.

Also, she told CMT that she'd love to perform with Jay-Z, that if she had one record to take on a drive cross-country it would be Def Leppard's Pyromania, and that if she could tour with all women and could choose any genres, she would go on the road with Rihanna and Brandi Carlile. "You say 'random,' I say 'interesting.'"

(I'd never listened to Brandi Carlile until fifteen minutes ago, when I went to her MySpace, but this has me worried. Not awful, but sounds like KT Tunstall and Tashbed singer-songwriter respectability, without Tunstall's dexterity and wit or Tashbed's goofball tendencies. Of course, the wit and the goofiness might be there for me to find if I look, and she's not devoid of passion, but right now she's singing about staring into a starry sky.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 22:57 (seventeen years ago)

And I won't pretend to have an idea of how such dresses would play in teen life in Nashville and 'burbs; obviously not playing to the sk8ers and the emos, nor to the kids who are scene (if those are relevant terms there), but I'd think dresses and nothing but dresses are too idiosyncratic to necessarily code as "prep." My guess is that even if Taylor felt like an outsider or an oddball some of the time (I remember an interview where she said something of the sort, in regard to "A Place In This World"), she was in the prep sphere of influence. Not only because of the dresses but because she talks of wanting to be a good role model and not disappoint the ten-year-old girl and the girl's mom whom she saw at a recent concert of hers. (Hey, what if the girl grows up and is disappointed that Taylor hasn't turned into a Jean Harlow or a Grace Slick or a Paris Hilton?) And Taylor regrets that her career basically precludes her going to college. (She's home schooling her senior year because touring and stuff make it impossible for her to do high school. But she'll get a diploma.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 23:22 (seventeen years ago)

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5784/taylorswiftbellaasgt7.jpg
Bella as Taylor Swift

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 23 January 2008 15:52 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2008/01/24/The_Eighth_Annual_Country_Music_/

scott seward, Wednesday, 23 January 2008 21:32 (seventeen years ago)

Oops, sorry about that diversion. Nashville Scene critic's poll '07 winners, for easy reference later; iin general, poppier than I would have predicted:

Albums:
1. Miranda Lambert: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Sony/BMG Nashville)
2. Robert Plant/Alison Krauss: Raising Sand (Rounder)
3. Brad Paisley: 5th Gear (Arista Nashville)
4. Porter Wagoner: Wagonmaster (Anti-)
5. Patty Griffin: Children Running Through (ATO)
6. Lori McKenna: Unglamorous (Warner Bros.)
7. Lucinda Williams: West (Lost Highway)
8. Dwight Yoakam: Dwight Sings Buck (New West)
9. Steve Earle: Washington Square Serenade (New West)
10. Trisha Yearwood: Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love (Big Machine)
11. Levon Helm: Dirt Farmer (Vanguard)
12. The Avett Brothers: Emotionalism (Ramseur)
13. Little Big Town: A Place To Land (Equity)
14. Joe Nichols: Real Things (Universal South)
15. Lyle Lovett: It’s Not Big, It’s Large (Lost Highway)
16. Elizabeth Cook: Balls (31 Tigers)
17. Pam Tillis: Rhinestoned (Stellar Cat)
18. Kelly Willis: Translated from Love (Rykodisc)
19. Teddy Thompson: Up Front and Down Low (Verve Forecast)
20. Mary Gauthier: Between Daylight and Dark (Lost Highway)
21. Carrie Underwood: Carnival Ride (Arista Nashville)
22. Ryan Adams: Easy Tiger (Lost Highway)
23. (tie) Merle Haggard: The Bluegrass Sessions (McCoury Music)
23. (tie) Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price: Last of the Breed (Lost Highway)
25. (tie) Amy LaVere: Anchors and Anvils (Archer)
25. (tie) Reba: Duets (MCA Nashville)
27. Tim McGraw: Let It Go (Curb)
28. Gretchen Wilson: One of the Boys (Sony/BMG Nashville)
29. Sarah Borges: Diamonds in the Dark (Sugar Hill)
30. Robbie Fulks: Revenge! (Yep Roc)

Singles:
1. Miranda Lambert: “Famous in a Small Town”
2. Brad Paisley: “Ticks”
3. Dierks Bentley: “Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)”
4. Gary Allan: “Watching Airplanes”
5. Keith Urban: “Stupid Boy”
6. Sugarland: “Stay”
7. Robert Plant/Alison Krauss: “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)”
8. LeAnn Rimes: “Nothin’ Better To Do”
9. Trisha Yearwood: “Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love”
10. Josh Turner: “Firecracker”
11. Brad Paisley: “Online”
12. Miranda Lambert: “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”
13. Carrie Underwood: “Before He Cheats”
14. Taylor Swift: “Teardrops on My Guitar”
15. Miranda Lambert: “Gunpowder & Lead”

Reissues:
1. Emmylou Harris: Songbird: Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems (Rhino)
2. Gram Parsons with the Flying Burrito Bros: Archives Vol. One: Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 (Amoeba)
3. The Stanley Brothers: The Definitive Collection (1947-1966) (Time-Life)
4. Merle Haggard: Legends of American Music: The Original Outlaw (Time-Life)
5. Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More (Rounder)
6. Garth Brooks: The Ultimate Hits (Pearl)
7. George Strait: 22 More Hits (MCA Nashville )
8. Bobby Bare: Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies (RCA Nashville/Legacy)
9. Neil Young: Live at Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise)
10. Arthur Alexander: Lonely Just Like Me—The Final Chapter (Hacktone)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 13:28 (seventeen years ago)

Himes's essay; I am having trouble finding the comments section...

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2008/01/24/Blonde_Ambition/index.shtml

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 13:48 (seventeen years ago)

This is meaningless and self-aggrandizing, I think; Himes patting the critics on the back for having such daring tastes, for insisting on challenging themselves in a way that regular old country fans refuse to do -- which, sorry, I just don't buy (also not sure what being a virtuoso has to do with it):

Do we want reassurance from art, a confirmation that everything they already believe is true? Or do we want to have our assumptions challenged, to hear something we don’t already know? Do we want virtuosic performances that meet a platonic ideal we can stand back and admire? Or do we want idiosyncratic delivery that marks an artist as one of a kind?

It’s no news that a majority of consumers prefer reassurance and virtuosity. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will. But there has also always been a sizeable minority that prefers new challenges to further confirmation. And if you’re going to listen to country music every day and write about it for a living, you’re more likely to be in the second camp than the first. Thus this poll’s critics have flocked to Lambert for the same reasons they flocked to the Dixie Chicks, Rodney Crowell, Alison Krauss, Steve Earle, Patty Loveless and the Soggy Mountain Boys in the past.

His Lambert:Haggard :: Underwood:Bill Anderson dichotomy seems interesting, though (maybe because I know absolutely nothing about Bill Anderson myself.

And I don't really buy this (the Eagles and Benatar and Journey were better than he thinks -- I'll take Benatar over Raitt, actually -- and I don't think I've heard an '00s country hit that rocks as hard as "Flirtin With Disaster" or "Rock and Roll All Night" though I'd sure like to) (well, I can hear "Beth" I guess), but it's an intruiguing theory, too; country could definitely use more Cheap Trick, I'm not going to argue with that one. (Though if I think hard enough, I bet it already has some.)

Country radio’s problem is not that it sounds like ’70s rock but that it sounds like bad ’70s rock—more like Molly Hatchet than Lynyrd Skynyrd, more like Journey than Cheap Trick, more like Firefall than Fleetwood Mac, more like Kiss than Led Zeppelin, more like Pat Benatar than Bonnie Raitt, more like The Eagles than The Byrds.

And I like what he says about Brad Paisley at the end, but I still don't think Brad's as bland as Vince Gill. (He's less humorless, for one thing.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 14:09 (seventeen years ago)

(Well, I don't know, maybe certain hits by Montgomery Gentry or somebody "rock as hard" as "Flirtin With Disaster" -- they definitely have some hits I like more than "Flirtin Wtih Disaster," though that's probably as much to do with being more nuanced and cutting deeper emotionally. But I still wouldn't say they sound like Molly Hatchet. Who, again, were better than "bad".)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 14:15 (seventeen years ago)

Also seems a little odd to call mostly-'80s Benatar and mostly-'60s Byrds "'70s rock" at all, but that's just me being pedantic. (And I do believe that Benatar's best album -- which I'll take over any Bonnie Raitt album I ever heard -- came out in 1979.)

I'll also take Montgomery Gentry over Journey, for whatever that's worth. (But yeah, not over Skynyrd or Led Zeppelin or Cheap Trick.) (Up against the Eagles or Kiss or Byrds, it would be a hard call. Off the top of my head, Montgomery Gentry strike me as more consistently great album artists than any of those, but it's not like I've ever made a point of hearing every Byrds album. And Montgomery Gentry have never done anything as great as the Byrds' or Eagles' or Kiss's greatest singles, I don't think.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 15:13 (seventeen years ago)

As for the poll rankings go, I'll probably have more thoughts later, but first I just want to say that I don't think I had any idea there was a new Lucinda Williams album in 2007...Or, even if I was aware momentarily, that anybody actually liked the thing. I'm guessing that's a total resting-on-her-laurels vote, just like P.J. Harvey placing in Pazz&Jop for an album barely anybody mentioned when it came out.

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 15:18 (seventeen years ago)

I don't know that I've ever heard Firefall, though maybe I'm hearing a lot of country artists that sound like Firefall. Haven't read the essay. Which ones does he say sound like Firefall? Like Journey? Like Benatar? I don't know. No one on the country charts sounds much like Rocket From The Tombs or the Sex Pistols or the Contortions or Richard Hell & The Voidoids or The Adverts or the Dolls, either. Must not be very good, therefore. (Not enough sound like Donna Summer.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 15:29 (seventeen years ago)

Which ones does he say sound like Firefall? Like Journey? Like Benatar?

He doesn't.

There are probably some acts on the country chart who sound like Poison sometimes, and Poison could sound like Pistols or Dolls sometimes, for whatever that's worth. But yeah, his logic doesn't wash.

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 15:34 (seventeen years ago)

Firefall greatest hits:

"Just Remember I Love You"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=trvtMSoW7dM

"Strange Way"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=j6GXZBHJlYc

"You Are The Woman"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=s7M597TgMwU

The first two sound better than I'd remembered!

I guess it would have been in poor taste for Geoff to mention Dan Fogelberg.

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 15:40 (seventeen years ago)

apparently Firefall have a new one out, where they do...the Beatles. they sounded good on the radio.

as for the comment about the Byrds and '" '70s rock," I don't think it's pedantic to say that he's just wrong. The Byrds were a '60s group--they did all their significant work by 1969. and as far as '70s country-rock goes, the Byrds certainly helped pave the way, but the Eagles and Poco and all them didn't really sound much like the Byrds. His comments about bad old '70s rock just sound humorless to me.

as for the winners--I simply fail to understand how the records by Cook, Tillis, Willie, LaVere, Lucinda and Dwight were all that fucking good. Cook's had maybe two really good songs; Tillis made an honorable record that I haven't played once since it came out; LaVere don't cut it; Lucinda, I dunno, I mean go ahead and turn into Joni Mitchell for Austinites or whatever. Dwight's Buck album wasn't any better than the Derailers' Buck album. And I am just baffled at the lack of John Anderson in these results--if he's not the greatest country singer alive at the moment, he's close, and I thought Easy Money was a great modernization of his sound. Maybe it was the participation of John Rich? And shit, OK, Anderson's second record was reissued last year--the 5 Collectors' Choice reissues technically hit early this month. But come on. Wagonmaster was a good record, I guess; and we all miss Porter (and Dan Fogelberg, too, I suppose), but it wasn't really all that good. I'm in the minority for thinking Charlie Louvin's record was kind of great--it was as good as Porter's, easy. I mean I'm one of those people who love the Byrds, but they're one of the greatest harbingers of Americana and alt-country; what do they have to do with mainstream country as we know it right now? Zilch, because they were an experimental, '60s group; and last I looked on Music Row, they weren't doing a hell of a lot of that. Weird.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:02 (seventeen years ago)

But the big story was the contrast between Lambert and Underwood, who could only manage the No. 21 album (Carnival Ride), the No. 13 single ("Before He Cheats") and the No. 10 slot as artist of the year.

Writing stuff like this is simple dishonesty, given that "Before He Cheats" was voted number 5 last year, and if Himes were following P&J rules would probably, therefore, be in the top 3 or so this year. If he wants to say that this year's Carrie didn't score so high, well that's true, but it doesn't serve to highlight the supposed dichotomy between Underwood and Lambert, does it? (Fwiw, I like "So Small" more than "Famous In A Small Town," though like a lot on the Lambert and some on the Underwood more than either of those.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:03 (seventeen years ago)

xp And come to think of it, it does seem like a stretch to say that modern Nashville has more Benatar than Raitt in its sound. With that one, I'd love him to name names (not that I can name names, off hand, of Nashville singers who are Raitt-influenced, I admit. But maybe if I listened to Raitt more often I could.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:06 (seventeen years ago)

And this is simple stupidity:

When Underwood describes her broken heart on "Flat on the Floor," she channels Heart's Ann Wilson as she wallows in self-pity: "You can't knock me off my feet when I'm already on my knees." Lambert refuses to give in to her broken heart on "Getting Ready."

Yes, and Carrie refuses to give in to a broken heart on "Before He Cheats." And so what? Since when does doing a song in which you don't give in to a broken heart take you outside of conventionality?

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:07 (seventeen years ago)

Or how are Montgomery Gentry and Brooks & Dunn (etc.) more influenced by Hatchett than by Skynyrd? (I don't know enough about Hatchett, so maybe he's right.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:09 (seventeen years ago)

and that should be Kelly Willis, not Willie (whose new record's out next week). Many of my colleagues cite Translated from Love as a really good record, but apart from her Stooges cover I simply don't hear it. She sings well enough, but the attempted pop of that record--by producer Chuck Prophet, whose latest record belongs in the winners' list if Lucinda's does--didn't cut it, in my book. and right, Frank--by any measure, seems to me, Carrie was far more in the public eye this year than Miranda, whose record I liked but which seems like product as much as Carrie's does, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way. and, as far as being influenced by Hatchet as opposed to Skynyrd--this is hair-splitting. If you talked to Eddie Montgomery or Troy Gentry they'd say they were just into Southern rock, period; and whatever, "Flirtin' with Disaster" is a stoopid song, but so what? These musicians are not guys who sit around and make distinctions between marginally differentiated Southern rock! They're just trying to make a buck playing what they know, and what they know--MG, at least--is the same thing I knew growing up, where Wet Willie, Marshall Tucker, the Allmans, Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet and .38 Special were part and parcel of the same thing. As for Raitt's influence, there are plenty of vaguely bluesy alt-country mamas plying their trade in Nashville--Jewly Hight, Amanda White. but they're not gonna get on the radio.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:15 (seventeen years ago)

Haha I have been buying Firefall LPs (pre-'80), like they're going out of fashion, which is ironic since they went out of fashion a long time ago. (A couple of those Rick Roberts Burrito Brothers LPs > that second Burritos record wiv Gram on it, and > changes to >>>>>>>>>>> if you take "Wild Horses" out of the equation).

Last time I watched CMT, which was a few months back, it occurred to me that the then-current Little Big Town single, whatever that was, sounded like Firefall. Or at least sounded like the platonic ideal of a Firefall, which is to say a c0ke-sheeny smooth country rock. But the only other person I mentioned this to looked at me as sceptically as you would be right now, if you could see me. So, uh.

Tim, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:18 (seventeen years ago)

and, I can't find the poll's comments anywhere online, but I'll try again today. I'll get a hard copy of the paper and maybe we'll see, then.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:23 (seventeen years ago)

Comments are only online*, I think.

*If even that.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:25 (seventeen years ago)

(Is it against the law for Toby to chart on these polls these days?)

Tim, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:26 (seventeen years ago)

Firefall's "Cinderella" is the bleakest breakup song ever made: a soul-crushing eff-you to a woman pregnant after a one-night stand. The fact that this got played on the radio when I was a kid is just mind-blowing.

"Strange Way" is also a woman-hating blowoff song, fascinating but not quite as bleak. Also a great flute solo.

As for 2008, I have two theories about Cat Power: a) her new one is basically an alt.country record, and b) she is actually a ghost singing from beyond the grave. Anyone?

Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:30 (seventeen years ago)

double xpost

OK, listening to Firefall right now, and I really like the arrangements and tunes! White quiet storm! But the lead vocals don't cut it (maybe that's a bit unfair, since YouTube rips are often inferior). And I actually don't think I've heard these before.

(Yeah, I was noticing the lack of Toby. Do voters really think that Joe Nichols and Josh Turner sing better than Toby? Of course they could simply be preferring the material that those people sing.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:32 (seventeen years ago)

of vaguely bluesy alt-country mamas plying their trade in Nashville

Weirdly, a few years ago (like, mid/late '90s, when I don't believe the country charts were anywhere near as good as they are now, oddly enough), plenty of vaguely bluesy non-alt country mamas were getting played on CMT and, I assume, country radio -- Patty Loveless, Wynona, even Reba had bluesy hits, like one where she played a judge in the video I think. (K.T. Oslin/Terri Gibbs/Lacy Jay Dalton were earlier and better; Joe Dee Messina was later and better, but Joe Dee hasn't had a real hit for a while.) I feel there were other ones too. But my question here is not about distinctions of quality, but something that just occurred to me -- have female country hitmakers become less bluesy over, say, the past 10 years? Or are some names slipping my mind? (Again, you'd think that would make things worse, but I don't think it has. Was Patty Loveless actually ever interesting? I mainly associate her with that song "Jealous Bone," which was tolerable, I guess, but always seemed really pro forma to me.) (But wait, didn't Trisha Yearwood have some middling hit last year with a gospel chorus in it? And uh, what about Leann Rimes? Are they supposed to sound more like Pat Benatar than Bonnie Raitt, too?)

(Is it against the law for Toby to chart on these polls these days?)

Wasn't it always?

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:33 (seventeen years ago)

xpost: "Cinderella" acoustic, recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RPoMAhfxDg

Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:35 (seventeen years ago)

(Actually, I have heard "You Are The Woman." Don't like it nearly as much as the others.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:43 (seventeen years ago)

Rissi Palmer's "Country Girl" is pretty bluesy. (Most bluesy thing on the album, I think.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:44 (seventeen years ago)

Xhuxk, maybe everyone decided to sound more like Pat Benatar than Bonnie Raitt.

Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:47 (seventeen years ago)

how are Montgomery Gentry and Brooks & Dunn (etc.) more influenced by Hatchett than by Skynyrd?

Hatchett generally sounded more metal to me than Skynyrd (or MG or B&D), for one thing. So yeah, I'm not really sure how he would support this.

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:50 (seventeen years ago)

"Nothin' Better To Do" isn't all that unbluesy either (and did a lot better in this poll than it did on the charts).

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:00 (seventeen years ago)

Maybe what Geoffrey's really trying to say is that a lot of country sounds like '70s rock but not done very well (e.g., sounds like mediocre attempts to be Skynryd etc.). He'd still be wrong, but he'd make more sense.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:03 (seventeen years ago)

It’s no news that a majority of consumers prefer reassurance and virtuosity. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will. But there has also always been a sizeable minority that prefers new challenges to further confirmation.

This is the line that bothers me the most. You don't think that most Dixie Chicks fans were getting reassurance of their previously held beliefs from "Not Ready to Make Nice"? If they are so willing to take on new challenges, do the liberals and non-Southerners really love to listen to songs glorifying southern lifestyles and Republican viewpoints? [I'm not saying that all the people who polled Dixie Chicks last year are liberals/anti-Bush, but I bet most of them were.] And why does he assume that the fans of mainstream country are merely getting confirmation from the songs they listen to? That's a pretty broad stroke.

Lastly, I'm not even sure what he's referring to as "challenging" in Lambert's lyrics. She likes booze and expresses strong feminist pride and doesn't take breakups. There are hundreds, if not thousands of other country songs with those same themes.

Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:22 (seventeen years ago)

xhuxk: you're probably right, I've only been paying attention for the past few years (previously my assumption had been that past 1980 there wasn't much for me in country). I thought I had seen "Honkytonk U" crop up on some critics year-end but I am probably mis-remembering. OR thinking of sales charts. OR weblogs. Or something.

Tim, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:27 (seventeen years ago)

If they are so willing to take on new challenges, do the liberals and non-Southerners really love to listen to songs glorifying southern lifestyles and Republican viewpoints?

See also: Toby's showing in these polls. (Montgomery Gentry have done slightly better, I guess, but only slightly.) (Not that either Toby or MG are uncomplicated enough to be pegged as merely "Republican," but right -- it's silly to think that the Dixie Chicks' political stance is more "challenging" to voters who seem largely liberal.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:30 (seventeen years ago)

MG did finish #10 this year (when they released no album) and #6 last year among "best groups," fwiw.

And obviously, voters might be ignoring Toby (and MG, to an apparently less extent) for reasons other than their politics, though I'm not sure off hand what those reasons would be.

(It's possible Toby has placed once or twice on the charts in the past, Tim, but I believe that, even if he has, it's just been a very isolated blip or two.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:41 (seventeen years ago)

To be self-centered, here's where I coincided with the those who made the Scene lists (not nearly as many as last year).

Albums: Miranda's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Gretchen's One Of The Boys (But I only heard six of the albums I didn't vote for, so maybe I'd have voted for some others if I hadn't heard them, though I'm not betting on it. Would really like to hear the Teddy Thompson, given his version of "Psycho." I notice that he placed whereas his mom and dad didn't.)

Singles: LeAnn's "Nothin' Better To Do," Taylor's "Teardops On My Guitar," Miranda's "Gunpowder & Lead"; I would have voted for Keith Urban's "Stupid Boy" but I considered it 2006, and I should have voted it then. (I heard all the tracks that made it.)

Reissues: Stanley Brothers The Definitive Collection and Neil Young's Live At Massey Hall 1971 (which were probably the only two "reissues" I heard last year)

Male vocalists: zilch (and I'm amazed that John Anderson got shut out altogether, given how neotraditionalist stodgeroos like Strait and Paisley did so well)(OK, unfair to call Paisley a stodgeroo, given his tendency to score novelty hits)

Female vocalists: Yeah, all three of mine made it: Miranda, LeAnn, and Taylor (though that's the reverse order I voted them)

Duos and larger aggregations: Two out of my three: Little Big Town and Brooks & Dunn

Songwriters: Two out of my three: Miranda and Taylor. (I had to look up Jeffrey Steele in Wikipedia. He was once in a band called Boy Howdy and has written a Cascada song.)

New Acts: Sarah Johns (and I voted Taylor last time)

Overall Acts: Miranda

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:43 (seventeen years ago)

maybe I'd have voted for some others if I HAD heard them. (I have a strict policy of only voting for music I've heard.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:44 (seventeen years ago)

xp

voters who seem largely liberal

And on the other hand, I suppose I could be wrong about this, though I don't think I am. It's an alt-weekly poll, after all. And "music criticism" does somehow strike me as a profession that lures in liberals. Though I wouldn't be totally shocked if the Nashville Scene poll pulls in at least a slightly larger percentage of registered Republicans than the Pazz & Jop poll traditionally has.

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:47 (seventeen years ago)

amazed that John Anderson got shut out altogether, given how neotraditionalist stodgeroos like Strait...

Really -- and this goes way beyond this poll -- what the fuck is the deal with this? They started out right around the same time, and for a quarter-century, Anderson has been the more interesting artist. That's never even been a contest, as far as I can tell. But somehow, Strait (and you could throw in Randy Travis here too, and Alan Jackson too) got pegged as a hall-of-famer forever ago, and Anderson is, like, this weird footnote or something, if he's noticed at all. Is there anybody in Nashville who can explain that? Is it that Anderson (with his long hair and beard) was never considered clean-cut enough or (with his rock moves, from way early on) wasn't purist enough, even though he was clearly one of the guys who invented what used to be called "neo-traditionalism"? It makes no sense at all to me. And I have nothing particularly against Strait or Travis or Jackson; they're fine, occasionally even great. They just seem like teacher's pets, born with personalities, in comparison. Maybe that's the point?

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:55 (seventeen years ago)

And oh yeah, on vocals alone, Anderson has always been ten times the singer that Strait or Travis or Jackson are, too. So I'm stumped.

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:58 (seventeen years ago)

Not to disparge those guys singing skills; they're all clearly classic, in their way. But Jawn's drawl has a sense of humor and flesh that they all seem way too goody-goody for. He just sounds so much more rich. And vocally, he's lost none of that. (Now I'm starting to wish I'd voted for his album!)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 18:03 (seventeen years ago)

And of course I meant:

They just seem like teacher's pets, born without personalities

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 18:14 (seventeen years ago)

My Taylor Swift piece in the Las Vegas Weekly

(Note that, in the Taylor Swift picture that the <i>Nashville Scene</i> prints with the poll results, Taylor's wearing the black gloves and playing the glitter guitar that the little girl in my piece wants for Christmas.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 January 2008 22:39 (seventeen years ago)

"amazed that John Anderson got shut out altogether, given how neotraditionalist stodgeroos like Strait...

Really -- and this goes way beyond this poll -- what the fuck is the deal with this? They started out right around the same time, and for a quarter-century, Anderson has been the more interesting artist. That's never even been a contest, as far as I can tell. But somehow, Strait (and you could throw in Randy Travis here too, and Alan Jackson too) got pegged as a hall-of-famer forever ago, and Anderson is, like, this weird footnote or something, if he's noticed at all. Is there anybody in Nashville who can explain that? Is it that Anderson (with his long hair and beard) was never considered clean-cut enough or (with his rock moves, from way early on) wasn't purist enough, even though he was clearly one of the guys who invented what used to be called "neo-traditionalism"? It makes no sense at all to me. And I have nothing particularly against Strait or Travis or Jackson; they're fine, occasionally even great. They just seem like teacher's pets, born with personalities, in comparison. Maybe that's the point?"

Strangely enough, I've had this same conversation with a couple of people recently, mainly spurred on by the fact that Collector's Choice just rereleased a grip of Anderson's albums. I think the teacher's pet thing kinda nails it, as well as Anderson's physical appearance. Me and a friend were talking about why Anderson kept disappearing and reappearing on different labels while Strait's had so many hit singles in a row without ever having to make a comeback. (Really, who else was in Billboard's country charts in '83 who still has hit singles?)

Anderson's not afraid to play the fool every now and then, which is something Strait or Travis will NOT do. Could you see either man posing for an album cover, wearing a ten-gallon hat and a kimono? And calling it Tokyo, Oklahoma? (Maybe Alan Jackson, but not Strait or Travis.)

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 24 January 2008 23:11 (seventeen years ago)

amazed that John Anderson got shut out altogether, given how neotraditionalist stodgeroos like Strait...

Really -- and this goes way beyond this poll -- what the fuck is the deal with this? They started out right around the same time, and for a quarter-century, Anderson has been the more interesting artist. That's never even been a contest, as far as I can tell. But somehow, Strait (and you could throw in Randy Travis here too, and Alan Jackson too) got pegged as a hall-of-famer forever ago, and Anderson is, like, this weird footnote or something, if he's noticed at all. Is there anybody in Nashville who can explain that? Is it that Anderson (with his long hair and beard) was never considered clean-cut enough or (with his rock moves, from way early on) wasn't purist enough, even though he was clearly one of the guys who invented what used to be called "neo-traditionalism"? It makes no sense at all to me. And I have nothing particularly against Strait or Travis or Jackson; they're fine, occasionally even great. They just seem like teacher's pets, born with personalities, in comparison. Maybe that's the point?

Strangely enough, I've had this same conversation with a couple of people recently, mainly spurred on by the fact that Collector's Choice just rereleased a grip of Anderson's albums. I think the teacher's pet thing kinda nails it, as well as Anderson's physical appearance. Me and a friend were talking about why Anderson kept disappearing and reappearing on different labels while Strait's had so many hit singles in a row without ever having to make a comeback. (Really, who else was in Billboard's country charts in '83 who still has hit singles?)

Anderson's not afraid to play the fool every now and then, which is something Strait or Travis will NOT do. Could you see either man posing for an album cover, wearing a ten-gallon hat and a kimono? And calling it Tokyo, Oklahoma? (Maybe Alan Jackson, but not Strait or Travis.)

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 24 January 2008 23:11 (seventeen years ago)

sorry for the double post

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 24 January 2008 23:12 (seventeen years ago)

Well, John Anderson was--is--a great fucking r&b singer as well as being a country singer. He's also very short; I was up close to him once at a club here. But he's probably better-looking than, er, John Conlee. Or Garth. I think he's amazing, sui generis, endlessly listenable. Here I am writing about the Collectors' Choice reissues of five of his '80s records

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 24 January 2008 23:26 (seventeen years ago)

That's a good piece, Edd. (I actually read it on actual newsprint while walking down the street last week.) Bizarrely enough, though, I actually reviewed Eye of the Hurricane in the Voice the first time it came out -- one of my very first published pieces for money, September 4, 1984. Wish I had the technology to scan it in here! I was pretty iffy about the album, though I had loved his previous All The People Are Talkin'. And this line, which starts out talking about that '83 album, is directly relevant to a discussion we were having earlier today on this thread: "The three singles were the three hardest things on the album, and each successive single rocked harder than its predecessor; by the time the anti-DWI 'Let Somebody Else Drive' came on the radio, it seemed as if Ronnie Van Zant had found a way to rise from the grave and squeeze his way onto country stations in between Barbara Mandrell and Eddie Rabbit. At that rate, Eye of the Hurricane should have sounded like the Sex Pistols. It doesn't."

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 January 2008 23:43 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, that's right--it could have been an even better record. I hear it as his pressures-of-fame record--John Anderson's Eye of a Hurricane, that is. I go back and forth between All the People Are Talkin' and Tokyo, Oklahoma as the best of those records. For days, I simply couldn't get the chorus of "Eye" out of my head, though--real Florida soul.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 25 January 2008 00:48 (seventeen years ago)

"Well, John Anderson was--is--a great fucking r&b singer as well as being a country singer."

Dave Alvin once said he met the late Wilbert Harrison (R&B singer of "Kansas City" fame) on an airplane back in the '80s. Said Harrison was thinking of suing Anderson for "Swingin'" because his voice was so similar to Harrison's...

Is "She Sure Got Away With My Heart" on Eye Of The Hurricane? I always thought that song sounded like some lost Carolina beach music classic...

"He's also very short; I was up close to him once at a club here. But he's probably better-looking than, er, John Conlee. Or Garth. I think he's amazing, sui generis, endlessly listenable. Here I am writing about the Collectors' Choice reissues of five of his '80s records"

When I first got into country music in 1990, Anderson was one of the first artists whose albums I bought, mainly because his LP's were always in the cutout bins (and I'd always loved "Swingin'", even when I hated country). Two of my bargain-bin purchases wound up in Collector's Choice's reissus series.

-- whisperineddhurt, Thursday, January 24, 2008 11:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's a good piece, Edd. (I actually read it on actual newsprint while walking down the street last week.) Bizarrely enough, though, I actually reviewed Eye of the Hurricane in the Voice the first time it came out -- one of my very first published pieces for money, September 4, 1984. Wish I had the technology to scan it in here! I was pretty iffy about the album, though I had loved his previous All The People Are Talkin'. And this line, which starts out talking about that '83 album, is directly relevant to a discussion we were having earlier today on this thread: "The three singles were the three hardest things on the album, and each successive single rocked harder than its predecessor; by the time the anti-DWI 'Let Somebody Else Drive' came on the radio, it seemed as if Ronnie Van Zant had found a way to rise from the grave and squeeze his way onto country stations in between Barbara Mandrell and Eddie Rabbit. At that rate, Eye of the Hurricane should have sounded like the Sex Pistols. It doesn't."

-- xhuxk, Thursday, January 24, 2008 11:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yeah, that's right--it could have been an even better record. I hear it as his pressures-of-fame record--John Anderson's Eye of a Hurricane, that is. I go back and forth between All the People Are Talkin' and Tokyo, Oklahoma as the best of those records. For days, I simply couldn't get the chorus of "Eye" out of my head, though--real Florida soul.

-- whisperineddhurt, Friday, January 25, 2008

Rev. Hoodoo, Friday, 25 January 2008 02:21 (seventeen years ago)

Damn, forgot to edit! Sorry for the confusion. My last sentence in my last post is the one about how my bargain-bin purchases ended up being reissued - everything after that is a reprint.

Rev. Hoodoo, Friday, 25 January 2008 02:24 (seventeen years ago)

Indelible high school memory: Coach Hackworth taping my knee before a home football game singing "Swingin'" at the top of his lungs, yelling "Don't ya just LOOOOOOVE that song, Cibula?" Although I was pretty much anti-country in those days (due to being surrounded by country music and its country fans), I had to admit that yes, I loved the hell out of that song.

Dimension 5ive, Friday, 25 January 2008 02:38 (seventeen years ago)

Nashville Scene Poll Comments went up several hours after everything else.

Xgau says that "conceptually," Miranda ruled. Doesn't say what the concept is, though (or maybe he does and Geoffrey decided not to print it, but I doubt that).

I do think Edd's been kind of tough on Miranda. On the title song, "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," Miranda is making it clear to us that she's playing (with) a stereotype, and I feel that she's having fun with it.

I probably need to listen to Connie Francis, now that Anthony's compared Taylor to her. (But when Taylor's album came out she was a sixteen-year-old singing about how sad it is to be sixteen.)

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 26 January 2008 22:27 (seventeen years ago)

Man, I hope Little Big Town don't read Will Hermes
s comment hoping they discover Tusk. That would suck. (Though "Tusk" -- the single -- might be OK.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 26 January 2008 22:46 (seventeen years ago)

Two more questions:

1) Does Preston Jones, who appears to be a total nincompoop and who apparently neglected to read Taylor Swift's songwriting credits, really believe that puffed-up/glammed-out personalities and songwriting-by-committee are something that were never part of Nasvhille before Underwood, Swift, and Sugarland came along and decided to threaten the genre? If so, I'm in awe.

2) And Will Hermes can't really believe Robert Plant is only just now turning into a true "artist" now that he's dueted with Alison Krauss, can he? Nah, Will's too smart for that -- must be some mistake.

Also, man, critics really hate Sugarland, don't they? I had no idea.

xhuxk, Saturday, 26 January 2008 23:07 (seventeen years ago)

Don't see what's so puffed-up or glammed-out about Sugarland anyway. I didn't click with their first album (the only one I've heard) but more for the reason I don't click with Terri Clark, felt like adequate countryish rocking out.

I think that Taylor Swift digs deeper than Miranda, though I don't mean that as a criticism of Miranda, just that Taylor's working out the nuances of being a not-always-happy sixteen, while Miranda's having a blast shooting holes and setting off bombs.

Is Will Hermes smart? Always struck me as merely adequate rockish criticking out.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 27 January 2008 07:18 (seventeen years ago)

I like Miranda's record fine, Frank. Do feel it slows down a mite after first three-four songs. The concept is alt- meets bad ol' Row--professionally done! but, don't hear Himes' '70s tropes so much in Crazy Ex---seems more detailed somehow, or perhaps even shall we say more punked out in its energy, listen again to the songs and the way they rock (and the record definitely does rock in its way). Than, that is, the supposed matchup Himes posits betwixt Carrie and Miranda in his essay in Scene. I almost think Carrie's professional update of any number of glossy '70s tropes works as well as Miranda's, myself.

New Wililie Nelson Moment of Forever finds him singing real well, grabbing a pothead blues from Guy Clark, doing up Newman's "Louisiana 1927" not all that well but doing the hell outta Big Kenny's "The Bob Song," which really does recall the Randy Newman of Bad Love (Newman's most "country" record ever in my opinion)--bumptious sousaphone and lyrics that seem to be about Bush or someone equally dumb who made it to the top and says spend, Willie, spend all you want. The IRS won't mind. Elsewhere he writes a great one called "I Guess I'm Not Funny Anymore" about how he wants to tell a joke about a dirty whore...but wait, right, you said I wasn't funny any more. Big impressionistic production from Kenny...Chesney and Buddy Cannon--Eno couldn't have done better nor Newman on some of this wistful accordion/cello/gauzy guitar stuff. Never woulda thought something this glossy Willie would grab me but it does.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 28 January 2008 21:39 (seventeen years ago)

Edd, I'm still not sure you mean by Miranda's concept being alt-country meets Nashville. What is the "alt" part, exactly? Just the fact that she sings vengeful murder songs (which doesn't strike me as especially more alt than Nash anyway, to be honest)? If anything, her album ups the Nashville-country energy and rock quotient; seems to me that if it was an alt hybrid, it would go exactly in the other direction. It's not like alt-country has had much punk in its sound since, when, Rank and File days? (I guess she does cover a Gillian Welch song, though, and Welch is clearly alt; but nobody calls Tim McGraw's albums alt meets Nashville when he covers Ryan Adams, I don't think. I've also heard people say before that she sounds like Steve Earle, which might be possible, though I don't hear it myself -- for one thing, Miranda Lambert can sing.) (I also get the idea that what you've been saying, Edd, is that its hybrid strikes you as too compromised -- that maybe it sounds too professional for an alt-meet-Nash attempt, which suggests you think it should be more alt? Or maybe I'm misreading you. But if so, I still don't get what you think it would gain from more altness.)

Here's what I wrote about Willie's new album toward the end of the '07 rolling country thread. I should maybe listen again to "I Guess I'm Not Funny Anymore," though; somebody else said I might like it:

WILLIE NELSON -- Tracked through his new one, which is produced by Kenny Chesney of all people. I like his cover of Big & Rich's (mostly Big Kenny's, I assume) "The Bob Song" (from B&R's unjustly ignored Super Galactic Fan Pack EP from a few years ago) -- song's kinda dorkey, about how we're all eccentric monkeys in our way; I can see Jimmy Buffet fans who fancy themselves being free-thinkers when they're on vacation from their investment banking jobs enjoying it, but it makes me chuckle anyway (and I don't even like margaritas). Willie also covers Randy Newman's flood song "Louisiana" and Dylan's born-again song "Gotta Serve Somebody" -- competently, I guess. They're both good songs; he's a good singer even if he does sing almost every song exactly the same (which is one reason I never connect with his albums, probably.) But I said almost: He actually employs his rare low register when interpreting the Dave Matthews Band's "Gravedigger" (which tracks from their gravestones the birth and death years of three apparently unrelated individuals who died in the 20th Century, and they all ask to be buried in shallow graves so they can feel the rain, and then there's a ring-around-the-rosey-pocket-full-of-posies plague part); Willie probably improves the song, but I haven't heard DMB's version in years (and only once or twice then), so I'm not really sure. It's okay, I guess; interesting words. (I've always assumed Matthews is a smart guy; he's just never made me care about his smartness.) Beyond that, not much on the Willie album drew me in -- there's one sort of jazzily sung and instrumented cut in the middle (maybe "Keep Me From Blowing Away"?) that had some jauntiness to it, and "When I Was Young and Grandma Wasn't Old" is a halfway decent memory song....but beyond that, shrug. Given all the covers, I'm wondering whether this a Johnny Cash style critical respectability for the country legend move. If it is, I guess it's not an awful one. But I can't imagine I'll be playing it again.WILLIE NELSON -- Tracked through his new one, which is produced by Kenny Chesney of all people. I like his cover of Big & Rich's (mostly Big Kenny's, I assume) "The Bob Song" (from B&R's unjustly ignored Super Galactic Fan Pack EP from a few years ago) -- song's kinda dorkey, about how we're all eccentric monkeys in our way; I can see Jimmy Buffet fans who fancy themselves being free-thinkers when they're on vacation from their investment banking jobs enjoying it, but it makes me chuckle anyway (and I don't even like margaritas). Willie also covers Randy Newman's flood song "Louisiana" and Dylan's born-again song "Gotta Serve Somebody" -- competently, I guess. They're both good songs; he's a good singer even if he does sing almost every song exactly the same (which is one reason I never connect with his albums, probably.) But I said almost: He actually employs his rare low register when interpreting the Dave Matthews Band's "Gravedigger" (which tracks from their gravestones the birth and death years of three apparently unrelated individuals who died in the 20th Century, and they all ask to be buried in shallow graves so they can feel the rain, and then there's a ring-around-the-rosey-pocket-full-of-posies plague part); Willie probably improves the song, but I haven't heard DMB's version in years (and only once or twice then), so I'm not really sure. It's okay, I guess; interesting words. (I've always assumed Matthews is a smart guy; he's just never made me care about his smartness.) Beyond that, not much on the Willie album drew me in -- there's one sort of jazzily sung and instrumented cut in the middle (maybe "Keep Me From Blowing Away"?) that had some jauntiness to it, and "When I Was Young and Grandma Wasn't Old" is a halfway decent memory song....but beyond that, shrug. Given all the covers, I'm wondering whether this a Johnny Cash style critical respectability for the country legend move. If it is, I guess it's not an awful one. But I can't imagine I'll be playing it again.

-- xhuxk, Thursday, 27 December 2007 13:53 (1 month ago) Link

xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 13:16 (seventeen years ago)

Oops, sorry about that double cut-and-paste. (Readers of this thread are going to start thinking they're crosseyed if this keeps happening more.)

Otherwise, I've been liking a lot of songs on the new Hayes Carrl album, a few on the new Zane Lewis album, and maybe a couple on the new Chris Hicks album. Whoever they are. Will explain more sometime.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 13:21 (seventeen years ago)

I guess what I'm asking, Edd, is why you think "perfectly serviceable mainstream country, complete with sound effects" would be less interesting than something that would have "married bad old Nashville to good old alt-country in any meaningful way". I'm not even sure what the latter could mean -- it sounds about as interesting as, I don't know "marrying metal to grunge" or something: A hybrid of two related subgenres that share a ton in the first place, so what would be the big deal?

xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 13:43 (seventeen years ago)

the whole No Depression ethos is by folks who discovered punk (or post-punk) and crazy ol' country music at the same time. Miranda's record is for those people, it seems to me; and as I might've related here, I heard a guy who lives fully in that world tell me that Miranda's record meant "we won!!" (his words). As in, the people who discovered punk and old-time country at the same time and thought that was the thang. They won, alt-country won, on that record. They didn't win shit in my opinion. I hear it as an overly professional, right, simulation of the offhandedness of several basically alt-insurgent-whatever-country modes--musically, mainly, but sure, also lyrically. I think that there would be a way to marry alt- whatever to bad old Nashville in a truly meaningful way, but I don't think you can do it in Nashville. Because no matter what, thangs is just too fucking professional there, as far as the mainstream shit goes--just listen to Justin Earle's new record, it does the same thing except it's not on Columbia but on Bloodshot. In other words, I think it's a good record but that stuff's being read into it that amounts to wishful thinking; and the "concept" that Xgau refers to (and which I refer to in my original review of the record where I call it "a conceptual wonder") is exactly that--alt- meets the Row and has a big old time. We won.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 13:56 (seventeen years ago)

I mean, I'm attempting to work out why I think critics might just have overrated Miranda's record a bit. One thing that hit me in Himes' Scene essay is how he says both Miranda and Carrie use a " '70s arena-rock template that rules Music Row these days." Huh? How is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend arena-rock? The whole idea is in the drum attack, which ain't Music Row arena-rock big-hair standard but a rockin' indie punk thwokking. The spareness of the whole thing--and the way those sound effects creep in there creating the illusion of spontaneity they were after--isn't arena-rock. As for Carrie's record, I hear it as a '90s pop/rock template, in my notes for it I know I heard the inevitable '90s powerpop pastiche (sounds like Jellyfish, and studio dudes in Nashville are all about music like that, just ask Ray Kennedy). So I think the whole comparison breaks down, but that's Geoff's take, there are other things in that essay I agree with.

But yeah, I think Christgau got it right--Miranda is the year's concept. So OK, I hear that as alt- meets the Row. For ex., Elizabeth Cook: produced by Rodney Crowell (heir at one time to ol' Gram hisself and with impeccable outlaw cred having worked w/ Emmylou herself, had his songs cut by Gary Stewart). Me, I coulda used a ton more guitar from Cook's husband Tim Carroll on that record--I dig his playing. And she covered Lou Reed, whose third VU record has to be at this point an Outlaw Country Folk touchstone. Punk. Where Cook's record sorta let me down--love that single and like her singing--was that it didn't go far enough in its spareness, and it sounded underpowered. Pam Tillis' record did the same thing but it really was Nashville '70s folk-country in supposed High Semipopular mode (Tillis as interpreter, cf. Bonnie Raitt). Kelly Willis was some kind of attempted mannerist pop record. I'm just picking examples of the records that made the critics' list. The above records, and a record that didn't seem to make the list but tht I found very very indicative of the mindset of Nashville (because I want to try to understand that and interpret that), Song of America, featured all indie or alt- figures--Cook, Banhart, Suzy Bogguss (who's a Nashville Eclectic, jazzy American Songbook division, and banters with Garrison Keillor on his fucking show), Grascals, etc. No big country stars at all. I guess what I'm trying to get at is what passes for Quality and Innovation in Music City--I think it comes down to the alt/punk thing I've already talked about. Virtuous. This is the concept, and Lambert's record the major-label stab at that, everybody's doing it. I think "Dry Town" and "Famous in a Small Town" are great; the rest of it I like fine.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 16:29 (seventeen years ago)

should be above, the records I cite all featured a combination of indie-alt people and the usual A-listers.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 16:33 (seventeen years ago)

Edd, I don't think "alt" is a concept or a sound; it's a demographic. But as for how Angry Ex-Girlfriend sounds, maybe it's something that an alt-person would approve of, but it doesn't sound to me like it's something that an alt-person would make. It rocks too hard, and Miranda sings with too strong an emphasis. But then you listen with far greater concentration than I do, and while I've heard songs here and there by all those other people you mention, I haven't heard any of their latest albums. But as for what I like about e.g. the song "Gunpowder and Lead," it seems a lot closer to LeAnn Rimes' "Family" and Carrie Underwood's "Flat On The Floor" (to name those artists' respective album openers) than to anything I've heard from alt-country ever: acoustic opening played with concentrated intensity, followed by blistering hard rock. I don't know. Maybe Jason & The Scorchers went for something like that back in the day, but I don't remember them having the chops to pull it off. Of course, how the Rimes and Underwood rock out may be a "conceptual" block to an alt-country aficionado, in that LeAnn's still throwing around unashamed big-voiced divaisms and Carrie's got some big-bubble Leppard tunefulness on her track (but then I think Leppard's got at least as much claim to "punk" heritage as alt-country does, but then maybe the claim that any of these have to such a heritage zero). Also don't think the Carrie track quite jells, but the problem isn't conceptual. I'd love to hear it sung by co-writer Ashley Monroe. By the way, the guitar at the end of "Gunpowder and Lead" is very much from "Sympathy For The Devil" (which means it could find its way onto a Brooks & Dunn album), but what I'm not hearing in that song is any of the pale miniaturism that afflicts alt-country. And I (therefore?) don't get what's so different between the instruments on "Family" and the instruments on "Gunpowder and Lead," not to mention the instrumental approach to Brooks & Dunn's great triple play "Tequila," "Drop In The Bucket," and "Drunk On Love." The latter three are a bit different in being even more maniacally groove-oriented than the rockers on the Rimes and the Brooks & Dunn (and on the Tritt and the Anderson and the...). But none of those sounds, Miranda's or anyone else's, are shy about filling the room.

But rather than speculate as to why Mr. Alt Person likes Miranda but won't get close to LeAnn or Brooks & Dunn (my theory is that one reason Mr. Alt Person isn't singing the praises of "Tequila," which is practically Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs, or "Family," or "Easy Money," or "Should've Listened," is that he hasn't heard them; those aren't the songs or styles of those artists that are getting radio emphasis, and the fellow probably isn't listening for the album tracks).

None of which explains why Miranda topped my list. More and better rock songs, with more and better hooks and good seering singing. Thought she flubbed her nonrockers, but fortunately there weren't many of them. But the Tritt, Wilson, Rimes, and Brooks & Dunn albums were only a song or two from matching it.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 23:50 (seventeen years ago)

The latter three are a bit different in being even more maniacally groove-oriented than the rockers on the Rimes and the Brooks & Dunn (and on the Tritt and the Anderson and the...)

Er, those three are on the Brooks & Dunn, but they're even more maniacally groove-oriented than the rockers on the Rimes and the Lambert (and on etc.)...

I guess even if "alt meets the Row" is the concept, it's too weak to register with me as much of a concept. I'd say that the concept is "angry ex-girlfriend," passions and vengeance twisted beyond health, while rocking hard, OR "'Kerosene' was the best song on my last album so let's do it some more" OR "'Before He Cheats' really kicks butt even if Carrie Underwood has big hair" OR "'The Mindy McCready Story w/ Miranda Lambert in the starring role," except the reason it's conceptual is that fortunately she's not leading Mindy McCready's life, and the whole point is that Miranda's having a heel-clicking, hair-throwing, headbanging good time playing these roles, pretending she's stepped out of an episode of Cops or out of the files of her dad's detective agency or something. Anyway, it's role-playing, dressup, which works for her, but it actually does feel a bit more distanced than I'd like. (Not that Gretchen and the rest aren't also role playing, but they're not so much "Watch Me Play This Role.")

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 00:07 (seventeen years ago)

By the way, Mindy McCready was released from jail about four weeks ago.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 00:08 (seventeen years ago)

And of course the concept (and the song title) is CRAZY Ex-Girlfriend. Frank Kogan, Man Of Typos And Flubs.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 00:18 (seventeen years ago)

How is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend arena-rock? The whole idea is in the drum attack, which ain't Music Row arena-rock big-hair standard but a rockin' indie punk thwokking. The spareness of the whole thing--and the way those sound effects creep in there creating the illusion of spontaneity they were after--isn't arena-rock.

Have to agree with Edd. Didn't hear any arena in it. And I'm usually fine with that, anyway. Tried to like it, even past the role-playing, and it just wouldn't stick.

Gorge, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 00:25 (seventeen years ago)

But Geoff's Scene esssay did recall the time back when I was twenty and hearing a radio documentary on the career of Bob Dylan, and the narrator said that Dylan "attacked those leading empty and shallow conformist lives," and my friend Steve jumped up and shouted, "Yes, and you, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, you empty and shallow conformists." At that point I got the inspiration to start the BDFWHBDF (Bob Dylan Fans Who Hate Bob Dylan Fans), but I never followed through, since this was 1974 so I was no longer that much of a Bob Dylan fan. But certainly we can start the MLFWHMLF (Miranda Lambert Fans Who Hate Miranda Lambert Fans).

George, what did you think of "Kerosene" back on Miranda's first album? I'm hoping that you'll find something in Miranda for you to be a fan of, so that you can join our little club.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 01:10 (seventeen years ago)

Or print a T-shirt that says, "Look, just because I voted for Miranda Lambert in the Nashville Scene poll doesn't mean I'm an imbecile."

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 01:16 (seventeen years ago)

as for how Angry Ex-Girlfriend sounds, maybe it's something that an alt-person would approve of, but it doesn't sound to me like it's something that an alt-person would make. It rocks too hard, and Miranda sings with too strong an emphasis...I don't know. Maybe Jason & The Scorchers went for something like that back in the day,

Yeah, this is exactly what I was trying to say this morning; Frank just said it more coherently. I'm not aware of any alt-country that sounds like the Miranda Lambert album. Edd seems to think that what prevents Miranda from pulling off a proper alt/Nash fusion is that Nashville is too professional. I don't buy that. What prevents Miranda from pulling off a proper alt/Nash fusion is that alt (inasmuch as "alt" is a sound) is too piddly and timid, and Miranda's not willing to be piddly or timid enough.

(I'm pretty sure I said this somewhere on Rolling Country '07 too, though I have no idea how I'd search it -- Alt-country might claim Miranda as its own, but her rock is way closer to Nashville's rock than to alt's idea of rock. And good for her.)

Also agree with Frank about the arena-vs-punk thing. Much of the arena rock that Nashville loves sounds a lot closer to punk rock than most alt-country does. (I guess there may be alt exceptions -- Dale Watson now and then? Cactus Brothers? But I think they're rare.) Just because alt-country bands pay lip service to punk doesn't mean it's in their music.

(Pat Benatar had more punk in her music than Bonnie Raitt did, too. And Benatar and Def Lep got their punk from the same place -- namely, '70s glam rock.)

By the way, been trying to listen to Steve Earle's kid's album today, but so far, it's drawing a blank.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 01:35 (seventeen years ago)

Btw, the unison pounding at the start of Miranda Lambert's "Kerosene" reminds me of nothing so much as John Entwistle's big pounding bass stomp at the start of "My Generation." And the Who pretty much invented arena rock. Of course, I don't think Miranda's ever matched "Kerosene," but the difference in arena's might be '60s rather than '70s (as opposed to arena's vs. non). Also, I think I know what you mean by "spare" in relation to punk, but I think "spare" is the wrong word. I'd never call the Dolls or the Stooges or the Sex Pistol's or Black Flag "spare." Maybe what it is, is that they weren't afraid to let their music get imbalanced, or something. They didn't pad their sound, perhaps? (Not sure what I mean.)

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 02:15 (seventeen years ago)

um, don't know what that apostrophe is doing in "arenas." Damn, I've got to learn to read before I hit "Submit."

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 02:16 (seventeen years ago)

I think I know what you mean by "spare" in relation to punk

You being Edd, not Xhuxk.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 02:17 (seventeen years ago)

xp (Not saying Lambert sounds especially arena-rock to me, though. For some reason the band her music has always reminded me of more than any other -- at least in her more rocking moments -- is Screaming Blue Messiahs.* But that's been well documented.)

Justin Earle just sounds like a folkie dullard to me; not hearing Nashville in his sound at all. At least his dad's unlistenability is kinda distinctive.

But I am enjoying these raunchy lo-fi blues-stomp duo guys right now, at the moment (though they might make more sense on the hard rock thread, especially since George already wrote about Black Keys there.):

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=25297276

* -- Who may well have owed a lot to the Who, now that Frank mentions them, though that had never occurred to me before.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 02:19 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, the only song I've connected with on Justin Earle's record is the very first 'un, where he does cool stuff with a kind of '20s parlor-blues musical framework. but I think the voice might be too thin to carry it, eh?

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 04:33 (seventeen years ago)

xpost

I did like one song quite a bit on the Lambert CD -- "Dry Town." Enough to list it in a year end list, anyway. Not entirely sure why it was a repeat play for me. The dry, snappy rhythm's probably what did it.

Gorge, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 05:52 (seventeen years ago)

(I've probably run this subject into the ground by now, but I wonder how representative Geoff Himes and Preston Jones actually are of the poll's Miranda voters, if those voters are rationalizing their votes in the way that Himes and Jones do. I mean, even someone who predominangly likes alt might pause at claiming that Miranda challenges assumptions and lets us hear something we don't alreay know. I clicked on a bunch of the Miranda voters in P&J (who may or may not be representative of the country critics voters), until I got bored, to see if I could get a feel of what else they were voting for. A lot of 'em voted for the indie usual, and for stuff within some range of alt country like Lucinda Williams or Patty Griffin, but almost always with some pop mixed in, Lily Allen or Soulja Boy Tellem or Britney Spears or Aly & AJ or Rihanna. It's hard to imagine someone who votes for Mika or Lloyd or Heidi Montag as well as for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend then turning around and saying that the latter challenges assumptions and gives us something we don't already hear in contrast to the puffball country pop. I hope Preston Jones reads Jon Caramanica's ballot, seeing as how Caramanica not only voted for Miranda, he voted for Sugarland and Taylor too. (Preston Jones own ballot included stuff by Patty Griffin and Arcade Fire and Teddy Thompson and Bruce Springsteen, but he also voted for a Duran Duran single!))

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 06:26 (seventeen years ago)

Actually, speaking of Steve Earle, I just saw him in an episode of The Wire last night (final episode of the 4th season -- I'm living on Netflix time), and he was pretty good, I guess, but his part didn't last long. (Method Man was listed in the end credits, too, actually, but I must've missed him.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 11:35 (seventeen years ago)

I was also puzzled by Himes' assertion that the reason voters chose the Burritos' Avalon '69 set in reissues in the Scene poll was that it included two ex-Byrds. I think it's because of Gram Parsons. And I'll note that Parson's reputation seems actually to have suffered reversals lately, even from the No Depression reviewer, who said something like "he was great, but was he any good?" I know smart people who maintain that the Dillard and Clark records from right around the same time as the first Burrito Brothers record really "started country-rock." I don't know about that, and I think Gilded Palace is sui generis myself, and watching a Parsons documentary recently I definitely think Parsons was a fuckup. I am fascinated by the relationship Nashville had with the '60s, anyway, and I've often mused that Porter Wagoner was the only country artist to really take on the craziness of the decade head-on; check out the Wagoner comp The Rubber Room. And Parsons captured that '60s lysergic shiver on Gilded so well.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 13:46 (seventeen years ago)

xpost

there are other things in that essay I agree with

I was astonished at how breathtakingly irrational and inarticulate and lacking in self-awareness it was. Which doesn't mean there's nothing interesting in it or no statements I agree with. (E.g., I agree that Paisley is versatile without actually shining in any one aspect; I disagree that Paisley's the most talented country artist of his generation.) Actually, Geoff's irrationality, inarticulateness, and self-delusion are interesting in themselves, in that when someone reasonably intelligent (I mean, I don't think the man holds world records in brilliance, but he hadn't previously come across as an imbecile, and - for instance - his essay on Springsteen in Paste's top 100 songwriters issue was really smart) makes assertions that can't survive even 20 seconds of reflection, there's something interesting at work: some mental block or social imperative that's getting in the way of normal thought processes. I haven't gone into the irrationality etc. here, since I assume it's all obvious to every one of you, but for those who merely skimmed the essay or didn't read it, Geoff's claiming that Miranda Lambert challenges assumptions but he doesn't say what assumptions she's challenging, he doesn't seem to notice that the existence of Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" challenges his own claims about her (that she's reinforcing the role of the sweet, beautiful, All-American girl and that she doesn't do all that well in his polls), he also says in effect that Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams and George Jones and Merle Haggard (and Elvis and Dylan and the Beatles and Beethoven and anyone in any time or place who's massively successful with consumers) provides their audience with reassurance and virtuosity, and he doesn't realize that pointing out how long it took Merle Haggard to became a big star (three whole years) doesn't remotely exempt Haggard from his contention, he also seems to be saying that the relationship between fans and Carrie Underwood, as well as between fans and any other popular performers (including my list above from Rodgers to Beethoven, right?), is that the fans are standing back and admiring "virtuosic performances that meet a platonic ideal" (cue to shots of American Idol as fans stand back and platonically admire Carrie Underwood), and, as a bunch of us pointed out above, Himes doesn't make anything of the fact that his poll appears in an alt-weekly and that the people voting in his poll tend to write for alt-weeklies or the online equivalents, which is to say that we're generally not writing for or to the mainstream country audience and that what reassures or challenges us probably isn't what reassures or challenges the mainstream country audience. Anyway, I doubt that I have much to say about this that you guys won't already agree with, and my only insight here is the old one that what a significant part of the country audience and a significant part of the alternative audience seem to have in common is an underlying feeling of phoniness and that Geoff is representative of the "alt" side of this, seeking reassurance that he and we as critics are perpetually searching for new challenges - that we're critics not conformists. So both the insecurity and the habit of lauding oneself for challenging oneself have overridden his mind in this instance, and overrides a lot of people's minds in the same way. Except as I said in my last post, I wonder how representative he is of the people who voted in his poll, whether his rationalizations for Miranda really do match our reasons, since it seems that every one of us on this thread voted or would have voted for at least something by Miranda, yet none of us are buying Geoff's line. I'm hoping that Geoff's the outlier here, and that we're more representative. Not that most voters vote our way - they lean towards alt-country quality that a lot of us find stodgy or are indifferent too - but I'm hoping that some of these other voters tripped over Geoff's illogic in the same way we did.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 15:15 (seventeen years ago)

By the way, has any mainstream country album (as opposed to alt stuff by Wilco or oddball matchups like Van Lear Rose or prestige items by no-longer-charting icons like Johnny Cash) ever scored as high on Pazz & Jop as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend?

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 15:56 (seventeen years ago)

I doubt it. Willie Nelson's Stardust finished #19 in 1978; that's not even all that close. I don't think Dwight Yoakam (who is as much alt as Nash) has ever even finished in the top 30, though I might be wrong. (On the other hand, John Cougar Mellencamp's Scarecrow, which would certainly count as mainstream country if it came out now, did finish #3 in 1985. But it sure didn't count as country then.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 16:09 (seventeen years ago)

1975 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll

15. Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger (Columbia)
26. Waylon Jennings: Dreamin' My Dreams (RCA)

Thus Sang Freud, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 16:10 (seventeen years ago)

But 1975 was before I started paying attention!

Lyle Lovett and/or k.d. Lang may have had a top 20 album once, but they were even more borderline than Dwight (at least by the time they scored, I think.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 16:12 (seventeen years ago)

1974, if she counts:

11. Linda Rondstadt: Heart Like a Wheel (Capitol)

And another album, from 1979, that sounds like 2007 mainstream country:

8. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 16:14 (seventeen years ago)

yeah ya know the Pazz and Jop winner in '76 was I believe Michael Hurley et. al's Have Moicy! (a superb record). wasn't it? To my ears, this is the kind of record that presaged all the Hackensaws/Jones Street Boys/Avett Brothers/Red Stick Ramblers and various bluegrassed potheads that are a part of country music today--and I saw Hurley himself at the worst club in Nashville, the Springwater (a great place within pissin' distance of the Parthenon replica in Centennial Park but it's frankly a toilet and that's all right, I've spent many a night there and have actually on occasion seen some great shit, just don't use the bathroom if you can help it) just a month ago.

and how high did Lucinda's Car Wheels score in 2000?

I really have no problem with Miranda's record winning. Obviously she's got a concept that goes beyond my alt-Row matchup. She's cool with fame. But so is Carrie Underwood, and Carrie is obviously going to be a big vulgar force of nature for a while. I don't get much identity pouring out of Underwood, but her records are undeniably powerful. I'd argue as much calculation went into Miranda's, just a different kind of calculation. Buddy Miller sings backup on it, and while I normally shy away from vaguely futuristic honky-acid Bible blues of the sort he does, I think he makes some powerful records. So my question would be I guess, if Miranda said to Sony/BMG, "Hey, I wanna go over to Buddy Miller's house--been tradin' bean soup recipes with Julie, she's so cool and they both spent a lotta time down in Texas, just like me. I figger Blake, if that sumbitch don't get on my nerves and I have to withhold the pussy from 'im, why hell I will, but anyway, he kin drop me off there and we just do it at his house. I mean hell I know I'm better-lookin' than Solomon Burke, I hung out over there when he was cuttin' with Buddy and the dude tried to sell me a fuckin' ham sandwich! Wanted $5 for it! I got a few Jimmy Driftwood songs I've been wantin' to do, and a Townes Van Zandt of course, and maybe an old soul classic or semi-classic, somethin' by Ann Peebles or Laura Lee--mebbe 'Women's Love Rights'. I figure we could really just go ahead and cross over and rock it out. Sure we could do some overdubs later in a real studio. Sure I'd use the same musicians--the guitar player has got a nice ass! Shot 'im with my BB gun in the studio, and all them fuckers could do was laugh! So what! And hell, I'd pose naked or half-naked on the back or front, it don't matter, or you could get a shot of me duckin' under water in Jamaica or down at Corpus Christi! It'll work--and it'll be cheap so long as we don't go overboard on the postproduction. So, whaddya think?"

You think they'd let her do it?

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 17:33 (seventeen years ago)

Have Moicy topped the Dean's list in '76 but didn't make the P&J top 30. Album poll was won by Songs In The Key Of Life. Car Wheels won in '98, and it's relevant (just as Wilco is) but I'm not counting it as mainstream country. I'm mainly concerned with whether I can say in my column that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the highest-charting mainstream country album ever on P&J. Past P&J results are here. I just asked the question 'cause I wanted you guys to do my work for me.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 18:06 (seventeen years ago)

If you're going to talk proto-alt-country (which I guess Have Moicy! is, though again, I've yet to hear any alt-country that approaches its weirdness and energy and humor, ever), there are also these:

1974
12. Gram Parsons: Grievous Angel (Reprise)

1975
21. James Talley: Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love (Capitol)

But yeah, those are hardly mainstream, though.

BUT BUT BUT -- This guy had actual HITS, right??

1975
18. Gary Stewart: Out Of Hand (RCA)

But that still doesn't equal Miranda's #15 finish...

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 18:15 (seventeen years ago)

a few more interesting finishes:

1982
22. Rank and File: Sundown (Slash)

1985
22. Jason and the Nashville Scorchers: Lost and Found (EMI America) 212 (23)
23. Meat Puppets: Up on the Sun (SST) 186 (20)
24. Lone Justice: Lone Justice (Geffen) 186 (17)
26. The Mekons: Fear and Whiskey (Sin import)

1986
3. The Robert Cray Band: Strong Persuader (Mercury) 592 (57)
13. Steve Earle: Guitar Town (MCA) 330 (33)
15. Mekons: The Edge of the World (Sin import)

1987
5. John Hiatt: Bring the Family (A&M) 694 (59)
7. John Cougar Mellencamp: The Lonesome Jubilee (Mercury) 462 (44)
23. Rosanne Cash: King's Record Shop (Columbia)

The one of these that most counters Frank's argument, I think, is Steve Earle. That was actually a hit radio on country stations, wasn't it?

And has Rosanne Cash done better, with a mainstream hit album? I'm not sure, but it's possible, now that I remember she existed.

I put Cray up there because I have no idea whether he crossed over country at all, though he may have.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 18:50 (seventeen years ago)

John Hiatt DID briefly cross over country, I think -- but not with that album, I don't think. And even when he crossed over, calling him a "mainstream country artist" would probably have been a stretch.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 18:52 (seventeen years ago)

a HIT on country RADIO stations (= Earle), I meant.

Wow (though not significant, in either case):

1983
7. Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Spinning Around the Sun (Elektra) 427 (39)
22. Willie Nelson: Across the Borderline (Columbia)

Earle again, but by this time he's alt for sure:

1999
18. Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band: The Mountain (E Squared)
2000
13. Steve Earle: Transcendental Blues (E-Squared/Artemis)

#1 country album, no airplay (also lower than #15):

2001
19. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Mercury)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 18:59 (seventeen years ago)

OK, to dot my i's and cross my t's, here is Himes:

When Underwood describes her broken heart on "Flat on the Floor," she channels Heart's Ann Wilson as she wallows in self-pity: "You can't knock me off my feet when I'm already on my knees." Lambert refuses to give in to her broken heart on "Getting Ready." Channeling Bonnie Raitt, she wrestles with her self-pity as if it were a worthy opponent: "I’m getting ready to let you go / My hands are shakin' / My heart’s unsteady."

Well, first off, I don't see why wallowing in self-pity in a song isn't as valid as wrestling with self-pity is; and Taylor Swift (for instance) has songs where she wallows, songs where she wrestles, and songs where she leaves the self-pity behind. In fact, most any country or pop singer is likely to have all three, because country and pop singers tend to cover all parts of the romance cylce. But anyway, Himes isn't simply trying to argue that Lambert is better (though I don't see how his example shows that) but that Lambert is challenging me and giving me new information by wrestling with self-pity rather than wallowing in it, and that I like Lambert because I seek such challenges. And this is what I don't understand at all. As far as I can tell, Geoff's thesis and his examples have nothing to do with each other. Like, is it less challenging and informative for me to listen to a new country band of the quality of Molly Hatchet than it is to listen to a new country band of the quality of Lynryd Skynyrd?

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:00 (seventeen years ago)

xp (And those Gilmore #7 -- how the hell did he finish so high? Did Joe Ely ever even place Top 40??? -- and Nelson #22 albums should be 1993, not 1983).

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:01 (seventeen years ago)

And yeah, I missed this, 1990. But like Earle in 1999-2000, I don't think she was really "mainstream" anymore, in terms of actual country airplay:

8. Rosanne Cash: Interiors (Columbia)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:09 (seventeen years ago)

Country album chart is based on sales, not airplay, but still, here's Steve Earle:

1986 Guitar Town Top Country Albums 1
1999 The Mountain Top Country Albums 19
2000 Transcendental Blues Top Country Albums 5

A better gauge for mainstreamness, all his country singles placements:

1983 Nothin' But You Country Singles 70
1986 Guitar Town Hot Country Singles & Tracks 7
1986 Hillbilly Highway Hot Country Singles & Tracks 37
1986 Someday Hot Country Singles & Tracks 28
1987 Goodbye's All We've Got Left Hot Country Singles & Tracks 8
1987 Nowhere Road Hot Country Singles & Tracks 20
1987 Sweet Little '66 Hot Country Singles & Tracks 37
1988 Six Days on the Road Hot Country Singles & Tracks

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:16 (seventeen years ago)

"Six Days on the Road" went #37. But those numbers pretty much affirm that he was mainstream in '86.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:17 (seventeen years ago)

Rosanne Cash:

1987 King's Record Shop Top Country Albums 6
1990 Interiors Top Country Albums 23
2006 Black Cadillac* Top Country Albums 18

* An overrated #27 in Pazz & Jop, so no big whoop.

singles, from the apparently mainstream-as-hell Kings Record Shop and later:

1987 Tennessee Flat Top Box Hot Country Singles & Tracks 1
1987 The Way We Make a Broken Heart Hot Country Singles & Tracks 1
1988 If You Change Your Mind Hot Country Singles & Tracks 1
1988 Runaway Train Hot Country Singles & Tracks 1
1989 Black and White Hot Country Singles & Tracks 37
1989 I Don't Want to Spoil the Party Hot Country Singles & Tracks 1
1990 What We Really Want Hot Country Singles & Tracks 39
1991 On the Surface Hot Country Singles & Tracks 69

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:22 (seventeen years ago)

Gary Stewart's Pazz & Jop moment, chartwise:

Album:
1975 Out Of Hand Country Albums 6

His late '70s top 20 singles:

1974 Drinkin' Thing Country Singles 10
1975 Flat Natural Born Good-Timin' Man Country Singles 20
1975 Out Of Hand Country Singles 4
1975 She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles) Country Singles 1
1976 In Some Room Above The Street Country Singles 15
1977 Ten Years Of This Country Singles 16
1977 Your Place Or Mine Country Singles 11
1978 Whiskey Trip Country Singles 16

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:26 (seventeen years ago)

Also, fwiw, AMG shows no country singles chart placements for either Robert Cray or John Hiatt, ever.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:29 (seventeen years ago)

And I think '70s Ronstadt counts as mainstream country too, Frank; sorry if this fucks up your thesis:

1974 Silver Threads And Golden Needles Country Singles 20
1975 I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You) Country Singles 2
1975 It Doesn't Matter Anymore Country Singles 54
1975 Love Is A Rose Country Singles 5
1975 When Will I Be Loved Country Singles 1
1976 That'll Be The Day Country Singles 27
1976 Tracks Of My Tears Country Singles 11
1976 The Sweetest Gift Country Singles 12
1977 Crazy Country Singles 6
1977 It's So Easy Country Singles 81
1978 Back In The U.S.A. Country Singles 41

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:37 (seventeen years ago)

xpost

You're right about Guitar Town, which actually topped the country charts at one point, and produced two country top ten singles (the title song and "Goodbye's All We've Got Left"). I have no idea what it sounds like (or what most of those guys you listed sounded like). I'm kind of shocked to learn how alienated from (or indifferent to)(or too busy or broke to explore) P&J I must have been. Well, 1986 was a special case, in that I'd moved away from New York and hadn't yet hooked up with writing for the Voice. I really had no idea that Steve Earle existed.

Good question about Rosanne; Interiors did get on the country album charts, but scored no singles, and I wonder sometimes about how Billboard scores country album sales(like when the Coyotes soundtrack (is that the name?) was considered number one, was it really selling to the country market, or was most of its sales in places like Wal-Mart, where I assume that Billboard is having to guess something about the nature of who's doing the shopping; I don't know a thing about that). So I'm only counting the albums that produced songs on the singles charts.

(Yeah, I know that albums are based on sales, but are albums on the country chart based on overall sales of an album that is being considered country no matter where the album was purchased, or is it taken from country stores only (if there is such a thing), or from educated guesses as to which consumers were likely to be buying what at which outlet. The thing about Coyotes and O Brother Where Art Though is that they sold a whole lot, but it's hard to think that it was the mainstream country consituency that was doing the buying.

But anyway, Steve Earle seems to be our winner.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:37 (seventeen years ago)

Not sure that I'd count Ronstadt, but she's interesting to think about in relation to my Miley question (has there ever been a singer after Elvis who was hitting pop whose songs crossed over big to the country charts from the pop charts, rather than crossing the other way from country to pop; I'd count Ronstadt there). (But also the real shock in relation to Ronstadt is that she did so well on Pazz & Jop, since I never thought of her as a critics' fave.)

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:42 (seventeen years ago)

xp The way it's been explained to me is that there are certain stores that report for the country album charts, r&b/hip-hop album charts, etc.; right, those charts are not based on reports for all stores. (Though I'm not sure exactly how genre-specific the stores have to be; I'm guessing some stores can report for more than one chart.) (Still, you can definitely have an album that actually finishes higher than another album in the r&b/hip-hop tally but lower than the same album in the Top 200 tally; this actually happens fairly often.) I don't really understand the granular math of it beyond that point. But either way, it's pretty clear to me that, if O Brother or Interiors are both getting minimal country airplay and producing no country single hits, it would probably be a stretch to call them "mainstream country."

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:45 (seventeen years ago)

But anyway, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the highest mainstream country P&J charter in 21 years.

(Man, looking at my posts, my spelling is getting really bad. O Brother, Where Art Though!? O Brother, Where Art However!? O Brother, Where Art But!?)

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:57 (seventeen years ago)

OK, a crazy ex-girlfriend is a stock figure in the culture, but how much is she (or he, as in crazy ex-boyfriend; or crazy current girl or boyfriend) in country music as a hero or antihero or gleeful protagonist? I really don't know. The way I'm defining it, crazy(ex)bf/gf is someone who takes relish in the fucked-up destructive things he or she is doing in the relationship or after the relationship. The relish doesn't necessarily mean the fucked-up destructiveness is being presented as a right thing - it has to be presented as potentially over the edge, or very over the edge - but it has to be presented as an exuberant thing, an alive thing. So "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" and "Gunpowder and Lead" and "Kerosene" and "Before He Cheats" would count, and so would Shooter Jennings' "Aviators," where Shooter's pretending to apologize for all the destructive things he did to her and her family, but of course he really thinks they're hilariously cool. Dwight Yoakam's "Intentional Heartache" probably three-quarters counts (it's the crazy ex-girlfriend all right, but it's narrated in the third person pretty much, except the chorus is given over to his saying what she says: "I'm gonna give you an intentional heartache"; but the song seems to be with the girl, not necessarily in its sympathies but its sense that she's the life of the song). "Goodbye Earl" doesn't count, despite the relish of the delivery, since the murder isn't portrayed as crazy at all but as self-preservation. And all those old murder ballads don't count, since they're basically recounted unemotionally, almost like news stories, even when the narrator is the killer himself. I'll bet that there are a lot of old blues that veer towards this (I seem to recall a male-female duet from the twenties where the man and the woman are happily explaining to each other just exactly how they intend to cut each other up; and Elijah Wald makes the case for Robert Johnson's stuff about beating his woman in "Me and the Devil Blues" being taken as funny in its time). But is this going on a lot in country? I barely know the work of David Allen Coe or Charlie Daniels. Would this be a place to look? Hank Jr.?

Or were "Kerosene" and "Before He Cheats" new things for the genre, when they came around?

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 31 January 2008 02:37 (seventeen years ago)

I've often mused that Porter Wagoner was the only country artist to really take on the craziness of the decade head-on; check out the Wagoner comp The Rubber Room.

I'd put Johnny Cash in the same category, but like I said in my Porter Wagoner obit a while back, the weirdness was a lot more shocking coming from Wagoner than Cash. Look at the stats: J. Cash wore straight black when everybody else was wearing colorful outfits you could see from across the street on a cloudy day; was mistaken for a rock artist during his Sun years; was pen pals with Bob Dylan; recorded two of his biggest-selling albums in jailhouses; frowned all the timwe. He was already half an outsider as it was, so if he got a little freaky, it just seemed par for the course.

Porter Wagoner, on the other hand, always had a deranged grin on his mug, did TV commercials for an obscure towel company, and wore suits so loud they should have come equipped with a volume control. Mr. Mainstream, right? So when he did deranged concept albums like The Cold Hard Facts Of Life, or devoted half an LP to songs about mental illness (What Ain't To Be Just Might Happen, with "Rubber Room"), it was the last thing you expected.

Just the other night I was listening to "Country Bo-Bo" (from The Farmer) - it's about some lanky hayseed who knows how to dance. The song itself is straight country, yet all the dances Wagoner mentions are contemporary black dances like the Breakdown and the Robot. For 1973, these were shockingly hip references for a middle-aged country crooner. And he wrote it himself, too, this wasn't somebody else's copyright. Did Wagoner while away his free Saturdays looking at Soul Train? (And yes, I know that he later brought James Brown on the Grand Ole Opry and produced Joe Simon in the '80s...)

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 31 January 2008 03:06 (seventeen years ago)

AMG shows no country singles chart placements for Robert Cray

Why would it?

Just 'cause he's admitted to a country influence doesn't necessarily mean he has a country sound (even by today's standards).

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 31 January 2008 03:25 (seventeen years ago)

Well, like I said, I thought it's possible he may have crossed over.

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 January 2008 03:50 (seventeen years ago)

(Honestly, I've never listened to Robert Cray much, or liked what I've heard -- it occurred to me he may have incorporated contemporary country into his sound once or twice, and Nashville may have embraced him for it. But if it didn't happen, that's fine!)

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 January 2008 04:11 (seventeen years ago)

I've always liked Robert Cray, even when he gets a bit slick. Great guitarist and seems to me he really does embody the super-cool I like so much in soul music (he's a soul artiste as much as he is a blues 'un). As for Earle, I was living here when "Copperhead Road" hit and it was everywhere, a big big deal at the time in terms of here was a guy who was truly crossing over--who did what Jason and the Scorchers kinda tried to do.

I don't think there's any question about Lambert being a milestone. I guess maybe I'd venture that the vengeful narrator in country has mainly felt a little more guilty about than Miranda does--or maybe her guilt comes out in the songs that examine her relationship with fame (same thing for Carrie except it seems to me to be a given that her fans don't begrudge her her fame, she revels in it; whereas Miranda's thing is based more on the ol' authenticity/non-authenticity divide, hence her appearance on the cover of No Depression and our discussing her here?). I dunno. I've listened to the thing a few times since we revived discussion and it really does fall off, for me, after about track 5. there's definitely one track I hear as a new-wave sorta pastiche that has zilch to do with country music. I also wonder if the folks who made the record were consciously trying to bridge the Austin-Nashville gap, which I believe to be real important in country's psyche these days.

Listened to Tim O'Brien's Chameleon, where the former Hot Rize hotshot plays 16 originals in a garage with just bouzouki, fiddle, Gibson J-45 guitar and mandolin. He's got a warm and slightly self-mocking voice of the bluegrassy kind, sings quite well, and plays the shit out of some guitar and mandolin and bouzouki (a kind of mandolin that tunes in octaves, near as I can figure out). Nice stuff for a spring Saturday morning, maybe, and not without content--he mentions global warming, cell phones that vibrate and has something to say about American Imperialism on "This World Was Made for Everyone." Nice stuff, hot licks, record goes on maybe a song or two too long but I enjoyed it.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 31 January 2008 14:31 (seventeen years ago)

Just musing here on a slightly icy, snowy morn, that you could make a case for the new Willie Nelson as evidence that mainstream country can really do interesting things, sonically and conceptually, I feel. I think the record really works, apart from the version of "Louisiana 1927" where Willie can't come out and say "poor cracker's land" and changes the "little fat man" from a reporter to a member of Bush's inner circle--I like to think of Karl Rove dangling from a fucking helicopter over the Ninth Ward with toxic-waste gators snapping at him as this song progresses. But I've never heard anybody do a version of it that comes close to Newman's in delivery or finesse of arrangement. And I'd say that the arrangements here, and the gauzy but to my ears appropriate production, approach the kind of pop Newman excells at--it's slightly cinematic and at first I thought Willie's voice was all wrong for the approach, but he seems inspirited by it, somehow. I've often found him boring, but I think this is one of his best records ever, and a tour de force of well-chosen material. Even the duet with Chesney is great, but the masterpiece has to be "The Bob Song," which was blowing away everybody in the record store the other day, played loud. Of all the old fucks who made records last year or so--Louvin, Wagoner, Bush, Hag, Gene Watson made one I think--I think he did the best.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 31 January 2008 18:41 (seventeen years ago)

...I think this is one of his best records ever, and a tour de force of well-chosen material.

I usually lurk on here, enjoying the spirited conversation without posting. But I must say how glad I was to read this, because I agree completely. Edd's earlier use of the word "impressionistic", and use of "gauzy...but appropriate" today to describe the production, seem especially right to me. If I hadn't turned in my own review of the album last week, I would have been tempted to steal those words...I found myself reaching for the best way to describe the production and not quite getting there. I settled on the notion that it sounds spare even though it's not, serene and simple even though there's plenty of musicians playing plenty of things. But I think Edd's words are more accurate, and more in line with what I hear than any of the reviews I read (I googled a bunch yesterday and was struck by how nobody seemed to share my enthusiasm about the album, and by how many of the reviews began with shock/outrage that Willie would ever do an album with Kenny Chesney...ok, maybe that should be less surprising since they were mostly in 'rock' publications).

erasingclouds, Thursday, 31 January 2008 19:57 (seventeen years ago)

if I hadn't turned in my own review of the album last week, I would have been tempted to steal those words

where's yr review gonna show up? I dunno, I really like the record. one thing I meant to say is that I obviously regard Randy Newman as a kind of half-hidden patron saint of current country, or perhaps I think the direction he kinda went in is kinda the direction good liberal-leaning Row productions might go, the Americana thing. I hear "The Bob Song" as Newman on Born Again or Bad Love, sorta. I wrote a review myself and was gonna say something about those Gilberto Gil records that are overproduced but sort of cool, from the late '80s, shit like The Eternal God of Change. Now there's a pairing that would be welcome: Willie 'n Gil. But the comparison is arcane, of course.

shock/outrage that Willie would ever do an album with Kenny Chesney

it's Kenny and Buddy Cannon--and Cannon's name is first in the credits. Cannon's been around a long long time, just like Willie.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 31 January 2008 20:27 (seventeen years ago)

Man, maybe I should go back and listen to it, but I'm not expecting it to sink in -- just seemed like another hall-of-famer-doing-some-great-songs-you'll-know-and-a-few-okay-new-songs-too project. More marketing concept -- a common and frequently successsful one these days -- than music. The choice of material definitely seemed to have some thought put into it; maybe it will actually sell, and if so, good for Willie. He deserves a hit if anybody does. But there was nothing, not even "Bob" (yeah, possibly the most engaging cut) I had any interest in returning to. And almost all of it, Willie seemed to be singing in that eternal user-friendly but emotionally blank default mode of his. Not half as good as the last few Kenny Chesney albums, near as I can tell. (Which were already evidence enough that "mainstream country can really do interesting things, sonically and conceptually," as are plenty of other mainstream country records lately, so I'm not sure why we'd need Willie to teach us that, really. Not that I have anything against the guy.) (But the Chris Cagle and Chuck Wicks and especially Hayes Carrl albums I heard this year all have more songs I actually care about, too.) (As for oldsters recording in the last year, I'd take Tom T. Hall.)

Meanwhile, Willie and Gil already have made a really good record! -- 1990 Pet Shop Boys-style 12-inch on Profile called "Time"; indebted to classic "time" hits by Culture Club, Zombies, and Andy Gibb:

http://www.discogs.com/release/86035

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 January 2008 20:51 (seventeen years ago)

where's yr review gonna show up?

It'll be up on PopMatters.com next week. I'm only half-happy with the review cause I rushed through it to get it in and now keep thinking of things to say that might have been more interesting, but that's how it goes...

Cannon's been around a long long time, just like Willie.

Yeah, and the song Cannon wrote on Moment of Truth, "When I Was Young and Grandma Wasn't Old", is on some days one of my favorites. The subject of it should be familiar enough to be boring, or even sickening really, with the nostalgia about sitting on grandma's front porch and getting worldly advice from her, etc. But there's something really simple and sweet about the song that I like.

erasingclouds, Thursday, 31 January 2008 20:55 (seventeen years ago)

I actually kind thought "When I Was Young and Grandma Wasn't Old" was likeable, for what it's worth.

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 January 2008 20:56 (seventeen years ago)

Can't stay 'cause I need to be finishing my column, but...

Robert Cray: I barely know anything except the "Strong Persuader" single, but I actually can hear in that the sort of blues-gone-to-Quiet Storm that I love when Toby Keith does it. Which isn't to say that anyone would mistake Toby for Cray or vice versa. (And of course the final track on Travis Tritt's recent album is more hard blues than "Strong Persuader" is: kind of like a Delmark records soul blues c. 1970 from someone like Magic Sam or Jimmy Dawkins.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 31 January 2008 23:24 (seventeen years ago)

My CD player, which is quite old now, has trouble with my promo copy of the Willie Nelson: plays the first five cuts all right, then balks; you can get to the others, but you have to go back to track five and then hold the forward button as it runs through all the songs until you get to the track you want, then when it's done the player stops dead, you have to go back to track five and re-forward, etc. So I've only listened once. But what I got from it was that the first three songs had minimalist art music arrangements that worked surprisingly well on "Over You Again" and "The Bob Song" and terribly on "Moment Of Forever," then the rest of the alb went more standard laidback with so-so results, but my wrestling with the glitches might have something to do with my not opening up to the thing. Maybe I'll see if it'll let me rip it to the computer, and I'll listen there.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 31 January 2008 23:31 (seventeen years ago)

Here's my latest piece for the Las Vegas Weekly, about Amy Winehouse, Taylor Swift, Miranda vs. Carrie, and the Voice and Scene year-end polls.

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 2 February 2008 08:19 (seventeen years ago)

good take on Winehouse, Frank--Remedial Billie at its most commercial, I guess.

Malcolm Holcombe's Gamblin' House seems a really strange example of folk-country songwriting and when he gets sentimental about his wife he seems pretty uninteresting. But the backing--occasional slide and acoustic guitar that works against the beat rather than with it--and song structures that do odd tricks with meter (first song sticks in a two-beat measure in a 4/4 song and then further confounds by having the vocal lines come in in the middle of the measure), that are really slangy, make this a really interesting record. Holcombe sings like the usual old drunkard who got to go to Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, N.C. and make a record wtih Steve Earle producer Ray Kennedy--which means he huffs and puffs and sounds, I guess, "crazy" and "outsider." Judging from what I've read about the guy, Nashville drove him crazy (used to wash dishes at the Bluebird Cafe and was known as a wildman with these "amazing songs"), or he was already crazy.

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 2 February 2008 13:55 (seventeen years ago)

Red Hot Entertainment's "Junior Spesh" is rather far from country but you need to watch it anyway because (1) it is about Southern Fried Chicken and (2) it is hilarious - deadpan, all grim and grimey, the sound making no acknowlegement that what's under discussion here is, indeed, the price of Southern Fried Chicken.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 3 February 2008 06:44 (seventeen years ago)

I used to pull back from Cray, because his voice seemed too tight, I think, even though I admired the crazy songs, or songs about crazy, on Strong Persuader (which xgau gave an A Plus, I think). His producer wrote most of those, but on Live From Across The Pond(my Number One last year), he advances them, with his own reveries--you can't help what you think---key line, after testing his notions: "Whether the right or the wrong, at least the mystery's gone." But his guitar thinks otherwise, whether its dialing numbers found in a phone booth (you'd think finding a phone booth would be freaky enough these days), or signing him up for another tour in Iraq, despite what happened already (even the guitar says it in Classified), or following somebody out of the shower and down the hall (it's cool, Robert, she's just going to get ice, that's why she took her purse). Lyrical, never far from corkscrews though; why do I keep thinking of late 60s/early 70s F.Mac in this (when he was in Eric Clapton's band, that was the most inspired I ever heard Clapton {risking his gearhead cred in that kind of cutting contest, without messing up the better songs, yet stealing the scene from the lesser ones)but then his son died, and he didn't get that kind of spirit and ambition for a long time; he got some of it back by From The Cradle; dig the title...) But Cray's got it now (and his band opened on Clapton's tour last year, so EC's ready to try for RC's standard again (he ain't got the same kind of songs, but he's got some).

dow, Monday, 4 February 2008 06:11 (seventeen years ago)

But as far as a country connection? Guitar's got that fluid, combustible, lyrical thing---makes me think of summer night beerdrops in a quonset hut, but also makes me think of okay Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, John Martyn (guitar, now, not vocals), Clapton sometimes--and Freddie King, Albert King, Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker insofar as RC knew how to merge his sound with Hooker's, rather than take the old fellow for a ride, like so many of his famous "friends"--but then they have that thinking-out-loud, purposeful wandering thing in common--so does Willie--and the thoughts slipping through deeds, and vice versa, with things as they are looking over your shoulder, into your drink, your screen, whatever you got there--so again, the blues-to-country connection, to some extent (hadn't thought of Frank's Toby Keith connection; intriguing) (oh yeah, if any of yall hate live albums, I keep forgetting Live From Across The Pond is live, not because it isn't dynamic, but it lacks live album cliches)

dow, Monday, 4 February 2008 06:28 (seventeen years ago)

Willie's Gravedigger video.

A Robert Cray video from 1991, "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark." I think a lot of country guys would be happy to sing something like this, though would probably be an album track, not a single. Obviously someone like T. Graham Brown, who's basically a soul singer, and Travis Tritt, of course, but then I can imagine LeAnn Rimes pulling this off with ease, and Toby, though he'd use fewer leads in the arrangement, more lushness. Willie could do it in a snap (the rhythm's not too far from "Gotta Serve Somebody," which he just covered). None of which means that Cray is crossover country, but if he were looking for a concept to make his next album move extra units, and could get a few high-profile country people in guest spots...

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:04 (seventeen years ago)

And three tracks from Live From Across The Pond are on Cray's MySpace.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:09 (seventeen years ago)

Cray's influences as he lists them on his MySpace: Beatles, Albert Collins, Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, B.B. King, Magic Sam, Otis Redding, O.V. Wright, Muddy Waters.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:45 (seventeen years ago)

Rimes! OMG yall, remember I took a walk on the Rimes side, youtubeverse-wise, on Rolling 2007. Guess I'll have to go back, and also check Robert there and on Myspace (I def need to revisit his studio work)Wow, so I was right about the Alberts! Hadn't thought of Hendrix, but now I remember Junior Brown telling an interviewer that Hendrix and a lot of other leading lights of Jimi's and Junior's generation got a lot of ideas from Albert King, but nobody wanted to credit him, cos he was so ill-- was he even worse than James Brown, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Stan Getz, Bob Dylan (in younger days, anyway), John Lennon (in younger days, but he told a lot of stories on himself later, like Miles),and Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole in New York, but in Spain, si--yet they all got cred--oh well (I hear some Buddy Guy in Cray and Hendrix, and Buddy Guy agrees about the latter, loudly)(and Buddy and Albert Collins got that speedy "ice-picking," as Collims called it). One thing Albert King had, which Hendrix took a lot further, was that bounce and stomp and acrobatic turn between and sometimes in notes (the feel of it's sometimes in songwriting too, like if you hear Howard Tate's pre-Joplin version of Jerry Ragovoy's "Piece Of My Heart," he brings it out, and takes it to some other material--just as, on Blue Cheer's recent What Doesn't Kill You..., they get at least the bounce and stomp, as I noted in review, from King's "Born Under A Bad Sign," and even though their version of that isn't so great, they take the feel and use it more sucessfully on some of their own songs, although, as with Tate, they must have had ears for that feel, thus already felt it some, to be attracted to the songs they were influenced by, and to bring out, try to serve up, the bounce and stomp, rather than just bouncing or, more likely, just stomping--not that just doing one or the other can't work great, but doing both is very satisfying)(the "acrobatic" developement of this is prob what had me thinking Peter Green--Carlos got more from him than "Black Magic Woman," and I'm pretty sure early Steely Dan has something from late 60s/early 70s (thus Green/post-Green) F.Mac)Thanks Frank!

dow, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 06:04 (seventeen years ago)

Hey Don and Edd, you guys weather the storms OK?

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:37 (seventeen years ago)

Any word from Don or Edd yet? Hey guys, let us know how you're doing when you have a chance, ok?

Edd, I got the Johnny Bush CD-R you sent...thanks! Don't know how long it will take me to get through all 29 songs; at this point, I'm generally hearing songwriting (in "When Daddy Lived in Houston" for instance) way more interesting than the singing, which isn't quite grabbing me; there's something really bleh about the guy, and I wish there were actual tunes or hooks to go with the words. He seems sincere (and sad) enough; that's obviously not the problem. In fact, the problem may well be owed to some block I have with a certain old kind of country music, not so much with Bush himself. And I do like when he speeds up into Western swinging Texas dancehall music -- in "From Tennesse To Texas," for instance. So maybe the slower stuff will just take a lot longer to sink in; we will see. And obviously, I've only just begun to absord it all.

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 16:56 (seventeen years ago)

Otherwise, I am just way the hell behind on posting on this thread, but that doesn't mean I'm not listening to stuff. Partly it's probably just that, now that I'm back to writing actual record reviews for money again, rolling thread posting is being pushed to the back burner. But I'll try to catch up, though these comments may be sketchier than usual:

ROSS JOHNSON -- Edd mentioned this upthread, and yeah, the guy's a laugh riot, and shuffling drunken standup routines with '60s soul-garage-punk and rockabilly is a smart mix. 24 cuts, so again, it will take a while to make sense of it -- I just got the thing. I do really like the last cut, though, where the (live, I guess) spiel about cheating on his two girlfriends with his wife and being drunk around his kids transforms into an uncredited quasi-cover of Dave and Ansil Collin's 1971 ska hit "Double Barrel." (Edd, how much of this stuff was previously released? The liner notes look, uh, really long, though I'll get to them eventually. Just wondering whether this counts as a reissue, or what. I pretty much always ignored Panther Burns, though I think I actually saw them in Missouri once.)

Rediscovering Lonnie Johnson on Range Records out of Ardmore, PA (the Main Line!), with liner notes by Francis Davis -- don't think I ever listened to him before. I gather that most of these sessions happened in the '20s, but the sleeve for some reason doesn't list years along with each song, so hopefully they're in the notes somewhere. Anyway, apparently along with being a New Orleans blues guy Johnson played with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and on initial listen it's neat (unheard of?) how this stuff splits the difference between blues, jazz, Memphis Jug Band style stuff (i.e., in "I'm Not Rough," which really shifts into high energy halfway through), and crooning that borders on county ("Carless Love") and sepia Sinatra proto-soul ("Tomorrow Night.")...Well actually, I may be way off, but that's how this is hitting me so far.

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 17:12 (seventeen years ago)

CHRIS HICKS Dog Eat Dog World -- Guitar guy from Marshall Tucker Band and Outlaws. Mostly pretty stodgy -- so Van Morrison wannabee midtempos, some Los Lonely Boys wannabed midtempos, etc. But "You Can't Hide" funks halfway hard, and the best cuts are the white Southern soul ones like "Chokin' Kind" and "Share Your Love With Me." But honestly, they're fewer and farther between than I would have liked.

http://www.friendsofchrishicks.com/

ZANE LEWIS -- Dallas country rock guy. One great cut, with lots of detail: "Becky Brown's Daddy." The rest is okay, though he panders even more than most such guys -- "Southland" namedrops Jeff Gordon for NASCAR fans and Wal-Mart parking lots for Chris Cagle fans; "She's Got It Goin On" sounds like Trace Adkins in beefcake mode covering "Achy Breaky Heart" but changing the words; "Bad Ass Country Band" tries a Skynyrd riff but still doesn't sound as badass as it thinks it does; "Leavin" is passable soft Cali rock. But actually, most of the rest makes me shrug.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=66241622

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 17:23 (seventeen years ago)

Rarities From the Bob Hite Vaults -- Boogiefied '40s and '50s 78s from the Canned Heat guy's collection. I think I'd like this more if the six at the end (out of 19) didn't come from Elmore James (who I have nothing against; I just like variety I guess, and in fact James's "Country Boogie" is a pretty crazed sax instrumental.) Could take or leave the Etta James daddy rock me with one ready steady roll type stuff too. But what really kills is "Wiggle Tail" by Googie Rene, whoever that is, and what really really really kills, which I never would have guessed, is "Birth of the Boogie" (title forecasting Jimmy Castor's "Bertha Butt Boogie"?) by Bill Haley, of all people. Talk about somebody I'd never paid attention too -- I guess I just figured he was an old spitcurled hack jumping on the rock'n'roll bandwagon, which maybe he was, but still: Did he do a lot of good country boogie stuff before selling out to the teenagers?? (Though this one is 1955, not that early I guess.) Suddenly I'm curious (and while I'm on the subject, I'm also still waiting for somebody to answer the question about the Big Bopper's non-"Chantilly Lace" stuff that I asked here last year.) Also good on the Bob Hite mix CD: Chuck Higgins's proto-"Green Onions"/"Pink Panther Theme" "The Itch" from 1956.

But mostly this comp's more a mixed bag than it should be. (Nowhere near as good as DJ AT's Crazy Record Hop Presents Foot Tappin' & Dance At The Screamin' Festival Vol. 1 on El Toro Records out of Spain, which I won't go into detail about here since somebody is paying me to review it, but suffice it say that on its surface, it's mainly a travel brochure to get aging Teddy Boys and Girls to take a vacation to this resort where they can wear drapes and dance to oldies, but the 27-song, mostly obscure selection (from the '40s and '50s) is really amazing: basically, proof that western swing and jump blues and even big band swing were rock'n'roll before rock'n'roll existed -- and the way it makes this case, accidentally or on purpose, is by mixing up the actual pre-rock'n'roll stuff with the actual rock'n'roll stuff, and it all sounds of a piece. (Most of it I'd never heard before -- amazing Jerry Lee Lewis and Jackie Wilson wannabe no-name acts, for instance, and a Pat Boone song I actually like almost as much as "Speedy Gonzales," which I just wrote about as part of this long book chapter I wrote last month about country songs about Mexico So I'll ask it about Boone, too: Is he better than I've assumed? The song on the comp is "Bingo," which didn't chart; "Speedy Gonzales" went to #6 in 1962.)

These two comps also hit me, btw, as sort of the oldies equivalent of hip-hop mixtapes (which, long before Funkmaster Flex or DJ Kay Slay -- in the days of Alan Freed and Dr. Demento and Wolfman Jack and Murray the K -- is what the first DJ compilations were, anyway, according to Joel Whitburn books.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 17:43 (seventeen years ago)

LEFT LANE CRUISER -- Mentioned this Fort Wayne, Indiana blues-sludge-stomp duo upthread and linked to their myspace page. Anyway, I'd say I like Bring Yo' Ass To The Table better than most any Black Keys album I've heard (just seems to have more personality and actual songs that seem like songs not just riffs), though I don't know if actual guitar players will agree with me. Also seems better than anything I ever heard by Railroad Jerk, if not the Gibson Bros (the mid '80s Don Howland blues-punk ones not the late '70s Euro Caribbean disco ones). Anyway, funky enough with a good thick Billy Gibbons style tone and convincing ZZ haw-haw-haws at points, I'd say, and my favorite songs are the ones where they talk about pork'n'beans and mashed potatoes and the one where Amy's in the kitchen (which has the closest thing to a memorable melody, plus a good Dr. John style grumble in the voice.) Actually, there are mashed potatoes in "Big Mama," too, so I guess they like food. Also like the one where they drive to Wisconsin to meet Mr. Johnson. Good record, though probably a bit too monochromatic in its vamps to listen to it all the way through, from beginning to end. An EP could have sufficed, but that's fine.

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 18:07 (seventeen years ago)

SWAMP CABBAGE -- Swamp choogle jam fusion fonk from Florida, with some virtuoso cow-milking bassline parts, some fake gospel, etc. I guess I like it in theory, but I couldn't take it for very long: a missing link between Dixie Dregs, Little Feat, and Primus, maybe? Hell if I know. Maybe Don can explain it to me. I do like the pig on the CD cover, however.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=29146770

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 18:12 (seventeen years ago)

HAYES CARLL -- I remember liking and keeping his previous album, but it's not on my shelf anymore; must have relegated to the storage area when I ran out of room in the "C"'s. Anyway, new one is one of the better country albums I've heard so far in 2008, though still, admittedly, uneven -- the boy-girl one about Katie who likes ketchup (or whatever) is kind of too sickly sweet, and "Willing to Love Again" is even ickier than its title, as is "Don't Let Me Fall." But those are exceptions. "Drunken Poets Dream" (okay...maybe that one's a little sluggish) and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" and the rockabilly-guitared "Wild As A Turkey" more or less live up to their alcoholic titles; "A Lover Like You" is a serviceable early-Dylan-vocal-rhythm imitation; "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" is probably worthy of Paul Westerberg before he sucked; "She Left Me For Jesus" is pretty darn funny the first few times through -- Jesus takes her away from him so he threatens to kick Jesus's ass for being a commie and and "even worse, a Jew" (though I'm not really sure he can get away with that line like, say, Kinky Friedman could.) Favorite songs are probably "Beaumont" and "Faulkner Street" on their melodies alone, unless I missed one (14 is a lot to keep track of)...Okay, it's even more uneven than I thought. But if Carll doesn't sing good enough for Nashville, he also sings too good for mere alt-country demo-land, which counts for something.

Also, finally, I'm reviewing all of the following albums together for the Voice: Shelby Lynne, Allison Moorer, Tift Merritt, Sheryl Crow, Kathleen Edwards, and (if she fits, which I think she's not going to) maybe Carlene Carter. Kathleen Edwards is my favorite, which I would not have expected. Best song on Carlene's album (which isn't bad) is "I'm So Cool," which she originally recorded back in 1980.

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 18:36 (seventeen years ago)

xpost, believe it or not.

I think I like Hayes Carll a lot less than Xhuxk does: I'd type Hayes as a folkie, though that doesn't put quite the limits on his style as it might have a few years ago, especially when he's willing to rock. When his voice is Dylan-related I have trouble suspending my disbelief, whereas when he goes all Cougar-Bruce-Petty on "Bad Liver And A Broken Heart" he totally nails it, even if I gag on the insecure self-congratulation of lines such as "Doesn't anybody care about truth anymore?/Maybe that's what songs are for." More than gag, I recoil. "Her love's like tornado weather" compensates, somewhat, and is accidentally topical. Maybe that's what tornadoes are for. To wreck lives and give you something to sing about. An act like Brooks & Dunn could do an amazing Stones-swamp groove on such a song. I also like "Drunken Poets Dream," which celebrates its stumble without losing its feet. Most of the rest is too precious for me, at least so far, so I can't say what I think overall, though a couple of good things can compensate for a whole bunch of bad.

"I Don't Wanna Grow Up" is a Tom Waits song that the Ramones and probably other people have covered; Hayes does get into its anger but he should have steered clear of giving it a little-boy voice. One of the ones I'd play again.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 7 February 2008 18:44 (seventeen years ago)

Any thoughts about how Willie Nelson pulls it off (assuming you think he does sometimes pull it off)? I mean, his singing. It almost verges on talking, in its rhythm and his tendency to put so little juice into his voice that he seems to be barely making a sketch of the melody. Yet he does get enough of the melody to make his tracks insanely beautiful, some of them. This is inconsistent (or maybe his material is inconsistent, or worse than inconsistent a lot of the time), but "The Bob Song" is one of the great songs so far this year. I went back to listen to the Big & Rich version, which I'd entirely forgotten about (hadn't recognized Willie's track as a cover): too much Big and not enough Rich on that one, which means that w/ Big Kenny dominating the vocals, the B&R's close-harmony is subdued and the song's prettiness is dampened, and all those shaggy dog stories he throws in aren't funny enough to make up for taking us a way from the tune. Yet Willie's version has less harmony than the Big & Rich (some harmony shows up, I <i>think</i> Willie harmonizing with himself, though it could be Rich, who definitely appears in the background at one point)(unless it's Big Kenny, but I'm pretty sure it's Rich).

I also find "Gravedigger" beautiful, though maybe too comfortable in its beauty. Lyrics are interesting, more the story of disparate lives and how a death and a grave shouldn't be a barrier to what that life was, or anyway that's how interpret it. (I've paid almost no attention to Dave Matthews, though this song makes me think I should. Just as "Should've Listened" made me think I should pay attention to Nickelback, though when I actually found Nickelback's original version on YouTube it was as clogged and clotted as Nickelback too often sounds.)

Haven't yet read Edd's Voice review of Moment Of Forever; maybe my question is answered there. I'd rate the album as "inconsistent" rather than "masterpiece," but it's got enough beauty for me to go back and see if Willie squeezes more beauty out of the songs than I've so far realized.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 7 February 2008 19:12 (seventeen years ago)

xp

Ross Johnson's myspace, while I'm at it:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=275644278

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 February 2008 19:15 (seventeen years ago)

I used to have a couple of Lonnie Johnson albums that didn't make the trip to Denver when I cut my record collection in half right before moving here in 1999. One was fairly early in his career, half the tracks were his and half were Eddie Lang's, guitar playing, lots of leads but it's hard for me to pay attention to acoustic leads. I think that Alberta Hunter sang lead on one of the tracks. Lonnie Johnson is on "Hotter Than That," a Louis Armstrong track I've got from 1927. But I'm not going to listen to it right now, since, opposite to Xhuxk, I'm less likely rather than more likely to write here about something I'm not reviewing, and I'm not reviewing Lonnie Johnson. (Though I could if I wanted to, if I had a Lonnie Johnson record to review.)

The other Lonnie Johnson I had was from his King Records period in the '50s, when he scored a hit with "Tomorrow Night," one of my absolute favorite soft blues. (Would it be characterized as a blues song or a pop song? Def'n of "blues" is actually something I'm unsure of, but I certainly think the blues goes well beyond what's in 12-bar format. Anyway, the phrasing and tones on "Tomorrow Night" are deep into blues tonality (which of course preceded the blues) even if the bars aren't 12, but it's definitely going for a gentle mood rather than for deep grit.) The rest of the album was like "Tomorrow Night" but not nearly as good, as I recall. I've still got "Tomorrow Night" on an Old King Gold anthology, so I'll listen, but not until I finish my column, this afternoon I hope.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 7 February 2008 19:29 (seventeen years ago)

I'm also still waiting for somebody to answer the question about the Big Bopper's non-"Chantilly Lace" stuff that I asked here last year

Here's your answer: EXCELLENT.

Like Sam the Sham, the Big Bopper was a fine bluesy performer who is unfortunately remembered as a limited novelty artist. The album I have is an '80s reissue of the original Chantilly Lace Starring The Big Bopper, and if you take the leering jokes away, the album is the perfect bridge between twangy rockabilly ("Walking Through My Dreams," "White Lightning") and Louisiana slow-grind R&B ("The Clock"). On the ballads his voice goes WAAAY offkey, but it still works in spite of itself.

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 7 February 2008 19:38 (seventeen years ago)

The other Lonnie Johnson I had was from his King Records period in the '50s, when he scored a hit with "Tomorrow Night," one of my absolute favorite soft blues. Would it be characterized as a blues song or a pop song?

Johnson was known for having a lot of straight pop tunes in his repertoire, similar to Charles Brown. I was listening to a various-artists blues comp the other day when a grip of his songs came up - half blues, half pop. Even though he did make a mild comeback in the sixties with a series of albums on Prestige/Bluesville, I get the impression that he probably would have confused the blues revival crowd; the pop ballads probably would have thrown them off.

Ever hear the version of "Tomorrow Night" where King Records overdubbed a rhythm section and a white-sounding chorus? I kinda like it, as cheesy as it is...

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 7 February 2008 19:47 (seventeen years ago)

Rarities From the Bob Hite Vaults -- Boogiefied '40s and '50s 78s from the Canned Heat guy's collection. I think I'd like this more if the six at the end (out of 19) didn't come from Elmore James (who I have nothing against; I just like variety I guess, and in fact James's "Country Boogie" is a pretty crazed sax instrumental.)

I saw this in a store not long ago. Looks like a good anthology, although for a guy with a record collection that deep and massive, I was expecting something a lot more obscure than what they used, like on some kind of Joe Bussard/Harry Smith steez. And yeah, why did they OD on the Elmo James? Other than this...from the looks of things, can't go wrong with it. Wonder where and when that pic of Bob trudging through the snow with a small stack of records in hand (with his wife?) comes from...

Rev. Hoodoo, Thursday, 7 February 2008 19:53 (seventeen years ago)

Miranda Lambert singing Jessi Colter's "Storms Never Last."

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 7 February 2008 23:55 (seventeen years ago)

hi guys, the storms 'round here in NW Middle Tenn. were pretty fierce, lotta wind, straight-line winds. but no damage, everything OK. west and east of here got hammered, as I'm sure you saw. I've been writing about Ray Davies' new record, done in town with Ray Kennedy, who also produced the Malcolm Holcombe record. Kennedy was a great guy to talk to. He produced that Reckless Kelly record I've always had a soft spot for and of course Earle and Lucinda.

Funny about Willie, I've been listening to this LP I bought of his demos from 1961 with Pete Wade and Ray Edenton playing guitar. What's funny is that at times he sounds like Faron Young. Great stuff. Not nearly as over-the-top as Johnny Bush, but they come from exactly the same place.

As for Ross Johnson, a lot of that stuff had been previously issued, Chuck. I own the "It Never Happened" / "Nudist Camp" single on Sugar Ditch. Cut your head on Christmas!

New Trent Willmon is actually pretty damned good, speaking of Texas shuffle. I think it's sharper than his last Sony record, and it's out-and-out a Cowboy Movie and Trent's a sharpie from way back, very 'umble indeed.

I love Lonnie Johnson--he shows up in these great DVDs of American Folk Blues TV shows that originated in Germany. In his day, he was a big star, very influential, and right, a victim of the '60s blooze wars that said Lonnie and his ilk were mere hokum. Dunno if Bob Hite would've said that--probably not.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 8 February 2008 01:08 (seventeen years ago)

Btw, I now think it's more likely Big Kenny rather than John Rich who's singing harmony on Willie's version of "The Bob Song." But I don't know, since I have trouble telling them apart in the higher register. Does anyone have info? (The song was written by Big Kenny alone.)

Frank Kogan, Friday, 8 February 2008 01:45 (seventeen years ago)

I've actually not made time to listen to the Johnny Bush c. Way Back When that you made for me, except I listened once, and I loved the voice.

Tell me about Faron Young?

Frank Kogan, Friday, 8 February 2008 01:57 (seventeen years ago)

One of those hardcore honkytonk Brylcreem balladeers, like Webb Pierce, who left behind when the Cool Geezer train (including Merle and the middle-aged "Outlaws") left the station. But Willie's duets albums with each are or were available on one twofer, seems like (see robertchristgau.com, mah ass is too tahred). Speaking of Bill Haley and Mexico, Los Straitjackets told "Fresh Air" 's (and Francis Davis's) Terry Gross that the Fifties version of Rock En Espanol got a big boost when Haley moved there (not sure of the circumstances; he was pretty volatile, I've heard elsewhere--when he died, his son told Rolling Stone he'd kept windows painted black and floodlights on--but that POV might've kept things jumping in Mexico). You can prob still download the podcast of Los Straitjackets' interview from the "Fresh Air" site (and/or actually LISTEN TO THE ALBUM on their own site, which I don't think anybody on here last year did, 'cept for Dimension 5ive and me). I finally got my country ballot posted--moved Schultze Gets The Blues to Reissues cos it was recorded at least five years ago (movie was released in 2003, rat?) If that's wrong, nevermind: I really did it to make more room on the Top Ten (which has links to reviews, like some entries in other categories, and I may add some more) Comments (over 5,000 words, but in a five-car post train)incl. updates on Ashley Monroe, Hope Partlow (thanks, Frank), also starring Charlie Daniels,all his rowdy and wimpy friends, the Staples Singers,Sugarland, Billie Holiday, Pam Tillis, Michelle Shocked, my Aunt Betty Sue, Paul Newman, Piper Laurie, and many others(some entries orig from Rolling 2007, but usually tweaked, at least).
http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com

dow, Friday, 8 February 2008 06:43 (seventeen years ago)

"One of those hardcore honkytonk Brylcreem balladeers who *got* left behind...", that is.

dow, Friday, 8 February 2008 06:47 (seventeen years ago)

Here's my latest column: I talk about "The Bob Song" and about Miranda Lambert again.

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 9 February 2008 05:22 (seventeen years ago)

So, for whatever it's worth, I decided that I generally like Lonnie Johnson's more jazz-sounding ("I'm Not Rough" for instance) and pop-sounding ("Tomorrow Nihgt" for instance) and country (guitar and otherwise)-sounding stuff on Rediscovering ("6/88 Glide" and "Swing Out Rhythm" for instance) way more than his more blues-sounding stuff ("He's a Jelly Roy Baker" and "Broken Levee Blues" for instance), the latter of which hits me kind of could-be-anybody and just way more drab, though maybe there's something about it I'm missing. (And oh yeah, though I claimed above he does a song called "Carless Love", really it's "Careless Love." Somebody should do a song called "Carless Love" though.) (Well, actually, All Music Guide claims a few people have, but I'm not buying it):

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=17:231228

And Frank was right about Hayes Carrl's album being not as good as I had suggested it was (the Dylan imitation song and kick-Jesus's-ass song started to bug me more after a few listens), though Frank's also right that I like the album more than he does. He's also right about "Bad Liver and Broken Heart" nailing the Bruce/Cougar/Petty thing, which I really hadn't noticed before; really, it sounds to me like one of the more hard-rockabilly-style stomps on Springsteen's The River, and it pretty much kills until it slows down (which is when the line that annoyed Frank, the one about truth being what songs are for, comes in -- my guess is that Hayes might be one of those who'd be better if he didn't worry about trying to say meaningful stuff.) Still not really sure what it is I like about "Beaumont" or "Faulkner Street" (the latter of which definitely has a real roll to it, and at least in part concerns boys from some county and smoking marijuana and staring up at the stars); the melodies aren't that great, though they're probably better than most of the other melodies on the album, and there are geographic specifics and characters in the lyrics that definitely seem to help (though I'm not really sure where in the nation either one takes place -- Beaumont is probably Texas, since it seems to be within driving distance of Houston; seems like the guy got jilted or something, but that's not entirely clear to me: "All the way to Beaumont/With a white rose in my hand/I could not wait for ever baby/I hope you understand.") Anyway, I like both songs; wound up liking "Drunken Poets Dream" (which I think involves reading Louis L'Amour, though having never read Louis L'Amour I'm not really sure why) more, too. And "Knockin' Over Whiskeys" always grabs me at least in part because it sounds a lot like "Wanted Man" by Johnny Cash, though "Wild As A Turkey" never quite grabs me despite sounding somewhat like "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" by Dylan (though at least Carrl doesn't do his Dylan vocal schtick in that one. The one where he does do it, namely "A Lover Like You," my daughter Cordelia said she found affected right away. But then she also says she always finds it affected when Dylan does it.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 February 2008 00:04 (seventeen years ago)

boys from some county

Though not Boys from the County Hell, who show up in good song on the first Pogues album. Hayes's boys are from Mason County, or something. I didn't write it down. I'm pretty sure they're drunk, but I bet the Boys from the County Hell would win in a fight.

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 February 2008 00:30 (seventeen years ago)

Dylan wrote "Wanted Man" for Johnny Cash; never heard his original, which I guess is on a boot somewhere. I've got a radio tape of a live Hayes Carll set somewhere, and it's pretty relaxed, funny and poignant enough, though he def doesn't sound like he's worried about meaning (no need to worry, everything means something somewhere). Too bad about Shelby singing Dusty, everybody seems disappointed (she did some Dusty and Tony Joe songs pretty well on Austin City Limits years ago, from "an album I'm workin' on," mebbe she overworked it). But yall should hear Jukebox, by none other than Cat Power, whom I never cared about before. Cat Power is a true band here: Chan Marshall's dry-ice smoke rings, guided by the shining spine of historee (she moves over the connections between and within the songs of Hank Williams, James Brown, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, oh yeah and Cat Power), rounded by brilliantly simple tempo-adjustments of "Blue" and "New York New York" of all thangs), also guided by the Dirty Dozen Blues Band, which is actually a small combo, I'd say itself guided by Jim White--not the Luaka Bop eminence,whose new album I'm not feelin (or feelin too much to feel: disempowered in a small town is a redundant theme for me, but also he could say a lot more about it). No, this is the drummer from the Dirty Three; earlier in '07 he did a duo album with Nina Natashia, awesome tracks from that on Myspace, and maybe Chan was inspired by that. I gotta check some of hers I haven't heard, like The Greatest, also covers, right? Still romantique, of course, but no longer playing the waif card too hard. This girl is a woman now!

dow, Sunday, 10 February 2008 06:45 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, Jim White's Luaka record has its moments, but I smell a hype, as Don puts it--Village-Atheist stuff.

as for Faron Young--he's always been my favorite of all the '60s country guys, for his mystique, his voice and his ability to make countrypolitan tropes (on Mercury Records) like "Unmitigated Gall" and "Occasional Wife" and "If I Ever Fall in Love with a Honky-tonk Girl" and my fave, "Wine Me Up," sound...sick. Like Jerry Lee Lewis, he was part of Mercury and A&R/VP of country division Jerry Kennedy's post-politan stable, so, strings, horns, backup chicks, and all that. "Wine Me Up" is as good a California-wine song as the Stones' "Sweet Virginia." His biggest hit during this era was, I believe, "It's Four in the Morning," a Jerry Chesnut song Faron took to country #1 in early '72. On Capitol, earlier in the '50s and very early '60s, Young did "Hello Walls" (a Wille Nelson song) on a single b/w Bill Anderson's genius song "Congratulations." Surely one of the finest country singles in history. Young showed little interest in adapting to changing currents in country--he started out as a honky-tonkin' Hank/Lefty singer, quite good at it, and then went commercial with Kennedy. He did a nice concept record in '63 for Mercury on which he covered Frankie Miller's great "Black Land Farmer." But by the late '70s he was done--and he had business interests in Nashville, and loved the bottle, so that was it. He was a hell-raiser supreme, too, truly larger than life, giving away cars and sawbucks Elvis-like one minute and turning into the Drunk from Hell the next, and when he got debilitated by years of smoking, and by other problems, he killed himself in Nashville in Dec. 1996.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 10 February 2008 16:35 (seventeen years ago)

Nomination for worst country song of the year so far (or at least the one that pisses me off the most and doesn't sound remotely interesting or anything more than merely competent enough to justify the off-pissing): Alan Jackson's "If Jesus Walked the Word Today" (he'd be a hillbilly, and drive a Chevy, and preach at a little country church, not in the city.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 February 2008 17:32 (seventeen years ago)

TS: Alan Jackson "Sissy's Song" vs Ross Johnson "A Southern Sissy."

By the way, Ross Johnson's Make It Stop! The Most Of is my album of the year so far, and I've decided (at least until I change my mind, if I do) that 10 2007 copyrights and four more 2004 or 2005 copyrights out of 24 definitely makes it an "album," not a "reissue." Maybe I'll go into more detail someday about why it's so great, maybe I won't, but suffice it to say that his acknowledgement of a hundred strains of '50-'70s pop and rock (Hasil Adkins rips, ZZ Top via Slim Harpo riff vamps, "Mr. Blue," "When The Saints Go Marching In"/"Dixie" [okay, that's pre '50s I guess] "Keep On Dancing" by Gentrys," "Pretty Flamingo," "Farmer John," "Double Barrel" as mentioned above) as wild dance music is pretty much the way I see things, and the hilarious inebriated shaggy-dog spiels and more than a few really gorgeous guitar workouts ("Last Date," "Theme From a Summer Place," "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," "Senior Stroll") are free lunches full of gravy. I'm not even an Alex Chilton fan, never really have been (though maybe I should investigate his new wave era solo stuff more? Is that when he did "Bangkok," which I've always loved the Nomads version of?) But I totally love this thing. And the jokes about starting a new family before you've even finished with the first one you started are great.

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 February 2008 18:24 (seventeen years ago)

(Favorite cut may or may not be the "Keep On Dancing" cover, with the talkover where the sockhop DJ voice starts asking the audience whether they've ever been beaten up, and that he has, and they might be, so they should keep on dancing but keep on looking over their shoulder. Then again, I always like songs where fights break out on dancefloors.)

Good stuff about Ross looking at nudie mags when he was a kid, too, and about how a nude party might be happening somewhere near you right now. Guy has a very funny dirty mind. And his medley of "Saints"/"Dixie" rocks like Chuck Berry's "30 Days."

(By the way, there is stuff I do like on the Alan Jackson album. "I Still Like Bologna" is on now, and so far, seems worthy of Tom T. Hall to me.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 February 2008 18:31 (seventeen years ago)

Like "1976" a lot, too (that Jimmy Carter line gives me hope for the Democrats' Southern strategy or lack thereof); really don't see what people think is so special about "Small Town Southern Man," though; if it was by someone a few star-levels below Alan, I can't imagine anybody would care. (Theme of "I Still Like Bologna" is that all these newfangled digital innovations like big-screen TVs and music downloading and cellphones, of which Alan says he finally got one but never turns it on, make life easier but simple things like bologna on white bread still do too.) (For my own part, I still don't own a cellphone myself, and I haven't eaten bologna -- or baloney for that matter, with catsup or ketchup -- on white bread for years, but that's fine.) (Oh yeah, in "If Jesus Walked The Word Today," the apparent black gospel choir at the end seems just gratuitous to me. Though I guess it at least implies that, if Jesus stays out of cities, it's not because he doesn't like black people.) ("Sissy's Song" is about some girl who died; maudlin but stomachable, at least on first hearing. We'll see what happens.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 February 2008 19:06 (seventeen years ago)

on Johnson's Make It Stop! there are 6 songs previously unreleased. "Wet Bar" came out on a '90s comp. I bought the "Nudist Camp" single in '93 at Shangri-La in Memphis. "Baron of Love Pt. II" led off the original Peabody LP of Chilton's Like Flies on Sherbert, '79. the thing about Chilton's new wave stuff is that there's not really very much of it. "Bangkok"/"Can't Seem to Make You Mine" single, a live set (impossible to find now) on Japanese LP and I think CD of a CBGB set that's pretty good in spots, a few weird odds and ends like "The Walking Dead" and three or four dozen versions of "Take Me Home and Make Me Like It" and then that awful Jon Tiven- produced '75 set where Chilton is obviously just fucking around to piss off Tiven. Not much. I've always regarded Sherbert as a masterpiece, I mean fuck if the Mekons are great then this record, with its Ernest Tubb and K.C. and the Sunshine Band covers, surely is.

But I digress, as Johnson might say. I'd count it as a reissue, Chuck, since 18 of 24 tracks were previously available...in Memphis. The world wasn't ready for it... And yeah, I think the '60s instrumentals are often kinda beautiful, really. Is it too late to say I'm sorry...for everything...?

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 10 February 2008 23:12 (seventeen years ago)

and god, the Alan Jackson CD is a lotta music, as much as that Drive-By Truckers record! I like "1976" and I like the way the title track rocks and rolls. some of it is kinda awful, like Jackson wrote these songs in 10 minutes on the way to to the studio.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 10 February 2008 23:16 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.myspace.com/faronyoung

(mostly early stuff)

Frank Kogan, Monday, 11 February 2008 20:06 (seventeen years ago)

New Dolly and new Allison Moorer; haven't listened to Dolly yet, gave Moorer a partial background listening: tends to be too slow on the rhythm but can be affecting.

Dolly covers Fine Young Cannibals.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 11 February 2008 20:11 (seventeen years ago)

Ross Johnson MySpace

Frank Kogan, Monday, 11 February 2008 20:18 (seventeen years ago)

"I'm weak and afraid; it's a lifestyle that's working for me."

(This is from Johnson's "Theme From A Summer Place"; not as good as Los Umbrellos' version, but I bet that Johnson and the Los Umbrellos guy aren't altogether dissimilar in their tastes and demeanor.)

Frank Kogan, Monday, 11 February 2008 20:27 (seventeen years ago)

(Oh, Xhuxk already linked Johnson's MySpace.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 05:49 (seventeen years ago)

(Except the Ross Johnson MySpace you linked to is Faron Young's, Frank!)

Edd, I'll take your word for it on the new-vs-old ratio on the Ross Johnson album; you know way more about it than I do, obviously. I never even heard of the guy before you posted about him here (part of why the album still feels more like a "new album" than a "reissue" to me, no matter when most of the material dates from). But if what you say is true, those copyrights in his CD booklet are really confusing! (Actually, they're confusing anyway, since I'd think most of those songs would have been copyrighted by their actual writers in the '50s and '60s. But maybe he's just copyrighting the jokes he recites on top of them, or something.) Also, which songs are the Ernest Tubb and (!!) KC and the Sunshine Band covers?? The Tubb I'm not surprised I missed, but I know enough about KC & Band that I'm shocked I would've missed a song by them on here!

Edd's also right about the Alan Jackson album being way way way too long. And I get the idea he likes "Good Time" (which to me just seems marginally sprightly but forgettably rote, like the Carrie Underwood duet "Never Loved Before") more than I do. I guess my big problem with Jackson, just like my big problem with lots of alt-country (and maybe Travis, and Strait, and certain old school country classics people seem to love more than me) is that I don't hear enough music in his music -- he acts like the singing and tunes and lyrics will carry the songs on their own, and they're almost never interesting enough. (Obviously, with Jackson at least, there have been exceptions -- most notably his entire previous album. But they're pretty rare, I think.) On his new album, there's one cut, "Long Long Way," where he tries to be a Bob Wills type bandleader, directing his band in a sort of vageuly bluegrass or quasi-Western Swing jam, and good for him for trying, I guess, but it comes out really stiff, and the jam never comes close to drawing me in. I do hope that "1976" and "I Still Like Bologna" get to be singles before the cycle is over, though. (Oh yeah, there's another cut, a vaguely beachy Buffett/Chesney one though even duller than that sounds, called "Laid Back n' Low Key," which I keep hearing as "Laid Back n' Roll Deep," which would possibly make it an accidental UK grime reference. Though of course it doesn't sound grimey enough.)

(And oh yeah, that reminds me of the fried-chicken UK grime track that Frank linked to up above, a week or two ago. Video was entertaining, but I'll be damned how a mere American is supposed to understand they're talking about chicken just be listening.)

Speaking of singles, these are all songs that have been on the country singles chart in Billboard in early 2008 that I think I might have liked on their albums. I should find time to figure out how much:

Kenny Chesney - "Shiftwork"
Cole Deggs and the Lonesome - "Girl Next Door"
Gretchen Wilson - "You Don't Have to Go Home"
Blake Shelton - "Home"
Terri Clark - "In My Next Life"
Luke Bryan - "We Rode In Trucks"
Dierks Bentley - "Trying To Stop Your Leaving"
Brooks & Dunn - "Cowboy Town"
Big & Rich - "Loud"
Sarah Johns - "He Hates Me"

Singles-chart acts I haven't heard, but I'm curious about, judging from their names: Lady Antebellum, Star De Azlan, JYPSI (I'm pretty sure that stands for something, but that's how Billboard is listing them -- three young girls and a young hippie guy, if the photo is to be believed), Whiskey Falls, Crossin Dixon. Still have also yet to hear the Road Hammers' sort-of-hit song, Garth Brooks's Huey Lewis cover, or the duet by Mica Roberts featuring Toby Keith.

Finally, I like some of the rockabilly stuff ("Midlife Crisis, Midnight Flight" -- amusing song), guitar jam stuff ("Stop Drinking," eight minutes, possibly about going on the wagon), soul-ish stuff ("Must Be Karma") and stuff where the guitars groove like "Midnight Rider" by the Allman Brothers ("Troubled Dreams") on this Alligator Records blues album Blood Brothers by Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King. Much of the rest of the album just sounds like stodgy old Alligator Records blues, who cares. But it might have enough cuts I like to pass.

No new-album songs on myspace yet, but still:

http://www.myspace.com/SmokinJoeKubekMusic

xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 15:36 (seventeen years ago)

Another oh yeah: "Conquista," a Spanish language version of the White Stripes' bullfighty "Conquest," was released as a single last week. To my ears, it doesn't have much of a chance of crossing over to the Regional Mexican charts. Though some old fans of early Cafe Tacuba or Maldita Vecindad might like it.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 15:48 (seventeen years ago)

a vaguely beachy Buffett/Chesney one

This reminds me -- I really wish, when country goes the relaxing-on-the-beach route (which it does on approximately one song per each album by every male solo performer in Nashville these days) it would draw more on actual clam-baking-and-shag-dancing beach soul music; like, say, "Cowboys to Girls" by the Intruders or "Backfield in Motion" by Mel & Tim or whatever. Doesn't seem like it'd be that big a stretch; a perfect fit, really. Though I suppose it could just all wind up sounding like Uncle Kracker. (Toby or Tim or somebody may have actually done this, and I'm just not thinking of the songs off the top of my head. Also, didn't Alabama have a country hit about shag-dancing in the early '90s? I'm not finding it on youtube, though, if they did.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 16:00 (seventeen years ago)

Grammy winners here (didn't remember there were so many categories like norteno, banda, etc--bloddy Jimmy Sturr always wins for Best Polka!)
http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=300142

dow, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 16:55 (seventeen years ago)

Vince Gill won best country. That was the best thing Himes said in his Scene essay--Paisley's the new Gill. I actually liked Amy Winehouse's performance.
Yeah Chuck I do like "Good Time" on new Alan Jackson, but I mean this is the Zen of diminished expectations. I hear this record as a conscious move to "realness" after his best record ever, Red Rose Speedway. No, that's not it. I hear 10 pretty good songs.
All that Ross Johnson stuff was out in Memphis when I lived there, I lived down the street from hipster central in Midtown, Shangri-La, where Grifters and various Oblivians gathered, great selection of all things Memphisania. I knew when I heard "Nudist Camp" that Ross had realized his talents, and I love the rhythms on Make It Stop!. "Wetter and Hotter" is great--about how er his woman is getting or pretending to be the title but that don't pay the bills. Great soul guitar, just like Ross' buddy's Alex Chilton's pretty good "All I Really Want Is Money" on the 1970 record (where he also covers sorta good "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and hilariously "Sugar Sugar" and James Brown's "I Got the Feelin'." I saw Ross play with the original Panther Burns in Nashville in 1981--it was one of the best and craziest things I'd ever seen, with Chilton on guitar. Almost punk rock, out of tune, Johnson's tongue lolling out as he played good rockabilly drums, various covers. Chilton could have easily had a career as one of those rockabily revivalist people. The value of that music lies in the stuff they did that sounds a lot like "Nudist Camp"--that North Mississippi Hill Country fife-and-drum parade-beat stuff. The Panthern Burns' experiments with putting old-tyme rockabilly over that kind of music worked, at times.

Arlen Roth and whoever Lexie Roth is--his daughter?--can't sing too good, but there is one great track on this elaborate Toolin' Around Woodstock featuring Roth playin' his axe with, often, Levon Helm on drums and sometimes singing. And Bill Kirchen, who powers "Gas Station Frustration," which really does suggest the Band--or the Hawks--taking liberties with a basic rock tune, going nuts. I like it. But the rest of it's Chuck Berry covers and Dylan and Carl Perkins, just a relaxed sit-down. Sonny Landreth sits in on the other worthwhile (to these ears) cut, Berry's "Deep Feeling," in its original form one of the greatest of all rock 'n' roll instrumentals.

And, Ray Davies' Nashville record (with Ray Kennedy of Steve and Lucinda fame), Working Man's Café, is what? What is this? Roadhouse Americana? the usual dissatisfaction from the songwriter, but on "Morphine Song" and "Angola" he sings about getting shot in New Orleans, so he earned his angst this time. Kennedy keeps it all real tightened up, never wastes a second, and the record sounds more like Texas than Nashville or New Orleans to me. Couple of better-than-average songs and some cool arrangements. As a satirist, Davies has never impressed me, but there are times here when the lyricism takes holt of the reportage, or something like that.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 17:58 (seventeen years ago)

Been also listening to the new Trent Willmon and to his 2 major-label records. Far as I can figure this is as good if not better than those--the themes are frankly escapist but the music has a lot of kick and passing strange in it. I have a piece where I talk to Willmon about leaving Sony, coming out in the Scene in a couple weeks.

Faron Young: there's a decent Millenium Collection of his Mercury years. the original Mercury LPs I used to have--I think they're fascinating countrypolitan compromises myself--a wildass drunk on his enormous riding mower, with money falling from the trees and him too wasted to pick it up, so turns his windfall into mulch. Young deserves re-evaluation for his post-'65 work, I think.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 18:06 (seventeen years ago)

I actually liked Amy Winehouse's performance

I still haven't seen this; went to bed too early. Of what I saw, what I liked most were Kid Rock with Keely Smith (he'd clearly done his homework and knew who Sam Butera was, though she was actually funnier, and more extroverted, than he was) and the minute or so (in the middle of a gospel medley) by apparent "brass gospel" band the Madison Bumblebees. Never heard of them before -- and I'm not even sure I knew "brass gospel" existed -- but it was cool how they were jumping around while playing horns.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh8lFT4Vr_Y

Somebody on youtube calls them a "trombone shout" band -- never heard of that, either, but apparently there is a compilation on Smithsonian from 1999:

http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Paradise-Trombone-Shout-Bands/dp/B00000JKGN

They do not seem to have a myspace page, though.

Kid Rock and Keely:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pAyIRN03VS4

Haven't heard the new Willmon; definitely want to. Anything as good as "Surprise" on the new one, Edd?

xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 18:23 (seventeen years ago)

(I mean, I suppose, looking at that performance a second time, that Kanye/Daft Punk or Tina/Beyonce or Rihanna/Time were "better" than Madison Bumblebees. But the Bees are the ones who made me smile more while on my TV, at least partly by catching me off guard, and teaching me something I didn't already know, and making me curious about hearing more.)

(Paisley's "Ticks" was kind of dull, I thought. Could have used more guitar playing, and it just sounded too quiet overall, somehow. The more I hear that song, I realize it's not really all that great -- cute punchline, but the rest is just kinda there.)

(Underwood's proto-industrial Stomp collaboration on "Before He Cheats," with her dressed up as Nancy Sinatra with boots made for walking, seemed to be an attempt to initiate an "urban" crossover, as far as I could tell, with a bit of melisma at the end and everything. As such, "interesting, I guess. And also ridiculous. Good song, though. Could've been worse.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 18:44 (seventeen years ago)

Btw, I now think it's more likely Big Kenny rather than John Rich who's singing harmony on Willie's version of "The Bob Song." But I don't know, since I have trouble telling them apart in the higher register. Does anyone have info? (The song was written by Big Kenny alone.)

Responding to this question that Frank asked on Friday...the album credits list the backing vocalists on that song as Big Kenny and Wyatt Beard (keyboardist in Chesney's band, google says).

erasingclouds, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 19:56 (seventeen years ago)

"Paisley is the new Gill"?! That's really insulting to Paisley, who really is Time Well Wasted (well, often enough) while Gill is terminally bland (as a vocalist, in sound and usual choice of song, although they're both good guitarists, and Paisley won a Grammy for an instrumental). Edd, don't you like Davies' "Peace In Our Time"? Hubby as Neville, wifey as Adolph, whatta hoot, also vocal relish, in place of vocal sawdust hot dog, usually applied to airheaded "social commentary." Yeah, "Morphine" is good too, and anti-superstion"Voodoo Walk" kind of works on the demo bonus.

dow, Wednesday, 13 February 2008 03:23 (seventeen years ago)

actually, Don, I don't like "Peace in Our Time" that much but recognize it's a clever conceit re globalism and the olde Empire and the rotting new One Davies got shot in. I do like "In a Moment" and the one where he sees his reflection in the mirror at Preservation Hall and freaks out. And I like "Angola" too. I mostly like the production--it's a bit airless at times, seems to me.

Chuck, there's nothing in the same raunchy vein as "Surprise" or "Sometimes I Miss Ya" (2 best cuts on Trent Willmon's best record to date A Little More Livin' and nothing maybe as great, but there is one pretty great song on Broken In, written by coproducer Rodney Clawson. "That's the Way I Remember It" is an intense sorta heartland-rockin' song with a very very unusual chord change about halfway thru I've never heard in another country song in my life, and really pretty literary kinda lyrics about, print the myth except that the song pulls at it, questions it. Kinda like some of the dramatic numbers on that first Bobby Pinson CD--there's an urgency to the song that I like and it actually says something about loss, nostalgia, leaving home and that pretty young thing, that the entire record kinda skirts. "My life slipped away like a California hillside," good line. I also like "Cold Beer & a Fishing Pole" w/ Framptonesque talkbox intro and funky blues lick and harmonica and a truck fulla buddies and one special friend for later, around the campfire. And "Dry County" is nice, another one about getting the hell outta town, so you can hang out with waitresses along a stretch of Interstate 35. I hear Joe South, Jimmy Webb in some of this, especially Webb in the other big dry-town moment here, "Tumbleweed Town," about a town where "nobody wants to settle" because "There's no damn water," altho they try windmills but everyone still leaves as soon as they can afford a Greyhound ticket. Not as strong as the second one, as I originally thought, but good. And possibly the most Godawful intention-by-design God song ever! "Plant a seed and see what comes out of the ground/Find the heartbeat on your baby's ultrasound/In a few years, hear him laughing/Don't it sound just like a song?" Yeah it does Trent, so make sure to keep your digital recorder handy for when he does come through with the hook you know he's got in him...

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 14 February 2008 00:43 (seventeen years ago)

Ridiculously brilliant time waster crawling like virus through livejournal.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 19 February 2008 22:59 (seventeen years ago)

Print issue of Nash Scene with countty poll showed up; also has Edd's "Critic's Pick" re Terri Clark. He rightly singles out her best single, "Girls Lie Too" which really epitomizes the tomboy who's taking tall-in-the-saddle, giddyup straight-talk back to and for the gals. Although I usually have to get used to the arena-boom, of the synchronized drums, especially, all over again ("usually" means whenever she uses it, which is not always) Last album was pretty uneven; wish she'd give up on what's left of the Nashmill imperative (enough to get diffrent kinds of production, sharper song mechanics)

dow, Friday, 22 February 2008 01:30 (seventeen years ago)

as I guess everyone's heard by now, No Depression is closing its doors after the May-June issue.

been listening to the new Chris Cagle, and so far, all right--the permutations-of-the-word-"gone" leadoff track is fun. Not getting a ton of vocal personality out of it, though. Paul Thorn's record is a surprisingly good white-soul record. New reissue of Dallas Frazier's two '60s Capitol r&b albums on Raven, The R&B Years, is nice indeed. He wrote "Elvira" that the Oak Ridge Boys did later and also the epochal "Mohair Sam" for Charlie Rich. Good stuff, a bit like Joe Tex.

Alan Jackson's latest is one weird record--the only Nashville product I know of that has featured a drum and a bass solo in a song. Prolix musically and laconic verbally--a real sneak-fuck with its best songs about screwing and watching television, or perhaps watching television to get in the mood, ain't he heard of Cialis? Probably the best single song is "When the Love Factor's High" or maybe it is the rather simple-minded "1976" on which he shouts out to Wonder Woman, the Bionic Man and Jimmy Carter.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 22 February 2008 14:42 (seventeen years ago)

Hadn't heard that about No Depression. I'd rarely paid much attention to the magazine, but this seems like bad news anyway. Bad for writers. Were they struggling financially, or did the main guys just decide to do something else? Is there similar coverage in other mags or online that competes with No Depression? (I find Paste to be terminally stodgy, and Harp not much better, though I haven't read much of Harp to really know.)

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 23 February 2008 14:26 (seventeen years ago)

Frank, in the separate No D thread it said that the magazine's ad revenue dropped (they relied on record company ads and never got many lifestyle non-musc ads) while their circulation sales figures stayed the same. Plus the postal service raised rates for small publishers despite protests. I agree with you regarding Paste and Harp.

curmudgeon, Saturday, 23 February 2008 21:41 (seventeen years ago)

Sad news:

R.I.P. Calvin Owens, Houston-based bandleader/trumpeter for B.B. King for a few years in the '50s and later('79 to 84). Owens also worked with Chitlin circuit soul artists, and country musician Johnny Bush and he and Bush recorded a cd with Willie Nelson that's coming out this summer according to Andrew Dansby's Houston Chronicle article I've attached.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/5556752.html

curmudgeon, Saturday, 23 February 2008 21:48 (seventeen years ago)

Carrie Underwood was on Saturday Night Live's return show after the writers strike last night. She was ok.

curmudgeon, Sunday, 24 February 2008 16:45 (seventeen years ago)

Listening to Chris Cagle on the AOL listening station. Hate to say this, since it's a cliché that's often very wrong, but the mainstream arrangements undercut the bite of the guitar and the force of the singing (which doesn't have that much force to begin with). The first two songs are dull enough anyway, even with the wordplay on "Gone," but the third track, "It's Good To Be Back," is a good little rocker that ends up plopping rather than bouncing, or anyway not bouncing enough. Now I'm track four, "I Don't Wanna Live," coulda been an okay sad power ballad, but the potential beauty of the melody gets neutralized by the sounds that surround it. "Never Ever Gone" has good forced rhythm right at the start, fills out the sound too quickly without building the drama it could have. (Nice brief professional guitar solo in the middle, though.) Gary Allen would have done a good job on this. The track after that isn't bad, actually finds its balance nice, since it's nothing but a middling pop-country tune. "If It Isn't One Thing." I don't know what this is doing that the others aren't, actually, it's just as crowded and arranged, but doesn't lose everything in its overall jangle. But then, I agree with Edd on Chris's voice, just kind of a voice...

Anyway, I'm abandoning ship on this one, as I still have to make time to listen to the new Parton and the new Breeders. The only track I really liked on the last Cagle was "Wanted Dead Or Alive." I do think with the right arrangement, more low key, this guy could do Gary Allan Lite, might not be bad.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 24 February 2008 18:17 (seventeen years ago)

Just posted the below list on a best-of-'08 so far thread; I've been writing about a lot of these records elsewhere, which partly explains why I've been writing about them less on ILM. After reading Edd above and Kelefah in today's Times, I guess I need to go back and listen to that new Alan Jackson album more and pay attention to the tracks I didn't notice. Otherwise, I'm not sure I entirely agree that Nashville production is what's been hurting Terri Clark (I'd pick a lack of material, though her new album is okay, at least in the premature advance version that went out last year), and I definitely don't like that Paul Thorn album as much as Edd does; thought is was dull and stody -- though, as I think I said upthread, I did enjoy his live show.

Anyway, for what it's worth (since there are definitely at least a few country albums below that I haven't mentioned here until now):

very tentative top 10 so far, incl. late '07 releases that nobody I know heard last year (i.e., excluding Rihanna and Ryan Shaw, both of which I like but I figure I was just really late getting to):

1. Dolly Parton – Backwoods Barbie (Dolly)
2. Ross Johnson – Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson (Goner)
3. Frozen Bears – Hey, That’s a Good Looking Sportcoat! (myspace.com/frozenbears EP ’07)
4. James McMurtry – Just Us Kids (Lighting Rod)
5. Mechanical Bull – A Million Yesterdays (Woodstock Musicworks ‘07)
6. The Tonic Rays – The Tonic Rays (thetonicrays.com ’07)
7. Final Solutions – Songs By Solutions (Goner ’07)
8. Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
9. Sioux City Pete & The Beggars (Steel Cage)
10. Trent Willmon – Broken In (Compadre)

Next few official actual non-CD-R 2008 releases would probably be Alestorm, HorrorPops, Hayes Carll, Drive-By Truckers, Chris Cagle, Vampire Weekend, Left Lane Cruiser, Ayreon, Night Wounds, Chuck Wicks, Earth, and Kathleen Edwards, more or less in that order.

xhuxk, Sunday, 24 February 2008 18:18 (seventeen years ago)

Thorn = dull and stodgy, not "stody"

I like Chris Cagle's voice fine, myself, fwiw; not remarkable, I suppose, but doesn't need to be. Also think the first three songs on his CD have plenty of bounce. The rest, not so much, though the only tracks I actively dislike are the last two. (Wicks and Willman albums seem to save their lamest, most maudlin crap for the end, too. Must be a new trend.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 24 February 2008 18:25 (seventeen years ago)

Not convinced Cagle would sound better without Nashville production behind him, either, but it's worth noting (especially in the week that No Depression folded) that my tentative '08 top 10 so far has more alt- than Nash- on it. (And even Parton and Willmon are released on indies, for whatever that's worth. In fact, Compadre, Willmon's label, put out the previous James McMurtry album.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 24 February 2008 18:55 (seventeen years ago)

Sioux City Pete & the Beggars (coed blooze-noize pigfuckers from Iowa via Seattle)'s album (with Charley Patton's photo on the back) is called Necro Blues, btw. Here's their myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/siouxcitypeteandthebeggars

xhuxk, Sunday, 24 February 2008 19:01 (seventeen years ago)

my tentative '08 top 10 so far has more alt- than Nash-

As does my tentative runnerups so far list (Carrl, DBTs, Left Lane Cruiser, Edwards vs. Cagle and Wicks). I'm guessing this has something to do with blurring of lines, and that stuff that gets classified as alt- is opening up more to hooks and energy and songcraft and non-wallflower singing, and hence increasingly placing itself less in opposition to Nashville per se'. That definitely seems to be part of what's happening on that new McMurtry album, which is really surprising me by how much I like it. Or maybe I'm just hearing things differently of late.

xhuxk, Sunday, 24 February 2008 19:16 (seventeen years ago)

Wicks and Willman albums seem to save their lamest, most maudlin crap for the end, too. Must be a new trend.

A trend that needs encouraging.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 24 February 2008 19:50 (seventeen years ago)

stuff that gets classified as alt- is opening up more to hooks and energy and songcraft and non-wallflower singing, and hence increasingly placing itself less in opposition to Nashville per se'.

On the other hand, I wouldn't say that any of the "alt" albums I'm liking sound especially like Nashville records. McMurtry's is more a certain kind of early '80s adult AOR, if anything. (And classifying, say, Left Lane Cruiser--or even more so Sioux City Pete & the Beggars or Ross Johnson-- as "alt-country" is a stretch. Though I can imagine alt-country folks liking them -- at least ones who also like Black Keys or White Stripes or whoever.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 24 February 2008 20:15 (seventeen years ago)

I've heard none of the albums that Xhuxk lists except the Carll, though obv. I've heard tracks from some of them, and his number one is waiting in my wings.

Most of the labels that were servicing me (all indies, except somehow Reba's alb made it to my P.O. box last year) have wised up and decided to stop wasting their postage.

Of the albums I've heard in full this year, the three I haven't tossed in my discard box are, in order of preference:

Willie Nelson Moment Of Time
Allison Moorer Mockingbird
Hayes Carll Trouble In Mind

None of 'em will make my Idolator/P&J unless I'm really not finding my way to hearing many albums, but I'd say the Willie has a shot at my country music critics ballot, and if I come to terms with the slowness of the Moorer, maybe she could sneak in; not that at the moment I think she'd got more good tracks than the Carll, just that where she is good, she's warmer and stronger. I have some of the same problem with her I have with her sister: she covers a range, but in a lot of it I'm not getting anything out of the voice other than "good voice, competent singing, so what?" and then something will hit me. (All these thoughts after only one not very attentive hearing.)

And Carll's "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" is definitely a keeper.

(My guess is that even if everything that has yet to leak from the Ashlee and Cassie albums is total dreck, that those'll beat the three I've listed. And even though I voted the Robyn album in P&J in 2005, I might count it for my Idolator ballot, and the U.S. release'll be somewhat different from the original Swedish, and may be better, if it contains "Cobrastyle." (Though I prefer the original singer-songwriter "Bum Like You" to the dance mix, so I hope she sticks with the former on the U.S. release.)(Hmmm, listening to the Breeders a bit. There's something little-girl infantile in the singing, as if Kim's going freak folk, though since I basically only ever really knew one song by them, maybe that's what she's always sounded like. So, some of what I've heard is irritating, some has sudden moments of great beauty.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 24 February 2008 20:53 (seventeen years ago)

Hey xxhuxx, I *said* material as well as "Nashville production" (I called for better choice of song mechanics) overall was that she shouldn't hew to *all* the 90s-early 00s strictures and shibboleths that no longer provide a hitmaking template (she doesn't need to go "Look at me I am now beyond that pop stuff," but needs to study how others are adapting), that's what I meant to say. (I've heard several Paul Thorn live sets, and he's gotten better, both in songs and anecdotes; haven't heard any studio)(Terri should mebbe do a live album?)

dow, Sunday, 24 February 2008 21:25 (seventeen years ago)

A duo called the Love Willows, unsigned, describe themselves as "pop/country/southern rock," though in the tracks on their MySpace I hear show and girl group and old black pop more than country or southern rock. Oh yeah, I really like the lead singer, have for a while: Hope Partlow.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 24 February 2008 23:43 (seventeen years ago)

Roy Kasten on the demise of No Depression

Frank Kogan, Monday, 25 February 2008 00:03 (seventeen years ago)

Moving post, but I'm not really sure how Roy could defend this comment below; how did No Depression cover a wider range of music than even, say, Rolling Stone or Billboard (much less the music section of any random alt-weekly, even in this alt-weeklies-totally-suck age?) Sorry, I just don't get that. No Depression undoubtedly had its good points, but to me, it still seems like it was defined by its limitations (i.e., what it wouldn't cover -- especially within the range of country alone) more than its open-mindedness about different kinds of music. But I'd still really be interested in hearing arguments to the contrary):

ND did attempt to cover a broader range of American music than any single music magazine on the racks.

On the other hand, I'm sure the argument could be made that No Depression was open to a wider range of music than country radio, maybe even CMT. (The music it chose to cover generally tended to reign itself in more than more Nashville music does, at least to my ears. But that's different.)

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 01:55 (seventeen years ago)

And I'm not saying, by the way, that it was wrong for No Depression to have its own aesthetic; I just never thought the aesthetic made much sense.

In my mind, it always had a lot to do with the fallacy Kelefa Sanneh wrote about in his Times piece on Alan Jackson that ran today. Seems to me that, explictly or implicitly (i.e., by the music it left out) ND was always one of the main guardians of this line of thinking. And it's no news I feel that way, but I think Sanneh said it well:

Mainstream country singers like him are routinely written off or ignored by listeners and critics who claim to champion the real thing. No profile of a quirky singer-songwriter or an aging pioneer is complete without a lazy swipe at the supposed intolerance of the Nashville plutocracy or the cravenness of country-radio programmers.

The truth is that country remains one of America’s most vital commercial radio formats, driven by a singularly weird mix of teenagers and parents of teenagers, pop melodrama and old-school stoicism. (The loyalty of older, nondownloading listeners may help explain country’s relatively healthy sales figures.) And the genre’s obsession with tradition clashes in unexpected and interesting ways with its need for glamour and novelty.

A link to that piece:

http://www.articlesmodern.com/%20/music/a-country-music-veteran-proves-he%E2%80%99s-no-mere-hat-act/

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 02:36 (seventeen years ago)

(Though I do get the idea that No Depression softened what I'd always perceived as its anti-Nashville stance somewhat in the past year or three; Miranda Lambert made the cover last year, right? Not sure how much they liked Alan Jackson, either. But I do get the idea that it might have been too little, too late. Still hard not to hear the news of the magazine's folding as more bad news for music criticism, though; at least No Depression had a stance, which is more than you can say about most the music magazines left standing, as far as I can tell. And there are definitely worse sins out there, especially these days, than being skeptical about stuff the music biz shovels at you.)

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 02:50 (seventeen years ago)

(I also do get the idea that I probably say "I do ge the idea" too much, though I never noticed 'til now.)

I'm not really sure how Roy could defend this comment below; how did No Depression cover a wider range of music than even, say, Rolling Stone or Billboard

Actually, he did offer specific evidence to support his claim, in his main post, duh. And he also wrote this (so while I don't agree with said claim, I'm really not quibbling with him):

I often disagreed with ND’s editorial policy, its reluctance to expand or alter borders (in a classic cranky fit, co-editor Grant Alden once said he’d surrender “country” from the magazine’s masthead when someone pried it from his cold, dead hands; the word was gone two years later; Grant’s still with us), its anachronistic aesthetic

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 04:04 (seventeen years ago)

save their lamest, most maudlin crap for the end, too. Must be a new trend.
...A trend that needs encouraging.

Actually, toss in the noxiously aforementioned "If Jesus Walked the World Today" (not entirely sure if that's the absolute worst track on the album, but it's definitely up there in the competition), and the new Alan Jackson album fits into this trend, too.

Alan Jackson's latest is one weird record--the only Nashville product I know of that has featured a drum and a bass solo in a song.

You must mean in "Long Long Way," which I mentioned above as well -- and if so, yeah, I noticed that too. I just wish there was something actually compelling about said bass and drum solo to make it worth more than a pat on Alan's back for effort, or the idea, or whatever. (Maybe there is, though, and I just haven't noticed yet. At this point, it just hits me as cinicial quasi-bluegrass wank. I actually prefer the song itself to the "jam" at its end.)

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 13:36 (seventeen years ago)

the Carrie Underwood duet "Never Loved Before")

Er, this (also on Alan's album) is actually a Martina McBride duet, not a Carrie one. Still mildly catchy but entirely perfunctory, to my ears, with nothing in it that makes me care if I hear it again -- a category Jackson has always been addicted to.

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 13:56 (seventeen years ago)

I enjoyed the NYT piece on Jackson. It's a pretty discursive record and Jackson in Bandleader mode, just one of the boys. it features a Vocoder just like Trent Willmon's record does. As a fond remembrance of skirts chased and so forth Good Time works OK and it's also a good record about how television can be an essential accessory to a married couple's sex life. It's like really good filler, down to the fake-grass track which isn't all that great and his dismissal of "standard island beach-resort cliché" in "Laid Back n' Low Key (Cay)." I like to hear it as the banal first thoughts of an average guy, like he does one song about this "old hardwood tree" (what, Alan, hickory? ash? what kinda trees you got down there in Franklin) that just won't go away and seems to be reading his thoughts, another that mentions "sexy, skimpy lace" ["Nothing Left to Do," one of the songs that are mainly about television], and then Martina McBride tells him as they begin to neck on the couch, "I like your quirky, sneaky sense of humor"]). And then in "1976" he mainly remembers Wonder Woman and The Bionic Man and copping feels at the Dairy-Quik. "Yeah, bologna, a woman's love and a good cellphone, why the hell not," as he ends "I Still Like Bologna." The prosody is Basic American throughout and so artless as to be kind of fascinating, like "that bottle by your shoulder and some quarters for these dollars," how in the fuck did that just roll out of his psyche? The readymades by the band are pretty ace in their way, I actively can listen to the title track and "Love Factor's High" and a couple others, and his Jesus song is no more silly than Billy Joe Shaver's, on that last record Shaver did. If you really pay attention he sings quite well, actually, but apart from a past master's chuckle as he eyes yet another fine young thing, I get nothing out of his singing whatsoever. A cipher, an ordinary guy.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 25 February 2008 21:05 (seventeen years ago)

I was gonna say too that Good Time is his big Tony Soprano moment after he got therapized by Alison Krauss last time and now he has the courage to go out on his own, and that tree he keeps eyeing on his Estate is like Tony's pond, without or with ducks in it. So Alan's speaking for my generation here, it can be done, it's easy, no sweat at all.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 25 February 2008 21:09 (seventeen years ago)

A few more cuts are kicking in for me: "When The Love Factor's High" (though I'm not sure if I like it as much as Edd does), "I Wish I Could Back Up" (very spare, pretty ballad, though I still haven't listened close enough to notice the accordion in it that Kelefa noticed), and especially "Nothing Left To Do," which has a good, bawdy barrelhouse throb to it, and -- at least if I'm hearing the words right -- is both funny and sexy, always a rare combination to pull off. (Also, right, about marriage: After Alan and wife drive around then watch TV then "do it," there's nothing left to do, Alan tells us. Seems there's a detailed story attached; I need to give it closer attention. Leaning toward it being my favorite song on the album, though. Still like the baloney one and 1976 one, too. And still hate the Jesus one -- just seems real ignorant and arrogant to me, this conceipt that Jesus would be a hillbilly who avoids cities [I'm an agnostic, so I'm not sure why it bugs me so much, but it does] -- though I'm pretty sure "Sissy's Song," apparently about a girl who died by some cause or other, gets the Maudlin Award. And most of the rest just makes me shrug.)

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 21:33 (seventeen years ago)

(Actually, Alan says "There ain't nothin left to do now that we've done it." He changes his underwear, waits for her on the porch, she puts on something skimpy, they go out to dinner, drive back home, watch an old movie, drink a half a bottle of rum, then they turn off the TV and "get right down to it", and there ain't nothin left to do now that etc. etc. Those are pretty much exact quotes, by the way.)(I think there's also an afternoon delight verse.)

Honky tonk beer-drainer "If You Want To Make Me Happy" (play me sad songs and buy me drinks) is also not bad, though it could pretty much be anybody.

xhuxk, Monday, 25 February 2008 23:02 (seventeen years ago)

hooks and energy and songcraft and non-wallflower singing, and hence increasingly placing itself less in opposition to Nashville per se'. That definitely seems to be part of what's happening on that new McMurtry album, which is really surprising me by how much I like it

does seem (McMurtry's) to rock quite effectively with hooks, right, and narratives seem pretty non-bullshit and felt.

have I mentioned Dallas Frazier's The R&B Years here? Reissue on Raven of 2 '60s Capitol LPs on which he does his own "Mohair Sam," "Elvira" and "Alley Oop"? Novelty white soul/r&b; Frazier often sounds just like Joe Tex (a good thing), and otherwise reminds me of some lost New Orleans artist--one great song in that Chris Kenner "Sick and Tired" vein about a woman who will just not get up and do anything, except that Dallas, being from Oklahoma, calls the repo man on her lazy ass.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 26 February 2008 01:23 (seventeen years ago)

and thought I'd mention that I recently made the trek out to see Jack Clement at the Midnite Jamboree--the best thing you can do in Nashville for free. Clement was superb--the last song-and-dance man, and did hits he wrote for Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. Just really charming and sweet, one of the best things I've seen in a while. And he really did dance, with the beautiful announcer of the Midnite Jamboree, Jennifer Herron, who got a little flushed.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 26 February 2008 01:27 (seventeen years ago)

finally, I'd say that ND covered country music about as well as anyone in the country, given their inevitable anti-Nashville stance (which wasn't across the board). I think the magazine did a pretty good job of covering local scenes, too, in the "Town and Country" section of the mag--up-and-coming bands and singers, like Amanda Shaw, Chuck (in the Jan./Feb. issue).

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 26 February 2008 01:30 (seventeen years ago)

Man, this thread has sort of withered away. Not that I have a ton to contribute right now myself.

Well okay: Can somebody please explain Ashton Shepherd to me? I like those pool table pictures and have no problem with her somewhat overstated drawl, but her album is just hitting me as consistently.... okay, I guess. Are any songs actually worth getting excited about? If so, I haven't noticed them yet.

And oh yeah, here's my emusic review of Dolly's new album:

http://www.emusic.com/album/Dolly-Parton-Backwoods-Barbie-MP3-Download/11141340.html

xhuxk, Monday, 3 March 2008 19:26 (seventeen years ago)

This thread is a good read.

I don't know much about country yet. I have been listening to KKGO-FM Go Country 105.1 on terrestrial radio in LA.

It's been on a year. Apparently LA had no commercial FM country station from August 2006 to February 2007.

That seem so weird to me. As a new country listener, I find it striking how often sing about L.A. and Hollywood as the "big city."

Go plays a mix of new and old. I absolutely adore "Letter to Me" by Brad Paisley.

felicity, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 01:41 (seventeen years ago)

Sasha Frere-Jones New Yorker blog posting
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones

February 29, 2008

Did Not Get “Country Artist” Memo
Taylor Swift continues to refuse to play only country songs. In addition to Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable,” Swift is also covering Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” (See below.) I think this has less to do with Swift trying to become some sort of hybrid and more to do with how the classic American song—clever lyric, clear melody, distinct verse-chorus-bridge narrative—is migrating between genres and can be found anywhere now.

I am curious about his use of the word "now" at the very end of this blog posting. Hasn't "classic American song—clever lyric, clear melody, distinct verse-chorus-bridge narrative" been found (and migrated back and forth and around) in many genres for quite awhile?

And yea, I think someone (Frank Kogan)posted here about Taylor Swift's covers awhile back.

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 04:14 (seventeen years ago)

He shoulda said "*this* classic" or "classic songs like this"--that's what he seems to be getting at, or the way I take it cos Nashville hitmakers always wait a while on trends (as did Madonna, when she was himaking fulltime, and for the same reason; make sure us Burbvillians are ready, or familiar enough not to go crazee and forget to buy those records, or whatever kids do now--Taylor's been cited as the first of what's left of mainstream country to ride the downloads, and now she may be surfing right out of country, except those Eminem songs are old enough and good enough to be new "American Classics," and not nearly as old as Southern Rock and other heretofore more typical recent mainstream country resources).

dow, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 08:13 (seventeen years ago)

Oh and xhuxx and Gorge, especially, might enjoy Further Down, prev mentioned by Edd: fun, somewhut updated James Gang/.38 Special, kind of.

dow, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 08:17 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, Further Down's record is indeed funny--not quite as good as it could be but still worth hearing, kind of '80s metal meets Southern rock, more like, maybe Don? I like the song where the guy tries to get into this girl's pants by telling her that Jesus would've used the same pickup line.

Getting ready to tackle record by Lady Antebellum. Need to look back on the thread for stuff about Eric Church's 2006 album. He's got a new Capitol out in July or August and a new single...seems like that was one I listened to, his debut, and missed...

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 18:53 (seventeen years ago)

so far, Lady Antebellum isn't killing me with the songs--one about how a girl is "Long Gone" is OK, mentions Superman's cape. spare arrangements with plenty of organ. "Things People Say," the guy's at the Greyhound station wondering about his girlfriend who's got more ambition. "Slow Down Sister" starts with record-player noise and is vapid pop with one of those poignant breaks as the chorus kicks in. cowbell or something creeps in. too bad, what a great name! if there's any personality here--like, the antebellum lady actually had an animus against the Yankees or something, or even some fake gentility--I don't hear it.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 5 March 2008 15:57 (seventeen years ago)

Me on Carlene Carter, Sheryl Crow, Shelby Lynne, Allison Moerer, Tift Merritt, and Kathleen Edwards:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0810,351018,351018,22.html

xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 March 2008 22:33 (seventeen years ago)

Wow, back in the Voice (or maybe you have been for awhile). And I see you like the Dolly Parton album better than all of the folks you reviewed.

curmudgeon, Thursday, 6 March 2008 14:20 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, my emusic review of that one is a few posts up...

(That was my first Voice since the summer before last, when I did features on Oneida and Lordz of Brooklyn. But what's with the Voice copy editors changing all my other punctuation marks to colons, by the way? They like colons so much that they put two in one sentence, which makes no sense. Weird.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 6 March 2008 14:24 (seventeen years ago)

had forgotten how strong Eric Church's debut is. seeing him tonite as part of CRS festivities, supposedly doing new material. we'll see how he connects with the Rascal Flatts fans...

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 6 March 2008 15:09 (seventeen years ago)

nice on the ladies, Chuck.

here's me on
Trent Willmon's Broken In

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 6 March 2008 15:16 (seventeen years ago)

What I wrote for Billboard on Trent (may have been edited after I sent it; can't find the link now):

TRENT WILLMON
Broken In
Producers: Trent Willmon, Rodney Clawson, Dan Frizsell
Compadre
Release Date: Feb 26

Amarillo-born Willmon opens his third album with a pop-rocker that churns like ‘80s Bryan Adams, about how his hat, truck, and self may be rusting but they’re still holding up. From there he plays a world-weary wrangler with a heart of gold. In the hard-drinking honky-tonk waltz “The Good Ol’ Days Are Gone,” he recalls changing his major to ethanol, getting expelled, and starting a band; now, in “Dry County” and “Tumbleweed Town,” he’s finding life in dying destinations in the middle of nowhere. “Cold Beer And A Fishin’ Pole” is hooked to talkbox vocals that suggest Peter Frampton was the original T-Pain; “How A Cowboy Lives” climaxes with a gorgeous guitar solo; “Little Set Of Horns” concerns a tattooed date dancing to AC/DC. The album ends too sober: “There is A God” doesn’t prove a thing. But albumwide, Willmon’s wanderlust and wit still convince you he’d be great to grab a beer with. (C.E.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 6 March 2008 15:31 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, he sounds like he'd be great to have a cold Shiner Bock (lately my beer of choice) with. nice guy whose only discernable flaw is that Texas penchant for beef brisket over pork barbecue, but no one's perfect. (Willmon has done catering over the years around town, he told me.)

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 6 March 2008 15:41 (seventeen years ago)

What's up with Mindy Smith? I'm listening to her first (?) album to learn some tunes for a band, and it's pretty great. Don't know anything about her.

Jordan, Friday, 7 March 2008 17:49 (seventeen years ago)

Xhuxx Eddy, Demon Barber Of Moony Street. And Edd on new Alan, plausible also. Thanx for apprising us of all that mush (better yall than me)(speaking of me, the crucial last sentence of my Die! Die! Die! was restored; he'd meant for them to barber something else on that page). Plausible, given differences in taste and practice (having worked too many years in music retail to ever, ever voluntarily load up one those random play CD carousels from hell)(might make an interesting podcast though). Shelby Lynne recently gave a plausible quote: "I had to drink a lot of whiskey to finish that album...(trying to cover)Dusty SPRINGFIELD!? Eeeeeediot--!" Too bad if Tift's new one is bad too; she used to be pretty good, with her longtime band and material closer to home (sort of better Rondstadt, better/femmer Tom Petty/good sub for Maria Mckee til Maria started releasing albums again)If you're taking requests xhuxx please bring some of your CDBaby discoveries into the Voice, and Edd mebbe Further Down?

dow, Saturday, 8 March 2008 07:01 (seventeen years ago)

I wrote a Nash Scene brief on Further Down but then they cancelled their show.

new Chris Cagle, My Life's Been a Country Song, er, some fine third-hand songwriting on there but he just sounds too callow for me. But "Keep Me from Loving You" is an ace sorta Mott the Hoople slow one and "Little Sundress" catchy too. He's an underachiever who knows he kin make good, and good for him.

Caught Eric Church's act the other nite in front of a jabbering crowd of radio folk drunk on Bud Lite in downtown Nashville. Church's performing skills in no way match up to his songwriting ability, which I think is considerable. But he did, lessee, "Fat Bottom Girls" and "I Fought the Law" in between the hits and a couple new ones, one which he referenced by saying "I've been listening to a lot of Maroon 5 lately..." Good stuff, maybe he realized putting out for that crowd was useless, so he came across like the best bar band in Charlotte, not much vocal range or finesse--he does sound better on record, plus I don't get these performers who don't at least try to be frontmen. Which I suppose means he's really a singer-songwriter with a good producer.

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 8 March 2008 16:41 (seventeen years ago)

oh, and for that Americana glaze done right and far more effectively than I first thought, Mando Saenz's Bucket is a real listenable example of not exactly self-pity, real good stuff if that's your thing, and I kind of enjoy it myself. really even tone, and actually kinda romantic if that's your thing again...

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 8 March 2008 16:44 (seventeen years ago)

Jordan, Mindy Smith stood out even on a pretty otstanding tribute album to Dolly (blanking on the title, but you'll find it) Also realy liked the no-anesthetic slide on "Jesus Is Waiting, " though the didn't get into most of her first album; she's got another coming out, I think--?

dow, Saturday, 8 March 2008 18:31 (seventeen years ago)

So, I probably wrecked all my Drive-By Truckers credibility late last year when I said I didn't always know whose song was whose (mainly because the singers are nowhere near as distinctive as their fans pretend, but okay, let's not go there again okay?), but man...did I totally overrate the new album when I first heard it, or what? I've pulled it back out in the past couple days, and I swear -- beyond a few good songs, which is mostly to say an occasional halfway decent Stones or Neil Young rip here and there, the damn thing feels dead on its feet -- especially those last few lethargic and interminable snoozers it ends with. And I gotta say this: All the people (like Rob Harvilla in the Voice piece from a few weeks ago linked to below) who've been complaining that "Bob" is, like, the DBTs worst song ever, are either certifiably nuts or come from an entirely different universe than me. It's one of only songs on the album that has a fucking hook, and one of the few where you can tell what it's about without straining way harder the music merits. Do Drive By Truckers really hate catchiness so much? If so, that explains a lot.

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0808,302393,302393,22.html

Meanwhile, so far, Lady Antebellum are making me shrug my shoulders as much as Ashton Sheppard is. I guess it's "interesting" that Antebellum's "All We'd Ever Need" is basically a mushy adult r&b duet as much as a c&w duet, but I don't think I like it, and beyond that they're pretty much drawing a blank. And all of Ashton Shepherd's album seems to be stuff that sounds pretty good when it's on and leaves no impression when the album's over; I can take or leave pretty much every song. What am I missing? Jane Dark had this to say on his blog about the opening song, his #26 single last year, fwiw:

26) Takin' Off This Pain, Ashton Shepherd. You know what’s fascinating about “Jackie Blue,” by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils? Like many songs, it has two parts, A and B. A comes first, of course, and is all minor-seventhy and unresolved; B shifts to a major key, with an incredibly satisfying resolve to the tonic. Except that B has different lyrics every time, while A has a repeating lyric when it comes around. The structure of the words tells our brain that A is the chorus, B the verse; the music and our expectations of song structure tell us the exact opposite. And this is never mentioned, or settled. This is why the song is so tremendously haunting. “Takin’ Off This Pain” just starts with the chorus, which is smart enough, because the first line kills.

In other news, James McMurty's new one is sounding a little more dull and stodgy and unjustifiably full of himself on subsequent listens (though I still like it); Trent Willman is pretty much holding up (I like the husband dealing with stuff he shouldn't have said in a marriage squabble lyrics in "Doesn't Mean I Didn't Love You," and even the lyrically retarded "There Is A God" sounds okay); Ross Johnson is still rocking through his one-liners; and Dolly Parton just keeps sounding better. So many great, beautiful, funny songs on that thing, with so much verve to them. Still my album of the year (and again, I've never been a huge Dolly fan before.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 9 March 2008 22:01 (seventeen years ago)

Do Drive By Truckers really hate catchiness so much?

Or maybe they just hate jokes? One or the other. (Not that "Bob" is totally hilarious, but it's funny enough -- I'm still not sure what's supposed to be so horrible about the lines Harvilla quotes; like I believe Edd said above -- well, he said something like this -- it's an emphathetic portrait of a Good Old Bay who loves his mom and his dog. And it's nice to see these sad sacks lighten up for once. I mean, it's wonderful they do a song about being an opening band, but it would be way more compelling if they gave it a fraction of the energy that Creedence gave "Lodi." And what pisses me off is that I know they're capable of that level of energy. So are they bored, or tired, or just lazy, or what?)

xhuxk, Sunday, 9 March 2008 22:14 (seventeen years ago)

Actually what I meant is Do Drive By Truckers FANS really hate catchiness (and jokes) so much? (Though 90 % of the time, the other way works, too.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 9 March 2008 22:16 (seventeen years ago)

Oh yeah, also -- Amanda Shaw's album is totally holding up too; that would be way up there on my '08 list, just a notch below Dolly and Ross Johnson.

Mechanical Bull I probably overrated somewhat (it's thinner and more precious than I gave it credit for, not that anybody else listened to it), but it sounded at least as good as McMurtry, if not Willmon.

Album I've overrated the most so far this year: Times New Viking, piddly lo-fi indie kids from Ohio. Really wanted to like them, but they're kinda meh.

Also not country, but Frank mentioned it upthread: I have indeed heard the newly imminent American version of Robyn's album, and I'm kind of stumped about what's supposed to be so great or distinctive about it, beyond "Konichiwa Bitches" and "Crash and Burn." Most of it just hits me as run-of-the-mill, r&b-inflected pop, not even especically catchy in an Annie sort of way. It could afford to sound a lot more Europop, and her voice mostly doesn't grab me. ("Cobrastyle" is on the record, but it didn't jump out at me in any way, either; guess I'll re-listen.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 9 March 2008 22:32 (seventeen years ago)

Also:

... emphathetic portrait of a Good Old BOY (not Bay) who loves his mom and his dog.

xhuxk, Sunday, 9 March 2008 23:04 (seventeen years ago)

Abolutely finger lickin' grits and chicken country music girl bands Lantana and Bomshel:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/03/absolutely-fing.html

xhuxk, Monday, 10 March 2008 11:43 (seventeen years ago)

"Bob" works for me just 'cause it's so simple.

uh, here's a link to
Alan Jackson's publicist's latest contest

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 10 March 2008 17:07 (seventeen years ago)

COUNTRY STAR TAYLOR SWIFT FOR TOY LICENSE

Malibu, CA – March 10, 2008 -- JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (Nasdaq: JAKK) announced today that it has signed a worldwide licensing agreement through Creative Artists Agency, the entertainment and sports agency, to develop and market toys and related products based on the award-winning and double-platinum American country music singer-songwriter, Taylor Swift.

Under the agreement, JAKKS plans to launch a line of fashion dolls wearing Swift's most memorable fashions, role-play toys (including Swift's signature crystal guitar), accessories, and craft and activity sets that encompass the world of the pop culture mega-star. JAKKS expects to ship its Taylor Swift line to retail for Fall 2008.

"Tweens have developed a great connection with Taylor Swift, resulting in an aspirational following that not only enables girls to emulate this beautiful young country star, but encourages them to believe in themselves," said Jennifer Richmond, Senior Vice-President of Licensing and Media, JAKKS Pacific, Inc. "We will work to ensure that the products embody the uniqueness and freshness of Taylor Swift."

"When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a country music star and having my very own fashion doll line," said Taylor Swift. "Now it's come true! I can't wait to see little girls play with my doll and rock out with my crystal guitar!"

Taylor Alison Swift is an American country music singer-songwriter who signed to the independent Big Machine Records label in 2006. Her self-titled debut album was released in late 2006 and has since been certified double-platinum by the RIAA the United States. To date, it has produced three Top Ten singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs, including the Number One single "Our Song." All three of her singles have also reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album was re-issued in late 2007 with a set of bonus tracks.

Taylor Swift has won the CMT Music Breakthrough Video Award and the Country Music Association’s Horizon Award, and she has been nominated in multiple categories for the Academy of Country Music Awards, American Music
Awards, and most recently for the Grammy Awards.

(Steve, two of my Las Vegas Weekly pieces are about - among other things - Taylor's cover songs. Links are upthread.)

Frank Kogan, Monday, 10 March 2008 18:35 (seventeen years ago)

Mindy Smith has had three albums on Vanguard, the third being a Christmas album. I've only heard the second, Long Island Shores: adult contemporary that's going for nonemphatic instrumentation (which means it can pass for "folk"); and the quiet singing has something in it that feels like pain or insight, and I like the melodies too (haven't made my way to the words); but the softness is too soft: the same songs with more bass and drums might reach me more. She needs to study Taylor Swift, or Fleetwood Mac. Song to look for is "Little Devil."

Frank Kogan, Monday, 10 March 2008 21:25 (seventeen years ago)

Thanks. I've only heard "Train Song" and her Jolene cover, both are nice. The rhythm section sounds a little jazzish. I checked out a couple clips from the same album and yeah, it seems like she goes softer from there unfort.

Jordan, Monday, 10 March 2008 21:33 (seventeen years ago)

The Truckers used to flaunt a good (often dark)dark sense of humor, good that they're getting back to that, somewhut (seemed to have left after SRO, for the most part, aside from the affectionately humorous "Outfit," though hopefully there were more examples than I recall just now)they could be affectionately humorous plus other too, like a town's reaction to "The Night G G Alin Came To Town, " which is also an offhanded parody of "The Night The Drove Old Dixie Down"; then there was the trampoline oompah band of "The President's Penis Is Missing," not so affctionate)More on Cat Power's Jukebox, which I swooned over upthread (this is still basically swoony, but tries to focus on detail):
http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com

dow, Monday, 10 March 2008 23:18 (seventeen years ago)

I've only listened to McMurtry's new one a couple times, but so far it's sounding great to me--talk about empathetic portraits of Southerners in various stages of dissolution. Musically it hits home, too--I suppose it's like Zevon or one of them guys, but it seems real detailed, and spare, and far as I can tell McMurtry doesn't oversing in his undersinging, if you get my drift. I like it a lot. Willmon's I haven't gone back to and I probably will just opt out of saying anything about Dolly's record; I find "Better Get to Livin'" inane but do like "Only Dreaming" quite well.

Got Carlene Carter's today and going to spin it right now after I get off a here.

If any of y'all wanna try to make $100 see that Alan Jackson link I posted above...

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 10 March 2008 23:26 (seventeen years ago)

That link is hilarious, Edd.

Zevon or one of them guys

= Cockburn, Knopfler, T-Bone, David & David (not to mention Mr. Timbuk 3, a guest). (THEM guys.) But I was hearing them all more first time out than last week, when McMurtry was sounding like his old wooden self again. They're probably in there somewhere.

I find "Better Get to Livin'" inane

I find the explicit message of its chorus inane, I suppose, but the way Dolly delivers it is hardly straightforward; it's twisted a little (and takes itself far less seriously than James McMurtry or Drive-By Truckers), and she tosses Dalai Lama jokes in there. Oprah-country, cool, with a jaunty bounce to its basslines-or-whatever, and I like when she talks about her whiney friend and says "if I had a violin I'd play," and the stuff about underpaid underappreciated overweight gals later is very "9 to 5". But my favorite track is almost definitely the title cut. And yeah, "Only Dreamin'"'s mid-Eastern psychedelic Byrdsgrass or whatever is gorgeous.

Favorite songs on Ashton Shepherd's album (which is slowly but surely growing on me despite itself) are, wouldn't you know it, the faster ones: "Takin' Off This Pain" (which yeah, has a great first line: "I got a cold beer in my right hand, in my left I got my wedding band"), "The Pickin' Shed" (about a place where jam sessions occur), maybe "The Bigger The Heart." Least favorite is probably the token tragic weeper about a dead girl, "How Big Are Angel Wings."

xhuxk, Monday, 10 March 2008 23:55 (seventeen years ago)

Ashton doesn't quite pull off "Whiskey Won the Battle," I don't think, but I like its attempt at soaring Southern rock honky-tonky stuff. Not sure what's missing in it -- needs more blues, maybe.

xhuxk, Monday, 10 March 2008 23:58 (seventeen years ago)

What I will say in the Ashton Shepherd album's favor, though, is that its lack of startling peaks is somewhat made up for by the ease in which it came be played from beginning to end, which I've done many times already. It all sounds good.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 00:01 (seventeen years ago)

In fact, the NAME of the album (I swear I didn't take note of this til now) is Sounds So Good!

xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 00:03 (seventeen years ago)

(And oh yeah, Frank was right about "Cobrastyle" by Robyn. For some reason I was confusing that one with "Crash and Burn Girl", which I also like though not nearly as much; don't ask me why, since there's nothing particularly similar about them. But yeah, the "bom ditty bom de bom de bom ditty ditty" one with the dancehall-or-is=it reggaeton riddim beneath is the one I love. And though I can still take or leave most of Robyn's more r&b-pop-hack tracks, the album's undoubtedly better than I implied before.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 00:27 (seventeen years ago)

Also, fwiw, David & David-like one-time one-hit singer-songster AOR wonder whose new album I didn't hate (though I also didn't have the energy to sit through the entire thing, even once): Shawn Mullins.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 00:38 (seventeen years ago)

(Stupidest song I noticed on Mullins's album was the one called "Mr. Homeless Man" or something like that. Best one was probably the one about his dad working in coal mines or corn fields or Coppertone factories or something.) (Hey, I never said I listened very close. But that song did sound nice.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 00:56 (seventeen years ago)

If any of y'all wanna try to make $100 see that Alan Jackson link I posted above...

I'm not a resident of Tenn. or Kentucky, but I ran Edd's text through Google translator a few times (no English to 'real folks English' option for some reason though) and got this:

"What at first sounds like watches, as a pious fantasy Zen countrypolitan to fuck your door and check the name Bruce waltz - Jesus, and Dan kix "white bread and Bologna.

Uninflected Jackson's songs as simple to not only identify, even if it appeared to be hate speech on inertia sly detumescence great success Imagine this service to disable him, not art."

mulla atari, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 01:58 (seventeen years ago)

What I wrote about Dolly's "Drives Me Crazy" over in Poptimists:

Oh, I love the original, love the strangeness of Roland's marbles-filled gargle, I love giving this to Dolly, who's got a totally different but just as strange strangeness, all warble upon warble, but... this isn't working. What I'm liking is the song, not the version, which hasn't got the drive I want. 5 (out of 10)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 16:08 (seventeen years ago)

I like "Drives Me Crazy" a lot - I like the country-hoedown thing going on at the very end, where she throws in stuff like 'I'm gonna love you til the cows come home'. There's something kind of ridiculous about her covering that song, but it never fails to win me over, especially with the fiddle parts throughout and then that ending.

erasingclouds, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 16:12 (seventeen years ago)

I think I prefer it to the original (which I always found fairly irritating.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 16:16 (seventeen years ago)

More on the Dolly Parton album...xhuxk said his favorite song was the title track. I like that one a lot too, but right now my favorite might be "Cologne". She takes a simple little soap-opera anecdote about cheating and just repeats it again and again and again, but I find that simplicity and repetition appealing for some reason. I don't get why it's "cologne" and not "perfume" (I always thought of those as gendered terms, maybe I'm wrong), but I think that might make me like the song more, too.

Oh actually I just googled 'cologne' and wikipedia tells me this:
"Colognes are generally unisex and sometimes confused with Aftershaves as a percentage of men use them."

erasingclouds, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 16:21 (seventeen years ago)

Tracks 6 through 12 of new McMurtry (comes out 4/29, I think) are indeed good when not great (first five tracks: sludge). Listening to Jordan Zevon's debut right now: okayish power-pop, better with self-deprecating humor, the better to get into or closer to your pants (Nilsson namedropped on press sheet I think; I try not to look at those too closely before or during listening). That (underemployed)slyness undercuts or adds flavor to hearty smoothness, which otherwise seems pretty bland so far (though I've got some notion this might have some appeal to 19-year-old gurls of '08 as well as '72, as well as those who would like to be 19-year-old gurls o course)

dow, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 19:59 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah actually might be a pretty darned decent (or at least plain decent) EP among these ten tracks, if you can buy 'em download-by-download (when it comes out 4/15), and if you're (quite) a fan of this approach. Although I'd check out Chuck Prophet's Soap And Water tracks first, especially "Freckles," which I can *not* get out of my head; kind of a brilliant gloss of Romeo Void's "Never Say Never," seems like, but/and how often does that happen, really?

dow, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 20:06 (seventeen years ago)

Jordan, please post some of your band's versions of Mindy Smith songs, like on YouTube or something; I do think *some* of the tracks she under-performs have potential.

dow, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 20:10 (seventeen years ago)

will do, once we get it together!

Jordan, Tuesday, 11 March 2008 20:19 (seventeen years ago)

"Takin' Off This Pain" (which yeah, has a great first line: "I got a cold beer in my right hand, in my left I got my wedding band")

which, as i may have said somewhere upthread, is sung more or less to the melody of "sweet child o' mine." great single.

fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 12 March 2008 05:36 (seventeen years ago)

new Kathy Mattea, Coal, I finally got around to listening to yesterday. Way better than the Shelby Lynne, which I finally got and which I have to say might just be the single most overrated record of the year so far. Certainly one of them. Anyway, Mattea doesn't do anything too special except sing her songs about coal miners, but she can really sing and I find it not too precious or arty, overall. What's wrong, seems to me, with Lynne is first, the backing is just too minimal and second, she sings, to my ears, weirdly and not confidently. Her phrasing flattens the material out far too much for my taste; she doesn't retain the drama that Dusty Springfield was able to give it, much less the magical breathiness and control of In Memphis. I think it could also be partly just me: I'm quite a fan of Dusty's stuff, especially that record, and I hear the ghosts of backup singers and horns and strings throughout. She does do all right with "How Can I Be Sure," the Rascals tune, and I suppose she's credible on the Southern-fried Tony Joe White tune "Willie and Laura Mae Jones." But it doesn't go anywhere, and she sounds confused and not with it. I think she's a good singer who occasionally convinces me of that, but mostly she just sounds dull. I'd rank this as a Misbegotten Idea from square one; I've heard torch-twang shit this year that's far better.

Also liking the new Carlene Carter. The music is really lively and it simulates the olde pub-rockery far better than anything her ex has done lately.

New Eric Church single out in a few weeks; called "His Kind of Money (My Kind of Love." So Don, what song on the new McMurtry (the songs you say you like at the end) hits you the most? I dunno, I think it's a fine record indeed.

New record by the Brakes, a Philly pop group, has its moments and fits here because of the twin-guitar stuff they do and a general air of agreeableness and pretty good songcraft they cultivate reminds me of John Hall's '70s group, Orleans, or maybe the Amazing Rhythm Aces crossed with the Sanford-Townshend Band. Very mild-mannered, but their singer gets me--I think he's good, sort of in the mold of Nick Lowe or maybe Todd Rundgren when Todd was good--and the first 3-4 songs rock a little harder than the rest of the record, which is, right, too mild maybe at times. But they sound tight without being anal about it, and they have potential.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 14 March 2008 00:35 (seventeen years ago)

So Don, what song on the new McMurtry (the songs you say you like at the end) hits you the most?

You didn't axe me, but I'd say: “Ruins Of The Realm,” “Just Us Kids,” “Fireline Road” (in that order, probably.)

xhuxk, Friday, 14 March 2008 02:11 (seventeen years ago)

No, "Just Us Kids" really grates, so far, but yeah, "Fireline Road" hit me the hardest, like his old man's toughest stuff, to say the least, but I like most of 'em (to say the least).Just the first five seeming ponderous, but some of those might grow on me. I should save it for the Voice review I'm writing, though. I like Coal too, though it wouldn't have hurt to include a party song or two or three; would make the others even more poignant (I do think Billy Edd Wheeler's songs are a mite mushy, in this context). Still haven't heard the whole Shelby, but judging by the quote I posted upthread, she'd prob agree with you, Edd. Although--xgau gave it the only more-favorable-than-unfavorable review from a reliable source that I've seen---not that he's always right, but makes me wonder...

dow, Friday, 14 March 2008 02:18 (seventeen years ago)

xpost re Carlene's ex: xgau clobbered the shit out of *his* latest offering heh, and rightfully so, judging from the tracks I've heard.

dow, Friday, 14 March 2008 02:22 (seventeen years ago)

Definitely prefer Carlene to Shelby, though both are pretty iffy. Can you post a link to Xgau's thang?

xhuxk, Friday, 14 March 2008 02:34 (seventeen years ago)

(Oh wait, Carlene's EX...yeah, he deserved it.)

xhuxk, Friday, 14 March 2008 02:35 (seventeen years ago)

Don't know if any of you are paying attention to American Idol, but here are a couple of relevant clips:

Ramiele Malubay doing Dusty (has conviction and chops but never brings the feeling)

Train wreck of epic proportions (OK, maybe not that bad, but still a total mess, Kristy Lee Cook doing a countrified version of "Eight Days A Week" that just does not work.)

Brooke White, hasn't done a country song yet but I think she'd be an absolute natural for the genre; remembers to go quiet in her singing in a way that makes her feel intimate and conversational even with all the held notes and melisma. Makes dull old warhorse "Let It Be" sound like something she want us to care about. And here's her version of "Love Is A Battlefield," doesn't inhabit it quite as well but still does very nicely, doesn't try to out-ache Benatar but just lays her predicament in front of us.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 14 March 2008 03:47 (seventeen years ago)

here's Christgau on Lowe (this is depressing--I've always loved Nick Lowe, and it's also depressing to think that Elvis C. might be a better example of aging...geezus...):

At My Age [Yep Roc, 2007]
That would be 58, since he brought it up. Geezer's seven months to the good side of Robert Plant, who you'd never know was showing more savoir faire from the way bloggerati who weren't alive when "Marie Prevost" was written fawn over this labour of louche. Reborn as a crooner because he can't rev up the rock anymore, he can't rev up the croon either. Wit: Shot. Insouciance: Shot. Romantic prospects: On this evidence, shot. If you're worried about aging gracefully, maybe it's back to Elvis C. after all. C

As for Lynne, I've played that record several times, and it just sounds like someone with zero feel for that music attempting to justify her lack of savvy by making it all fucking "minimal" and so forth. OK, maybe it is indeed not the '60s any more, but wouldn't a little camp or repressed glamour help out this project? I read a Phil Ramone quote to the effect that he consciously avoided the "campy" elements of the '60s and Dusty's work on this, which seems a weird misreading of what Dusty did and what the decade was all about? Am I wrong here?

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 14 March 2008 15:42 (seventeen years ago)

I always feel like I'm interrupting conversation when I enter this thread, but...

the Kathleen Edwards is a real good 'un. The hot licks help.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 14 March 2008 15:45 (seventeen years ago)

Well, Dusty went for an intimate approach, but it was more like me and you alone together in the crowd, when there were a lot if instruments making their presence known, or me and you alone together in the quieter circumstances, if the instruments were more discreet and it was all about distilled atmosphere (you and me alone in a drop that is about to fall, o baby, in "The Look Of Love"). Minimal mainly insofar as her own approach to recording her vocals: one syllable at a time, according to Neil Tennant and other colleagues (dunno about Dusty In Memphis sessions specifically, but she'd always do that, if allowed to). So more ship-in-bottle than "minimalist"! Of course, she didn't always do the oh-s-ethereal bit; remember "Silver Threads And Golden Needles" with the Springfields etc. though that was before she had as much control as the cult stuff. Gotta say, past high school, don't know that I was so in awe of her, or kept up so well, though enjoyed Dusty In Memphis, Pet Shop Boys collabs, etc (how's the stuff with Roy Thomas Baker) Maybe Shelby should have delved further into the overall Dusty catalogue, or do more of those late-60s, vibe-y pop-country/southern-associated songs, like "Kentucky Rain," "Spooky," or "Stormy," "Summer Rain," "Poor Side of Town," "Baby The Rain Must Fall," etc.

dow, Friday, 14 March 2008 19:44 (seventeen years ago)

or better yet, Don, why not do what Dusty herself did--seek out new cool material by all the songwriters writin' away out there. instead of trying to do songs that have already kinda been done to death, or re-create something the people involved probably have no business attempting. but yeah, not saying that Dusty was minimal or minimalist but rather that Ramone and Co. made a minimal record that just sounds unfinished to me. Dusty was indeed "ship in a bottle." I think Dusty peaked in the early '70s as an interpreter, altho she could always sing great.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 14 March 2008 19:50 (seventeen years ago)

I totally agree. if she's not getting the songpitchers, like if she's scared 'em away, she should at least be on MySpace and CD Baby like white on rice, checking out material. xpost xgau, Elvis C. sang pretty well on the album with Burt Bacharach! Seemed like some kind of emotional breatkthrough in middle age, very inspiring at the time. But it was enough, I guess; I haven't kept up since. (Xgau, back in E.C.'s prime, and despite giving good grades: "..suffers from Jackson Browne Syndrome:He's a little boring.")

dow, Friday, 14 March 2008 19:57 (seventeen years ago)

So Don and Edd, you guys do realize that "What You Say" and "One Night Stand Up" and "Get Your Rocks Off" on that Further Down album basically sound like the more rocking side of Nickelback or Hinder or one of those bands, don't you? At that, I'm not disliking them; they just sound way more consitpated fake-grunge than Southern Rock to my ears, so far.

So so far, at least, I'm liking Mother Truckers and I See Hawks in L.A. and (with more reservations than the other two) Cory Morrow more than Further Down, as country rock goes. Not sure about Daniela Cotton yet -- she seems to go through the right soul-country-rock (i.e.: press release compares her music to Let It Bleed) motions, but emotionally and creatively, I'm not hearing it. Though maybe I will.

Still want to see Xgau's review of the new Shelby(unless I was misunderstanding Don's post, again.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 15 March 2008 22:32 (seventeen years ago)

(The Shelby thing should be on his site by now, I guess: it was in a recent Consumer Guide)Alfred, haven't heard the new Kathleen, but was impressed by some earlier tracks; good influence of Lucinda, seemed like, and sometimes the derivative artist will do something that the original won't or can't. Right now, a talent contest for twentysomething singers on Prairie Home Companion, so far, mostly forthright and fetching female voices (the one guy was boring), incl none other than Ashley Monroe, and Allison or Alison Gilbert of Jackson, TN (heard her, Edd? Sounds pretty professional) Will be re-run tomorrow on many stations o course.

dow, Saturday, 15 March 2008 22:42 (seventeen years ago)

No CGs on Xgau's site after Jan 08, as far as I can see. (Is there a link for the new CGs as they come out? I should know this, but I can never find them.)

http://robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/index.php

Daniella Cotton seems to sound the stodgiest of all all of the artists I named in the above post -- and still, as black-woman hard-rock goes, passable, I guess; first track has some oomph to it, though it's still no Nona Hendryx or Betty Davis (which is faint praise; they weren't all they were cracked up to be.) Bet Kandia Crazy Horse is down with her, though.

Mother Truckers do by far the best Stones of the bands I listed (though Further Down seem to have moments, and may grow on me as I get accustomed.)

I've liked Kathleen Edwards more than Lucinda in the past, and the new album confirms for me that I was probably right. Still have mixed feelings about her new one, though, as my VV thing I hope made clear. (And was mixed about her old ones, too -- So mixed, in fact, that I didn't even keep my copies.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 15 March 2008 22:59 (seventeen years ago)

(it's on
http://music.msn.com/consumerguide/honorablemention
though I may have messed that up)Uh-oh, I'd forgotten how brief these Honorable Mentions are: "She sings these Dusty Springfield covers so torchy and tasteful, you'd think they were on Dusty In Memphis to begin with('Just A Little Lovin'', 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me')." Back on radio: another good'un by Alison or Allison Gilbert! Sort of like a deeper-voiced Natalie Maines or Sunny Sweeney. The Honeydew Drops shouldn't have encored with "Long Black Veil," though; they're too or differently pop for that.

dow, Saturday, 15 March 2008 23:09 (seventeen years ago)

xp (Though strangely, I still do have my copy of Car Wheels On A Gravel Road -- more out of a feeling of rock-crit obligation than anything else, probably. Haven't played the damn thing in years, but I did happen to hear the title track in a bar or somewhere this week, and I was as stumped as ever about why it's supposed to be such a big deal. It was okay, though, I guess.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 15 March 2008 23:13 (seventeen years ago)

http://music.com/music/consumerguide/honorablemention that is. Also Hons to a a Bob Frank album and one he does with somebody else and the new Willie.

dow, Saturday, 15 March 2008 23:18 (seventeen years ago)

Still didn't work, Don...(Maybe just link to the CG itself, instead of just the honorable mentions?)

xhuxk, Saturday, 15 March 2008 23:23 (seventeen years ago)

http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide/honorablemention

dow, Saturday, 15 March 2008 23:29 (seventeen years ago)

Bingo!

dow, Saturday, 15 March 2008 23:32 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, that Bob Frank album is cool.
and I do realize that the Further Down record contains that fake-grunge kinda '90s angst, something very generically fucked-up about the thing. I just love that song where the guy tells the girl that her Savior Jesus woulda used the same pickup lines as he, so give in...
whatever else, the song on the McMurtry record that kills me is "Ruby and Carlos," fine ear for that halfway success that's really just failure that so many of us Americans strive for. A country music tale, since the guy ends up in the road band, not the studio band, of some Music Row star, and on Nevada Street--there's a Nevada Ave. in Nashville so probably not there--drinking himself into a stupor. "Down below the Mason-Dumbass Line." I also like the lines in "Hurricane Party" about how no part-time pirate gets respect, so "sit your drunk ass down." And far as I'm concerned "Freeway View" is a pretty good piece of rock 'n' roll, that fabled 1-10 music, stop-start structure and Jerry Lee piano.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 16 March 2008 01:12 (seventeen years ago)

Xgau gave the Sirens an honorable mention!

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 16 March 2008 06:12 (seventeen years ago)

Yep. Also Joy of Cooking. And Willie Nelson. + pick hits from Kid Rock ("So Hott") and Little Big Town ("Evangeline.") And the Foos got their just desserts (or just deserts, as the case may be. You decide.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 16 March 2008 16:03 (seventeen years ago)

Also Mary Gauthier, Jason Isbell, and B Plus for Britney, A Pluses for Gogol Bordello and M.I.A. (Lucinda ended up rannking high on his Dean's List too, despite his seeming kinda disappointed by West in Stone review). They're rerun the Prairie Home Companion People In Their Twenties Contest mentioned above: six finalists culled from 1,000 entries, and the one I was most struck by, other than Ashley Monroe, was Alyson Gibert, former Miss Crookston of Crookston, Minnesote, now of Jackson, Tennessee; she's trying to sing some more for mer on her site, butI'm on the dial-up today, so I'll have to check broadband later, but here she is http://www.alysongilbert.com She ended up getting third place; Ashley got bupkiss! Dang--but she got to do several songs. Also getting no placement but well-deserved exposure: femme duo Pinky Lee, of Petoskey, Michigan. and secong place runners-up were Mattie Speece and Patrick Villiers, a bit like a Cajun-brushed Trailer Bride, vocally. First were the aforementioned Honey Dewdrops, boy & girl, both a little too ingenue for this mountain melancholy bit, but unpretentious, kind of church basement coffee house with professional potential (on some level, they must have sensed they were basically light-but-not-lite when they chose their name). (Only male lead voice was Andrew Ryan of Boise, kind of David Gates or Jack Johnson-he got fourth place, though.)

dow, Sunday, 16 March 2008 19:16 (seventeen years ago)

So I wound up liking Further Down (whose thick guitar sound is much more likeable and more boogiefied than their constipated vocals, and whose "One Night Stand Up" turns out to be an even better Thin Lizzy rip than the first song on the 3-song advance CD of the new Whitesnake album that I got in the mail last week, and whose "Get Your Rocks Off" is a pretty darn rocking fusion of Montgomery Gentry music with scrunge gutbust vocals) more and Cory Morrow (whose CD basically stopped working in my changer for more than one song at a time, so eventually I said fuck it) less. Really really like I See Hawks in L.A.'s often otherwordly existential psychedelic Gordon Lightfoot vocals with Blonde and Blonde or Tex-Mex rhythms and lyrics about paleontology and about nostalgia for being in the ecology club in high school etc., though. And as for the new Old 97s, I like three songs (first one, last one, and one in the middle), but I shan't specify why here because I'm writing a review elsewhere.

And oh yeah, I have a "blog" now, fwiw:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/chuck_it_all_in/index.html

xhuxk, Tuesday, 18 March 2008 18:12 (seventeen years ago)

Actually, who Further Down kept reminding me of, for some reason, was Drivin N Cryin -- but the latter didn't really have grunge vocals, did they? Nor riffs that hefty, usually. Maybe it's just the idea of updating Southern boogie for the Now Generation.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 18 March 2008 18:21 (seventeen years ago)

southern boogie for the new generation indeed. I always heard Drivin' N Cryin' as sorta more roots shit? wondering myself about this Cory Morrow Vagrants and Kings, it stopped working for me after "Love Finds Everyone" followed 3 equally sententious songs. I shall try agin; meanwhile, I must find out what are the "serious mistakes" alluded to in the presskit, for which Cory apparently got himself cuffed and tagged back in 2005 and hence, this (Christian-rock?) album. Not as good as Billy Joe's Christian-rock, post-trauma album Everybody's Brother, which had some real Tennessee rockabillying on it.

so I'll add that Alan Jackson had some sort of uncool things to say about the Village Voice and its readers and country music, in Beverly Keel's Tennessean column last Thursday, in which someone translated my supposedly cryptic review of Good Time into Google-English, what it looked like to me. Apparently, Alan doesn't go out to the grocery store because of his fame, is what Keel says in a profile of the man, which makes me more of a Common Man than he, I know the homely cashiers at the local Food Lion grocery by name and current poverty/relationship glitch. Anyway, I'm a good sport but really, Jackson saying that he can't conceive of a Voice reader getting into country or country fans hauling out their dictionaries perhaps to look up "prolix" and "detumescent" (in his spare time, looks like he might don his reading specs for a troll through the wonders of the English vocabulary, he's a songwriter for Chrissake--the American Heritage has good pictures and is sensibly prescriptive these days I guess) seems like a narrowing of market share right there, but what the fuck do I know.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 18 March 2008 19:17 (seventeen years ago)

The Voice has pretty often sported good country coverage, I think, no matter who was editor; Xgau's 70s Guide is full of juicy leads and takes, and several other leading Voicers of them days, like Bangs, Meltzer, Tosches, Hickey were all big on country; even Weisbard was big on Garth and early versions of Drive-By Truckers, etc. And Tom Smucker's vision of Merle is still in the archive, prob'ly. Wonder what Alan would think of what's said about him here:
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0244,172281,39494,22.html

dow, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 19:56 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, the Voice has had good country coverage but if this is what
Jackson said...

<I>Jackson saying that he can't conceive of a Voice reader getting into country or country fans hauling out their dictionaries perhaps to look up "prolix" and "detumescent"</i>

...I can see his point.

It's like this. I'm from Pine Grove, Pennsy, a redneck 2000+ town of largely uneducated white people. Some of them occasionally discover my blog in soCal because they Google Pine Grove-y things like Professor Schnitzel Pennsy Dutch comedy records, or some other local band I wrote about, or coal country culture and politics. And then some write e-mails asking how to get Professor Schnitzel records or about some other aspect of old Pine Grove and they don't get, at all, 99.9 percent of what I write on the page. Even though we grew up together and we have the same color of blood and genetic code. We radically diverged at some point back in the mists of time.

And that's what guys like Alan Jackson are getting at. I can't see any of the hosts on the cable country music video channels getting at all what the Voice has chosen to write about country. Altie weeklies in the big big city, what audiences they have, are divergent from his audience and if you draw two circles, one for the Voice audience and one for Jackson's country, you could overlap them a little where there will be some shared members. But the great majority of the area inside the two circles will be devoted to two sets, neither of which have much of anything in common.

Gorge, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 20:36 (seventeen years ago)

Dunno the statistics, but I do know "Voice readers who have gotten into country" largely because of the Voice, or that's what they've told me (and I wouldn't have gotten into a lot of areas of country otherwise, myself) Not that they didn't some interest to start with; otherwise it would be like saying the Voice "turned somebody gay" (oh wait)

dow, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 22:37 (seventeen years ago)

Also of course, would AJ have been so dismissive if he'd gotten what he considered to be a positive review that didn't contain any of them words his fans supposedly jest cain't unnnerstan (like they're supposed to identify with "Ah don't know Iraq from Iran")?

dow, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 22:43 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, I'm from a small town in Middle Tenn. that's mainly agricultural (tobacco) and divided decisively along racial lines. there are 2 Super Wal-Marts here, or maybe even 3. NASCAR country.

probably the audiences don't overlap a whole lot. but I bet New York's a pretty big market for Arista Nashville products. still, Jackson knows which side his bread is buttered on, for sure.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 20 March 2008 14:49 (seventeen years ago)

Yes--but I read some features around the time of the Krauss production, in which he and his scribes implied that he'd had so many hits he could afford to take a chance, and also that he felt the need to take it, cos his side of the bread was getting toward stale--as country once again demonstrates its usefulness as a leading economic indicator, like the construction industry--not a good time to be taken for granted, thogh you can't piss off the loyalists either, so better not be seen as hobnobbing with dainty press types, even though Krauss is Starbucksy as hell (then again, Burbville's got the Starbucks now, buddeh, and the Voice, although it's always a week late, cos we-'uns ain't in no hurry)(I'm still in Middle AL so I know these thangs)

dow, Friday, 21 March 2008 00:59 (seventeen years ago)

exactly, Don, hence my "sly detumescence" after he and Krauss lit up a doobie in the studio and listened to their Little Feat remasters, and did a little consensual foreplay artist-producer style.

good: Shawn Mullins' Honeydew, kinda down-and-out McMurtry-vignette-lite.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 21 March 2008 13:30 (seventeen years ago)

I always get the vignette-lite at Subway. Forthcoming Old 97s is fun, more often than not (shoulda been 10 instead of 14 tracks, but shouldn't they all)

dow, Saturday, 22 March 2008 03:59 (seventeen years ago)

new Old 97s as good and songful as Fight Songs, Don?

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 22 March 2008 15:39 (seventeen years ago)

I'll have to dig that one up; got a couple from that era (this one's sort of "not" country rock, but homepokes know better)

dow, Saturday, 22 March 2008 20:58 (seventeen years ago)

Not that they're trying to hide anything, just keeping it clubland-adaptable, since you gotta make the money on the road now more than ever, or as much as ever, far as most bands have ever gone.

dow, Saturday, 22 March 2008 21:02 (seventeen years ago)

My ten favorite country albums of the year, as of today:

1. Dolly Parton – Backwoods Barbie (Dolly)
2. Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
3. Phil Vassar – Prayer Of A Common Man (Universal)
4. The Mother Truckers – Let’s All Go To Bed (Funzao)
5. Mechanical Bull – A Million Yesterdays(Woodstock)
6. Keith Anderson – C’Mon (Columbia)
7. I See Hawks In L.A. – Hallowed Ground (Big Book)
8. James McMurtry – Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod)
9. George Strait – Troubador (MCA Nashville)
10. Hayes Carll – Trouble In Mind (Lost Highway)

Didn't count as country, though they all have intermittent country-ish elements: Ross Johnson, Tonic Rays, New Bloods

Possibly underrating because they both have so much boring stuff to balance out the great stuff: Alan Jackson, Drive-By Truckers

Other runner-ups: Left Lane Cruiser, Ashton Sheppard, Terri Clark (assuming the advance CD that went out last year is the same as her new album) Chris Cagle, Old 97s, Chuck Wicks, Kathleen Edwards

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 01:04 (seventeen years ago)

Eh, actually I should probably count Further Down as a runner-up too (higher than most ones I listed.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 01:12 (seventeen years ago)

George Strait is a surprise, by the way! I expected to be bored by all of it, and was actually only bored by less than half of it. Favorites are probably the hippie-rock sounding Detroit diesel trucker song "Brothers of the Highway" and the boringly titled "When You're in Love," about visiting a Bed & Breakfast but not in the summer months when it's too hot. Lots of other good stuff, though (honky tonk, Western Swing, rocking "House of Cash" which is apparently about Johnny's house burning down according to Pareles in the Times a couple days ago.) And as goody-goody and bland as I've always said George is, he really does have a great voice, doesn't he? (Much better than, say, Keith Anderson's, whose album I prefer regardless.)

Phil Vassar's album is basically the same one for which an advance was sent out last year, but with two songs changed to better songs, including his current big hit wedding-day song (as in Nick Lowe, Chuck Berry, Gogol Bordello) "Love is a Beautiful Thing," which I like a lot despite its boring title. I liked the advance when I got it last year, wrote about it on Rolling Country last year, and shelved it; relistening to the advance of the new version, I'm amazed by how much I still love a lot of it.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 12:43 (seventeen years ago)

And shoot! Inadvertently left this album (which I think I like more than Mechanical Bull but less than Mother Truckers) off that top-ten(tative) list:

Trent Willmon – Broken In (Compadre)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 13:01 (seventeen years ago)

Also, see the new youtube links and comments I posted toward the bottom of this thread, if you're interested; I'm curious if anybody here (if anybody is still around here, that is) (seeing how I'm rarely around here myself these days) has any thoughts on the questions I'm posing there:

(vintage) country-disco

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 13:04 (seventeen years ago)

the Anderson record is really cool texturally; basically a rock album. I guess he does something nice with Foster & Lloyd and even that godawful Big & Rich wedding song "Lost in This Moment." I don't hear much real personality in his voice, myself, but do get a rush from the arrangements.

Companion Song to Drive-By Truckers' "Bob," which I described elsewhere as just one of those real specific Southern portraits: Donnie Fritts' "She's Got a Crush on Me," from his brand-new One Foot in the Groove. Fritts is an undistinguished singer but on this one he often sounds like Levon Helm, and although he's best on the uptempo shit (backing provided by the Muscle Shoals band the Decoys, who are the missing link between the Stax house band and, like, Stones or the Ohio Players) like "Chicken Drippins" and so forth, "She's Got a Crush on Me" is real Southern-rehab-specific, with lines about how this particular (likely 50-ish, homely, and lonely) woman lives in the "Sweetwater trailer park, lot number 3" and smokes Camel Lights and goes to the local Church of Christ, leaves notes on Donnie's windshield and, yep, has a crush on him. Somebody who could really sing could do it up just great, and I do think it's a great song to put next to the Truckers' "Bob" (David Hood, Patterson's dad, plays bass on the Fritts record). Elsewhere he says goodbye to New Orleans, gets Jesus in his life, and represents himself in the sad case of his best friend and his wife. Down but not out.

Finished doing a few things for, sadly, the last No Depression, including a piece on this Carolina trio the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who do the old-tyme folkie thing on songs by Dan Emmett and Sidney Bechet. Twenty-somethings who, you know, don't like rock 'n' roll, but they do their old stuff up with a lot of energy, which really counts for something.

Like I said, the country-disco I really like is that Tony Joe White stuff from around '80, and George Jones' awesome "I Ain't Got No Business Doing Business Today" takes disco's energy and dissipates it, so the Possum lies around all day watching TV, perhaps taking a restorative snort, with the various women who provide the vocal backup on the song.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 13:13 (seventeen years ago)

I have not seen the Carll come thru, nor the Strait. As far as new stuff comin' up, I bet the new Eric Church is gonna be good. I did a profile of him that'll run in May. And heard that Montgomery Gentry recorded their new 'un down in Memphis at Ardent Studios, home of ZZ Top, Led Zep's III and of course various nutso efforts from Big Star and Jim Dickinson and them guys. No bear hunting in the streets of the Bluff City, but I hope they got them some dry ribs from the BBQ Shop down the street and got properly greasy...

Couldn't get with Lady Antebellum at all, altho I sure love that name. Ditto Chuck Wicks, I mean "Stealing Cinderella" makes me want to hear a song about how some guy goes to pick up the Farmer's Daughter and gets his ass shot off and the dad breaks into his own goddam song. And, apparently, Dolly is down to 80 lbs. while Oprah is up to 246, if the tabloids in the checkout line the other day are accurate. Who's eatin' whom?

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 13:20 (seventeen years ago)

The Cinderella song is one of my least favorites on the Wicks album. Here's the review I wrote for Billboard a couple months back, when it came out:

CHUCK WICKS
Starting Now
Producer: Monty Powell, Dann Huff
RCA
Release Date: Jan. 22

As a strong but not especially distinct new country voice who knows his way around both road-ready pop-rock and big aching ballads, Chuck Wicks is to early 2008 what Jason Michael Carroll was to early 2007. His debut’s most upbeat stuff grabs you first: “Good Time Comin' On,” where a couple get to know other on a summer car trip, is a genuinely sexy; in "She's Gonna Hurt Somebody", there's gonna be a heartache tonight and it hurts so good. Midtempo cuts have subtle charms, too: a warmly swaying semi-calypso about coming home to an empty house after a breakup; a vague let’s-all-get-along protest with the feel of great Brooks & Dunn ballad; some lovely blue-eyed soul. But the big hit so far is the tearjerker where Wicks asks Cinderella’s dad for her hand, and don’t be surprised if the one where the kid washes dishes for his single mom hits even bigger. (C.E.)

Agree there's nothing especially special about Keith Anderson's perfectly serviceable and competent voice, and that C'Mon! is basically a rock album; fortunately, I like rock music. (This applies to both Chris Cagle's and Chuck Wicks's albums, too, to a certain extent, but Keith out-rocks them both.)

Still drawing a total blank with Lady Antebellum myself, though I'm gonna give them one more chance. Hard to imagine why three young and somewhat hip-looking kids would choose to sound so frigging bleh.

Anybody ever hear of a four-gal country band called Evangeline who put out an album on MCA (well, MCA's apparently Jimmy Buffet-connected Margarittaville imprint) in 1992? I never heard of them before either, but I bought the CD in Princeton for $3 a couple weeks ago, and it's pretty good. Though their acapella cover of Boney M's "By the Rivers of Bablyon" was a major dissapointment, I have to admit.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 14:00 (seventeen years ago)

And the Foster & Lloyd song is one of the lesser tracks on Anderson's album to my ears, by the way, but then I've never really got what people hear in Foster & Lloyd's music in the first place. Keith's version of "Lost in the Moment," is surprisingly stomachable, and maybe obligatory since he helped write it, but still weirdly pointless given how huge a hit B&R had with the song. Seems like he front-loads the rockers, just like Cagle did -- "C'Mon!," the title cut and opening track, totally kills. Also like "Sunday Morning in America" (welcome if morally corrupt exurban specifics in the lyrics about Winnebagos and cheerleaders on big-screen TVs and taking the Lord's name in vain whilst looking for a parking spot at the megachurch) and "Adaline" (about an uncle's tattoo he got in 1963 of a naked lady who he wouldn't end up with, and with a melody partially taken from Bob Seger's "Still The Same") and "Break My Heart" (another early rocker, about all the fun stuff Keith's got planned after the breakup.) And "I Still Miss You," the current single, sounds to me like a decently spare attempt at a Gary Allan ballad.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 14:15 (seventeen years ago)

Hayes Carll opens for James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards at the Bowery Ballroom, Mayday yall. I'd like to see that; two good live acts with some songs that can use live, though I ended up enjoying most and journeyman-appreciating almost all of the new James, to various degrees (further comments on that in and after my Voice 'view). Did Bony M do a good "Rivers of Babylon"? The best I heard was the original version(or was it?), on The Harder They Come soundtrack. Forget who that was, though, maybe Toots And The Maytals? A little thinner than their usual sound, if so. Xgau confirms he's gone from Stone, dam. Edd, tellum about that Ardent anthology you clued me to.

dow, Thursday, 3 April 2008 03:43 (seventeen years ago)

"Rivers Of Babylon" was the Melodians, an untoppable version, one of my favorite pieces of music, but the Boney M is quite likable.

(Speaking of gone, all the online "blogs" and columns at LVW were put on hold, so it was nothing specific to me. Nonetheless, it's hard to think they'll keep me, given that they got rid of both the people I worked under because they want a new direction.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 April 2008 04:53 (seventeen years ago)

Not that it's country, but I'm up to track three of the new Black Mountain: gave their first alb a reasonably favorable review in the Voice and ended up selling the thing three months later. New one so far seems worst when it's trying to be metal (the first track) and metal and goth (parts of the third) but very good being all Neil Youngish and quavery (the second track and other parts of the third). Already I think McBean is giving the thing more presence and authority than he gave to the previous Black/Pink Mountains.

Dolly Parton night on American Idol was pretty dreadful, and my babe Brooke White gave "Jolene" a hurried and cluttered arrangement that sabotaged a lot of her basic emotiveness, though she's still the only one in this year's contest I'm likely to ever pay money on. I wrote about the night here. (And here's a new link of Brooke being real good several weeks ago on "Love Is A Battlefield," since YouTube was forced to kill the previous link.)

(Er, up to track five on the Black Mountain, and now it's high and wavering in a godawful recessive indie manner.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 April 2008 05:22 (seventeen years ago)

"Rivers Of Babylon" was the Melodians, an untoppable version, one of my favorite pieces of music, but the Boney M is quite likable

I agree, of course! I was joking by calling it a Boney M cover, even though it's their only U.S. hit; I assume Evangeline had heard the lovely Melodians version, which is on The Harder They Come.

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 April 2008 13:13 (seventeen years ago)

Chuck, what's your take on Ashton Shepherd's "Takin' Off This Pain"? Is the break-up song bitterness factor ratcheting up?

briania, Thursday, 3 April 2008 13:23 (seventeen years ago)

Dolly on American Idol doing "Jesus and Gravity." My second or third least favorite song on the album, and she was pitchy and her voice was too worn to really dominate the big gospel arrangement.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 April 2008 13:34 (seventeen years ago)

Ha, Jesus and Gravity -- your girl has successfully defied one, workin' on the other.

briania, Thursday, 3 April 2008 13:59 (seventeen years ago)

Briania, my take on "Takin' Off This Pain" is probably not that much of a take, but here it is:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/03/it-didnt-really.html

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 April 2008 14:09 (seventeen years ago)

No, that's quite a take (and quite a photo). Hadn't made the "Sweet Child" connection, but dang if it isn't in there. The "Middle One" connection did occur to me -- it's one of the examples of that break-up bitterness thing. I probably look to the country charts more than other pop formats as a bellweather of sexual politics. Seems more balanced, somehow.

briania, Thursday, 3 April 2008 14:37 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, though I'm doing a piece on Toby Keith for the Voice now (he's got a 2-CD hits collection coming out), and supposedly when he was first going to recprd his superstar breakthrough hit "How Do Ya Like Me Now," he claims the record company thought it might turn listeners off, since only women in country are supposed to do vicious and celebratory breakup songs. I've never noticed the scales especially tipped in women's favor in that regard myself, but who knows. Though if, say, Keith Anderson's "Break My Heart" (among other recent songs) is any indication, the imbalance changed long ago.

And actually, as I say in that post, the "Sweet Child" comparison isn't really mine -- it comes from fact checking cuz (upthread), who I would have quoted by name if I'd known what his actual name is!

"Slow Down Sister" by Lady Antebellum on now, and suprisingly, I like it -- It rocks pretty hard.

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 April 2008 14:46 (seventeen years ago)

Their "Home Is Where The Heart Is" is sounding good, too: Okay, I'm warming to these youngsters, maybe.

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 April 2008 14:49 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, I like rock music too, and I get off on the various textures and shit on Keith Anderson's record. Bill Lloyd is a guy I know well enough to exchange chit-chat with when I run into him these days, and you know, Foster & Lloyd had their lite-pop-country moments I guess.

As for Black Mountain, I like it when they get Ladies-from-Canyon Sandy Dennying on In the Future and could sit still for the freakouts, but content is the same ol' attractive paranoia.

and hell, I like Aaron Watson's Angels & Outlaws, on which he does Wayne Carson Thompson's "Tulsa" (don't let the sun set on you there, boy) and writes some of his own. My fave so far might be the trucker's song (complete with tricky guitar intro) "Breaker Breaker One Nine." Not bad at all, for ostentatious Austin-itis in an alt-country world.

as Don mentioned, there's a two-disc Big Beat (UK) thing called Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story, with all those folks who recorded down there in Memphis in their attempt to bring the Beatles to the banks of Mississippi River for a re-baptism. Chilton, Tommy Hoehn, Terry Manning, Hot Dogs, Cargoe--I have heard a lot of this stuff before, but liners say the vaults were scoured for alternate takes and so forth.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 3 April 2008 15:45 (seventeen years ago)

mentioned T. Graham Brown in reference to country-disco, but he's really the higher soul-country shlock, kinda the same thing Ronnie Milsap has been good at. saw Brown the other night, and he can still sing, and he's a funny guy onstage. "I Tell It Like It Used to Be" and "Water into Wine" had the audience rocking back and forth--that old rock 'n' roll triplet feel in evidence. Good stuff, guess I need to get me a Greatest Hits one of these days.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 3 April 2008 15:51 (seventeen years ago)

Judging by whatever tracks were on MySpace and YouTube a few months ago (and a more recent late night appearance on Leno or Conan or something), The Black Mountain female vocalist has the most distinctive delayed quavah evah. "Mmwah.(rest)(rest)Uhhhhhh." Thee sound of doomah. huhhh. Rest of the band treads on, commendably unfazed(Moe Tucker on Nico: "We have a statue in our band"). Und dig that sexy little butt-twitch their riffage grows sometimes, flicking off the tse-tse flies. I only get press releases about Lady Antebellum, but sounds like a brand of-- something I'd rather not imagine.

dow, Friday, 4 April 2008 03:58 (seventeen years ago)

I somewhat discuss Sugarland/Little Big Town/Jake Owen's new hit Dream Academy cover plus newly charting Native Canadian singer Crystal Shawanda (among other less country things) here:

http://idolator.com/376030/beelzebub-beaters-healthy-hip+hop-ignition-starters-familiar-faces-canadian-country-and-some-not+yet+extinct-dodos

xhuxk, Saturday, 5 April 2008 04:06 (seventeen years ago)

I linked Texas Lightning over on the Country Disco thread and I'll do so here, as I'm distressed there's been only one mention of them on these threads:

"No No Never"

"Waterloo"

"Like A Virgin"

"Consin Sorrow"

"C'est La Vie"

Pure country music, and the admission was even free; numbers as wild as a galloping horse

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 5 April 2008 05:06 (seventeen years ago)

Oops, I gave you two Waterloos and no No No Nevers.

"No No Never"

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 5 April 2008 05:13 (seventeen years ago)

I'll have to check xxhuxx's science on a better computer tomorrow; Idolator keeps blowing this one out (at least I think it said "out"). Meanwhile, I just posted "Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Boys?"(on A Tribute To Blind Alfred Reed and reissues of Ed Sanders' Beer Cans On The Moon and Sanders' Truck Stop)
http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com

dow, Saturday, 5 April 2008 05:36 (seventeen years ago)

And now that I've already called yall's attention to it, of course I belatedly spot some potholes, just filled (any others?)

dow, Saturday, 5 April 2008 06:32 (seventeen years ago)

Beer Cans on the Moon wasn't a keeper, altho I kinda liked the idea behind the Dolly Parton-robot song. But I did like Sanders Truckstop and its hippybilly boy stuff.

from late last year and probably not mentioned here: Romantica's America is the Wilco country-rock album Wilco don't wanna make any more, complete with 2 songs about the Mississippi River, one about how the singer wants to move to New Orleans and live next door to a "colored family" and other stuff like that. Tempos moderate, pedal steel and organ in the background, murmured waking dreams about America, Belfast and all that stuff. Nice and easy.

Speaking of the Ardent Records story I mentioned above, I recently heard Cargoe's Live in Memphis (they were another Memphis Ardent group, but I think they were originally from Oklahoma), where they sound like the Marshall Tucker Band with a slightly different kick to 'em or maybe like a less musically adept Atlanta Rhythm Section, but also just like the Great Generic '70s Boogie Band. Well, maybe not that great but certainly engaging, and nothing like Big Star at all.

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 5 April 2008 15:29 (seventeen years ago)

actually, my buddy Dave Duncan says Cargoe reminds him of Phish or one of those jam-bands, and the drumming is kinda lite on its feet. Caucasian hippie boogie.

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 5 April 2008 15:32 (seventeen years ago)

My Bedbugs commentary on Amanda Shaw:

Amanda Shaw, Pretty Runs Out. "Roots-based" fiddler on Rounder w/ tendencies towards metal and Go-Gos pop. Nice husky voice though songs fall short. Worth checking out.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 April 2008 02:54 (seventeen years ago)

Not sure why Frank doesn't hear songs in Amanda's music, since she's got plenty (at least five of which, from her new album, I could hum now if you asked me.) Anyway, here's what I wrote after seeing her live (and talking to her and her band) last week:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/04/so-i-caught-17.html

Meanwhile, I tried listening to the new Fred Eaglesmith album, and wow -- it was sheer torture, but then I also have an extremely low tolerance for Tom Waits, so what do I know? Is he always that hard to listen to? (I loved Toby Keith's version of his abandoned one-horse town gas station song "White Rose" last year, but I like Toby covering Paul Thorn a lot more than I like Paul Thorn singing his own lyrics, too. Christgau is an Eaglesmith fan; told me once that he thought Fred does what Montgomery Gentry do, only better. Not sure if I've tried to listen to him before, but judging from this new album Tinderbox, I don't understand the MG comparison at all. Do people think he's a rocker?)

xhuxk, Monday, 7 April 2008 23:32 (seventeen years ago)

Fred Eaglesmith? I always thought he was just another Nashville songwriter who occasionally made a record. A rocker, no, I never would've thought that. I mean I can barely listen to Waits, either, so...

Like the first 2 songs on Jeff Bates a lot--"Can't Have Nothin' Nice" describes how Jeff met a girl at the marina with whom he "talked bait" and before long, she got his new house, and "some adolescent in a Trans Am" runs into his truck, thus fucking up his chick scene. "Lonesome" takes up where that one leaves off, after the marina woman has cut bait and gone. Music's really detailed and smart, seems to me, and he sounds self-aware, and really country--sings like George Jones on "Lonesome." Kinda like Gary Allan, maybe, but the tunes wear down about halfway thru.

Scott Kempner's Saving Grace is a big slice o' Americana and in a few places he just can't sing over the riffage, but then the last four songs are really nice, like "The Secret Everybody Knows," and he sounds maybe a bit ghoulish regarding his own prospects, and thus sorta makes it, but just barely. And then I tried to listen to this East Nashville folk-rock from Brooke Ludwick--When the Circus Leaves Town (song titles: "If It Rains," "Crazy Go Away," "Clementine" and of course, "Wings" and "Circus Leaves Town" itself. Big emotions, nostalgia, big jangly Byrdsian arrangements, yet just kinda pallid.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 01:49 (seventeen years ago)

What about jypsi, if that's how you spell it? Four young sibs, three girls and a boy; they were raised in a wandering trailer, and "the Wal-Mart parking lot was our home...we had to play to eat--if we said, "Daddy, we don't want peanut butter, we want a pizza," he'd say, "Well, you gotta play." They eventually got a steady gig at Layla's in Nashville, but still rove and play, in colorful garb, cos their Grandma Mindy made the girls wear religious neck-to-toe dress 9which she sewed herself). Not gypsy garb per se, but like one of the girls looks like a cross between Posh Spice and Edie Sedgewick, in shades, furs, pearls, short feathery hair (actually closer to Edie, but brownette in stead of blonde)

dow, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 20:51 (seventeen years ago)

Haven't heard 'em, just saw a little thing on CMT Insider.

dow, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 20:52 (seventeen years ago)

Listening to the first disc of Toby's 35 Biggest Hits this morning; went back and read Metal Mike and Don on Toby Keith back before he became TOBY. KEITH. Damn. Music writinig in the Village Voice was pretty good in those days, wasn't it?

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/9920,216037,5998,22.html

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0221,169966,35150,22.html

xhuxk, Thursday, 10 April 2008 12:54 (seventeen years ago)

Metal Mike's piece also makes me wonder what ever became of Claudia Church, Shane McNally (neither of whom I have any opinion about, though I should hunt for their old CDs in used bins) and Lila McCann. (I know what happened to Lari White -- she put out a good album called Green Eyed Soul, and wound up producing Toby Keith's best album. Chely Wright's output has been really spotty since "Single White Female," as far as as I can tell, but Metal Mike is absolutely on-point about how great that song was.)

Haven't heard Jypsi yet, Don, though I've been curious. Hope they're better than Lady Antebellum (who really aren't all that bad, I swear -- the idea of a country band whose main male vocal influence seems to be Rob Thomas just takes some getting used to, but it kinda makes perfect sense.)

Also, Don, got your email about how so many CMT videos this spring are dads singing about their verge-of-adulthood daughters, and yeah, I might well relate. Too bad I can't afford cable these days...

xhuxk, Thursday, 10 April 2008 13:09 (seventeen years ago)

Anuhthuh one: Don on CMT, 2001 -- I still don't think I was paying attention to country yet, much:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0128,165463,26451,22.html

xhuxk, Friday, 11 April 2008 02:27 (seventeen years ago)

Indian Rodeo's "Radio" made me laugh. Here's the guy, Josh Newcom (?), singing about how he was insulted by the record company exec insisting country ought to be more rock. So he told that guy, for sure, and "Radio's" so much his own man's thing, sounding just like late period Bad Company when the only people in the band were Boz and Simon, or first album Raging Slab on the directly southern Indian wounded man tunes. I forgot if the video had him wearing a fringe jacket.

And who's the guy doing the sound about watching the airplanes take off?
Gary Allan, right. Sheez. Is it in the IS00 9000 code of good practice that every video in the genre have staged concert footage with the wistufl looking girls staring tearily into the camera with at least one of 'em on someone's shoulders and wearing a jog bra?

And this all has to be reviewed in time for it to be published the week before it hits department stores now? We must all hang our heads in shame if that's the truth.

Gorge, Saturday, 12 April 2008 20:53 (seventeen years ago)

Played the Chuck Wicks in the background and it never pushed to the foreground, did the same with the first half of the Chris Cagle and surprisingly it did. Obviously I'll listen again to both.

Amanda has songs all right, I just don't think she has great songs. (And despite my liking her voice, my favorite track was one of the fiddle raveups, sans vocals.)

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 12 April 2008 22:54 (seventeen years ago)

Is Metal Mike still into country? Lari White also sang "Stinky Socks," one of the higher highlights of the muy highlit Kid Pan Alley:Nashville,which is an album sporting the results of A-List Nashville Cats writing with schoolkids (there was a prev KPA album from another city, haven't heard that one, but it's an ongoing traveling workshop project, last I heard)The song and album made my Nash Scene ballot too, and yall can still stream her track (and read about the whole thing) here:
http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=299

dow, Saturday, 12 April 2008 23:20 (seventeen years ago)

Listening to Fred Eaglesmith's "Alcohol & Pills" on his MySpace (which describes itself as a tribute site, though I assume it has Fred's blessing). Kinda like how Fred sounds, the portentous ache in his voice, even if from the evidence of these lyrics he's never had an original insight in his life. Also, on the basis of this song and "Wilder Than Her" I have no clue where Xgau sees a similiarity to Montgomery Gentry. I'm completely baffled. Certainly doesn't try to rock like MG. Something in the lyrics? "Wilder Than Her" compares his male wildness to a female's not-quite-as wildness, but doesn't root itself in the self-conflicted pro and antidomesticity that bedevils MG, though perhaps Eaglesmith does on some of the other songs. Does imply she's a good influence, which MG will sometimes do as well, except when they do the opposite. "She's a summer storm, I'm a hurricane/One just blows through town, one blows the town away." Nice couplet, even if the idea is as old as the oceans. (Well, I exaggerate. Earth had oceans for billions of years before it had ideas.) And now I'm starting to get tired of his slow and strained vocal shtick, which doesn't vary from song to song, and was far more touching on "Alcohol & Pills" than on the the other three; but I can imagine this guy churning out a great song now and then. (I liked "White Rose" a lot.) "Wilder Than Her" isn't bad. Wonder how it would sound with more swing and with less strain underlining its pain.

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 12 April 2008 23:21 (seventeen years ago)

A-ha:

Fred Eaglesmith
Ralph's Last Show [Signature Sounds, 2001]

In the studio, musicianship renders this Canadian singer-songwriter one more rough-hewn troubadour with his heart pinned firmly to his hollow-body. On this live double, his need to shout over bar talk and penetrate the sloppy strum-and-thrum of his drumless good-enough-for-folk-rock band combines happily with the best-of effect, resulting in a raucous celebration of male chauvinism Montgomery Gentry should only envy--for its powers of observation, class solidarity, and laugh lines. The fast hard ones are all great, and they outnumber the medium-tempo corny ones, which bottom out at tolerable and memorably honor migrant workers and a good dog. Not counting the song that goes, "When exactly did we become white trash," my three favorite fast ones are all about souped-up gas guzzlers, the finest of which drives up to an old-age home. Never again do I expect to enjoy an album that begins and ends with songs about trains. Then again, I never expected to enjoy this one. A-

xhuxk, Sunday, 13 April 2008 03:17 (seventeen years ago)

Bump this up.

Is Metal Mike still into country?

BOC and VOM appreciation plus putting tween-to-twentysomething knobs in their place on MySpace and asking me what kit to buy to get a raging late Sixties/early Seventies Detroit guitar sound onstage.

Whether you wanna deal with this or not, mainstream country exposure is six to eighteen months beyond the content here. So you think there's some bonus in spraying out opine on stuff published next Tuesday? C'mon guys, they're still digging into songs on Jack Ingram and Paisley's 2007 LPs in top rotation. And how 'bout Alan Jackson, playin' the catchy fool as usual, his song about being an old timey American bowing the head to Jesus and raising the hand for Uncle Sam. Wow, look at all the young people signing up!

If I gave someone a twenty dollar bill, or a case of beer, would they throw a dart or two at the annoying phony? Two cases for darts at Bucky Covington and the glorification of motocross. Motocross rules! Three cases for Jason Aldean. What's that guy's shtick, other than looking slightly fierce with a heroic IQ of 70 in Eisenhower-America-transplanted-to-the-Nineties?

Gorge, Sunday, 13 April 2008 07:42 (seventeen years ago)

Whether you wanna deal with this or not, mainstream country exposure is six to eighteen months beyond the content here

OOF! And that's my typo. Being 6 to 18 months BEHIND. Its progress sort like the advance of soap opera or glaciers.

Gorge, Sunday, 13 April 2008 07:54 (seventeen years ago)

best thing on the two-disc Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story is either Cargoe's great single "Feel Alright," more pop and catchy than anything Big Star did except maybe "When My Baby's Beside Me" or the Hot Dogs' great version of "I Walk the Line," which dovetails nicely with Terry Manning's attack on Jack Clement's "Guess Things Happen This Way," also included.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 13 April 2008 14:53 (seventeen years ago)

My two cents on McMurtry's latest:
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0816,small-reviews-3,411853,22.html

dow, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 23:38 (seventeen years ago)

My notes on current country hits, after a week in Texas:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/04/country-in-the.html#more

xhuxk, Monday, 28 April 2008 20:38 (seventeen years ago)

(Actually, re-watching that Montgomery Gentry vid, the snobs look more '00s gentry-fied than I thought. The one who seems anachronistic in a '60s TV way to me is the rich leading lady who flirts a lot.)

xhuxk, Monday, 28 April 2008 20:41 (seventeen years ago)

(Also, I should maybe add that the Houston country station definitely didn't play stuff like Robert Earl Keen. But as we got west of Austin, toward Johnston City and Fredericksburg, we found country stations that specialized in what they called "Texas music." My spouse's favorite song, and one of mine, was one we couldn't even identify -- a lovely Tex-Mex-rhythmed post-Buck Owens-style honky-tonker sung seemingly from the point of view of a Mexican who'd wound up settling in Texas because life was easier for him on this side of the border. Could maybe be Dwight Yoakam or the Mavericks, but I'm not sure what the song would be-- more likely neither those. But if it rings a bell for anybody, please say so.)

xhuxk, Monday, 28 April 2008 21:01 (seventeen years ago)

Hey, watch it now, you've stumbled into what I cracked on about upstream. CMT's been playing the same brace of vids for about 12-18 months, with only a bare handful of relatively new things. It's deep into Swift's album. Being as GAC is another cable channel, also seemingly owned by CMT, it too plays the same videos, sometimes only minutes apart. Fundamentally, it's Taylor Swift TV on both channels, followed by, at best, a dozen other heavyweights in slightly less heavy rotation. And they're still playing Keith Urban and Jack Ingram from the last albums. You can literally skip it for a couple weeks and not miss anything.

So this still don't explain why anyone has to review records the week before they come out -- or die. It would appear the listening and viewing audience, not many of whom read music reviews, could care less if a good tune's a year or so old and aren't so concerned about gettin' stuff still bleeding and hot from the womb.

Gorge, Monday, 28 April 2008 21:56 (seventeen years ago)

Except that country's not doing so hot commericially now/once again--and not just because it's a leading economic indicator (fewer bucks from constuction jobs,*even* fewer CDs bought than usual), but the traditional time-lag release-wise (Taylor's been cited as one of the very first country artists to sell lots of downloads, so she's a godsend to the new stuff-deprived video channels)(but GAC and CMT at leastused to be rivals, when the former lured Grand Ol Opry away from the latter, dang me, I don't get no GAC! Though Viacom owns CMT/VH-1/MTV etc and may own GAC now)

dow, Monday, 28 April 2008 22:38 (seventeen years ago)

Of course, Taylor's success via download is still success, and may also used to justify the slowww milking of ancient releases (so even Dierks can have a Greatest Hits, after three albums in five years, cos it seems so much effing longer, esp as his stuff gets overexposed and more boring even before it's overexposed)

dow, Monday, 28 April 2008 22:42 (seventeen years ago)

I actually like the Dierks best-of a lot, though yeah, after just 3 albums (especially ones worth owning in their own right) it seems awfully soon. Given the five live tracks tacked on at the end, I'm guessing the purpose of the release might be to expand his fanbase -- to say, rock fans, seeing how he's actually on the Lollapalooza roster this summer.

xhuxk, Monday, 28 April 2008 22:49 (seventeen years ago)

I guess so (I shouldn't put it down, since haven't heard the whole thing, esp. not the live tracks, which may well be good; orig known as a reliable roaddawg, and I always liked him best as front man for a *band*). He put the package together based on feedback from fans; they voted on songs, art, title, etc. If editors weren't such release-date wusses, I'd prob pitch Ronnie Hawkins' Mojo Man/Arkansas Rockpile, on Collectors' Choice (4/29). The Hawks, eventually incl all members AKA The Band, rock pretty good, for the most part (a few mere runthoughs, but not every track is annotated, so the few duds may not be those guys at all). Only thing, Levon is credited with lead vocal on one (good) track that blends in with the singing on all other tracks, so which ones does Ronnie sing? Whutever, the vocal sound is at home on country and doowoop-variant ballads as on Bo Diddley etc, sweet n sssassy (and a couple of country tracks feature Harold Bradley on guitar and splish-splash honkytonk piano of Floyd Cramer)( and King Curtis shows up too)Wonder if thatRonnie album, think it was Rock & Roll Resurrection, feat Duane Allman and other Muscle Shoalsers, is in print--?

dow, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 00:16 (seventeen years ago)

Country-(at least somewhat)-relevant cannibalization from rolling vinyl thread, a couple days ago:

Vinyl I bought in Texas this week:

dave & sugar - that's the way love should be LP - 75
cents
dave & sugar - stay with me/golden tears LP - $1
lee dorsey - night people LP - $1
dr. feelgood - sneakin' suspicion LP - $2
funky kings - funky kings LP - $1
head east - gettin' lucky LP - $2
long ryders - state of our union LP - $1
night - night LP - $1
henry paul band - grey ghost LP - $1
bj thomas - everybody's out of town LP - 75 cents (various0 - cruisin' 1960 LP - 75 cent

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 12:45 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

"henry paul band - grey ghost LP - $1"

YOU WILL LOVE THIS

-- scott seward, Sunday, April 27, 2008 3:26 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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"funky kings - funky kings LP - $1"

NOT SO FUNKY REALLY

-- scott seward, Sunday, April 27, 2008 3:27 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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"dr. feelgood - sneakin' suspicion LP - $2"

YEAH!

-- scott seward, Sunday, April 27, 2008 3:27 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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dave & sugar - that's the way love should be LP - 75
cents
dave & sugar - stay with me/golden tears LP - $1

YOU GOT BURNED!

(Actually, see "Country/Disco" thread)

-- briania, Sunday, April 27, 2008 4:15 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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Briana, your country-and-disco thread comments about Dave & Sugar (who I don't think I've ever heard) are exactly what convinced me to buy those two albums!

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 4:38 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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"funky kings - funky kings LP - $1"

NOT SO FUNKY REALLY

THAT'S WHAT I FIGURED! MORE IMPORTANT QUESTION: DO THEY SOUND AT ALL LIKE JULES AND THE POLAR BEARS (WHOSE FIRST TWO ALBUMS WERE ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD)?

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 4:55 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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i don't remember the funky kings record being very good at all, but i'll play it again soon just to make sure. i might have only played the first side.

-- scott seward, Sunday, April 27, 2008 12:38 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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funky kings LP isn't bad; sort of endearing wannabe early springsteen meets wannabe early eagles stuff. seems to contain the original version of "swayin' to the music (slow dancing)," though i'd never realized til now that johnny river's hit version was a cover. favorite track so far is also the most ridiculous one, about dumpster-diving a used mattress, putting it on one's roof, and getting lots of sex use out of it up there. not a jules shear number, oddly enough. (he has 3, which don't sound polar-bears-like to me.)

the bj thomas album has a bacharach-david number called "send my picture to scranton, PA"! best song, though, is the title track, about gentrification. cool LP cover. he covers nillson and simon and garfunkel and soul songs, and bacharach/david also produced it. better than the used raindrops keep fallin' on my head i bought by him last year.

lee dorsey album sounds way less new orleans r&b than i'd remembered. title track is the most disco cut, and totally great; the rest reminds me of disco era (c. belle) al green, almost.

nothing on the night album is as great as "hot summer nights," which makes me think i should have bought the used $1 walter egan album i saw this week, too (since he wrote that particular song). the other cut i really like, though, is "ain't pretty enough," which could totally pass for a mid-tempo babe ruth cut in a blindfold test, thanks mostly to stevie lange's vocal similarity to jennie haan.

wondering why i never bought any of those "cruisin'" compilations before. the 1960 one seems really cool -- "alley oop," "you talk too much," "finger poppin time," "tears on my pillow," "because they're young," etc., and i really like the pop-art drive-in comic-book packaging. the series came out in 1970, apparently, on chess-distributed increase records, and each volume (one for each year, 1955 to 1962) is picked and annotated by an apparently famous top 40 dj. the 1960 one is curated by dick biondi from wkbw buffalo; 1956 (which i don't have -- in fact, i don't have any others) by robin seymour for wkmh detroit; 1962 by russ "weird beard" knight of klif dallas, etc. i've seen these in used record stores for decades, but never gave any thought to them, for some reason, and don't remember reading much about them anywhere else. seems to be a more hip version of the oldies but goodies concept, but i'm not sure how popular or widely distributed they were.

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 7:40 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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best song, though, is the title track, about gentrification

or maybe about moving to the suburbs? i dunno; need to listen to it more to be sure.

the mattress the funky kings swipe, by the way, is carried home on the back of their studebaker. the song comes off as a really goofy, over-the-top springsteen parody, though i'm guessing it probably wasn't intended that way. (pat feeney, who runs main street music in manayunk, philly, tells me it's one of his 30 favorite albums of all time, as is the first polar bears record. he said he even paid $80 for a CD version of the funky kings album a few years ago, which apprarently only came out in japan.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 7:47 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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yo xhuxk, where did you go in texas?

-- Romeo Jones, Sunday, April 27, 2008 7:57 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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houston ---> various german/czech hill country towns ---> wimberly --- > austin ----> johnson city --- > fredericksburg --- > houston

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 7:59 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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and off-topic, but fwiw, at houston's half price books I also bought copies of the following CDs, all $1 each except in the one case noted: t. graham brown lives! ($2), joe dee messina jo dee messina, jamie o'neal shiver, chely wright let me in.

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:39 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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"seems to be a more hip version of the oldies but goodies concept"

the series on Roulette? or i guess there were lots of series like that. the early 60's roulette series of 50's stuff is beyond great. not that i have them all, but they have track-listings on the backs of each one. i just found a pristine copy of volume 10 in the Roulette series last week. God, is it ever incredible.

oops, my bad, the Roulette series was called Golden Goodies. I couldn't stop playing the one i bought last week. tune weavers, spaniels, chantels, etc. all of it amazing.

I got a couple of volumes of United Artist's The Very Best Of Oldies series a while back. Those are good too, but more obvious. The usual suspects like Thurston Harris, and Phil Upchurch, Garnet Mimms, etc.

My big revelation of the last few weeks: where has Tom T. Hall been all my life! Got his greatest hits, and now I need more.

-- scott seward, Sunday, April 27, 2008 10:18 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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xp You should look around for The Essential Tom T. Hall: Twentieth Anniversary Collection -- 2-LP set from 1988. That's the one I swear by, Scott. Best single album is In Search of a Song. Both of them rank with my favorite county LPs ever.

As for Cruisin', what I wrote above was just me going by the track list and liner notes. I didn't realize the albums were actual DJ air checks, but that's what they seem to be according to these links:

http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=3203

http://www.epinions.com/content_370728799876

http://leemichaelwithers.tripod.com/cruisin.htm

(I guess the 1963 to 1970 editions came out later, like maybe when the series was re-released on CD?)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 10:37 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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i loved those cruisin' covers when they came out.

-- scott seward, Sunday, April 27, 2008 10:41 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

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xp Or okay, maybe not actual actual DJ air checks, but a remarkable facsimile thereof:

The series not only includes the original songs by the original artists from a particular year but also includes a Disk Jockey (D. J.) from a particular radio station all across North America. Included with the music is original radio advertisements (commercials), some public service announcements, radio station jingles, D. J. banter and numerous other goings on to make the record sound like it was recorded right from a live studio broadcast.

-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008 10:51 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 14:12 (seventeen years ago)

Now I think BJ Thomas's "Everybody's Out Of Town" is neither about gentrification nor suburbanization, but more about everybody leaving the city for the weekend, like a long holiday weekend in the summer. Still a good song, though. And the Scranton, PA, song is sung from the point of view of somebody who grew up an outcast there and wants everybody back home to know he's made it big elsewhere. They really should play it on The Office sometime I think.

Have made it through one side of one of those Dave & Sugar LPs so far; pretty bad, but maybe bad in an interesting way -- like, at least as much half-assed post-Abba Europop as half-assed countrypolitan, maybe more. Not all that "disco" beyond a lilt or two, but I definitely hear some Abba in there, both in the beat and in the blonde blank lady harmonies. I need to check and find out how big they were sometime; I still have no memory at all of ever even hearing of them, until recently. David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren mention them a couple times in passing in Heartaches By The Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles, and they seem to really think they're the nadir of lame crossover; but then again, they also hate Kenny Rogers, who definitely had a few great (and a couple slightly disco-leaning) moments. Either way, Dave & Sugar look pretty creepy in a cocainey way on those LP covers -- one sleazeball and two bubbleheads. Weird.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 14:21 (seventeen years ago)

They were big enough to be on Heehaw more than once, & maybe the Mandrells' show as well. Yeah, they're totally creepy -- "Sugar", for the blissfully ignorant, is plural, like "Dawn" -- and Dave's persona was unctuous and pimpish. He's probably still active in Branson with some degraded, downscale "Sugar" young enough to be his granddaughters.

briania, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 14:31 (seventeen years ago)

GAC was alleged to be an alternative to CMT at one point. If there's a difference now it's one that's not cost effective. I've literally been able to switch between the two and see the same videos within a couple to fifteen minutes of each other on many occasions. The synchrony is often so close I get confused about whether I have one or the other on.

<i>Taylor's been cited as one of the very first country artists to sell lots of downloads, so she's a godsend to the new stuff-deprived video channels</i>

Why would that be? Taylor cable TV looks like overkill to me. There's nothing fresh about something that's played all the time for weeks on end. The endcap displays change faster at BestBuy.

Gorge, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 18:03 (seventeen years ago)

it's "interesting" that Antebellum's "All We'd Ever Need" is basically a mushy adult r&b duet as much as a c&w duet, but I don't think I like it, and beyond that they're pretty much drawing a blank

Listened to tracks one through five and "All We'd Ever Need" is the only one I do like. "Mushy adult r&b duet" is about right except I'm not hearing r&b so much as '80s MOR/AOR power balladry that is either hurt or helped by its new-country restraint. Guy singer'd be a manly man type baritone except that he's not actually a baritone and at times reminds me of Neil Diamond, though that's probably only because I'm girding for various Idols to wreck Diamond's oeuvre tonight. (Actually, I bet "Solitary Man" is a track that David Cook could muscle through nicely, would do a better job than Finnish rock bawlers H.I.M. did recently. Um, I'm off-topic, aren't I, but in any event, Brooke White's been sabotaging herself with stage fright the last several weeks but still is the only Idol I'm going to care about post-elimination. Her indie album from several years ago is really mediocre, however; I forget if I mentioned that here, not that it's relevant.) Back to Lady Antebellum, I don't get what's either Bellum or Pre-Bellum in their sound, or what's particularly "Lady" about them either even if one of their singers has ovaries, "Lady" having raw hip-hop connotations these days. Problem with tracks 1, 2, 4, and 5 and a reason that listening to 6 through 11 is a nonpriority is the poor songwriting, rather than there being anything wrong in principle with their MOR soft-rock hearts. In fact, I like the implicit Fleetwood Mackishness of their approach, even if their sound isn't all that Fleetwood Mac and even if they can't hold a candle to Little Big Town (much less to Fleetwood Mac, much less to a shitload of MOR country and noncountry pros from the last 30 years that you guys will know far more about than I do).

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 19:24 (seventeen years ago)

Not that the H.I.M. version is all that bad, actually (wouldn't have linked it if I'd thought it wasn't worth hearing), and surprisingly it's not all that different from Neil's, except not nearly as good.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 19:30 (seventeen years ago)

Speaking of Little Big Town, they've now jumped from Equity to Capitol, so no longer eligible for the independent charts. Iirc, Capitol-EMI is taking over the distribution for <i>A Place To Land</i>.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 19:57 (seventeen years ago)

Btw, was country paying much attention to Dave Loggins and Jim Croce back when they were scoring pop hits? Wiki has Loggins writing for various country guys, so I guess the answer is "yes" for him (or "yes, belatedly," or something; I don't really know). Pleasant singer-songwriter fellows. And I think David Allen Coe recorded "Please Come To Boston" at one point.

And what about Neil Diamond, since I just mentioned him, and Gene Pitney, guys from the Northeast whom nonetheless I'd expect the country audience might have warmed to, something prole-but-on-the-make-but-knowing-defeat in their manner. Did "western" ballad "Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" ever get c&w attention? I once put Pitney's "I'm Afraid To Go Home" on a WMS blindfold test, a proto-"Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" lament that could have been aimed at a Southern audience. (Xhuxk, Don, and I liked it but it got mauled by the other voters including Southerner Renée Crist.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 20:16 (seventeen years ago)

Strangely, the Lady Antebellum album wound up really growing on me -- partly as a sub-Little Big Town type affair. I actually think now that it's a pretty decent record. Will explain why before long, maybe, though I'm not sure how convincing I'll be about it.

was country paying much attention to Dave Loggins and Jim Croce back when they were scoring pop hits?...And what about Neil Diamond, since I just mentioned him, and Gene Pitney

Not sure, though didn't Dave Loggins only really have one pop hit, even? (Yeah, just checked -- beyond "Please Come To Boston," his only other Hot 100 hit was "Someday," which went # 57 in 1974. He also only had one album that scored in the Top 200.)

On the subject of pop singers crossing over country, though (as we were also discussing in reference to Ronstadt and potentially Miley a few months ago), Cantrell and Friskics-Warren list the following "reverse crossover" names in their intro: Bobby Goldsboro, John Denver, Anne Murray, Olivia Newton-John, "all of whom scored major country hits," though it doesn't say how big, or how many.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 April 2008 14:31 (seventeen years ago)

Is Metal Mike still into country?

Wasn't sure either; then got this mass-sendout email from him last week:

on monday night's televised CMT Awards, partway through their dumping the whole truckful of awards to Taylor (they did everything but give her a t-shirt that said SHANIA'S M.I.A., GO SELL US A BILLION RECORDS)

it went right by me until i re-played my tape later (of the mylie/billy ray sketches or standup routines, and taylor's live performance), where she accepted an award and went speechless/dumfounded (it must have been Video Of The Year, after they'd already given her Female Video Of The Year) and said something kinda like --

"i....i don't even have a fan club. i want to thank all my friends on MySpace!"

i needed to add her page anyway, so when i did last night, i back-punched to the blog section's earliest date (it searches forward like a car radio function), and sure enough the very first (medium length) "blog" was right during the start of the recording sessions for the debut album.

wiith exactly three comments on that page. ha.

these days when she posts one up (like after the CMT awards), there's anywhere between 200 to 400 comments (onto the blog page, all visible of course) of any length from 2 words to 2 whole pages

ahhhh the fact that i bought green day's first album 40 whole weeks after its release date. which made me one of the first 2,000 persons in the world to ever buy a green day album.

annd when i bought the taylor swift album friday night, new $13.99, it'd been out just 77 weeks on the charts. which made me (barely) one of the first uh, 3 million persons in the world to buy a taylor swift album.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 April 2008 14:42 (seventeen years ago)

From today's email:

International Country Music Conference Announces Book and Journalism Award Recipients

(Nashville, TN - April 29, 2008) - The 25th annual International Country Music Conference (ICMC) is a premier event for country music scholars and enthusiasts. ICMC is pleased to recognize the work of authors and journalists and their contributions in the study of country music by presenting the following awards during the event.

The Belmont Book Award is presented annually to the committee's choice as the overall best book on country music. This year's recipient is Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry written by Holly George-Warren and published by Oxford University Press.

"It's a great honor to receive this award for my biography of a man who did so much to advance the popularity of country music around the world," remarked Holly George-Warren. "Gene Autry inspired numerous legendary artists--from Johnny Cash to Solomon Burke to Bob Dylan. (True? I really just know "Rudolph The Rednosed Reindeer," which he reportedly can be heard about, on bootlegs of the session, cos he knew it would be a monster hit he'd have to sing forever. He was also a media mogul, the Golden West Network or something like that, but mainly what I remember of his old cowboy movies on TV, is just being vaguely creeped out by his pudding-faced sneer) The rest of it:

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a long-term commitment to linking books with country music. This year, the award will be presented to the Country Music Hall of Fame Foundation and Library.

"This is the first time we've ever given the Lifetime Achievement Award to an institution," said Don Cusic, chair of the awards committee. "In the past, we have always recognized an individual with this award. However, it was clear to us that the Country Music Hall of Fame Foundation and Library deserves this honor."

The Charlie Lamb Awards are given to outstanding country music journalists. The 2008 honors will be awarded to Beverly Keel of The Tennessean in the contemporary category and entertainment industry veteran Barry McCloud in the lifetime category.

The winner of the Belmont Book Award receives a check for $1,000, funded by the Mike Curb Family Foundation. Each of the recipients in the journalist category receives a check for $500, funded by Gary and Peggy Walker, owners of The Great Escape, in honor of legendary country music journalist Charlie Lamb.(by today's rates, not bad!)

dow, Wednesday, 30 April 2008 17:50 (seventeen years ago)

Mirrored from Rolling Hard Rock:
===========
Mudcrutch s/t TP indicated in recent bookend articles in the NY Times/LA Times (hey, lessee how much we can make our articles look like they're joined at the hip from press junket!) that Mudcrutch songs were written real fast. Sometimes in an afternoon. And while that's sometimes OK, in this case it sounds it.

"This is a Good Street" -- 1:34 of TP and pals singin' how it's a good street. (Eyes roll.) Coulda been "This is a Good Sandwich" except two syllables make it hard to fit into the metre.

A lot of it sounds like an old Outlaws record which is OK, too, except no "Green Grass & High Tides." "Crystal River" doesn't really qualify.

"Six Days on the Road" is lightweight Georgia Satellites or bad Faces depending on your age and POV.

Much of this doesn't rock nearly as hard as you would have expected a bar band in Florida to have rocked in the early Seventies. "Lover of the Bayou" works at it a bit.

Major problem is TP phoning it in even when he doesn't realize he's phoning it in. Being as it has Mike Campbell and some other Heartbreaker aces on it, the sounds are ace but the lyrics -- tripe. How many times has Tom done his "I Won't Back Down" shtick? On this it's for "Scare Easy" cuz Tom's "a loser at the top of his game" and y'know, he won't scare easy. One wishes he would break into "y'know it don't come easy" and a cheerful song by Ringo Starr but it's just not gonna happen.

It's all very amiable and laidback summertime, so maybe "Shady Grove" -- which sounds like the Outlaws from their second or third albums -- will be the hit that guarantees he'll do another couple of these. Naturally, it's recorded very classic and gorgeous and no one born doesn't like Mike Campbell on guitar.

"Bootleg Flyer" is the most Heartbreakers-like from the vintage era of the band.

"Ahh, ladies give a drunkard a chance," sings Tom on the last song on the CD. Nope, nope, nope, no girls partying in Florida these days are gonna do that, especially listening to this.

Why, oh why, did I buy this?

PS -- It's not really that awful. It just isn't anything except TP and buds being hayseeds which they probably were definitely determined not to be back when they actually were Mudcrutch. If you liked Pure Prairie League or Asleep at the Wheel records in the 70s-80s, maybe you'd really like Mudcrutch. If you like Shooter Jennings on his most recent, I suppose this is same kind of stuff without the Dire Straits cover.

-- Gorge, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 21:28 (Yesterday) Link
========

Gorge, Wednesday, 30 April 2008 18:37 (seventeen years ago)

All too plausible. Has anyone heard the original Mudcrutch recordings? I think only a couple of singles were released (and they broke up during the sessions), but the whole thing must be around somewhere.

dow, Wednesday, 30 April 2008 23:37 (seventeen years ago)

The New York Times has been running a songwriters blog that I'd been ignoring, but I realize it might be of at least tangential relation to this thread, since the songwriters include Suzanne Vega (folkie), Rosanne Cash (singer-songwriter w/ country pedigree and folk and pop leanings), Andrew Bird (don't know who he is except that he's won a Plug award for indie something-or-other and that, among other people and places, he's working with Mark Nevers in Nashville), and Darrell Brown (also unknown to me, has done writing for LeAnn Rimes, Keith Urban, and Neil Young).

So anyway, I followed the Rosanne Cash links a couple of days ago; she's detailing a collaboration with Joe Henry, starting with some lyrics she jotted down and sent to Joe for him to revise, then the two working together and coming up with music for it. Result is fascinating but also stupefying, as the germs of what could be some moving lyrics are made progressively more opaque and pretentious.

Bits of news that come with these posts: Rosanne had brain surgery last November (she doesn't say what for, but I tend to think "tumor" when someone says "brain surgery"); and John Stewart died recently, which I hadn't known. Stewart had been a musical presence for me when I was nine and ten, having sung lead on the Kingston Trio's "Ballad Of The Thresher."

Frank Kogan, Friday, 2 May 2008 07:45 (seventeen years ago)

The original Mudcrutch A-side is in the Playback box set. You wouldn't go out of your way to listen to it. It never made any impression on my other than as filler.

Gorge, Friday, 2 May 2008 20:48 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, I've never been that crazy about TP& The Heartbreakers, so prob wouldn't care about Mudcrutch (obviously TP&TH have some poprock smarts, but his voice tips the scales, usually). Andrew Bird has poprock smarts like Edgar Allen Poe, only catchier (if you had a TV, Frank, you could hear bits of AB's "Imitosis" in commercials--it's sort of like a Cure song with a violin hook; he plays a lotta good violin, though mainly for hooks). You can hear a lot at
http://www.andrewbird.net though I'd start with the live performances linked from there. You were wondering about Gene Pitney etc.--that was before I listened to country radio, but did always seem that he and Johnny Rivers and several others were intended by marketing to lure country listeners. Wonder what ever happened to Gary Puckett and the Union Gap? I really thought about ol' Gary (and some of Neil D's arrangements) when covering Shearwater's Rook (June 3 release, but PaperThinWalls will post the review and almost-title-track soon). Offshoot of Okkervil(sp?) River, and I guess there's some early Scott Walker in there, with some eco-gothic symbolism--but I wasn't expecting Top 40 in his arty. His vocal style can bust a mood, but overall seems to fit/not bust (and sometimes he does other stuff)

dow, Saturday, 3 May 2008 00:40 (seventeen years ago)

Decided I prefer the (more countrypolitan) 1977 Dave & Sugar album where Dave is wearing an Elmer Fudd shirt on the cover to the (more Europoppish) 1979 album where he isn't, though I doubt I'll return to either of them again. Best song is the one where their house is falling apart and the faucet is broke and so are they but it's a beautiful morning with her anyway. They look sleazier on the later album. On the earlier album, one of the Sugar bimbos actually looks as old as Dave on the back cover; maybe she used less makeup. Countryuniverse.net (see below) thinks Sugar were much better than Dave, who had apparently been a sideman in Charlie Pride's band earlier -- interesting, since on the album cover his picture make me wonder whether he might actually have some black or Hispanic blood (similar to how most pictures of Neal McCoy used to); not saying the Charlie Pride connection increases that possibility, but I still wonder what the answer is.

(I don't think this link takes you directly to the Sugar writeup, but they're #99 on the list of the 100 greatest country women ever; easy to find):

http://countryuniverse.net/

Speaking of black country singers, Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish now has a rising country hit, though I've yet to hear it. And Rissi Palmer just briefly charted with a second single, too.

Also, I guess I should have listed Ray Goodman and Brown II from 1980 as one of the somewhat country-related LPs I bought for $1 in Texas two weeks ago, since they actually do a really likeable and blatantly country song (albeit with soul/doo-wop chorus parts) on it called "Sweet Sexy Woman. (Before changing their name, they were the Moments, of "Love on a Two Way Street" 1970 falsetto soul classic fame.)

That album by Night I bought (produced by Richard Perry) has some Quarterflash-parts, too, to go with its Babe Ruth-like parts, but the Quarterflash parts are more Marv than Rindy Ross; i.e., they happen more when the guy (Chris Thompson) sings, for instance "Cold Wind Across My Heart." But not when he sings his hard-rocking begging-for-groupie-nookie number that starts out "Headin down to Cleveland/ Lookin for a lady tonite/Forty days in a constant haze/Workin up an appetite." I also like when Stevie Lance sings in her Babe Ruth-like "You Ain't Pretty Enough" her lines about "my tight black pants are crawling up my legs/My 6-inch spikes do a number on your head." Also, they cover "Ain't That Peculiar" and another song, copyright 1961, credited to Rudy Clark, called "If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody."

Mudcrutch totally drawing a blank for me in my CD changer right now. Much prefer the new Skafish reissue I've been listening to, and the new A's best-of and new Helix album which George both recomended (none of which have anything to do with country.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 3 May 2008 17:23 (seventeen years ago)

What I wrote about the new Phil Vassar album (which I like a lot, by the way):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/05/phil-vassar-mig.html#more

In other news, I decided the Mother Truckers and I See Hawks In L.A. are both spottier and less great than I imply upthread, though I still like them (and am writing reviews of them to that effect for emusic.) Got the new Montgomery Gentry album in the mail, and it's consistently good but rarely (if ever) great; favorite tracks are probably "Long Line of Losers," "One Trip," and "It Ain't About Easy," then maybe the Toby Keith duet "I Pick My Parties." Honestly, my hunch right now is that it's my least favorite album by them, though time will tell if that opinion holds up. I'll be interested to hear what Edd and Frank think, when they hear it. The single, "Back When I Knew It All," sounds at least somewhat like "Growin' Up" off Springsteen's debut album to my ears, but it still doesn't kill me; oddly, though it's supposed to be one of their fastest rising singles ever, I didn't hear it on Texas radio or CMT when I was down there -- as if to confirm George's theory about country listeners not caring about hearing new songs, both the TV and radio were still playing "What Do You Think About That," from an album that came out back in 2006.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 20:10 (seventeen years ago)

"the world is a mess" on that phil vassar album falls somewhere between jellyfish, billy joel and harry nilsson (who xhuxk namechecks in his rhapsody piece). country power-pop! bizarro. and kinda good.

fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 20:38 (seventeen years ago)

...and it's followed by the album-ending "crazy life," which is a total billy joel piano ballad album-closer.

fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 20:40 (seventeen years ago)

I'm also really liking Willie Nelson's imminent jazz standards album with Wynton Marsalis on Blue Note, Two Men With The Blues -- more for Wynton, surprisingly, than for Willie, who frequently sounds bored in workaday Willie manner, though occasionally (the two opening cuts "Bright Lights, Big City" and "Night Life," then "Ain't Nobody's Business" later) he sounds downright smooth, and great. I like it a lot more than Willie's big-deal album from earlier this year (though "The Bob Song" eventually did sink in with me, once Frank put it on one of his mix CDs, and I wound liking "You Don't Think I'm Funny Anymore" once I saw its video.) (On the other hand, when I say "more for Wynton than for Willie," what I really mean is "more for the music than for the singing," and obviously a lot of the music -- some great guitar parts, e.g. -- come from Willie.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 21:30 (seventeen years ago)

It's not really a matter of country listeners not caring about new songs, or not all country listeners, more like (the old progammers' rationale when I was briefly/marginally involved in radio, but being lengthly lectured on it, in comm classes and elsewhere) most people just tune in briefly(either literally or attention-wise), and when they do they wanna hear something they know, something reassuring, esp. when they work shit jobs, as many country fans do, even in plush times, as these no longer are (and of course good and/or lucrative jobs get harder and/or harder to come by). Or it just bacomes background music.Plus, that kind of rationale becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as you drive away any who would listen longer/more often if you kept their attention (there's supposedly a more recent idea that you should just play the stuff that doesn't elict too strong a reaction, pos or neg, so that listeners can settle into cruise-control apathy, and not get burned out by being too engaged--uh, isn't this the idea of background music? And Muzak, which may not exist any more in its orignal form, was sold to employers as the music that wasn't meant to be listened to, deliberately soothing and boring, so listeners could indeed settle in, to a docile state of efficiency, cocooned from distractions like lively music--I guess it might have worked if the rest of your working environment was SO STRESSFUL that Muzak's womb of strings just brought you down to normal setting on the dial...?)

dow, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 03:11 (seventeen years ago)

Hmm, you missed a bit of a point. I believe xhuxk has mentioned it more than once, at least. The current practice of music journalism -- which is to either jump release dates or synchronize with them -- isn't supported by empirical reality. It's just a way in which a form of journalism whispers rationalizations to itself about its imagined hip, newsworthy and timely quality as it hustles toward oblivion.

Boy, gotta get those Mudcrutch features in on Sunday at both the NYTimes and the LATimes. The reporters from each newspaper probably passed each other in the hall on the way to and from their slots, obedient-to-the-schedule functionaries.

One can appreciate timeliness in a few aspects of reporting. After show hot wash-ups of those slogging through local venues (At the LATimes it's the annual enthusiastically pro forma coverage of the Coachella and Stagecoach fests from a feel good perspective other than an alternative view, which is both as an exercise in enduring traffic jams in soCal on very hot days in a very hot part of the state.) Repeating the statistics from the charts one day a week right after the wheels have ground out an update. Sort of like sports coverage of athletic events, only not as good. But you have a really hard case to make trying to
convince someone with any sense that there's much value in jumping the gun on something like the Mudcrutch record.

supposedly a more recent idea that you should just play the stuff that doesn't elict too strong a reaction, pos or neg, so that listeners can settle into cruise-control apathy, and not get burned out by being too engaged--uh, isn't this the idea of background music

This was Lee Abrams' thing. And now he works as a director of innovation for Tribune, a newspaper company, where's he been successful at convincing many there's something gone wrong in his head.

Gorge, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 05:40 (seventeen years ago)

GAC and CMT at leastused to be rivals, when the former lured Grand Ol Opry away from the latter, dang me, I don't get no GAC! Though Viacom owns CMT/VH-1/MTV etc and may own GAC now

viacom most definitely does not own GAC. CMT and GAC are very much rivals.

fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 14:59 (seventeen years ago)

CMT and GAC are very much rivals

Coulda fooled me. I watch 'em regularly. They're as different as two brands of catsup in plastic squeeze bottles.

xhuxk's review on Phil Vassar killed me on a spec buy. I like the video single but quoting those phoned-in lyrics for the common man, sounding like rhymed slogans.

Gorge, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 18:16 (seventeen years ago)

xxhuxx's passing phrase above was just the pretext for my caffeinated typing, and certainly his not taking country release dates too seriously was good for Voice country coverage. Oh yeah, re my prev mention of how Shearwater reminded me of earlier Scott Walker meeting Gary Puckett and the Union Gap (also re that discussion of Richard Harris x Jimmy Webb on last year's or 06's Rolling Country, here's my Shearwater review (though the spotlight track isn't them at their strongest, but that's the one we were allowed to post)
http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=1532

dow, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 21:22 (seventeen years ago)

(x-post) who says rivals have to be different? my beloved WCBS 880 am radio and 1010 WINS compete fiercely on the new york dial by doing the exact same thing often at the exact same time. or, ya know, coke and pepsi. that's how competition often goes.

fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 22:23 (seventeen years ago)

re my prev mention of how Shearwater reminded me of earlier Scott Walker meeting Gary Puckett and the Union Gap

http://www.dickdestiny.com/supernerds.jpg

Painful indie rock nerd as ersatz Gary Puckett? Threat or menace?

Gorge, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 23:28 (seventeen years ago)

Good act though, if you check the album,and can listen around the guy (even on this posted track)(also catch the words in the trills, and the implications in some of them)One more example of, "Boy, if only they'd get rid of that singer, then...!" But how often it turns out that the dodgy frontman is the linchpin.Not as hooky as Gary and the Gap, o' course--

dow, Thursday, 8 May 2008 04:19 (seventeen years ago)

Potential five hundred and sixty-fifth out of the two thousand three hundred and thirty six poverty-case nerd-rock barrel-scrapers this year be outside my jurisdiction. Must be on Drag City, Birdman or Matador, right?

Gorge, Thursday, 8 May 2008 06:48 (seventeen years ago)

Matador!

dow, Thursday, 8 May 2008 13:39 (seventeen years ago)

So yeah, this -- if only they'd get rid of that singer -- and this -- Not as hooky -- are certainly to be expected. (On the other hand, I way-too-uncritically reviewed a so-what-singer/not-all-that-hooky Matador album by Times New Viking earlier this year myself. It can happen to the best of us.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 8 May 2008 13:44 (seventeen years ago)

more about country pop crossovers: The Browns' The Complete Hits (Collectors' Choice Music, May 27). "a 21-song compilation featuring their work on both the small, regional Fabor label and later RCA Records. Annotated by music historian Colin Escott..."(he's good; wish he'd done that Ronnie Hawkins collection I posted about) Career from mid-50s to late 60s, but their peak was late 50s to early 60s. First hit, "I Was Lookin' Back To See"("..if you were lookin' back at me, but you were lookin' back at him.")Didn't know it was theirs, but I knew it from a Spencer Davis Group album, and can imagine skiffle bands covering it before that. This and "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" credited t Jim Ed Brown and his sister Maxine, though notes favor her (another sister, Bonnie, was also in the group). Warnings to a ramblin', take-me-for-granted lover ("Absence does not make the heart grow fonder...") and androgynous harmonies/POV/appeal go well with this kind of malt shop brooding, pop & country (the more the merrier at the pity party, and mebbe country's been unobtrusively messing with codes of gender long before the CMT singles roundup in my early 00s piece, which xxhuxx linked upthread)(the one after my Toby Keith thing that he linked). Wish they'd written more hits, though may well be some good LP/b-side tracks. But some good covers amidst the ho-hum, like the adaptation of a French song, "The Three Bells" (didn'
t Eno cover this, early on?) "The Old Lamplighter," and "Coming Back To You," where Jim Ed pulls ahead of the fillies and jangles and rushes the beat some before falling back into the net of his situation. Might be some other gooduns slipping by, but so far I like those best.

dow, Thursday, 8 May 2008 16:51 (seventeen years ago)

speaking of country pop crossovers, seems it is worth noting the passing of eddy arnold here. i'm currently obsessing on his "full-time job" (straight-up western swing) and "make the world go away" (straight-up syrupy strings pop). as an early, aggressive country-pop crossover artist (for him, crossing over meant vegas, early '50s tv, strings, tuxedos, and whatnot), he's something of a godfather to this whole thread, i would think. but i spent way less time on this thread than all y'all, so maybe i'm wrong about that. but maybe not.

fact checking cuz, Thursday, 8 May 2008 17:35 (seventeen years ago)

It can happen to the best of us.

And you ain't just whistlin' Dixie! Hey, Blanche, where are it now?

This was utter crap

And I take it all back.

And so was this in retrospect

Although my lede-in to it on the blog was way better. Did Jesse Sykes and the Sweetwhatever eventually get rolled under the bus? I sure hope so.

Gorge, Thursday, 8 May 2008 20:54 (seventeen years ago)

The dependably buggy ILX freeware/crapware mungs a simple URL translation with its BBCode parser once again!

This was utter crap

Gorge, Thursday, 8 May 2008 21:00 (seventeen years ago)

hey guys, back after almost breaking my right hand a few weeks ago, helping get some cattle into a pen, how country is that? We got 'em in, but you gotta jam a stick in their ass to do it and I got my stick caught in the fence and twisted it, just enough to make things a bit iffy for a while. Lucky I didn't twist it right off.

So, to stuff. Found the Coal Men's '07 Nashville-recorded effort Beauty is a Moment real good, real good alt-country but with actual arrangments that build and sway--kind of what Elizabeth Cook's record should've sounded like, all rich and tubey-amped. Dave Coleman writes some great, sly songs. And yeah I have listened to Montgomery Gentry's new one. Boy, I love the playing--the slide, the organ, the way it all hangs together, and "Long Line of Losers" is pretty choice. I always think they oversing but that's part of their charm--they don't sing nowhere as good as Toby Keith, you're right Chuck, as you write in the new Voice, he can sing, I even like him in a festive, Christmassy setting. And the opening of "Big Revival" is pretty cool. Getting outta town seems to have helped them. As far as an update of Southern rock, it beats the hell outta Further Down, who recorded also at Ardent Studios in Memphis. The choruses of most of these songs let me down, perhaps as usual, and I actually love "I Pick My Parties." A good one and savvy followup to the last one; they say this one is more rockin' like their audience wants and I just wish the songs were a little better, they got the rockin' part down pat.

Watched a doc on Jon Dee Graham, the Austin singer and guitarist. You know, it kept reminding me of Richard Lloyd, Television, and sure enough the last song on the fade had a guitar lick straight outta Tom Verlaine's Dreamtime. A good guitarist, a guy with an impressively straight face in spite of itself, seems like a decent songwriter as evidenced by "Amsterdam" in which he gets hard watching "the most beautiful girls in the world on bikes," a pretty washed-out singer. Deserves better, maybe, but then again I never did get Alejandro Escovedo.

I copped the 2 Dallas Frazier albums he did for RCA in the early '70s, if anyone's interested; they're real rare. Did I post since I saw Dallas get up on stage with Connie Smith and do a couple of his songs, one of which was a hit for Gene Watson '81, "Fourteen Carat Mind"? A pretty major dude if only for "Mohair Sam" and "California Cottonfields," and the two records are pretty fascinating examples of natural vitality somewhat swamped but oddly enhanced, at times, by Chet Atkins' countrypolitan production. Singing My Songs and the magnificently titled My Baby Just Packed Up My Mind and Left Me.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 14 May 2008 19:19 (seventeen years ago)

also, guess I like Hayes Carll's new Trouble in Mind well enough; he certainly doesn't stray from what he knows and he seems pretty normal underneath whatever hobo shit he espouses. As far as the voice itself goes, it's serviceable but I can't come up with anything beyond that, sure he's more mature now. I think maybe Eric Church has more pure energy as a songwriter. Meanwhile, the new Silver Jews Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is as lugubrious as before but with a, you have to admit it, real sense of humor and some real interesting textures. The thing is, I could as easily hear these particular words, even "Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer" done over some improvised drone or big punk chords as well as over the country-whatever he's cobbled together here.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 14 May 2008 19:35 (seventeen years ago)

Saw and very much liked The Boxmasters' "The Poor House" on one of the cable country channels last night. Billy Bob Thornton is one of the best I've ever seen being convincingly phony at whatever prole class thing he's trying to impersonate and his mugging and arch imitation of the frontman in a a "That Thing You Do"-type band was greatly amusing in a dry and droll manner.

Haven't received a single promo copy this year so I've not seen the CD pack which is supposed to be a double. Set for June 10, according to Amazon, I've no idea why it would be priced at $40.00, which seems ludicrous. So if anyone has a copy sitting about and is feeling magnanimous and so inclined, drop me an e-mail as I'd surely like to hear all of it.

Gorge, Wednesday, 14 May 2008 20:11 (seventeen years ago)

Think it was last year's or '06 Rolling C. I posted about a good Jon Dee Graham set on the live radio, and his vocals were rough but clear enough, and especially liked his discreet appreciation of a discreet (but sweet enough) Muslim gal in the streets of Amsterdam, I believe. Mebbe the studio washes out his radio tan.

dow, Wednesday, 14 May 2008 20:57 (seventeen years ago)

Wander over to the "Okie from Muskogee/white lightning" thread and marvel at the alleged moonshine drinking, Deliverance-style ILM hillbillies.

Gorge, Thursday, 15 May 2008 07:47 (seventeen years ago)

Apparently Muskogee, Oklahoma just voted in a 19-year-old mayor yesterday. (It was in the Times this morning. Population is 38,000 -- not too shabby! Way more than Luckenbach. Texas, which supposedly has a population of about 20; we stopped by there -- there's basically an outside roadhouse and souvenir store -- but didn't stick around to see any music.)

MG's "Big Revival" is more or less their "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand," near as I can tell, with preacher samples at the beginning highly reminiscent of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. What do they say -- "praise the Lord and pass a copperhead"? Meaning, like, the snake? I guess that makes sense.

And "Long Line of Losers" is indeed a kickin' rebel-rock honky tonker; Shooter and Kid Rock will be jealous. But it's sort of negated by the last (and probably worst) song on the MG album, the one with that girl from Jypsi, where they say they're not losers. Damn, make up your mind for once, guys!

Anyway, here is my probably unconvincing take on Lady Antebellum and, just for kicks, Further Down:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/05/test.html#more

And here's my 1200-word treatise on Toby's new Best Of album (which Edd mentioned yesterday):

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0820,please-stop-belittling-toby-keith,440801,22.html

And just for kicks, this Scottish folk-rock band I talk about at the beginning of this one -- Runrig -- might be considered sort of country if you stretch definitions, as might the cowboy-hatted regional Mex band that follows them. (Actually, come to think of it, Runrig's "Clash of the Ash" -- the video of which I link to -- could conceivably be in the running to make my top 10 country singles this year):

http://idolator.com/390870/new-sounds-emerge-from-loch-ness-and-the-mormon-tabernacle

xhuxk, Thursday, 15 May 2008 23:32 (seventeen years ago)

The copperhead

North Carolina, we are informed, has the distinction of reporting the most bites by poisonous snakes in the US. Most of them are from copperheads, which is the most likely venomous snake to bite you -- if you find yourself in the potential position of being bitten by a poisonous snake in the US.

Good news, good news! Copperhead bites "are typically not fatal." Just really painful and disfiguring to your hand, foot, arm, leg or whatever is bitten.

Cottonmouths are passive/aggressive, it seems. They just sit around with their mouths open when approached by people, as opposed to big US poisonous snakes, like the diamondback rattlers, which rattle and then try to bolt down a hole when a person approaches. However, this passive stage is replaced by an immediate strike and bite reflex when picked up or threatened.

"Still to be investigated is another aspect of copperhead bites: many are not serious enough to require more than minor medical treatment," it is said. "This may be so not only because the venom of a copperhead is significantly less potent than that of rattlesnakes or cottonmouths, but also because they seldom inject much venom."

Gorge, Friday, 16 May 2008 01:45 (seventeen years ago)

Hhuxx, are you still rounding up stuff for your Best Of? I just excavated some floppy disks, found a computer with a working Drive A, and Ctrl + F'd through several hundred pages of email from the turn of the century. Didn't find much by you though. I'm still trying to find letters, got 'em somewhere. Dwight Yoakam just finished a good bandshell(good band, too) version of "No One Else Can Make Me Do The Things You Do," which made my Nash Scene Top Ten last year. Is his Buck And Be Proud album good? Just got through my first listen to reissue of Yellow Hand's s/t from 1970.They do a bunch of Stills and Young songs from a Buffalo Springfield album that never did come out, it sez here (so they're on the bootleg of Stampede?) I think Neil did release a later version of "Down To The Wire." That's the one where the four-part close harmonies kinda crowd me, plus they sound particularly in there between the Grassroots and Three Dog Night, just this combination of by-the-numbers and overemphasis. But, if you've got any tolerance for Stills early solo and Manassas stuff, this is mostly like that (still chunky harmonies, but with a touch of plaintiveness/querulousness to balance the manliness, and allowing the lyrics to come through just enough, so personality simulated, but dumb complaints and inspiration not heard too clearly)(also get Neil's sufficently stylish, punky bitchy folk-rock putdowns on "Sell Out)." And Delaney Bramlett/Mac Davis "God Knows I Love You," which coulda maybe shoulda been a hit for somebody. Also, the lead singer, Jerry Tawney, steps up front on some okay self-writs, and "My World Needs You" would be good for Gary Puckett. (After our recent exchange, I saw G.P. in an ad for Biloxi's Hard Rock Casino, with David Allan Coe and Stevie Nicks! All on different nights, dang it). Yellow Hand's drummer keeps rushing and then almost stumbling over the beat, and mostly they do seem more singers than players, but overall seems okay.

dow, Friday, 16 May 2008 04:58 (seventeen years ago)

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend wins ACM album of the year! I'd have voted for Taylor Swift, but I'm happy for this album and for Miranda.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 19 May 2008 17:21 (seventeen years ago)

Chesney not so happy with internet votes bloating, blurring engulfing Academy of Country Music (never heard him this frank).

dow, Monday, 19 May 2008 18:32 (seventeen years ago)

Lessee, who was craptastic on the ACM broadcast? Rodney Atkins was noticeably off note and off-the-beat for his performance, a medley of his "Country No. 1's" this year. Garth Brooks was pretty bad, too, in another medley. The medley shtick wasn't a good one for either of them, just a slapdash jamming together of hits, subsequent fragments of which were poorly performed. Kellie Pickler took a stab at rocking and the sound was so bad on TV, she wound up ludicrous. And what is that flesh-colored THING on a wire that hangs down and bumps against the left side of her upper chest. It showed up in her last TV awards show performance and it looks like a hearing aid that's fallen out of her left ear. "Is it a hearing aid," Gorge wonders. The flesh-colored blob thing is really killing him.

LeAnn Rimes also did the hard rock "Family" tune. For some reason, the sound was good, the guitars were loud. And maybe it was because the band filled up the spaces, not sounding distant like the rest, that it worked better. Rimes is, to me, always looking a bit scary now. She looks kind of disgusted by Jon BJ in the video of their duet and she looked vulpine and dangerous on the ACM stage, stamping around in a short black thing and big silver shoes. If she did half an album in that style I'd buy it in an instant. She rocked harder that Miranda Lambert did on "Gunpowder and Lead" and that's even giving the latter bonus points for my well-established cultural and class-based antipathy toward everything she stands for.

Keith Urban sang from the floor, surrounded by girls, doing another one of those songs, the likes of which he seems to have been playing for the last two years. He sounded good but, "Go 'way, Keith!" The smiling, head-bobbing hunky-dory funtime all around good guy with just the right stubble.

Chesney complained that no award should be given over to Internet voting as a promotional trick which only measures how hard and how fast a cybermob can press buttons on websites or in texting. He is right.

Gorge, Monday, 19 May 2008 18:36 (seventeen years ago)

I only saw a few minutes of the ACMs (which, even after my tenure at Billboard, I still confuse with the CMAs) out of the corner of my eye at the corner bar. Didn't catch that Leann Rimes song; I'll need to hunt it on youtube. Did see Taylor Swift come out and start performing in her black hoodie (was hoping she'd do her Eminem cover, but no dice), then have it torn off her by two boy-band type guys, then it started raining and she got drenched and Brooks & Dunn said Taylor always gets to have all the fun; I'm getting the idea she's not all that dynamic a performer at awards shows, but maybe that's just me. The country stars in the audience, judging from the looks on their faces, always seem sort of condescendingly amused by her; like, what can they do about it? She's outselling them by truckloads, her fans can use the Internets, she's the future, they're not, and they just accept it. I guess. But Brooks & Dunn (whose "Put A Girl In It" sounded decently Stonesy, from what I could tell; hard to hear over the jukebox) seemed to be getting snarky about Rascal Flatts at one point, saying they were backstage doing...well, I don't know the specifics, but now that I read that Chesney story I'm guessing maybe it had something to do with that giveaway mp3.

And now, from the Rolling I'd Buy That For A Dollar thread, the other day, about an album I picked up at a Salvation Army in Astoria over the weekend:

Joe Ely Live Shots - $1.00
Joe Ely: Wow, touring with the Clash (whole thing is recorded on their tour in England) made him rock a lot harder; I had no idea. This is almost a pub-rock record; no wonder former 101er Joe Strummer (who is pictured about five times on the sturdy cardboard inner sleeve, though he doesn't actually seem to be credited as playing anything) liked Ely so much.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 13:36 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, Taylor Swift isn't any kinda great performer, but I LIKE her. I don't much think she sings any kinda way, either--it's just her and I suppose the gawkiness of it all is the point. I mean she's no singer, really, but that's all right.

Dogs: Nelo's s/t record on Justice Records, ropey Dave Matthews Bandwagonesque alt; Kelley Hunt's Mercy, which just showcases a rather odd torchy soul singer who plays piano and whose songs vamp until ready, interminably.

The Gougers' A Long Day for the Weathervane is passable, though, not half bad and whatta way with titles, the record itself and "Riding in a Lincoln Continental with Sylvia Plath." So I'm giving this one another listen. Have nothing to say about some of this bluegrassy stuff out right now, like Sparrow Quartet and the Time Jumpers--competent.

And, I think I was wrong about Silver Jews' record; the guy or whoever made the thing did some real interesting music, the old Velvet Underground vibe, and I guess Berman actually did try to match words to music and write "country songs," and he strikes me as one of those guys for whom everything be funny and nothing is, you know. Anyway, some cool sounds on Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 14:29 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, an EP's worth, anyway. Taylor gave props to online voters, pace sore winner Chesney Lloyd Maines is the one-man steel gtr army of Live Shots, wonder if he still plays with Ely sometimes

dow, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 14:53 (seventeen years ago)

Just heard the James Otto CD that's been out for a month or two (and being pimped pretty hard by my local country radio DJs.) Only two songs have the Big & Rich rock crunch--I can see myself getting tired of them quickly--but the rest have a pretty great late-70s soft rock-funk-soul tone. Singer very confident--a much better version of Travis Tritt perhaps.

mulla atari, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 23:03 (seventeen years ago)

I've only heard the James Otto single (which has been in the country top ten for months now), but "soft rock-funk-soul" seems right; it's Rodney-Trace in smooching mode, without the baritone. Nice, though I don't know if I'd listen to an album's worth.

A couple other songs I downloaded last February at the same time as the Otto:

Bryan White "Someone Else's Star": According to Wiki, this was a hit back in '95, when I was barely paying attention to the genre. His tenor is a lot more strained than Otto's, and this song is pure soft-rock slush, but actually the strain draws my attention more than Otto's ease.

Whitney Duncan "Skinny Dippin'": Duncan's a "not too" singer: not too twangy, not too sentimental, not too hard rockin'. This works well on "Skinny Dippin'," which is warmly fun rather than too salacious.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 06:21 (seventeen years ago)

Wish I'd seen the ACM "Family." The album version is a killer. I don't think LeAnn's ever going to devote half an album to such blazers, but she's got four or five on Family that rock well in some way or another, and I'm kicking myself now for keeping it off my Pazz & Jop.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 06:33 (seventeen years ago)

Wrote this on a Poptimists Mariah thread:

For songs that celebrate fidelity to family, LeAnn Rimes' "Family" utterly obliterates the competition, since it's all about how totally Lunatic and Dysfunctional the family actually is. She sang it at ACM so I hope hope hope it's the next single. Right now it's the first song up on her MySpace, which is a good sign. I love how Dad leaves the family in the lurch to run with a hussy half his age, then LeAnn lights out with a man twice her own age. ("Ain't it funny how things never change.") All celebrated with ecstatic "woo-hoos." Would have thought it was too loud to be considered, but the ongoing success of Miranda Lambert opens the radio up for this.

George, check "Upper Hand," which is fifth down on the MySpace: not raving and spitting like "Family," but a good example how natural she is for Southern rock. (And she's long proved she's a natural for dance pop and flashdance stompers. Versatile.)

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 14:50 (seventeen years ago)

I'll probably just wind up getting the album. The dancing women-in-prison thing that was everywhere earlier, "Nothing Better To Do," was good sneaky R&B with a jolt to it. In the meantime I ordered Kathleen Edwards' newest one on the basis of "The Cheapest Key" which sounded a lot better than anything on "Back To Me," the previous album of Tom Petty and N Young-influenced stuff, only OK to good in spots.

Tift Merritt mostly a snore, I'll be passing, judging by two things getting aired. And I wish the Plant/Krauss thing would finally go away permanently. It is mildly annoyingly as well as bleak, anther video in which the woman, in this case Krauss, looks like she despises her singing partner.

Gorge, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 16:30 (seventeen years ago)

Kathleen did this longwinded thing, "You Get The Glory I Make The Dough," or vice versa or something like that, on The Tonight Show, but then a generous,vibrant slice of the new album on World Cafe, gave me some goosebumps (though I went to the bathroom while she did "Dough")

dow, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 22:59 (seventeen years ago)

I dunno, Kathleen Edwards keeps saying her biggest influence is, like, Tom Petty...which isn't bad, I like Tom Petty. Tift Merritt never quite made it for me either.

Working on something about the CMAs, the event, the Chevy Stage, the Celebrity Close Up (Frank, featuring Gretchen Wilson, Randy Travis and Taylor Swift, the Porter Wagoner Memorial Bass Tourney out at Percy Priest with Vince Gill, Bobby Bare and Bass Prose, a weighoff and a fish fry and a "special acoustic concert," some of which is open to the public. Anyway, the strangest thing I've heard lately is Chuck Prophet's re-creation of 1975's Dreaming My Dreams as Dreaming Waylon's Dreams, a limited-edition thing I downloaded for free, in case anyone wants that info. He just does the whole record, and it sounds a lot like Prophet's Soap and Water, surely the best "Americana" record of 2007, and "Waymore's Blues" is redone as synthetic blooze, and if anyone decries the desecration I'll remind them that "Waymore's Blues" itself ain't nothing but "Kassie Jones" a.k.a. "On the Road Again," if you wanna get that rabbit out the log got to make like a D-O-G. Alan Jackson isn't the only one who knows how to spell out his G-O-O-D time.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 23:58 (seventeen years ago)

Kathleen Edwards keeps saying her biggest influence is, like, Tom Petty

It's really obvious on Back to Me The first two songs sound like Heartbreaker tunes. The guitarist, named Colin, does a dead on imitation of Mike Campbell. Plus Benmont Tench plays on the electric tunes. I like Petty, too, and these tunes are good, even as things which sound bound to him by fanstuff.

One that's playing now, "Independent Thief," sounds like Neil Young & Crazy Horse, with Benmont Tench on keys. It sounds competently electric but ... eh, so did Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter and that wore me out fast.

Parts of Back to Me get too whispery for my taste. However, "The Cheapest Key," through the TV at least, sounded a lot more in your face than anything on the latter which is why I went down to the shop looking for it. I haven't gotten it yet so can't say anything for the rest.

Gorge, Thursday, 22 May 2008 01:40 (seventeen years ago)

Rissi Palmer's "No Air" is currently at no. 52 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs. Why didn't anyone tell me about it? Anyway, I like it, though not nearly as much as "Country Girl." This is what I just said about it on livejournal:

The Jordin Sparks/Chris Brown "No Air" has a way of being precarious: there's actually plenty of air in the arrangement, so Jordin's vocal inhales and exhales and reverberates in space and has this sense of assuredly not finding its balance (if that image means anything). Rissi Palmer's version is relatively more steady and staid, a pretty version of a pretty song. Doesn't come close to the original and isn't going to compete for my top 50, but it's a nice version of a very good song.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 28 May 2008 00:07 (seventeen years ago)

Well, information-wise, anyway, i shoulda just imported my orig two cents from that other thread:

Can we talk about early-mid70s West Coast post-psych/pop/rock/folk-rock/country-rock?

Last night on Tonight Show, Kathleen Edwards was not only totally cute, (but also) a live ringer for one of my best friends, (nevertheless) her song("I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory," or vice versa) was longwinded/monotonous Petty knockoff (later learned her new album is co-produced by Petty-associate Jim Scott, who brought in Benmont Tench, Don Heffington, Bob Glaub--which could be good with the right songs o course, but could easliy get merely retro). Still haven't heard the album, but right now she's doing a very vibrant set of songs from it on World Cafe (might be *some* older ones, but anyway so far so good--gotten away from her early Lucinda imitations, but obviously learned from that, and was good even when imitating, least on the ones I heard)Your description of Jordan's vocal is the way I heard Kathleen on World Cafe, except I don't know that she's as self-assured about her limitations, as self-aware and shrewd/creative about limitations as so much of the good-to-great poprockwhatever is and damnwell better be. Why do people keep trying so diligently with the Petty template? Hitwise or artwise,it really usually only works for the originals, if at all. (I'm not that big a fan--I'd just as soon hear 'em hepping Henley on "Boys of Summer", or backing Dylan, like on the Hard To Handle concert video [made it to DVD yet? Also on that, Dyl and Tom and the boys back Stevie's guest shot of "Stop Dragging My Heart Around," which TP wrote for her, right? Good. And "Band Of the Hand" and "Blind Willie McTell" and other various BDxTP&HB)But Kathleen got me on that live set, so I'll check for more of those online(and the studio version too--I'd really do that first if I were thinking about bying it, Gorge, since you were understandably frustrated by Mudcrutch)(Rolling Stone says "Mythic"--yeah but not like they think)

dow, Wednesday, 28 May 2008 05:07 (seventeen years ago)

"Band Of The Hand" was on the soundtrack (or at least in the film)of a Michael Mann movie; "Blind Willie McTell" was yet another Dylan goodie left in the can, man(the better to favor worser tracks from the same session, as has happened before)'til time for yet another boxset.(Not that any of the above means I'm a Petty expert, so might be really woring, but judging from 30 years of him and them on the radio, the video, etc) Oh and I should have described The Old '97s (sic)'s Defying Gravity, instead of just mentioning" opens with a good subset starring a starry-eyed bumpkin, whom the music, esp. the guitar, has comments on; then an unfortunate midsection played too straight or too hype or really both (so like from good Hold Steady to bad Hold Steady); then, a happy ending (section) for all concerned, incl me. Basically the same, I guess, happens on new My Morning Jacket, where my fave is the country disco finale (if the Eagles had kept going a little while after The Long Run, would they have done something like this? Since some of TLR sounds like early 70s crossover r&b[-ish], mebbe they would have made it to 1975 urbanette by say 1981?)

dow, Wednesday, 28 May 2008 05:30 (seventeen years ago)

Album of the year: Jamey Johnson, That Lonesome Song. Out in August.

Song of the Year: Jamey Johnson, "High Cost Of Living."

I'd say more, but I'm reviewing it for someone. The first single, "In Color," may be a better Montgomery Gentry song than anything on the new MG album, but it might only be my seventh-or-so favorite song on Jamey's album. Plus Jamey looks like he should be in some art-metal band, like Neurosis or something:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UBk07l2aKrE

Also really like the back-from-the-war song on the new Restless Kelly album, and the song where they steal riffs from "Authority Song" and "Please Please Me," but I'm reviewing that for somebody too.

Boxmasters (w/ Billy Bob Thornton) album that George mentioned above is consistently hilarious and surprisingly tuneful on the disc with originals, and almost invariably pointless on the disc with cover songs, though I do like that they cover Mott the Hoople. (Which song has CMT been playing, though?)

Don, I am still working on my best-of book, though I'm trying to get down to the wire on it; if you have anything that you think should be included though, I'd love to see it. (Also, re: Band of the Hand -- the soundtrack for that was mainly the Reds, a new wave era Philly drone-metal-punk band I wrote about at Paperthinwalls earlier in '08.)

Pulled Kathleen Edwards' new album back out a few days ago, and it holds up better than I'd expected; some of the quieter parts are even growing on me. But I still think my favorite song is the hockey one.

A country rapper named Boondox, etc, reviewed here:

http://idolator.com/393994/chainsaw+wielding-mcs-kool+aid-stealers-speed-racers-coloring-time-fire+breathing-folkies-and-even-more-ringtone-rap

xhuxk, Friday, 30 May 2008 17:07 (seventeen years ago)

Also noticed that Kid Rock's Seger/Zevon/Skynyrd update "All Summer Long" has been bobbing his head toward the bottom of the Top 50 country singles the last few weeks. Doesn't look like it will take off, though his album has been climbing again (maybe as much because of his tour as the single, I'm not sure.) I'm guessing CMT's been playing this vid, too?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uwIGZLjugKA

xhuxk, Friday, 30 May 2008 17:12 (seventeen years ago)

And oh yeah, Don mentioned Old 97s; here's what I wrote about their new album for Blender (though the version they ran may have been edited somewhat, and though I think I at least slightly overstate how good a Petty rip the opening track is; it's not bad, but I really should learn to avoid superlatives):

This jangling Texas cult band kicks its first studio set in four years into gear with a doozy -- over a speedy two-step, a brain-twisting run-on sentence revolving (and revolving) around a born loser who heads west in his borrowed VW bug lures you into the most torpedoes-damning Tom Petty facsimile in recent memory. From there, Rhett Miller’s lovelorn lyrics remain respectably literary while his pretty singing and his pals’ pretty playing turn increasingly wan and half-cooked: a cynical romance dance with a meager gypsy lilt; a decadent party chronicle rhyming “undertakers” with “martini shakers”; a well-MapQuested cross-country road-trip; two blandouts from the bass player. Only twice – in the fuzz-riffed frat-rock diatribe castigating their hateful hometown Dallas and the autobiographical closer equating being in a band with bank robbery – do the 97s threaten to match that opening volley.

xhuxk, Friday, 30 May 2008 17:34 (seventeen years ago)

Re Boxmasters number. It was "The Poor House." I wanted that CD, too, just based on it and Thornton's wry mugging.

In terms of big jangle rock, aka the Tom Petty thing, my special order of Kathleen Edwards' "Flowers" CD came in and I had a chance to listen to about half of it before party-poopers showed up last night. There are a couple on it which again do her big Tom Petty fix, seemingly with Benmont Tench in tow for the keyboard parts. Best song is not Tom Petty-like. "The Cheapest Key," why I bought it, is the most un-Kathleen Edwards-like tune she's done that I've heard. I also like it most. It rocks sprightly and has a bit of an anthem's quality to it, insofar as Kathleen Edwards can pull off an anthem. Good show, actually!

Gorge, Friday, 30 May 2008 18:13 (seventeen years ago)

Hey George, I've got an extra Boxmasters CD, if you still need one; if so, email me your address (though I probably have it around here somewhere), okay?

And speaking of Mott, that autoobiographical last song on the Old 97s album ("The One") actually reminds me, songwritingwise, of "The Ballad of Mott The Hoople" somewhat (but it's not nearly as good.)

xhuxk, Friday, 30 May 2008 18:25 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, George, I got a Boxmasters extra if you need it and Chuck can't find his. So, Jamey Johnson? He's at the CMAs this year, so guess I need to check him out.

Got around to listening to Zac Brown Band's debut The Foundation. He does his Buffettisms right, mentions rolling a joint in the first song, and does coming-of-age real well. Jypsi's debut demonstrates that Lillie Mae has one great voice--calm yet really strong--but I dunno, the material doesn't make it for me, the instrumental seems pointless and why anyone would want to record "House of the Rising Sun" is beyond me. And I find the vocal harmonies just weird, crowded, or something. Nonetheless, she's got the potential to be some kinda singer. (Nice long story on Jypsi's struggle to be heard in last wk's Nashville Scene.)

Tony Joe White's Deep Cuts actually works, from time to time, in the kinda Jon Spencer Blooze Explosion mode Tony Joe's son Jody cooks up for mostly classic songs like "High Sheriff of Calhoun Parrish." I like the ones that are mostly instrumental the best, and do like the new version of "Aspen, Colorado."
So, is Xgau right and Fight Songs is the best Old 97s record? That's the only one I've ever heard. Haven't gott the new one but it's selling real well at the local indie record store, they tell me.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 30 May 2008 19:44 (seventeen years ago)

Ashton Shepherd seen slumming on cable GAC one-minute specials underwritten by advertisers. This one, by Sherwin-William paint, so Shepherd's telling the audience what Sherwin-Williams colors she'd paint her "Pickin' Shack" in.

Got my copy used with a scratch on the first tune which is fine, because I've heard it enough. Second song on turning up the country is my favorite even though her lyrics are generally always a bit of a duffer's work. "The Pickin' Shed" probably next, Sherwin-William tie-in nothwithstanding. Cover's a bit of a disconnect. Never saw anyone that looked remotely that glamorous lounging on pool table's in any Pennsy dive. Sounds like she could sing the Ten Commandments and make a decent song out of it, though.

Gorge, Friday, 30 May 2008 20:31 (seventeen years ago)

Sherwin-Williams is bad paint, isn't it? Purty, but gets flakey fast. Appropriate for some people and music I know. Last night: B-52s did a big live set and interview on World Cafe, promoting new album, oops didn't get the title. Was thinking there was a rockabilly element way back in there, and then Fred mentioned he was into glam when he met the B-gals (big parties on that farm where Cyndi lived, before they made it to us-uns in Tuscaloosa--this was in early-to-mid-70s, another part of Southern Rock),and I remembered Lux Interior saying he took his name way before the Cramps, when he was inspired by T Rex, so more glamabilly links? Speedy cartoon hero/heroine elegance= glam and rockabilly after all. This morning: listening to Roedelius & Story's Inlandish (out July 15) Roedelius o course used to work with Eno and Cluster and Harmonia, and this really takes me back to the future, via early-to-mid-70s Tuscaloosa Spring, sitting barefoot on the backporch with this kind of music playing all through the house, and squinting up at the Big Sky looking back at me. Could live without the first track, but the rest gets louder and even catchier without loosing cosmic smoothness (discreetly excited, not longwinded, and I can even tell the tracks apart)(new B-52s sounded good, older ones better, but they all got excited too)

dow, Sunday, 1 June 2008 18:02 (seventeen years ago)

So, is Xgau right and Fight Songs is the best Old 97s record? That's the only one I've ever heard. Haven't gott the new one but it's selling real well at the local indie record store, they tell me.

Fight Songs is their best album for melody, the most 'pop', and probably is their best all around. But I have a thing too for Wreck Your Life, their second album - musically it fits the Bloodshot/'alt country' prototype too comfortably probably, but there's something nice and ramshackle about it that made it a road-trip cassette-player fixture for me in the day (the day = late '90s). Their lyrics had a naughtier side then that's been polished over by now.

erasingclouds, Sunday, 1 June 2008 18:21 (seventeen years ago)

Believe it or not, just a *brief* excerpt of (na ga try to actualize links, ILX will think it's too many tags or whatever):

Michael J. Media June 2008 Newsletter

www.michaeljmedia.com (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152675/goto:http://www.michaeljmedia.com/)

www.myspace.com/michaeljmedia (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152714/goto:http://www.myspace.com/michaeljmedia)

Upcoming or Recent Releases

Anya Singleton: The Other Side (August 12, 2008)
NYC based bluesy pop artist took an organic approach to the recording of her debut full-length album, and the result is an intensely
introspective yet captivating set -- one that will make listeners feel as if Anya has invited them into her living room for an emotional thrill ride
of a story.

www.myspace.com/anyasingleton (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152677/goto:http://www.myspace.com/anyasingleton)
Sarah VonderHaar: Are You Listening Now? (April
22, 2008): 21-year old Chicago native has been on America's Next Top Model, and Sarah recently delivered her debut album of infections
pop tunes. Sarah will tour regionally this summer in support of the new record.

www.myspace.com/sarahvonderhaar (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152682/goto:http://www.myspace.com/sarahvonderhaar)

On Tour
Will Kimbrough is one of the hardest
working people in show business, and he was named instrumentalist of the year recently by the Americana Music Association. Will has
worked with the likes of Jimmy Buffett and Rodney Crowell.

www.myspace.com/willkimbroughdaddy (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152687/goto:http://www.myspace.com/willkimbroughdaddy)

Caddle: Birmingham based Southern rockers are pure
country-fried adrenaline. Showcasing during CMA at Nashville’s On the Rocks June 5.

www.myspace.com/caddle (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152689/goto:http://www.myspace.com/caddle)

The Greencards: Nashville contemporary acoustic trio
recently nominated for a Grammy and will be playing at CMA on June 7 and headlining The Station Inn June 12.

www.myspace.com/thegreencards (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152691/goto:http://www.myspace.com/thegreencards)

Painkiller Hotel: Re-released Black Roses on
Nashville's Severe Records in January, and heading to Australia for a few shows in June.

www.myspace.com/painkillerhotel (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152693/goto:http://www.myspace.com/painkillerhotel)

Poco: Legendary country rockers celebrating 40 years of
making music. www.poconut.com (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152695/goto:http://www.poconut.com/)

Pure Prairie League: Also legendary rockers that will hit
the road again in July. www.pureprairieleague.com (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152696/goto:http://www.pureprairieleague.com/)

Bronze Radio Return: Hartford based five-piece
continues to tour the Northeast in support of their debut self-titled EP release.

www.myspace.com/bronzeradioreturn (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152697/goto:http://www.myspace.com/bronzeradioreturn)

Chris Knight: Kentucky based singer/songwriter is a rootsy
Americana artist with many stories to tell. www.chrisknight.net (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152698/goto:http://www.chrisknight.net/)

In the Studio

Jenn Franklin: Nashville based singer/songwriter is
finishing up her new album with producer Jim Reilly. Jenn has assembled an incredible supporting cast such as Ken Coomer and
Charlie Chadwick, providing the backdrop for her monster vocal ability. Releasing this summer. www.myspace.com/jennfranklin (http://e2ma.net/go/1116699546/1012948/37152699/goto:http://www.myspace.com/jennfranklin)

dow, Sunday, 1 June 2008 18:31 (seventeen years ago)

Edd is so right about Chuck Phrophet's free download album Dreaming Waylon's Dreams. Kind of Velvets x Sir Doug, trippy "casual" and more Houdini than loose, but pretty loose.(More hit than miss, so more VU than Sir D., much as I love him). I never was that big on Waylon, but I dig this, and I bet Jessi and Shooter would too.

dow, Monday, 2 June 2008 19:42 (seventeen years ago)

(also it immediately brings out elements of the songs, re feel and POV, that had to find their way to me through Waylon's own tracks)

dow, Monday, 2 June 2008 19:45 (seventeen years ago)

the Greencards apparently are kinda shopping around for a label, their first time playing CMA. in the throes of moving and about settled in, so more later. glad ya like the Chuck/Waylon--they seem to have cut it in 48 hours, and turns out Prophet has a Nashville connection from days co-writing with the likes of Kim Richey...

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:11 (seventeen years ago)

I wonder if the James McMurtry disc is as good as Geoff Himes says it is in the W. Post--- Friday, May 30, 2008; WE25

There's a good chance that McMurtry's "Just Us Kids" will be the best album of 2008. Angry and scathing in this year of war, recession and presidential campaigns, the disc transcends mere sloganeering by offering the kind of complicated characters and visual description you might expect from the son of novelist Larry McMurtry. But this is much more than literature set to folkie guitar; these tangled tales of dead-end teenagers, burned-out boomers, cynical politicians, divorced loners, drunken roadies and homeless survivors are pushed along by a twitchy John Lee Hooker-like boogie that keeps you hungry for the next line.

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:29 (seventeen years ago)

Not the best album of 2008, by a long shot, but still good. Here's my (pre-edited) Blender review:

JAMES MCMURTRY
JUST US KIDS
Lightning Rod

Dek: Empires crumble from Bombay to the Bible Belt as the fat cats get away with murder.

Texas songster James McMurtry, son of author Larry, was born with the writing gene. And while he still talks better than he sings, after nine albums he’s figured out how to give his serious social studies lessons real musical momentum. Muscularly arranged with bongolated beats, psychedelic swamp guitars, boogie-woogie pinetop and snow-balling chorus hooks, Just Us Kids approximates a certain literate strain of early ‘80s album-rock (think Warren Zevon, T-Bone Burnett, Bruce Cockburn, Mark Knopfler). But you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more hard-boiled depiction of hardscrabble ‘00s life on the edge of recession: Puppet presidents and corporate magnates strike matches and watch the flattening world burn, while less powerful folks weather the hurricane in flooded bayous and dimly lit rooms facing the freeway and hinterland towns that showed promise in 1910. Guns, drugs and cigarettes figure prominently.

DOWNLOAD: “Ruins Of The Realm,” “Just Us Kids,” “Fireline Road”

Can't find Xgau's review on line, but I think he might like Hayes Carrl's album more; I don't like either as much as he does. (Honestly, both of them seemed spottier and draggier the more I listened, though I still like them both.) Here he is on Carrl, (and there's more in his consumer guide this month):

http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=5040

Otherwise: New Duhks has more decent moments than I thought at first, but still probably not enough to make it a keeper; Steve Azar has maybe three good songs amidst lots of zzzz; Aaron Watson probably has fewer than that, though I need to listen to it more; three new songs added to Blake Shelton's good '07 Pure B.S. are nothing you need to hear, though the Michael Buble' cover one is a pretty huge hit.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:43 (seventeen years ago)

My own Carrl review from Spin, fwiw:

This Texas coaster covers plenty of bases on his third album, many of them alcoholic and the tastiest perched between stadium rockabilly and Dylan-worship folk-rock. Whether he’s feeling nostalgic for small-town foibles or fancying himself a drunken poet knockin’ over Whiskey’s with his bad liver and broken heart, he’s cornier than he thinks. But he sure knows how to do the heartland stomp, and when he threatens to kick Jesus's commie ass for stealing his girl, he’s funny enough that you cut his smarmy side slack.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:46 (seventeen years ago)

Xgau likes the new Old 97s more than I do, too, btw; no surprise there. Here's his new consumer guide, where he reviews both that album and Carrl (again) --maddeningly, though, this link will only work until this CG is replaced with a new one next month; I have no idea where past ones are archived these days:

http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide

Leona Lewis's "B" strikes me as a fairly high grade for a dud of the month, incidentally. I also notice he's going for lots of indie rock this year: No Age, Vampire Weekend, Los Campesinos!, Tokyo Police Club.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:55 (seventeen years ago)

or fancying himself a drunken poet knockin’ over Whiskey’s with his bad liver and broken heart, he’s cornier than he thinks

I haven't heard the Hayes Carrl album but have read a fair amount of reviews -- is his "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" a cover of the Tom Waits song, or did he just take the title? I recall the album having another Waits cover, so two seems unlikely.

erasingclouds, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:57 (seventeen years ago)

I've been on the MSN network for years and have never seen Christgau's column advertised on the homepage, ever. Plus you have to click through for all the extra stuff you used to automatically see in the VV. Screw that. It's loaded with enough "buy this" desperation/nuisance advertising already.

Gorge, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 22:45 (seventeen years ago)

Hi curmudgeon, here's my Voice review of Just Us Kids:
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0815,small-reviews-3,411853,22.html
Longass link, but if I messed it up, try and Advanced Search on Google, with "built like a brick shithouse" as yer ExactPhrase, villagevoice.com as Domain Name

dow, Wednesday, 4 June 2008 01:16 (seventeen years ago)

Hayes Carll strikes me as one of the best Guy Clark devotees--maybe Carll's not quite as laconic as he wants to be, but his subject seems to be Texas and maybe second is girls, both big areas to cover and tricky with a lot of snares. As for McMurtry, I do think it's fine and he catches the mean undertone of, for example, his song set in a New Orleans bar where the slightest bit of money or pretension gets immediately noticed and put down. Himes is off the beam, though, I mean it's probably the best "Americana" record of the year so far. Geoff also likes the new Kelley Hunt record and it's a snooze from start to finish, I've heard demos of soulful Nashville diva chix lately that make her look silly.

I gotta find the Hayes record under the piles of stuff yet to be put away but I'm pretty sure "Bad Liver" is a Waits/Brennan song.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 4 June 2008 21:46 (seventeen years ago)

From Shock Ink publicists--anybody heard any of this? Dig the description of members:

SHOW DOG LETS TRAILER CHOIR OFF THE HILLBILLY HOOK

Debut Single Hits Radio June 9

Show Dog Nashville will unleash a unique and completely unexpected music entertainment experience with the release of "Off The Hillbilly Hook," the debut single from Trailer Choir.

Hitting radio on June 9, "Off The Hillbilly Hook" not only contributed to lead Show Dog Toby Keith's decision to sign them to his label, but has become the lead single for the soundtrack for Keith's upcoming feature film Beer For My Horses. And there are more where that comes from. "Rockin' The Beer Gut" gives definition to the growing and curious cultural phenomenon of tiny-tees and tubby tummies. "My Next 5 Beers" gives voice to anyone looking for a respite from life's long term responsibilities.

Trailer Choir are Butter -- the fast-talking frontman and master of ceremonies, Big Vinny -- the worm poppin' 400-pound singer/songwriter, and Crystal -- the soulful Louisiana beauty. (Also gave tour dates, but I gotta conserve pixels now)

dow, Wednesday, 4 June 2008 22:55 (seventeen years ago)

(hey xxhuxx the last time I checked robertchristgau.com, it was still archiving or linking all MSN Consumer Guides, though there may be a time lag)

dow, Wednesday, 4 June 2008 22:59 (seventeen years ago)

"My Next 5 Beers"

Sounds sorta like Kevin Fowler. There was an album by him at BestBuy today. Unusual because of the chain's usually conservative selection. However, wasn't up to the potential dismay at a song called "Don't Touch My Willie" not living up to expectations.

Gorge, Wednesday, 4 June 2008 23:06 (seventeen years ago)

prolly a song about Willie Nelson.

I know Chuck likes the Ross Johnson record (these days my favorite line is the one where Ross says the bit about how you get so drunk around your kids, you say, "I'm gonna call Human Services on my own self." Why fuck around, he's right.

so here's my brief bit on Ross at at the new and improved No Depression website.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 5 June 2008 01:46 (seventeen years ago)

Don't know if there's been any discussion of Kasey Chambers here. Certainly been none by me, my not being someone who pays close attention to country music in Australia that never hits outside of Australia. But Jimmy Draper tipped me off that in 2005 Kasey went Top 10 down under with Ashley Monroe's "Pony." This was way back when Ashley's album, still unreleased to my knowledge, was first making the promo rounds. Kasey's version is more cutesy than Ashley's, which wasn't utterly uncutesy itself. Doesn't have Ashley's presence or force.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 6 June 2008 22:12 (seventeen years ago)

"Bad Liver And A Broken Heart" is by Scott Nolan, whose own version is on his MySpace. Slower than Hayes's, with more dripping steel; I prefer Hayes's.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 6 June 2008 22:51 (seventeen years ago)

I got the sense that Xgau's fave Old 97s record is Satellite Rides.

It's mine, anyway, with Fight Songs and Too Far to Care following, in that order.

Hubie Brown, Friday, 6 June 2008 22:59 (seventeen years ago)

Really ambivalent about the Ashton Shepherd alb. Strong sound, strong melodies, strong voice, but the whole thing is so broad it's like a spoof of contemporary country music. None of the nuance of Gretchen and Natalie, whom she seems to ape, and I've never particularly thought of Gretchen and Natalie as abounding in nuance. The singing's not sloppy, by any means, but it's big and broad and samey. So the start of any song of hers gives a kick but after two or three tunes I'm thinking "This is bullshit." "Whiskey Won The Battle" is good or even great, however, maybe 'cause it just builds and builds rather than whacking you at the start and then leaving. I also like "Lost In You" and "I Ain't Dead Yet" and "Takin' Off This Pain," though that last one's already in parody territory. There are another two or three that I may warm to if I ever adapt to her singing.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 6 June 2008 23:16 (seventeen years ago)

That's just what I thought, on hearing excerpts (only), in Ken Tucker's NPR review. He really likes the album, but seems to me that the pre-fab neo-New Traditional songs (he tags them as early 80s, so that's prob what he means) can't withstand the onslaught of her fervent young lungs.Tucker also chuckles over idea and sound of 21-year-old in role of middle-aged bar/heart wars vet, and maybe if I heard the whole thing, I'd like it, I hope so, cos I do dig her voice (in excerpts), but yeah, songs like "I Aint Dead Yet" are like outtakes from Nashville the movie.(Anybody heard/seen Walk Hard? Some frustrated discussion of it on ILE)

dow, Saturday, 7 June 2008 00:37 (seventeen years ago)

Oh yeah, Kasey Chambers (on debut album and Austin City Limitsused to seem too whiney and depresso *and*cutesy about it, bad combination, although I did end up listing her sub-Joyce Carol Oates soap opera reverie "The Captain" in P&J Singles, and eventually heard a couple radio sets where she was much more spirited, but I haven't kept up. She orig was in her father Bill's band, big Down Under (also there's Bill&Audrey,Kasey's stepmother I think, and at least one solo album by her, Audrey Auld, which I liked)Also liked Aussie expat Jamie O'Neal's album of *several* years back; haven't heard one since, and would like to hear Keith Urban in midst of his old band, The Ranch. But most of the Australian country I know is in midst of folkiness, like the Waifs (rave about collection sev years back still on freelancementalists),and Cyndi Boste & friends (rave about her in "Alias In Wonderland" still on voice.com)

dow, Saturday, 7 June 2008 00:51 (seventeen years ago)

Really liked the below version of Donna Fargo's "The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA" sung by Daveigh Chase as vicitmized teen polygamist cult-compound wife / evil devil child Rhonda Volmer in the second season of Big Love; oddly, she'd had a couple short singing spots in previous episodes that didn't impress me much at all. (Music direction in the second season, which we've been netflixing, is much improved over the first, as is the show itself, which doesn't quite rank up there with, you know, Friday Night Lights or The Wire, but it may be approaching Weeds or Rescue Me or Six Feet Under-level, and I'd definitely rank it up above Ugly Betty, which is still pretty good. Blows House or 30 Rock out of the H20, though. Haven't tried Mad Men or Army Wives yet, though they're queued up.)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ZegnocvoBU

xhuxk, Saturday, 7 June 2008 14:14 (seventeen years ago)

Daveigh Chase's "singing career," according to Wiki. (There are some other clips on youtube, notably a snippet of her singing part of "You're So Vain" to herself in another Big Love episode. She's got a gigantic voice; just never noticed it before):

Chase is also a talented singer. In 1999, she joined a small band as lead singer and took the stage as the opening act for Reba McEntire. She was picked by Steven Spielberg to sing "God Bless America" in A.I. (edited out of the final version of the film), and she sang "Holly Jolly Christmas" for the "Schools Out Christmas" album and "Tossin & Turnin" in the Oliver Beene episode "Oliver & Others". She has also sung in numerous scenes in Big Love, most notably in the episode named "The Happiest Girl" (the 10th episode in the second season) where she performs "The Happiest Girl In the Whole USA" which was written by Donna Fargo in its entirety.

(For some reason, the "in its entirety" in the blurb above makes me chuckle. I know nothing else about Donna Fargo's own singing career; was she any good?)

xhuxk, Saturday, 7 June 2008 14:33 (seventeen years ago)

(According to countryuniverse.net, Donna Fargo was actually the 36th greatest woman county singer ever; shows what I know. Search for blurb at link below):

http://countryuniverse.net/

xhuxk, Saturday, 7 June 2008 14:36 (seventeen years ago)

"Ah,m the Hah-pee-yest, gur-hurl, in the wholle, yeeww-ess-aaaahee," made me hurl. Hey guys, I'm writing a show preview on Phil Vassar, any thoughts and/or quips?

dow, Saturday, 7 June 2008 18:13 (seventeen years ago)

Ashton Shepherd went to the bottom of my pile after a day. Haven't played it again since listening many times in a row. Great voice, wonderful plush tones on record. Still turned into a nondescript smear of hack. But then again, I think Weed and Mahogany Rush reissues are better, so...

Gorge, Saturday, 7 June 2008 21:35 (seventeen years ago)

Here's hoping she'll get better advice. (Oh, I was dissing Fargo's orig "Happiest Girl," haven't heard the new cover.)

dow, Saturday, 7 June 2008 22:05 (seventeen years ago)

Well, it's obviously a noxious song from a gender-balance perspective, and I'd always assumed I hated it. So, was suprised how how hard the Big Love rendition hit me. Skippity-dooh-dah day indeed.

Haven't replayed the Ashton album much myself either (and I had major reservations about it at first, as voiced upthread), but I still like it in theory, I guess. Complained from the begininning about her somewhat exagerrated drawl; not sure if that's what Frank means by it being a new-country parody or not.

xhuxk, Saturday, 7 June 2008 22:15 (seventeen years ago)

Well, yeah, there's the drawl. It's so OTT it makes me think "speech imediment." Naw, that's a joke. But, really, would you want to hear someone singing an album at you in a Pennsy Dutch accent? It would only work for a comedy record, so what's her excuse for the exaggerated nativismus?

Time to pimp ze out-toe!

Gorge, Saturday, 7 June 2008 22:54 (seventeen years ago)

new (and last, I suppose) Hacienda Bros., Arizona Motel, doesn't go far enough in its Arizona trailer-park soul concept, but the cuts produced by Dan Penn are kinda cool--better melodies, seems like--than the others, and I like the instrumental which I think is called "Light It Again Charlie."

Old '97s I do like--but maybe the last 4-5 better than the rest. "I Will Remain" gets close enough to pop, and then there's one that reminds me of some of the psychedelic Bo Diddleyisms of the Stones' Flowers (flowers on the cover of this one)--what's that one, "Please Call Home"? I guess the way they stretch all their guitar asides and tasteful chords over what seems to me to be a rather uninteresting rhythm section concept--real straight but these guys don't want to be straight and the whole record is parodistic in a way, like their final elegiac moment is pretty distanced from itself in a weird fashion. So I guess they're pretty dry romantics in their way and still losers, which they can't keep reminding us during the record. "the color of a lonely heart is blue." However, I think the album title itself is a little lame, like, you can really "blame" everything on gravity so why not blame yourselves, boys, and that's what the title really means, seems like.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 03:44 (seventeen years ago)

and fuck, the last Old '97s song, "The One," sounds like the Records, at least the opening guitar riff. I like this music a lot, and they're really accomplished. but it's dry, for sure.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 03:49 (seventeen years ago)

I am not familiar with much of Donna Fargo's stuff, by the way. when I worked at the Tower Bookstore on West End, though, I waited on her once or twice. nice lady. but so was "Happiest Girl" like a riposte to feminists or a veiled irony...? haven't heard it in years.

went out to see Mel Tillis and the Statesiders at Midnite Jamboree, toward the end of CMA, and big crowd. he has a real band he's kept together for years, and a real good pedal steel player. his two keyboardists did an Interlude consisting of Variations on "Chariots of Fire." didn't do "Mental Revenge," though. And, not only did we get some typical stutterin' from Mel, but a Spoonerism from the wily old bastard (on live radio show), referring to a once-popular Nashville country artist: "Shelley Van Rectum"....

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 03:55 (seventeen years ago)

Thoughts on Dierks Bentley's best of CD:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/06/one-curious-tre.html#more

xhuxk, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 15:51 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, they shoulda included the great "That Don't Make It Easy." his best songs are all road songs and when he gets sentimental he's not as good, except he does have some good ones about how he's trying to get home to his sentimental baby.

have I mentioned James Intveld's Have Faith? he looks like sorta a rock 'n' roll version of Viggo Mortensen--not that Viggo in Eastern Promises ain't rock and roll. some cuts with Jordanaires (down to two I guess) backing him up, one Texas shuffle outta Ray Price and Johnny Bush, one gospel thing that seems more relaxed than what Mike Farris does, and so forth. thin voice, a little, but the kind of crass rock and roll tenor that has a smarmy bite.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 18:08 (seventeen years ago)

As I said in my prev post, the inadvertant parody of Ashton's tracks seemed to be result of fervent young lungs and accent overemphasizing shakey prefab neo-New Traditionalist schtick, esp when she goes swooping into the title phrase of "I Ain't Dead Yet," sounds like a punchline. But also as said in Old 97's post, I liked the way the performers seem intentionally kidding the starry-eyed bumpkin on several tracks, while also hepping him celebrate his Big Love trek--but then some where play it real straight, doesn't work so well (so "from good Hold Steady to bad Hold Steady," as I think I put it), but I'm talking about better to lesser Rhett Miller songs; I do kinda like the straight ballads of the other guy, because can tell it's another guy, and the "blue" one is sensuous, the kind of thing that's effective in small doses (like I didn't mind most of the moonlighting-Posies' tracks on the last Big Star). James Intveld was in the Blasters too; haven't heard that, but coud totally imagine him filling the Phil Alvin slot for awhile; since he (James) was such a hoot on the soundtrack of Crybaby. M--m-mel! Reminds me, I still gotta listen to his reissues Cary B. sent. Edd, back we were discussing Kenny and Renee,think you quoted a musician friend who referred to his former employer, "Shirley Von Rectum"...

dow, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 18:38 (seventeen years ago)

That is, the music you can hear while watching Crybaby; dunno how much made to the soundtrack album. Reminds me, I wanna get that comp, A Date With John Waters: tracks from it I've heard on radio are amazing.

dow, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 18:42 (seventeen years ago)

Taylor Swift Takes A Bow, onstage in Alabama. Painfully out of tune in spots, but I'm feeling this version a lot more than Rihanna's. The thinness of Taylor's voice adds an extra hurt to the sarcasm and sorrow.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 19:44 (seventeen years ago)

Ashton Shepherd - I've nothing in principle against exaggerated drawls, it's the undifferentiated way she seems to deploy hers, like taking a powerhouse swing at every pitch, or (to switch metaphors) spraying the broadside of her barn doors with the same swaths of paint.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 20:09 (seventeen years ago)

Donna Fargo's version of "The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA."

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 20:35 (seventeen years ago)

So is a "bojangle clock" Southern slang for an alarm clock, or was that just poetic license in the song?

Speaking of Donnas, I'm liking the new Donna the Buffalo album right now. (Better than the new Duhks.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 20:40 (seventeen years ago)

never heard the expression "bojangle clock," xhuxk. I think the Duhks were a lot better with Jessee (sp?) Havey (sp?); can't get into the new one.

I interviewed Taylor Swift for an omnibus piece I did on the CMA Fest for Nashville Scene (they put Dwight Yoakam on the cover for that week's issue). pretty sharp young lady. I also downloaded a live-in-studio thing she did at, I think, World Cafe, and she sounded pretty good. Ashton just overdoes it by my lights, but she's a good singer...

Rebecca Lynn Howard's No Rules starts out like she's a soulful white soul singer and then toward the end on stuff like "Life of a Dollar" she goes country pretty decisively. Perhaps the critique of Ashton is relevant here--she seems to overdo it and the version of "Do Right Woman-Do Right Man" makes a case for retiring that number until someone comes up with a compelling rearrangement.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 21:11 (seventeen years ago)

yeah, "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" is Scott Nolan, thanks for setting that straight, Frank. Hayes Carll does Waits/Brennan's "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" on the new one. I am surprised Xgau couldn't understand the line about Rome that starts the record off, actually. Bacchanal in Beaumont.

not exactly country--the new Steve Cropper/Felix Cavaliere, Nudge It Up a Notch. But it's quite good, far better than I would've expected, and the instrumentals really rock. Felix sounds no older than he did in 1968.

whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 21:18 (seventeen years ago)

Taylor and Kellie threaten to put a boot in someone's ass. Not my favorite lyrics, and at this point somewhat out of touch with reality.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 12 June 2008 01:05 (seventeen years ago)

Pretty sure I did a better version of that song in a karaoke place once, but fortunately nobody taped mine.

xhuxk, Thursday, 12 June 2008 03:27 (seventeen years ago)

So nothing about the Jesse James DuPree and Dixie Inc. album on here? Dude was lead singer for Jackyl and now he's going metal-country on half the disc and faux-Opry for the second half -- isn't this the Xhuxk-bait album of all time?

It ain't great but it ain't half bad.

Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 12 June 2008 04:44 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, the Taylor and Kellie "Courtesy Of The Red, White, and Blue" is pretty bad, but I thought I needed to link it so as not to give the impression that Taylor only covers hip-hop and r&b. The thing is, it's the hip-hop and r&b that she does well. She chants "You only get ONE SHOT do NOT miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes ONCE IN A LIFETIME" with total conviction. What interests me about Taylor's "Take A Bow" is that I was riveted by the lyrics of a song I'd up to then totally ignored. I tend to pay only cursory attention to r&b lyrics, though Rihanna is usually an exception. (The lyrics to "Disturbia" are quite disturbia, though enjoyably rather than disturbingly so.) Anyway, in Rihanna's "Take A Bow" the whole arrangement neutralized its effect, too full or something, so the song passed me by. But with Taylor singing it, it's suddenly in the world of adolescent infidelity and sarcasm and pain. So it's "You Can't Do That" and "Should've Said No," etc. And now I may find a way to go back and appreciate the original, now that the song's got my attention.

"Should've Said No" is Taylor's current single, which means that right now it's automatically my number one country song of the year, though that could change as I listen to more of this year's country.

I finally saw the clip of her at the ACMs: what she does with visual social signifiers is brilliant, being both 'hood and girly. And her intonation is fearless, if not always accurate.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 12 June 2008 20:29 (seventeen years ago)

Jimmy Draper tells me that the Taylor performance was all over the gossip/celeb/music blogs the next day, and I see that I read about it when Xhuxk described the ACMs upthread but somehow I didn't retain that bit in my mind, what with all the talk about LeAnn doing a stomping "Family" and Chesney poo-pooing his own award.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 12 June 2008 21:14 (seventeen years ago)

Dude was lead singer for Jackyl and now he's going metal-country on half the disc and faux-Opry for the second half -- isn't this the Xhuxk-bait album of all time?

The idea leaves one cold. If one is aiming for something, like metal-country, usually one misses. Bands which make records which coincidentally come down on the side of hard rock frequently make good records but probably not because it's just hard rock. There's a lot of room in country music for turned up guitars and drums as long as the songs are decent and the arrangements are clever.

Brad Paisley's Fifth Gear is a good example of a poppy hard rock record which is also country. Keith Urban's last one was essentially a pop and hard rock record. Both these guys like to play their guitars loud. Paisley has always had a yen for some wank, too, putting it in at the beginning of a song as intro, or on the fadeout as extended solo.

Rimes doing "Family" is hard rock in the sense Pat Benatar was, which means -- very. Same with the previous single played live. Onstage at some country fest televised last week it took on a whole lot more impact than the dancing-in-prison R&B video.

This isn't to say the guy from Jackyl hasn't made a good record. Maybe he has and just needs to get some novelty hook to hang it on.

Gorge, Saturday, 14 June 2008 17:52 (seventeen years ago)

And Jason Aldean has the Bad Company trip/dynamic copped completely. And I can stand him in only small doses which was pretty much my reaction to Bad Company when Straight Shooter was being played into the ground.

Gorge, Saturday, 14 June 2008 17:55 (seventeen years ago)

Just now posted this on

Psychedelic Country Music

Just now listening to Area 615's s/t (1969) and Trip in the Country (1970) on one disc (kindly provided by Edd Hurt), is pyschedelic enough to expand my mind enough to halfway grasp new shapes of chesnuts I'd long since really stopped hearing, whether I liked them or not: the former would include "I've Been Loving You Too Long," now on its way to the family bayou of "Jolie Blonde" (wish they'd done that too; the "not category would include "Hey Jude," which starts out with "Loving You"'s old school Cajun tinge, but then zigzags toward "Psychotic Reaction" and other nice thangs (later, way into Trip, "Gray Suit Man" is a yowling garage bust of the Man, chugging away; the bass sounds like a 10-ton jug all through both sets; the drummer is ravenous too; but also use of sustain, fuzz, mebbe Moog, bass harmonica through echo chamber? never crowd the banjo, steel, oh lord the fiddle--some great ballads too, in between the rolling panstylistic puzzle palaces) A-List Nashville Cats, kicking out more than jams, more than resumes; real-enough soul, and some originals I guess, and trad-arr.beyond the festival bait (not that it wouldn't sound great live) It's like the first time I ever heard two LPs on one of those newfangled CDs: two much man!(Made Galileo look lak uh Boy Scout. Sorry bout that, let it all hang out.) Thanks Edd!!!

-- dow, Saturday, 14 June 2008 23:16 (5 minutes ago)

dow, Sunday, 15 June 2008 04:27 (sixteen years ago)

Anthony Easton on who would have done a better version of Jessica Simpson's Come On Over

(I agree with Anthony that the song doesn't sound sexy, but I like its forcefulness and I like the song. Doubt that I'll end up caring much about it, though. Ain't no "Public Affair," where the blown-dry surface was much more inviting, actually was warm.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 15 June 2008 13:02 (sixteen years ago)

Rebecca Lynn Howard's No Rules starts out like she's a soulful white soul singer and then toward the end on stuff like "Life of a Dollar" she goes country pretty decisively.

Listened to some of this on her MySpace and live sessions she's streaming on YouTube. I wonder if the soul is aimed at AC and Triple A rather than country. Powerhouse of a voice (given her cute ordinary-girl demeanor), but the songwriting is helping her be solid but not distinctive. Strong strong sound, would rock the universe on a drunken night out, but the melodies and hooks aren't sticking. Which is to say that I don't hear a hit. "Forgive" six years ago didn't give her a distinctive persona either, but the song was a conduit for far more emotion - as a mushy pull-out-the-stops ballad, it had room to vary and breathe, sentimental quavers rising to Faith Hill climaxes.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 16 June 2008 14:34 (sixteen years ago)

"The Boxmasters are really a combination of the Beatles, the Monkees and the Turtles with Del Reeves and Buck Owens and Merle Haggard -- all put together.”

"It was everything I ever wanted to do -- which is to combine British invasion groups, the sound of the Sixties with vintage instruments and the compressors from those days and get a sound like the Beatles got but using hillbilly music..." -- Billy Bob Thornton

====
That's quite a bundle of hooie out of Billy Bob. However, as something that's Bonzo Dog Band-esque -- a humorous, sardonic and loving take on music he wishes to actually play for other people, you can get behind it. Thornton says he was into Frank Zappa & the Mothers, which one also gets if you liked Cruising With Ruben & The Jets and FZ's talent for R&B.
Of course, re Bonzo Dog Band -- The Boxmasters don't do -the English- at all, even though Billy Bob covers 'em. Basically, he gives everything a southern lower middle class/lower class style.

"The Poor House" is still my favorite song. It has the best hooks, is jaunty and you can see/hear Thornton mugging his way through the lyrics. "The Shit List" and "I'm Watchin' The Game" are also sticky. The only caveats are that often Billy Bob sounds like he's reading lyrics off a teleprompter as a karaoke-track of old-timey country band saddled with an overplaying lap steel player provides backing. Plus, most of the rhythms are built off train beats, so you gotta really like trains. Fortunately, I do.

As for getting a sound like the Beatles vintage records -- naw, that's way off base. It sounds very vintage but it doesn't sound like Beatles production. It's much darker and buried in a good deal of tape slap and reverberation that's truly Sixties but much more USA than UK.

The cover of Mott the Hoople's "Original Mixed-Up Kid" is good but his take on "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" is horrendous. Mel Tillis' "Sawmill" is decent, so's "Knoxville Girl" and a half-time version of "The Kids are All Right" definitely does not blow, either, though on paper it seems a recipe for crap.

Billy Bob's voice is very average, old time hardware store manager by day, which is, I guess, what most of the point is.

Segues clutter up the spaces between all the tracks. Some of it sounds like funeral parlor music, some old church organ, drums going off on a tangent, muttering, something that sounds like snips of dialogue from a movie which he was in, or maybe not. If Thornton wanted you to laugh and tap your feet to his record, he succeeded.

Not gonna set the world on fire but I like it a lot. Thanks, xhuxk, for sending it. It's easy the best promo copy I've heard this year, which isn't saying THAT much. But still.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/rick.jpg

Gorge, Tuesday, 17 June 2008 00:28 (sixteen years ago)

NASHVILLE, TN -- (June 18, 2008) Multi-platinum country music star, Tracy Byrd, and his long-time manager, Joe Carter, both native Texans, immediately reached out to Texas' Governor Rick Perry to offer a way to help raise funds to restore the Governor's Mansion that was severely damaged due to fire. Byrd has proposed that he and other stars that have strong Texas ties perform a benefit concert to help make sure the Mansion is restored to its once magnificent and original state. Very much like the way Tennessee volunteers came to the aid of the Alamo, he plans to recruit his friends in Music City and insure a big night of music to help fund the rebuild and to lift the spirits of fellow Texans.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 19 June 2008 04:18 (sixteen years ago)

More quotable quotes from michaeljmedia!

For Immediate Release

June 19,
2008

JOSH PRESTON FACTS AND MUSIC

Facts

RIYL: Damien Rice, Ben Gibbard, Amos Lee, Ray LaMontagne

Nashville based artist recently
released third full-length album Exit Sounds (May 13) on label he co-owns, Me and the Machine Records.

What they're saying
about Exit Sounds:

"Built upon a solemn
vocal tone and an intricate arrangement of sound, Josh Prestons third full-length recording Exit Sounds is a breathy whisper of turmoil
along a wasted waterfront of the heart. " ~ Metro Spirit (Augusta,GA)

"The throaty,
heart-wrenching hooks on Josh Preston's Exit Sounds are as plentiful and long as, well, as his beard." ~ The Deli Magazine
(Nashville)

"Mr. Preston's songs
sound like an odd cross between a more accessible Sufjan Stevens and a soft folkie version of Bob Pollard (Guided By Voices)."~
LMNOP.com

Performed at Farm Aid with John
Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Neil Young and more in 2001

dow, Thursday, 19 June 2008 20:06 (sixteen years ago)

Tom Breihan on Snoop Dog's new supposedly country single (which I don't like much) with Johnny Cash and Brad Paisley in the video, and on the "secret history of country rap." (He misses plenty of examples, but also lists a lot I never knew about):

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/statusainthood/archives/2008/06/countryrap_a_se.php

The eight-years-old-but-suddenly-a-hitlet Rehab bartender song I discuss here should qualify, too:

http://idolator.com/396464/honky+tonk-laments-horror-rap-robotic-princes-universal-haters-hawaiian-brothers-and-some-positive-soul

xhuxk, Friday, 20 June 2008 13:12 (sixteen years ago)

Also, my not-quite-a-rave on I See Hawks in L.A. (who George recently emailed me asking about, with justified skepticism. Btw, George, glad you like Boxmasters; thanks for the Casanovas and Big Balls & the Great White Idiot -- I'll check 'em out soon.)

http://www.emusic.com/album/Hallowed-Ground-Hallowed-Ground-MP3-Download/11198482.html

xhuxk, Friday, 20 June 2008 13:24 (sixteen years ago)

It smacked of standard indie, extra points awarded for over clever lyrics from poverty-case nerds in snoods, knit caps and winterwear in LA. Actually, I thought it would have been a natural for emusic. It tends to like the stuff which trades on presumed/faux IQ for everything else.

Gorge, Friday, 20 June 2008 14:50 (sixteen years ago)

Thoughts on the new Montgomery Gentry album:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/06/montgomery-gent.html#more

xhuxk, Thursday, 26 June 2008 15:45 (sixteen years ago)

Thanks for posting that Montgomery Gentry link. I agree with your take, like that "Long Line of Losers" is one of the best songs and "God Knows Who I Am" the most boring. Actually "God Knows..." might be the only song on the album I'm not that into. Most of it is great. The chorus on "Now You're Talkin" sometimes bugs me, like they're trying too hard with it, but I sing along, so it mustn't bug me too much.

Here's my review of it, for what its worth:
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/reviews/article/59628/montgomery-gentry-back-when-i-knew-it-all/

erasingclouds, Thursday, 26 June 2008 18:36 (sixteen years ago)

I'll have to check that link, right after this important question: wasn't there some discussion on here of Auto-Tune? Sasha writes about in June 9 & 16 double issue of New Yorker: it was mostly discreetly used until Cher brought it out of the closet in "Believe" (thought that was vocoder); now the manual refers to The Cher Effect-which is setting the damn thing's response rate at 0 seconds, thus causing a robotic warble (by eliminating the slide between pitches which is the basis of the human sound:"thus the lolling curves of the human voice" are turned into a series of "right-angle turns")But also it can be overloaded a little, indicating histrionic potential of the robot, cool enough. I dunno about overt usage in country though? (Also in this issue, "Tits Up In The Ditch, " short story by Annie Proulx, who wrote the short story or stories Brokeback Mountain was based on, and may have written screenplay too--I haven't read "Tits" yet, but did read "Don't Cry," goodun by Mary Gaitskill, who it sez also reads one by Nabokov on the New Yorker site, but I dunno if it's the same Nabokov in print issue, first time in English) Also, here's some more of Toby's kids, anybody heard 'em?

CARTER'S CHORD ALBUM & SINGLE RELEASE SPARK SALES, VIDEO & MEDIA ACTION
Singing Sisters on Toby Keith's "Biggest & Baddest" Tour This Summer
Celebrate Release With Sold Out Benefit Show For Nashville's Safe Haven

(Nashville) The June 17 digital release of the self-titled debut album from
Carter's Chord sisters Becky, Emily & Joanna Robertson on Show Dog
Nashville has earned the singing and songwriting trio immediate response in
the marketplace and media. Within a mere two days after its release, the
album hit #5 on the iTunes country albums sales chart. iTunes is also
featuring the act's just-released single "Different Breed" as its weekly
Discovery Download.

Meanwhile, the video for "Different Breed" debuted on CMT Pure Country's
Pure 12 Pack show at #3, as voted on by the channel's viewers. The clip
gives viewers a behind the scenes look at Carter¹s Chord on the road and in
the studio making their album with co-producer Toby Keith. It also
illuminates this modern country act's outlaw roots, showing the sisters
hanging with Waylon Jennings, who their father Barny Robertson and mother
Carter Robertson toured with during the height of the outlaw movement and in
the last years of his life, and with whom Becky, Emily and Joanna made their
major label recording debut back in 1998 singing on his album of country
music for kids, Cowboys, Sisters, Rascals & Dirt.

The media has also been weighing in with good words for Carter's Chord.
"What you¹ll hear with this CD is some of the purest, clearest female voices
in country music today," raves the review in Good Times Phoenix written by
Ray Massie, also program director for the Phoenix country station KNIX. "The
girls' harmonies and sounds will conjure memories of The Judds, and maybe a
bit of the Dixie Chicks. The new self-titled CD ranges from the sweet sounds
of 'Young Blood' to the kicking Chicks-like song 'Different Breed.' Great
cuts in addition are the powerfully painful 'Goodbye Song' and fun,
whimsical cut 'Boys Like You (Give Love A Bad Name).' This CD is one you
need to hear." On the first date of Keith's "Biggest & Baddest" tour, the
Birmingham News noted the "potential" of the group "with good, tight vocals
and definite visual appeal."

To celebrate their album release, Carter's Chord decided to make the event a
benefit for their chosen charity: Nashville's Safe Haven, a nonprofit
shelter for homeless families that helps them find stable employment and
housing. The June 16 gala on the eve of release at Douglas Corner in
Nashville sold out, and featured among its guest performers the Waymore
Blues Band Jennings's old back-up band, who became part of the sisters'
extended family when they moved to Nashville in their early teens from
Southern California, where they were born and spent their childhood.

Carter's Chord were literally born into and raised within music, and signed
by Toby Keith to his Show Dog Nashville label immediately after he saw them
perform at a Valentine's Day 2006 showcase. Keith co-produced their album
with the sisters' Grammy-winning father Barny. It features five songs
written individually and collectively by Becky, Emily and Joanna as well as
a song written by their mother Carter whose inspiration to the sisters is
reflected in the trio's name.

Carter's Chord "Biggest & Baddest Tour" dates with Toby Keith:

27-Jun Cruzan Amphitheater West Palm Beach, FL
28-Jun Ford Amphitheatre Tampa, FL
10-Jul Cricket Pavilion Phoenix, AZ
11-Jul Coors Amphitheatre Chula Vista, CA
12-Jul Glen Helen Pavilion San Bernardino, CA
13-Jul Craven Jamboree Craven, Saskatchewan
18-Jul Clark County Amphitheater Portland, OR
19-Jul White River Amphitheater Seattle, WA
20-Jul Spokane Arena Spokane, WA
24-Jul Mid State Fair Paso Robles, CA
25-Jul Shoreline Amphitheater Mountain View, CA
26-Jul Mandalay Bay Event Center Las Vegas, NV
27-Jul Harvey's Amphitheatre Lake Tahoe, NV
31-Jul Verizon Wireless Amphitheater St Louis, MO
1-Aug First Midwest Bank Amphitheater Chicago, IL
2-Aug Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Indianapolis, IN
3-Aug Post Gazette Pavilion Pittsburgh, PA
8-Aug Toyota Pavilion Scranton, PA
9-Aug Nissan Pavilion Washington, DC
10-Aug Meadows Music Center Hartford, CT
15-Aug Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Virginia Beach, VA
16-Aug Susquehanna Center Philadelphia, PA
17-Aug Tweeter Center Boston, MA
21-Aug Crawford County Fair Meadville, PA
22-Aug PNC Bank Arts Center Holmdel, NJ
23-Aug Darien Lakes Arts Center Darien Lake, NY
28-Aug NY State Fair Syracuse, NY
29-Aug Great Allentown Fair Allentown, PA
30-Aug Champlain Valley Expo Essex Junction, VT
1-Sep Minnesota State Fair St. Paul, MN
5-Sep Superpages.com Center Dallas, TX
6-Sep Cynthia Woods Pavilion Houston, TX
7-Sep Verizon Wireless Amphitheater San Antonio, TX
11-Sep Lakewood Amphitheater Atlanta, GA
12-Sep Riverbend Music Center Cincinnati, OH
13-Sep Blossom Music Center Cleveland, OH
14-Sep DTE Energy Center Detroit, MI
18-Sep Journal Pavilion Albuquerque, NM
19-Sep Fiddler's Green Amphitheater Denver, CO
20-Sep USANA Amphitheater Salt Lake City, UT

-30-

dow, Friday, 27 June 2008 02:48 (sixteen years ago)

recently interviewed Jamey Johnson for a piece on his forthcoming That Lonesome Song, which, yeah, is quite possibly the strongest country record I've heard to date this year. Lotta unexpected musical touches, a very surprising almost meditative air, and definitely in the mold of Waylon Jennings circa Dreaming My Dreams (JJ does two cuts off that record). Stone country, with my fave definitely "Mowing Down Roses." Just great, and he has the best sorta fellow-traveler/Manson beard I've seen. Very impressive.

New Glen Campbell, Meet Glen Campbell, works best when the songs fit him best, which I don't think happens on "Time of Your Life" but does on "Walls" (Petty) and "Sadly Beautiful." Big super-pop with Campbell's guitar making its statements, but while I think this is an honorable effort, his voice sounds somehow...fried, cynical, something like that, at times.

The Boxmasters ultimately struck me as a (not terribly accurate) joke--lousy drumming, I must say, kinda like the Byrds at their worst or the Beau Brummels. Better is The Baseball Project, with Peter Buck and buddies doing up "Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays" just fine.

Saw Chuck Prophet play last weekend, and he didn't do any of Dreaming Waylon's Dreams. But he has a Nashville pedigree, I found out--he wrote a top-40 country hit, "I'm Gone," for Cyndi Thomson, back in '02. With Kim Richey. He didn't do that either, but he can flat play guitar and while some of the Soap and Water material runs outta steam live--the repetition he's going for mostly works, but me I like concision--he did one he wrote with Kim Carnes here in town, "Just to See You Smile," which was real Brill Building pop.

I'm trying to figure out, btw, the evolution of "Casey Jones," which Prophet does aka "Waymore's Blues" on the Waylon re-creation. The 1928 Furry Lewis original doesn't contain the lyrics about how you gotta wear a T-I-E when you go to heaven when you D-I-E, but Furry's version in '69 on Fourth and Beale does. And I don't have a copy of the Memphis Jug Band's "On the Road Again" and can't remember if it's the same tune; Jim Dickinson did it in the early '70s as "Casey Jones (On the Road Again)." Anyway, what a great fucking song in all its versions.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 27 June 2008 03:43 (sixteen years ago)

and I don't get Alejandro Escovedo, or, rather, don't get the love for the guy. new one is a good Tony Visconti production, with echoes of later Bowie throughout, but Real Animal suggests John Cale trying to turn into Bruce Springsteen--kinda like one of the scenes in the '70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the metamorphosis takes place and you're uneasy. I guess it rocks, but for me, Escovedo simply doesn't have the voice to carry it off, just sounds like another guy with a track record he might or might not think is representative, and another rock and roll "victim" or whatever. Listenable, but to me, real one-dimensional.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 27 June 2008 04:07 (sixteen years ago)

Real smart MG writeup, erasingclouds (way less sketchy than mine, too); if I have time, I'll comment on it in more detail one of these days....

Don, coincidentally enough, a writeup I did on Carter's Chord (along w/ Georgia Southern rockers Zac Brown Band and Yugoslav-to-Amsterdam blues guitar lady Ana Popovic) just went up this morning:

http://idolator.com/397284/twangy-tweens-history+making-axe-grinders-chicken-fried-songwriters-solitary-power-metal-arcade+fired-bleeps-and-lyrics-that-use-the-word-myspace-as-a-verb

Edd, I'm skeptical of all things R.E.M.-related, but I wouldn't mind hearing that baseball project album! (Also just realized yesteday that I've never actually heard "A Dying Cub's Fan's Last Request" by Steve Goodman, though I've heard about it all my life. The Boxmasters' baseball song is one of my faves, though. As is their art song -- not as good as Terry Allen's, but still really funny. By the way, just rented the 1970 movie Two Lane Blacktop starring James Taylor from Netflix a couple days ago, and managed to stay awake through at least 3/4 of it. Was surprised to hear "Truckload of Art" in it; I didn't realize that song even existed before the late '70s; had Allen released it on an earlier LP, before Lubbock on Everything?) Also (Edd) I wouldn't mind hearing the new Hacienda Bros, come to think of it. If you have a minute to email me publicity contacts, I'd be much obliged.

Also, if anyone's at all interested, I talk about some country (and way more other super cheap) LPs I crate-dug recently at the bottom of this thread, and will probably discuss more soon. (Not sure why I never checked out Millie Jackson before; she's amazing, and way more country than I'd realized):

Rolling "I'd Buy That for a Dollar!" Thread 2008

xhuxk, Friday, 27 June 2008 18:40 (sixteen years ago)

There it goes again, gotta get those advances in before before the record's in the mass market store it's aimed at. Went to BestBuy yesterday with a friend yesterday to make recommendations on his buying a computer and was the Montgomery Gentry CD there?

Nope, of course not.

Gorge, Friday, 27 June 2008 19:11 (sixteen years ago)

so listened to the new Glen Campbell again. I guess he sounds bruised to me, but good and I suppose even spiritual on "Jesus," which I reckon is actually the best song here. The arrangements do mimic the Al DeLory charts of yore and there's some big "Galveston"-style moves. So, pretty good 33 minutes of pop-country. I don't understand why Capitol didn't make 'im do Campbell Sings Toussaint, though. Campbell doing "God Must Have Blessed America" and then follow up with "What Is Success," now there's a statement on the man's career--which this obviously plays on, our memories of fresh-faced Glen and then the coked-up dude who fucked Tanya Tucker and then went to Branson. Campbell, I always though, was one of those guys who really had it and still has it (his guitar playing on those great Reprise Everly Brothers tracks mid-'60s is something else), so, good to hear something this good from him at this late date.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 27 June 2008 20:29 (sixteen years ago)

Did a good hit version of Toussaint's "Southern Nights" too, in the mid-70s wasn't it?

dow, Friday, 27 June 2008 23:56 (sixteen years ago)

On the subject of pop singers crossing over country

Interesting list in R.J Curtis's column in the new issue of R&R, courtesy of Jim Murphy, VP of country media for Jones Radio Networks (responding to concern that three of this year's biggest new artists for the country radio format seem destined to be Jewel, Jessica Simpson, and Hootie): "Conway Twitty, Brenda Lee, Charlie Rich, John Denver, Bobby Bare, Michael Martin Murphy, Dan Seals [aka England Dan], Jerry Wallace, Jim Ed Brown, Mac Davis, BJ Thomas, Elvis, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Kenny Rogers...all of thee singers had their first, substantial success as pop acts before having enjoyed some measure of success in the country format." (A sidebar put together by Wade Jessen also lists Billy Joe Royal, George Hamilton IV, Michael Johnson, Ray Stevens, Tom Jones, Exile, Roy Orbison, the Charlie Daniels Band, Olivia Newton-John, Bobby Goldsboro, Wanda Jackson, and Sheb Wooley, and talks about Emilio crossing over from Regional Mexican.)

And while on the subject of Charlie Rich (again), this is from an email I sent to Edd this morning:

Actually bought a copy of Charlie's *Lonely Weekends* LP for $2 a couple weeks ago, same day I bought that Millie LP *Get It Outcha System* (or however she spells it) for the same amount. So yeah, I'm still trying to explore him. Anyway, *Lonely Weekends* is great, though I'm still a little stumped by how blatant an Elvis imitator he was so often early on. Maybe to be expected, though; who wouldn't have done that, if they could? And he doesn't do it all the time -- I really like the jazzier cuts. And "Sittin and Thinkin" (a song I actually first heard on Elvis Costello's *Almost Blue*, of all places) sounds like the Drifters to me..

Now playing Southwind's 1970 *What a Place To Land*, another $2 purchase from the same day. The totally look like a hipster country band. Never heard them before, and it's better than I would have guessed, judging from blandness accusations in old Marsh and Xgau record guide books. Favorite songs are the more pub-rocky ones, like "Back in the Band" and "Dynamite," that remind me of Moon Martin's solo stuff from a decade or so later. "Buzz Me" on now; has metal/boogie guitar imitating a bumblebee; cool.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 20:50 (sixteen years ago)

A great twofer of his tracks from that era is Fully Realized, so titled (and issued at all, maybe) cos Guralnick reckoned it was the must f.r. he'd done up to that point, in the early 70s, and some of it is among his very best ever, turns, out. "Live Has Its Little Ups and Downs" is one of my faves by anybody, like the way he wails/bites down on "She wears a GOLD ring, on her fin-ger," then carefully on down the side of the mountain, "and I'm so glad she's mine," and he means it, but what a cost to them both. Ditto the ambush wheelin' round the corner at the beginning of of "WellAhmakeitallRIGHT--from Monday mornin' to-ah Friday night--but oh. Those lonely weekends." "Field Of Yellow Daisies" too, dang. Elvis meets Spector? If not Phil then Abner (as in "Sally Go Round The Roses, " and Charlie shoulda covered that).

dow, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 02:28 (sixteen years ago)

My review of the new Reckless Kelly album:

http://www.emusic.com/album/Bulletproof-Bulletproof-MP3-Download/11220457.html

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 20:04 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, I found Reckless' new one a bit lacking in the detail dept., as Chuck says. but good, if not as good as Wicked Twisted Road, which seemed to me some great mean of abstraction and roadhouse go-get-'em, maybe because of Ray Kennedy's production. and Willy Braun's deadpan way with a lyric about kidnapping, bank robbery and other fun pursuits. for me, the best song on the new one is "Godforsaken Town," which ought to go up there with McMurtry 's "Hurricane Party."

new Jerry Douglas, Glide, is the usual ECM-blewgrass amalgam, and I guess these records really do work like some Pat Metheny record with Lyle Mays, for their audience. which isn't me; I got bored four tracks in, altho Travis Tritt sings "A Marriage Made in Hollywood" quite well, and "Route Irish" sounds tough-minded, even kinda bluesy. the well-temperedness of the whole thing just drags me.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 21:35 (sixteen years ago)

that said, Jerry Douglas can play and might even, like a jazz player, have something to say. "Sway" (not the Stones song) sounds like a forgotten 19th-century summer holiday, with old-fashioned drum rolls. and I dunno, one wonders about the love given to a guitarist like John Fahey, who had great ideas but of course, technically far inferior to Douglas...seems Douglas is operating close to that level of give-us-back-what-we-already-have with his virtuosity and his "taste" (yeecch, what's this, Dixieland horns...??).

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 21:40 (sixteen years ago)

So, after half a year, my favorite country albums so far of 2008 shape up something like this, I guess:

1. Jamey Johnson – That Lonesome Song (Mercury)
2. Woodbox Gang – Drunk As Dragons (Alternative Tentacles)
3. Dolly Parton – Backwoods Barbie (Dolly)
4. Ross Johnson – Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson (Goner)
5. Phil Vassar – Prayer Of A Common Man (Universal)
6. Montgomery Gentry – Back When I Knew It All (Columbia)
7. Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
8. Trent Willmon – Broken In (Compadre)
9. The Boxmasters – The Boxmasters (Vanguard)
10. Mechanical Bull – A Million Yesterdays (Woodstock Musicworks ‘07)

11. Trailer Choir – Trailer Choir EP (Show Dog Nashville)
12. James McMurtry – Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod)
13. Heidi Newfield – What Am I Waiting For (Curb/Asylum)
14. Sugarland – Love On The Inside (Mercury)
15. Kathleen Edwards -- Asking For Flowers (Zoe)
16. The Mother Truckers – Let’s All Go To Bed (Funzao)
17. Ashton Shepherd – Sounds So Good (MCA Nashville)
18. Keith Anderson – C’Mon (Columbia)
19. Reckless Kelly – Bulletproof (Yep Roc)
20. Hayes Carll – Trouble In Mind (Lost Highway)

I assume people still aren't considering the Hold Steady county, and I'm not convinced they've got much country in them myself, though I won't be at all surprised if they get a few Nashville Scene poll votes this year anyway. Regardless, I think their new one is their worst album. (If I did count it as country, I'd probably slide it between Sugarland and Kathleen Edwards on that list.)

Drawing a blank with the new Hacienda Brothers CD so far -- doubly sad, given the April 17 death by liver cancer of singer Chris Gaffney. Who sang real well. I'll keep trying; the album understandly feels more downbeat than the previous two that I'd heard. Just not sure how inspired the songs are, at this point.

And can't even pretend I've tried to keep up with country singles this year (only saw CMT for a few days in a hotel room in April, and don't listen to the radio), but off the top of my head, probably missing a ton and a half of stuff, a top ten country singles list for the first half of '08 might be:

1. Miley Cyrus – “See You Again”
2. Kid Rock – "All Summer Long"
3. Runrig – “Clash Of The Ash”
4. Rehab – “Sittin’ At A Bar (Bartender Song)”
5. Emily West – “Rocks In Your Shoes”
6. Phil Vassar – “Love Is a Beautiful Thing”
7. Kathleen Edwards – “I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory”
8. Amanda Shaw – “Pretty Runs Out”
9. Sarah Johns - "He Hates Me”
10. Brooks & Dunn - "Cowboy Town"

And in case I decided to disqualify a couple of those (like, Miley and Runrig and Rehab maybe):

11. Montgomery Gentry – “Back When I Knew It All”
12. Taylor Swift – Should’ve Said No”
13. Lost Trailers – “Holler Back”
14. Sugarland featuring Little Big Town and Jake Owen – “Life In A Northern Town”
15. Toby Keith – “She’s A Hottie”

(Actually, that single list is totally in flux -- looking at it, I'm thinking I'm almost definitely overrating Rehab and underrating Lost Trailers, plus there's a good chance I might wind up liking the new Sugarland single, "All I Want To Do," more than their Dream Academy cover. We'll see what happens.)

And I'm rooting for Texican-American Gabe Garcia on Nashville Star (which I've just started watching the past couple weeks.) This week he did Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive"; clip below:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9pR_-zR886s

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 22:29 (sixteen years ago)

(Also, grrr, left off the Jamey Johnson single, which is good. And haven't heard the Emily West album yet. And I'm way behind on Leann Rimes. Etc...)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 22:48 (sixteen years ago)

George raised a question on the rolling hard rock thread that also seems relevant here; I didn't have a very good answer, but maybe somebody else will...

I'm out-of-gas on the zombie rockabilly shtick/fetish. What's the root of that, anyway? It's an image that needs to be taken behind the shed and put down.

Good question. Never had any use for that idiotic shtick, not 30 years ago when the Cramps (I assume) invented it and not now, but strangely enough, it often seems to come (even now) with energetic music attached. (The "good question," though, is how rockabilly first became associated with zombies and monster movies -- where did the Cramps get that from in the first place? It's not like early rockabilly was especially horror-obsessed, was it? Hasil Adkins, maybe? Screamin' Jay Hawkins never rockabillied, right? How 'bout Screaming Lord Sutch?)

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 July 2008 15:03 (sixteen years ago)

I don't think it's rockabilly per se that got associated with monster movies and horror flicks; I think it's the guitar moves that you hear in stuff like Link Wray, Duane Eddy maybe, certainly some rockabilly maybe, but more like surf guitar and generalized late-'50s/early-'60s blues licks and Nelson Riddle scores (the whole noir trip as expressed by, say Peter Gunn theme). that kinda creepy-sounding, flatted-fifth guitar lick the Cramps used a lot. Also, juvenile-delinquent movies like High School Confidential (where the heroin pusher's music of choice is jazz and when the narc, played by Russ Tamblyn, is discovered by "Mr. A." (Jackie Coogan!), Coogan tells "Bix," his louche, louche sidekick/fixer, "Tell the band to play a loud number..."). That whole scene, what they used to call "psychotronic." Monster movies, horror flicks, beach flicks, rock and roll, and like I said, that guitar move which has little to do with classic rockabilly. I chalk it up to the confusion folks have about things like "jump blues" and "rockabilly" and so forth, they got them all mashed up in their heads. I think the Cramps were on the cutting edge of this, and it could be that Lux Interior and Poison Ivy invented a lot of the human-fly/monster/vampire shit that is now seen as trash-rock orthodoxy. Record collectors, really. So maybe it's just a more generalized pre-Beatles animosity to all things arty or whatever in "pop culture." My friend Mike McCarthy in Memphis made a film about an Elvis-like character, Johnny Two-Note, complete with all the tropes: roving lesbians, nudies, rock and roll, Memphis, rockabilly and that essential animosity toward all things arty, did I already mention that? For that matter, "Human Fly," was that a Cramps original or was that some obscure rockabilly song? I have do doubt there are rockabilly tunes about monsters and creepy things or even atomic mutations (Carl Perkins' "Tennessee" celebrates the state by reminding us that the first atomic bomb was made right here in Tennessee!!). I don't collect rockabilly myself, and while I like bad movies as much as anyone, I don't collect them too much either. But I bet there are some weird rockabilly-type kinda songs of that nature out there somewhere.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 3 July 2008 17:59 (sixteen years ago)

George from hard rock thread, on same topic:

I always thought the Cramps got their look from the Munsters TV show which I don't recall featuring zombies. They also had someone who looked a little like Lurch from the Addams Family. I never thought Lurch was a zombie. The Cramps did not have the irritating speed-addict jitterbugging quality that most of them bring now.

Screaming Lord Sutch was copying Hawkins but that was only for part of his second record and may have actually been recorded at a Halloween show, so I'd have to check. Since he was backed up by members of Deep Purple and Mott the Hoople on that record, there was no rockabilly. With Blackmore on guitar, it sounded like DP, like the first Sutch record sounded like Zeppelin was the backing band, which it was -- sort of.

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 July 2008 18:38 (sixteen years ago)

I watched an awful lot of B-movie horror as a kid. In Pennsyltucky, there was thing called Chiller Theatre (was it nationwide or just regional?). And all the cheap B&W, and later -- color -- horror movies never had rockabilly music in them. Or even Fifties rock. Did "The Blob" have teen rock in it? Nope, not really although the opening theme was a catchy tune ("Beware the Blob").

What the movies did have was cheapo electronic stuff and stock orchestral stuff copped from watching "The Outer Limits." Some of it, maybe a lot, was inspired by the use of the theremin or whatever it was in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" when Gort was onscreen.

And I don't remember "Night of the Living Dead" having any music. That was just shock value filmmaking.

The campy music in zombie movies didn't show up until the Eighties, particularly the movie where the punk rockers are partying in the graveyard next to the medical supply house with the old chemical weapon that activates corpses. (Specifically, that was 45 Grave's "Partytime" and Roky Erickson's "Burn the Flames" which are cheezy and appropriate but not rockabilly.) After that it was something of a fad until the more current remakes which have taken the genre back to brutality and contagion. The music's more likely to be death metal or something Slipknot derived.

I watched the Billy Jack stuff with great attention, too, and it wasn't there amid the outlaw bikers.

But back to the regular channel.

Gorge, Thursday, 3 July 2008 19:22 (sixteen years ago)

Does "Monster Mash" with Boris Karloff constitute rockabilly? I thought that was more like doo-wop vocal and organ music.

Gorge, Thursday, 3 July 2008 19:25 (sixteen years ago)

Hmm, maybe I can almost see it with surf music which had to have Fender amplifier reverb all over the guitars. When it's laid on with a trowel, depending on the riff or melody, it can have an eerie quality.

Gorge, Thursday, 3 July 2008 19:27 (sixteen years ago)

Don't remember Chiller Theatre, but in Detroit we had Sir Graves Ghastly, and (from Cleveland) the Ghoul, plus I think something called Creature Feature -- all on UHF stations, I assume, and all geared campily to old b&w '50s and '60s fright kitsch long before the Cramps came along. But yeah, Edd's right, there were maybe some examples in rockabilly, at least from a sci-fi ream -- Billy Lee Riley's "Flying Saucers Rock 'N Roll," at least. And "It Came Out Of The Sky," though that was later (assuming Fogerty wrote it -- it wasn't a cover version itself, was it?) And probably a smattering of songs about the bomb. And by the mid '80s record collectors were dredging up all these obscure hack local '60s garage punk bands with names like (I'm pretty sure!) the Munsters or whatever, and sticking them on compilations called Back From The Grave. But it's bizarre to pretend that horror-kitsch was ever '60s garage punk's, or '50s rockabilly's, main theme; seems to me it was something happening deep in those genre's margins, if at all. Mostly it was just something bands like the Cramps (who I liked, by the way, until their own shtick started running dry) applied to the music later -- and maybe, yeah, like Edd said: Rockbilly/garage and horror kitsch were deemed to fit together under the umbrella "trashy pop culture," in retrospect, even if they had basically nothing to do with each other to begin with. (Sounds like an EMP proposal, maybe.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 July 2008 19:59 (sixteen years ago)

Does "Monster Mash" with Boris Karloff constitute rockabilly?

I never thought of it as rockabilly myself, but it was huge (#1 hit in 1972, #10 in 1973, and on the radio every year), so it probably figures here. And I just checked Joel Whitburn's book, which says Pickett's Crypt-Kickers consisted of Leon Russell, Johnny MacCrae from Ronny and the Daytonas, and some guy from a band called the Bermudas, etc., so sounds like there might at least be some kind of country/rockabilly /surf connection there of some sort. (What did "Dinner With Drac" by John "The Cool Ghoul" Zacherle sound like? Went to #6 in 1958... Whitburn says he hosted horror movies on Philly TV!)

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 July 2008 20:08 (sixteen years ago)

Oops, "Monster Mash" went #1 in 1962, then #10 in 1973, I meant. The song that wouldn't go away -- or kept rising from the dead, as it were. (Hit the Top 100 twice in between those years, too.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 July 2008 20:12 (sixteen years ago)

What's kind of weird is that the biggest monster/horror/zombie kitsch pop hit of the early '80s, by about a million miles, was obviously Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (even bigger than Whodini's "Haunted House of Rock"!) You'd think the neo-garagers and neo-billies would've done anything to escape possible association with Michael, but by 1982 the psychobilly train had already left the station, and maybe it was just too late to turn back.

xhuxk, Thursday, 3 July 2008 20:23 (sixteen years ago)

like, what is that guitar bit on "Brand New Cadillac" (the Clash tune--and was that a Vince Taylor tune? I have this compilation of '60s Scopitones and a lot of it's not that compelling; well, it's always interesting and both tres chic (cute French girls twistin' to "What'd I Say") and looks like it was shot in San Diego (two topless white girls on this stairwell dancing away with the black r&b dudes on the lower steps of the stairwell, obviously "transgressive" [and where, on what Scopitone jukebox, in America could you have even played this one? so, for the foreign market...?). Anyway, Vince Taylor is the only performer in these Scopitones to eat up the screen, he's like Elvis but some kind of spidery, slinky, self-amused freak version, definitely the influence Bryan Ferry and Bowie have mentioned. So stuff like that, for the visual image. and I mean, for all I know, the Batman TV series theme is a huge influence on all this. I do like the Cramps, actually, and have to say that Poison Ivy truly play some tasty guitar, and that her style is kind of an amalgam of a lot of different ways of playing that might just sum up a good part of this shtick.

didn't Fogerty write "It Came Out of the Sky"? One of the best Creedence songs.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 3 July 2008 20:29 (sixteen years ago)

Since Batman was entirely camp, something which utterly defines the rockabilly zombies, on that basis -- I'd have to say I agree.

Gorge, Thursday, 3 July 2008 20:35 (sixteen years ago)

speaking of shticks many wish would quit holding over and just go away, Scrapomatic's Sidewalk Caesars is a blues record, if slightly avant-, and stuff like "I Want the Truth" plays like good blues; it's paced well and guitars are just laconic enough and they even know how to make a one-chord section work great. Later on, they make like many a '70s group who hit all the bases, from blues to country, with some decent country-influenced stuff that's not too hokey, if sung with a bit too much vigor in some spots. So I guess it's the same with blues and rockabilly, you learn the licks and they never really go away.

For that matter, Roky Erickson fits in the Rockabilly Question somewhere, I'd say. There are people who maintain that Texas rockabilly was the real deal, just like there are fans who think it actually began and ended with...Charlie Feathers, or Ersel Hickey.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 3 July 2008 20:37 (sixteen years ago)

"What did "Dinner With Drac" by John "The Cool Ghoul" Zacherle sound like?"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BqXWV3Aio2o

scott seward, Thursday, 3 July 2008 20:38 (sixteen years ago)

Thoughts on the Boxmasters:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/billy-bobs-boxm.html

xhuxk, Thursday, 10 July 2008 20:17 (sixteen years ago)

So far digging Giant Sand's proVision (Sept. 2): , perkin' in the heat, bootheelin' past the charred traffic jam and through the ghost town saloon (skeleton of David Bowie calls the steps out there). One mainly for the fan club I reckon, but Gelb and his Danish compadres don't really need guests Isobelle Campbell, Neko Case, M. Ward or so it seems.

dow, Friday, 11 July 2008 00:12 (sixteen years ago)

Oh! Has anybody heard the new Willie/Wynton set? I really wanna check that, there's a review of it in this week's Voice, the online edition anyway (rat next to my take on Patti Smith & Kevin Shields's The Coral Sea, but no way is that country so later)

dow, Friday, 11 July 2008 00:19 (sixteen years ago)

Nope. I enjoyed Guy Clark for free at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in DC down near the Washington Monument. Mostly a greatest 'hits' sets, even down to him introducing some songs with the same one-liners he used on his '97 live cd Keepers. James Hand was mostly real traditional although a Buddy Holly-esque song was my fave.

Other Texas performers that were included:
Asleep at the Wheel (Austin, TX)
-- Marcia Ball (Austin, TX)
-- CJ Chenier (Houston, TX)
-- Guy Clark (Nashville, TN -- originally from Texas)
-- Conjunto Los Angeles del Sur (La Feria, TX)
-- Joe Ely (Austin, TX) & Joel Guzman (Kyle, TX)
-- Fiddlin' Frenchie Burke (Lytle, TX)
-- The Gillette Brothers (Crockett, TX)
-- Mark Halata and Texavia (Houston, TX)
-- James Hand (Tokio, TX)
-- Terri Hendrix (San Marcos, TX) & Lloyd Maines (Austin, TX)
-- The Jones Family Singers (Markham, TX)
-- Tutu Jones and Soul Crew (Dallas, TX)
-- Les Amis Creole (Beaumont, TX)
-- Little Joe y la Familia (Temple, TX)
-- Los Texmaniacs (San Antonio, TX)
-- Mariachi Los Arrieros (El Paso, TX)
-- Augie Meyers (San Antonio, TX)
-- Jody Nix & The Texas Cowboys (Big Spring, TX)
-- The Original Soul Invaders (Industry, TX)
-- The Quebe Sisters Band (Burleson, TX)
-- Texas Johnny Brown (Houston, TX)
-- Charles Thibodeaux & the Austin Cajun Aces (Austin, TX)

curmudgeon, Friday, 11 July 2008 12:29 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, don't rub it in 'bout Texas (wonder of any of that stuff will ever be on the Smithsonian Folkways download page? Our fees making it a track by track benefit show). Saw Willie with Wynton's group last night, doing "Bright Lights Big City." Good to hear Mickey Raphael's harmonica in with the standard jazz combo, but Willie's moves to double, triple time and back in the pocket made the Marsalii disappear. Hope the album's better (and not like TV sound's that reliable anyway), but I sure wish he'd had at least Bobbie on keys--and Johnny Gimble's fiddle, and--and--can't help comparing them to Cyrus Chestnut, James Carter, Marc Ribot backing Madeleine Peyroux on "Walking After Midnight" without showboating, coasting or tailgating the original version.

dow, Friday, 11 July 2008 23:38 (sixteen years ago)

I couldn't get it to work the one time I tried, but a couple of the evening shows involving some of the Texas acts are available here for free:

http://www.globalsound.org/2008_festival_webcast.aspx

The Original Soul Invaders gospel act was awesome. The one video of them on youtube does not convey the true power of their mixture of gospel wailing lead vocals, funk and old-school electric rhythm guitar, deep bottom, and backing harmonies.

Other highlights: Conjunto Los Angeles del Sur (La Feria, TX) doing a cumbia version of "She's About a Mover," and Mariachi Los Arrieros (El Paso, TX) with tons of fiddles and horns leaving the stage and spreading out on the floor under the tent...

curmudgeon, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:28 (sixteen years ago)

Wow, thanks curmudgeon, I'll check that out! You might well dig some of the music discussed on this thread, and "disccuing" is def (sic) in the title.Hopefully the already OOP LP-only Life Is A Problem is still downloadable via the link McG. the liner noter posted here too)it's on ILE: The Thread for Disccuing The amazing Life Is A Problem comp,or do an ILX Search on the exact phrase Life Is A Problem.

dow, Saturday, 12 July 2008 05:28 (sixteen years ago)

Whoahh--just heard Willie & Wynton on Weekend Edition of All Things Considered: mostly interview, with excerpts of studio and live tracks, but the ensemble sounded much hotter than prev TV. (Also, I finally heard Karen Dalton, on Morning All Things:like a tough ol hillBillie-no wonder young Bobby Dylan and many others were in awe, and sometimes fear)

dow, Saturday, 12 July 2008 22:45 (sixteen years ago)

My Willie/Wynton Blender review (album should easily have been in my 2008 c&w albums top 20 so far btw):

http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=5208

xhuxk, Sunday, 13 July 2008 03:56 (sixteen years ago)

Wow cool. I do still wanna get his Chesney set too. One way or another, Willie still delivers the goods at least once a year (yeah that's what she said, and truly).

dow, Sunday, 13 July 2008 08:09 (sixteen years ago)

listening to the Vibrations do Allman's "Midnight Rider" this morning Nice. What I've heard of Willie and Wynton sounds all right; Wynton economical and Willie more demonstrative. I
like Darrell Scott's new Modern Hymns OK--gospelly voices support vaguely bluegrassy performances of Hoyt Axton, Guy Clark, Kristofferson, et al. Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell. not my cuppa tea at all, but nice Repertory..
I keep coming back to Greta Gaines' Texas-chick Whiskey Thoughts. I like the way she looks--straightforward in the liner photo and showing some leg, a real Good Time Gal. "L Is 4 L-O-S-E-R" finds her saying, "I'm sorry that I didn't have the opportunity before we broke up to spell certain things out..." "Under a Texas Sky" does the big-country atmospherics right, too, a lovely track...the music achieves a real classical solidity, seems to me, and also judging from the photos of this good-lookin' gal who also strikes me as the kind of tomboy you can't help but love, Greta has a sense of humor...the inevitable Lucinda-isms you cannot escape in Nashville work here. so this one is still in my country top ten this year...

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 13 July 2008 17:04 (sixteen years ago)

Finally got to another of Whisperin' Edd's selections (after digging Ross Johnson's Stop Those Songs, and especially Chuck Prophet's Dreaming Waylon's Dreams and Area Code 615's s/t/Trip In The Country, see upthread). Thisun's got an overtitle, Dallas Frazier on RCA ( a twofer reissue, Edd?) with Singing My Songs (1970) and My Baby Packed Up My Mind and Left Me (1971). So far I kinda prefer the latter, since he seems more uptempo and consistent with the higher, yet rougher vocals, def Eddie Hintonesque, some Andy Fairweather Low (when he was covering "My Bucket's Got A Hole In It" etc)with a touch of Roky and even Mouse--eh okay not that extreme sonically, but in some of the scenarios. For inst, even the *relatively* more sedate Singing My Songs has a couple of good takes on being dead, not in heaven or hell, just in the box, the graveyard anyway, but still with lots of lesson-learning personality--those would be "Lord Is That Me" and "Will You Visit Me On Sunday" (the latter also serves as followup to non-bragging but very detailed outlaw memoir, "I Just Got Tired of Being Poor." Also awesome is "She Wants To Be Good"("but she can't, because of men like me and you"--boo hoo, it's true!) But "My Baby Packed Up My Mind" is where the Hinton/Low thing really asserts itself, and "I'm Finally Over You" (and also "I didn't shave today, because the drug store ran out of razor blades," and if you find him in the street, it's just cause he's crossing, don't worry bout it), and "Big Mable Murphy" is kissin' sluggin' cousin to "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," sounds like, but also she's got it all over him, like Frazier's voice over Croce's; "Got My Mind on the Border of Mexico ", "She Wakes Me with a Kiss Every Morning", "Ode to a Child of the Wind" ("I never cared for settlin' down, and it never cared for me"), excellent countrypolitan piano and slimmed-down background easing toward para-outlaw mainstream (after crime-doesn't-pay excitement), at least alongside Kristofferson's also kinda late-politan-production-wise The Silver-Tongued Devil And I (also '71, I think, but that was cornier and much monotonier than any of this). Next: his The R& B Sessions (Raven, 2008)

dow, Sunday, 13 July 2008 19:37 (sixteen years ago)

Don, the Frazier RCA albums have never been reissued. those are burns I was able to get of the original LPs...which go for around $30 in good shape or sealed here in town. of the Capitol R&B records I like the second, Tell It Like It Is!, a touch better than Elvira.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 13 July 2008 23:06 (sixteen years ago)

Yow, lightning storm out there, and I'm on dial-up; better keep this short, lest we all get Dixie-fried: The R & B Sessions, starting with Elvira (1966). Def more of the raucous li'l Eddie Hinton upstart, and I shoulda mentioned young Doug Sahm too, esp. since this version of "Just A Little Bit Of You" sure has the rhythm section on the "She's About a Mover" (sib to Beatles' "She's a Woman") tip, back in the headphones (real good sharp mixes on these; could use some more bass I guess, but that wouldn't be true to the intended or probable mid-60s sound, and might be distracting, in this kind of acerbic groove) Does several others found on those Charlie Rich sides we were discussing a little up thread, even does Rich's own "Mohair Sam." Only thing, the prev heard 70/71 country songs are in the midst of or looking back at one's won experiences (like from the grave etc), while a lot of this '66 stuff is hanging on the corner, celebrating and maybe snickering enviously at cool cats like "Alley Oop," fantasizing about being "Mohair Sam"(seems most likely in this context", exhorting self and others to go git started in "Whoop It on 'Um". But some good heavy courting in "Especially For You" and "Ain't That Fine," alleged workadaddy working himself up to lay down the law or/and else in "That Ain't No Stuff", thus mebbe getting his comeuppance in "Been Rained On, " so graduation or postschool life coming in at the end. Tell It Like It Is! (1967) continues this bluster with "Don't Come Knocking On My Door," but raises it to the poignant self-assertion of "Tell It Like It Is" (Aaron or one of the Nevilles did this first, right?) Ace vocal, but can't see the point of covering it with a clone arrangement, didn't he need a steel guitar or something for whatever market Capitol was going for (maybe toward a Johnny Rivers appeal)? But immediately the kind of transition (in reverse) that derailed Rich when he went from "Mohair Sam," promoted as kind of a groovey novelty, to one of his dramatic ballads; the reverse comes here with "Honk 'N' Tonk," which is a fable bout the music biz, H 'N' T being a duo of fleas, who attract hippie fleas to a club called Hole In The Ground, to dig go-go fleas, imported from a classy beagle--kind of Tony Joe in "even trolls like to rock 'n roll" mode, with Lord Buckley and Harry the Hipster nodding along. Also dig the antsy horny "Ain't Nothin' Shakin (But The Leaves)," "Ain't Had No Lovin'," "Hurtin' ("Hoitin'," like Cajun Archie Bunker) from the Hunger for Your Love," and boppin' "Home In My Hand," maybe this is where Commander Cody got it? Best bonus tracks "Tennesse Sue<" back in the garage tonk groove (though there are several forgettable attempts at this, like "Clawhammer Clyde," or this twofer's version of "Elvira," for that matter.) And closes with another soulful, lilting (sort of Sonny Curtis?) ballad, "Make Believe You're Here with Me." Thanks again Edd! This will def be on my Reissues list.

dow, Monday, 14 July 2008 00:28 (sixteen years ago)

So far I'm digging Randall Bramblett's Now It's Tomorrow (Aug, 19, New West): gravelly keyboardy turns of phrase, pointed enough; a bit persistent with the philosophy, but the quality too, and both seem homegrown, from experieces he's still experiencing, as well as older ones. Personally I crave a little sweetning here and there, some girls, a rowdy solo or two, and where's his sax? That's what I knew him for guesting in the Golden Age of Southern Rock (oh there it is, but I'd like more). Prob too quirky for some, and despite interesting stuff about him preserved on robertchristgau.com, it never did quite get me to take the plunge. Says here it's his seventh album, fourth for New West, so the ones xgau wrote about were *all* for a long time, h'mm. I'm also tempted to say something about early Steely Dan, and songs 70s Clapton might have covered, though he couldn't sing 'em this well. A stand-up guy, not a good ol' boy, not quite.

dow, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 02:53 (sixteen years ago)

my not-so-positive review of the new mellencamp:

http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=5214

and my not-so-positive review of the new los lonely boys:

http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=5195

and my very mixed review of the new hold steady (who probably get some alt-country fans by now, at least):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/the-hold-steady.html

(a couple words got dropped out of the second graph of that one, after the parentheses, somehow, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out whay I'm saying.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 17 July 2008 01:57 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, I like Los Lonely Boys on their own live(re fairly brief radio sets, that is), but was most impressed by the way they played with Willie Nelson on one of his monster USA Network concert specials, and really amazed by their interaction with Ronnie Milsap on CMT Crossroads.

dow, Thursday, 17 July 2008 05:11 (sixteen years ago)

Eddie Floyd's Loves You] belongs here--it's really country-soul in ways that the concurrent Steve Cropper & Felix Cavaliere Stax release isn't. In fact, it's up there with the Howard Tate record as the best old-soul-hand-comin'-back release I've heard this year, an often deprressing category. " 'Til My Back Ain't Got No Bone" creeps along back streets as Eddie searches for his baby amidst the grime of the city, and rolls on a very spare groove. "Head to Toe" and "You're So Fine" are even better, and rock and roll, evoking Stax uncannily. Eddie's voice isn't the instrument it once was--he was always a pretty workmanlike singer--and he strains to reach the notes, but I kind of like the sense he's really trying. The slide guitar and what sounds like pedal steel on a few tracks are just right.

Glad you like the Frazier, Don. Rich did several Frazier songs besides "Mohair Sam," including "She's a Yum Yum," an obvious rewrite of "Mohair." the PSF interview should run in about 2 weeks.

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 17 July 2008 15:49 (sixteen years ago)

er, Eddie Floyd Loves You is the title of the record...

whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 17 July 2008 15:50 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, my fave of Frazier's Rich covers is the aforementioned "Just A Little Bit Of You," which, as well as bringing out the Tex-Mex etc associated riffage, also gains from his porno-sitar-wah-wah vocal punctuation.

dow, Thursday, 17 July 2008 18:05 (sixteen years ago)

Not that it's country, but have any of you heard Miley Cyrus's "Fly On The Wall"? Live version is all over YouTube and it sounds a lot like an old new-wave rocker. I mean, one in particular, but I can't place what it is, so maybe you guys could help me with that. (Also, it does sound maybe a bit vampirish, and the song is about a creepy boy/would-be stalker, so it relates to the horror movie theme that's recently showed up on this thread.)(Btw, I'd say that Duane Eddy and crew are rockabilly by association, since the surf guitar style originates from country (and western) and rockabilly guitar boogies, right?)

Frank Kogan, Saturday, 19 July 2008 12:18 (sixteen years ago)

Miley album's now leaked, and the one track on it that feels country to me is "These Four Walls," though I can't say why I feel it's country. Reminds me a bit of Tiffany's "Could've Been," which I always thought could've been covered by a country singer (in fact was, by Carrie Underwood on American Idol) - anyway, the sort of pop ballad that a passionate country belle would sing.

Only four songs on the album stand out for me so far: this one and "Fly On The Wall" and "Full Circle" (the blaring pop rock she tended to do as Hannah Montana), and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," which is blarey too, with some girl groupishness in the background. I like the noncuteness of her voice; the album is consistently OK; I'm disappointed there aren't more great songs. Don't think I like anything as much as my four faves from Meet Miley Cyrus: "See You Again," "GNO (Girls Night Out)," "Start All Over," and "East Northumberland High."

Some memorable lyrics to "Wake Up America." They're not good - just Save The Earth platitudes - but one line made me perk up: "I know that you don't want to hear it/Especially coming from someone so young," which reminds me of Dylan's "How much do I know/To talk out of turn/You might say that I'm young/You might say I'm unlearned." But Miley doesn't then follow with, "But there's one thing I know/Though I'm younger than you/That even Jesus would never/Forgive what you do."

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 20 July 2008 05:26 (sixteen years ago)

Listened to the Jamey Johnson alb, though it's an album with multiple versions (was released last year on iTunes only), and the one I've got is missing five that Wiki lists for the forthcoming release ("Place Out On The Ocean," Edd's fave "Mowin' Down Roses," "When The Last Cowboy's Gone," "Stars In Alabama," and "Between Jennings and Jones") and has two that Wiki doesn't list ("Leave You Alone" and "Next Ex Thing").

It doesn't tell me anything I didn't know already, but does a good job of manly despair, much like Trace Adkins' "I'm Tryin'" (Johnson has written some songs for Trace Adkins, though not that one).

Frank Kogan, Monday, 21 July 2008 19:42 (sixteen years ago)

Heard the Willie/Wynton. Basically nice but didn't hit me with as much feeling as Alan Jackson's Like Red On A Rose or the nondull tracks on Moments Of Time. When a lot was going on from the ensemble, as on the first two tracks, Willie seemed in the way, but he was fine when given space. Especially touching on "Caldonia" and "Georgia On My Mind." Thought the trumpet was more evocative than he was on "Stardust" and "Rainy Day Blues."

Frank Kogan, Monday, 21 July 2008 23:21 (sixteen years ago)

Supposedly there are tracks Johnson did with Shooter that didn't make the Mercury version of Lonesome Song. which I can burn for ya Frank, if the online-only is missing some of the key cuts.

Randall Bramblett's Now It's Tomorrow is country--as country as McMurtry's record, and I think a touch more sophisticated musically. In fact, maybe the culmination of that jazzy Southern-rock stuff (Sea Level, but Bramblett's record works on electric guitars, with some real judicious electric piano underneath it all) from back in the '70s. Kind of far-out, actually, in spots, and a real good concept album about, you time, time, the end of the road, burning out, and in "Used to Rule the World" he says something real interesting about fucked-up ole America, just like McMurtry but with a lighter touch and a sort of gospelly voice that seems like fatalism to me, cf. all the lyrics like "Looking for the sun/from the bottom of the well," and the stateliness of that song and the tensile energy of the others add up to a record that is also in there with Old 97s' new one, but I think I like it better. No matter where he goes--Charlotte, Mobile, South Carolina, the moon or inside his own head, he can't see daylight. A Southern-jazzbo version of, in a way, Steely Dan, good companion piece to Walter Becker's latest, which finds him tearing up the rainbow and lovin' it, just like Randall.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 21 July 2008 23:55 (sixteen years ago)

Did "The Blob" have teen rock in it? Nope, not really although the opening theme was a catchy tune ("Beware the Blob").

Only popping in for a second to note that Burt Bacharach wrote that tune, in case you weren't aware.

jaymc, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 00:59 (sixteen years ago)

Listening to the "deluxe fan edition" of Sugarland's Love On the Inside. Unsurprisingly, I like the hard rock "Take Me As I Am" the best. Eighties stadium rock with towering power chords, B3 and great sounding almighty crunch ending. Coulda been on a Keith Olsen produced record, '85-86 or so.

"All I Want to Do" has been seeing a lot of business on cable and everytime it does Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" starts jamming it in my head.

"It Happens" -- play faster, morer like this for Nettles studio dudes. She sounds better to me when made to rush a little. Then her voice doesn't have time to saw a lyric in half. Good song.

"Operation Working Vacation" Big pop rock with a gay swing.

It's past the middle of summer, time for another multi-platinum Sugarland album. See 'em in the stadiums, I guess.

The slow and acoustical tunes make this "country" -- along with the cowboy hat -- but it's all the stuff I skip over, except for the tune about getting Steve Earle to write 'em a song. Hey, give 'im some drugs, that'll work.

Gorge, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 20:17 (sixteen years ago)

PS. "Steve Earle" is snappy and twangy, not slow. Boy, they do play slabby power chords real purty on this record.

Gorge, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 20:25 (sixteen years ago)

I'd pick "Joey" as a potential single rather than "Already Gone," the latter which the sticker says. "Joey" sounds kinda lick the song on the last album about the flood and everything being left for the crows.

Gorge, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 20:27 (sixteen years ago)

Who plays on that album?

dow, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 21:11 (sixteen years ago)

"Take Me As I Am" is my favorite on the album, too; the slow one I like most is "Genevieve." Don't want to preempt my Blender review, so I won't say much more for now, but will say that "Joey" kept making me think of Concrete Blonde's old Joey song, for reasons not entirely related to its title, I think.

Other stuff: Glen Campbell album mostly bored me, though yeah, I suppose the Velvets cover is best -- amazingly, I didn't hate the Travis (as in the Brit rock bores, not Randy) cover, though. Thought the Green Day and Westerberg remakes were plain awful.

Speaking of Randy, found his new, worship-themed album a lot more tolerable than I expected to -- especially "Every Head Bowed" and the closing "Til I'm Dead and Gone," the latter for its train rhythm.

Darrell Scott covers album seems more ambitious than Glen's covers album, but sadly at least as dull. Was hoping the Gordon Lightfoot or Mickey Newbury songs would hit me, but no dice. Probably won't listen enough to decide whether Kristofferson's "Jesus Was a Capricorn" is merely ridiculous or truly horrible; the one cut I think I do kinda like is the waltzy closer, "That Old Time Feeling," from Guy Clark, who I should probably spend time investigating someday.

Agree with Frank that the Marsalis/Nelson album is nowhere near as moving or mobile as Alan Jackson's country jazz album from a couple years ago (or Toby Keith's country jazz album from the same year for that matter), but that's hardly news -- hardly any albums, country jazz or otherwise, are. Truth be told, the Willie/Wynton song selection is way more standard than I would have liked. But playing the album while playing Balderdash with Lalena's parents while they were up here from Houston on the 4th reconfirmed just how, um, playable it is regardless.

Mentioned on the hard rock thread that, despite some admittedly deadly dull moments and his fairly ordinary voice and guaranteed overrating in certain crit circles thanks to his heroic back story, the new Alejandro Esovedo album still makes for a more likeable NPR-ready Bruce-rock album than the new Hold Steady -- which I never would have predicted, since Alejandro's stuff has never really done much for me before. George wound up agreeing with me on that same thread, and went into a detailed song-by-song rundown, much of which aligns with my own thoughts about the record. I'll get those thoughts down eventually, I'm sure. Right now, though, I gotta say it's still in my changer after two weeks.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 21:33 (sixteen years ago)

Pro forma Sugarland interview story in Billboard produces this laugher, courtesy of well known court stenographer, Ken Tucker. I had to laugh when I read it. Emphasis mine.

========
"We're getting experience and we are also getting more comfortable in our own skin as writers, so musically on this record we went in and we really wanted to scale down," she says. "We didn't want everything to be super-slick. We wanted it to be raw We also had the luxury, because I was rested, of tracking everything live."
========

Yeah, raw. Love On the Inside sure is raw, not slick. Lie detector rips the chart paper.

Who plays on this?

A cast of thousands.

Frankie Foye: hair
Paul Bushnell: bass
Brandon Bush: Wurlie
Michael Landau: guitar, furnishing big slabby chords, big deal guitar solos and almighty crunch (he probably played on some Keith Olsen produced stuff in the mid-Eighties, actually)
Dan Dugmore
orchestra musicians
a bunch of drummers

Gorge, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 21:34 (sixteen years ago)

What I love about every single fucking Sugarland feature (including the Entertainment Weekly one I read in the pediatrician's office yesterday afternoon) is how they always say Kristen Hall left after the first album to "concentrate on her songwriting," and leave it at that, as if it can possibly be that simple. I STILL think that seems fishy, especially since I don't know of anything notable she's songwritten since she left, and since the other two members skyrocketed to even more platinum stardom. It really does sound like some contracturally obligated disclaimer to me. Maybe I'm just paranoid, who knows. But then I google for two seconds and find articles from 2005 like this, and wonder again:

Hall's the only gay member of the trio, but all three brought an enthusiastic lesbian audience to Sugarland. Bush's band Billy Pilgrim opened for Melissa Etheridge during her tour for the album Yes I Am. Nettles has always drawn gay women to her shows, ever since her early days performing while still attending a women's university, Agnes Scott College, in Atlanta. "Also, it was the aftermath of Indigo Girls time, and I had an alto voice and played angry songs on an acoustic guitar--girl power, you know," she says, laughing. "I always felt very comfortable with a diverse fan base."

Hall, who's currently single (Bush and Nettles each are married), has a longtime connection with Atlanta's gay community, beginning with her job in the early 1980s at the local gay men's newspaper Metropolitan Gazette. One of her first assignments was to photograph "Slaves' Night Out" at a local men's bar: "A guy comes up to me with his boyfriend on a leash and says, 'Honey, can you hold him while I get a drink?'" she recalls with her husky laugh.

Hall was then mentored by the Indigo Girls, who played at their concerts the first song she'd ever completed, hired her as their guitar tech, and encouraged her past her stage fright into becoming their opening act. She recorded seven solo albums and became a successful songwriter as well, especially after Amanda Marshall had a worldwide hit with Hall's "Let It Rain." That brought her a songwriting contract in Los Angeles, where she lived for five years.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2005_June_21/ai_n15691109

By the way, if I see any cheap used Billy Pilgrim CDs, I plan to snatch them up. I have a vague memory of them existing back then, but now I'm curious.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 21:45 (sixteen years ago)

Plus she was a 'husky' gal, in the parlance. Her royalty checks must be eye-opening.

I have a hard time imagining a big crowd of wildly cheering dykes in the middle of the whitebreads at some CMT-sponsored summer stadium fest. 'Course, I've never been to see Sugarland, so in the words of Judy Tenuta, "Hey, it could happen!"

Gorge, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 21:53 (sixteen years ago)

My Sugarland review is now on Blender's site, by the way; here's the pre-edited version, for the heckuvit:

Sugarland
Love On The Inside *** 1/2
Mercury

Hugely popular duo defines “country” as “pretty much anything from MTV’s first decade”

As befits Bon Jovi collaborators who play platinum country for car-pooling moms, Sugarland love the ‘80s. Their third album opens with two songs about avoiding your job, both applying distaff half Jennifer Nettles’s pronounced twang to jangling Bangles bounce; “Take Me As I Am” – wherein a tattooed motel employee cleans air-conditioned rooms on 95-degree nights – shouts it out like early ‘80s glam gang Scandal. Anguished choruses alternate with ballad guitars that suggest an ambitious Sunset Strip hair-metal band. And even the more traditionally country moments – an eerie mandolin serenade from Nettles to another woman who’s died; a comical marriage proposal named for liberal rabble-rouser Steve Earle, though his voice is nowhere in the vicinity – tweak Nashville norms. Now and then, the energy lags. But mostly, Sugarland’s shameless mining of Reagan-era hooks keeps their more tepid tendencies in check.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 22:13 (sixteen years ago)

And oh yeah -- the new Jamey Johnson (still my favorite album so far this year) does tell me things I didn't know before. But again, I should wait til my review gets published to say more.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 22:34 (sixteen years ago)

"Operation Working Vacation" is kinda Bangles-like. Brawnier, actually. Sez on my copy it's part of the "deluxe fan edition." So you're going to feel ripped off if you stand pat for the regular, er, shorter edition next week. BestBuy is endcapping these for ten dollars and change.

Landau, a famous studio gun, almost always brought in to add THE! INCREDIBLE! GUITAR! THAT! DESTROYED! THE! WORLD! SOUND! -- killer tone that slays 'em in the arenas. (File with Steve Lukather.)

Gorge, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 22:45 (sixteen years ago)

Thought three of the five "deluxe" "bonus" cuts on my advance were pretty ignorable myself, but yeah, I like "Operation: Working Vacation" a whole lot. And it's good to finally own "Life In A Northern Town" (another big example of their '80s fetish) on CD.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 22:48 (sixteen years ago)

Meanwhile, Dave Dimartino on the new Sugarland album:

Sugarland: Love On The Inside (Mercury Nashville) One of the biggest country combos out there--they're from the States!--Sugarland are award-winners set to really hit the Big Time with this new release! With its bold pink cover and flaming flying heart logo sure to be adorning the leather jackets of motorcyclists in both lanes, this set will cement this pair into the firmament as perhaps the 21st century's biggest country duo ever! As many have pointed out, dentists who object to both the band's name and the "insidious subliminal message" of the new album's title probably like rap!

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/newthisweek/4359/going-the-extra-miley

xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 22:58 (sixteen years ago)

This here journo phenom of writers who don't do real blogs doing things with "blog" typed at the top of the page has gotten way out of hand. I say this as someone whose very bestest friends working at the LATimes -- proud knowers of dick about cyberspace -- now work them, too. Allegedly.

It's kind of like playing Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero and thinking the plastic guitar game-controller is a real axe.

Other than that, cool. Still sounds like Creem. You used to be able to put this stuff in magazines and sell it, not give it away because that's the only way to attract an audience of children for the making of comments.

Sorry, got carried away there.

Gorge, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 01:35 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, the bit about "concentrating on songwriting" re Sugarland is suspect--but was it because she was "husky" or gay, dunno.

speaking of Jamey Johnson (which is my fave country record of the year so far), I've got a feature on him in which I interview him about drinking and Waylon and so forth, coming up in a week or so. I liked him and he was smart, real smart; when I said something along the lines of how he wrote most of the songs, or co-write them, on his first album, he replied, "Well, I probably write too much." All I know is, "Place out on the Ocean" on the new one is not actually escapist and his macho moves have heart and sympathy underneath them, and that he's really country in that his fatalism is the most vital thing about him.

learned today that Kitty Wells' name was chosen from a 19th-century tune of the same name that early country stars used to do...

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 02:20 (sixteen years ago)

Poor Mindy McRready.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20080723/en_music_eo/c9bf459d2ce3_4ec8_9309_9d35660a90fc

xhuxk, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 22:56 (sixteen years ago)

A source close to McCready's management tells E! News the 32-year-old, who has a history of substance-abuse issues, checked into the Nashville hospital July 16 following an overdose of the sleeping pill Ambien, in addition to ingesting vodka. "She's headed west for rehab," the insider says.

Hey, she could wind up in Pasadena. There's a well-known rehab facility for celebrities, seemingly frequented by th Dr. Drew dude, here.

It's called the Pasadena Recovery Center:

"Surprisingly, the cast of "Celebrity Rehab" does not include Danny Bonaduce, a pioneer in the business of reality Humpty-Dumpty-ism, or any of the Osbournes. The vaguely familiar faces in this group of budding and seasoned rehabbers include the Amazonian Stallone ex Brigitte Nielsen, porn actress Mary Carey, one-time "American Idol" contestant Jessica Sierra, "Family Matters" child star Jaimee Foxworth, former pro wrestler and nude model Chyna, and Seth "Shifty" Binzer, lead singer of Crazy Town. The most familiar name probably belongs to infamous brother Daniel Baldwin, a recovering crack addict who let "Primetime" follow him through recovery last year, and whose commitment to sobriety appears to be genuine."

Seth "Shifty" Binzer, lead singer of Crazy Town ... boy, that's a line that just automatically sits up and sings for you.

Scott Weiland used to stay in Pasadena, too. A few years ago I saw him downtown when he must have been on out-walking-around leave.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/01/10/on_rehab_sobriety_as_a_career_move/

Pasadena's a small big town, as in it's layed out so geometrically and transit friendly, if you're a local, everything in it seems only one or two light rail stops and a fifteen minute walk away. So "celebrities," even the dogfood -- which it seems Mindy McReady is, get spotted.

Gorge, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 23:19 (sixteen years ago)

And the crucial counselor on "Celebrity Rehab" that season (last season) was--Bob Forester, once infamous berserko ex-leader of Thelonious Monster (and nemesis of "some faggot from the Posies [and Big Star]" who stole or rescued his girl)! Even the sedate Grant Alden admitted to haw-hawing with a bunch of other pencil-pushers in a bar way too long, swapping Bob stories, and at some point becoming aware that the busboy was--Bob. But he's good now (and he said that crucical to his own rehab was his sponsor--the tortured ex "Taxi" dude who's the all-time "C.R." poster child: positions now reversed and then some, for now). So Alan Jackson and Toby Keith's albums are actually "country jazz"? I'll have to listen again.

dow, Thursday, 24 July 2008 04:34 (sixteen years ago)

Speaking of Randy, found his new, worship-themed album a lot more tolerable than I expected to -- especially "Every Head Bowed" and the closing "Til I'm Dead and Gone," the latter for its train rhythm.

I'm actually finding this album fairly enjoyable. Not all the way through, but a decent amount of it. "Til I'm Dead and Gone" I especially like because he almost sounds tough on it, not as tame as usual. From the press stuff that came with it (one of those 'singer talking about each song' things) it sounded like he really had to be convinced to do that song, which is probably why it stands out from his usual thing. "Every Head Bowed" I'm not as into to, mostly cause I think the natural humor in the song disappears a bit the way he sings it. I like "Everything That I Own (Has Got a Dent)" for how loose it sounds, though when he sings he doesn't sound at all like everything he owns is dented (and definitely not his heart). I like the "Don't Think Twice It's All Right" cover because of how contrary it seems, how he sings it all giddy, like he doesn't understand that the song is bitter.

erasingclouds, Thursday, 24 July 2008 20:20 (sixteen years ago)

Turns out that the Miley somewhat countryish (and good) track "These Four Walls" that I mentioned upthread is a cover of Cheyenne Kimball's "Four Walls" (first up on Cheyenne's MySpace), though Miley's "Full Circle" is not a cover of Cheyenne Kimball's "Full Circle." But Miley's "Full Circle" was co-written with Scott Cutler and Anne Preven, who co-wrote Cheyenne's "Four Walls," so everything comes full circle.

(And the other songs on Cheyenne's MySpace are even better, though further from country and folk; maybe I need to go back and get that old Cheyenne album.)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 July 2008 20:36 (sixteen years ago)

The New York Daily News, which first broke the story of McCready's years-long affair with Roger Clemens, claims the performer suffered a nervous breakdown, triggering the overdose. Both the Daily News and TMZ reported that before her hospitalization, McCready had planned on appearing on Dr. Phil for some kind of intervention.

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 July 2008 20:42 (sixteen years ago)

Discussion over on poptimists today as to whether any song or album has yet emerged this year (in the way that "Umbrella" and "All My Friends" had last year) that one could envision topping year-end crit polls. Most people thought not, though I could easily see Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III and "A Milli" winning Idolator and Pazz & Jop (w/ Wiley's "Wearing My Rolex" an intriguing dark horse if it starts getting attention in America, though I don't expect that to happen). In any event, "Gunpowder and Lead" could well top the Nashville Scene poll; any thoughts of what album that's out could score high? Does Randy Travis have a lot of "respectable" cred? I don't have any feel for this. What about Dolly? (My personal faves so far are the first Willie and the Jamey Johnson, and "Should've Said No" is my single (but you knew that), but my listening to the genre has been less than sporadic...)

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 24 July 2008 20:58 (sixteen years ago)

I'd say Hold Steady have the best shot at P&J/ Idolator right now, though I guess Lil Wayne will combine rap-critic votes with rock-critic-voting-for-a-token-rap-album votes, which could help him. (I prefer Hold Steady's album to his, which to my ears has three or four really great tracks on it, a bunch of pleasant enough ones, and lots of stuff that does nothing for me, though I'm guessing some of it impresses people for some reason or other. Could've made a great EP; pretty sure I liked his last two more. Lacking time, money, and energy, I haven't made any attempt to keep up with all the unofficial releases.) Beyond those two, I suppose Hercules & Love Affair will be top 10 in both albums and singles, as might Santogold. Both of which are okay, though I don't get why people think they're so great.

People elsewhere on this board mention Portishead a lot, but I know absolutely nothing about the record, and I never will unless a copy falls into my lap.

As for country, I dunno. I bet Hold Steady get some votes, though there's not anything particularly country about them. On the never-reliable metacritic page, here are albums with scores above 70 that might have something to do with country (though some probably don't -- I have no idea, and no interest, in whatever Bonnie Prince Billy might be doing now.)

83 Alejandro Escovedo
82 Bonnie "Prince" Billy
80 Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis
79 The Baseball Project (I like this, by the way! Especially the rocking Curt Flood/reserve clause song, and the Mark McGuire one that totally jangles like the Records or Bram Tchaicovksy. After that, I guess I'd pick the Harvey Haddix or Satchel Paige...)
79 Jakob Dylan
79 Mudcrutch
78 Emmylou Harris
77 Beck
77 James Hunter (he's more white hack soul, right?)
77 John Hiatt
75 John Mellencamp
75 Randy Travis
72 Old 97's

I probably missed a few -- lots of bands I don't know on there, turns out. Shearwater and Firewater both sound like they could be alt-country bands, judging from their names, but they're probably not. Haven't heard of any country on the Al Green or Neil Diamond or Elvis Costello or Beck albums from this year, though they're all capable, so who knows. (I also have heard no songs on any of those records.)

Playing Miley today; definitely like a few tracks. Not sure if I love any. (Beyond "See You Again," if that counts.) Frank was wondering what old song "Fly on the Wall" sounded like; can't think of anything, overall, though there's a little synth part that reminds me of "Tainted Love" in there a couple times (popular in teen-pop ever since Rihanna revived it.)

By the way, I noticed a new Taylor Swift EP called Beatiful Eyes entered the Billboard Top 10 this week -- apparently with a DVD attached or something. First I'd heard of it; does anybody know if there are new songs on it? (I think that's her third EP! Though I only heard the Christmas one.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 July 2008 21:31 (sixteen years ago)

Okay, this answers my question -- apparently a Walmart exclusive:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10177524

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 July 2008 21:35 (sixteen years ago)

Note that Dolly, George Strait, Alan Jackson, and Willie's Moments In Time are nowhere to be found on that metacritic chart. (As aren't, duh, James McMurtry -- who I could see winning the Nashville Scene poll now, actually -- or Hayes Carrl.) So as usual, out of the realm of indie rock (and maybe even there), the ratings are meaningless.

(I shouldn't have included Beck's score on there, since I mentioned him later. For all I know, he's never sounded remotely country for years now.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 July 2008 21:45 (sixteen years ago)

And oh yeah -- Drive By Truckers. That'd definitely have a Nash Scene shot, right (at least in part because fans won't admit how spotty it is)?

Wouldn't mind seeing that poptimists link, if you want to post it, Frank. I never know where to look.

(Curious what poptimist folks think of Katy Perry, and the Ting Tings. Both of whom will deservedly get some singles votes -- though not from me. But the people who hate them seem to really hate them, for reasons that have yet to compute with me. Thing is, in P&J/etc, you can't vote negatively.)

I can see Vampire Weekend finishing high, too, at least on albums. (But then, I would never have predicted an LCD single would do so good last year; I barely even knew it existed before it won it all. I'm more in touch with nerd-rock this year, though. I've even halfway learned to stomach some of it.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 July 2008 22:18 (sixteen years ago)

(I meant Vampire Weekend on P&J/Idolator albums, and Katy Perry and Tings Tings on P&J/Idolator singles, obviously. Doubt any will get any NashScene votes.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 July 2008 22:30 (sixteen years ago)

Okay, I found the link myself:

http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/602480.html

Apparently some people there like the Tings Tings, or at least acknowledge their existence. Also, lots of people mention lots of titles of songs that I have no idea what artists are associated with them. (I'm not sure I've heard a single song by Duffy or Adele or Estelle yet. Or if I have -- come to think of it, I briefly tried to play the Adele album when it came in the mail -- I got bored so fast it left no impression.) Also, nobody up there except Frank seems to mention country, which I find aggravating.

xhuxk, Thursday, 24 July 2008 23:04 (sixteen years ago)

of the indie-identified country/alt stuff, I think Hayes Carll is strong this year. he's selling some records, apparently. Old 97s have a lot of cred and sentiment behind them. Escovedo isn't even country by association this time out but it's a competent record. bores me stiff but hey.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 25 July 2008 01:28 (sixteen years ago)

So we're halfway through 2008; what are your top 10 albums of this year, so far?

I've liked Escovedo live in the past, but when I saw him on this current tour he had a dull bar-band guitarist with him who took some of the passion out of the show

curmudgeon, Friday, 25 July 2008 03:06 (sixteen years ago)

The Truckers' latest roadkill is uneven as ever, but the best songs are good and numerous enough to put it in my Nash Scene Top Ten, dunno about the others, since I try to spread the love. Shearwater's kicked back and forth upthread, couple of tracks reviewed and still hearable (maybe still downloadable) on PTW (despite its title, "Leviathan,Unbound" is one where Mr. Sensitive gets past his usual vocal frills)

dow, Friday, 25 July 2008 04:15 (sixteen years ago)

Butt talking very much out of my ass since I still haven't heard Jamey Johnson or George Strait or either Willie or Sugarland, nevertheless my Nash Scene ballot will no doubt include Cat Power, Truckers, McMurtry,Felice Brothers,prob Randall Bramblett,prob/maybe Giant Sand, maybe Shearwater(the last with some reservations re is it meta-country enough, not is it good enough, but being Gary Puckett and the Union Gap with input from Jimmy Webb and Mary Shelley[re The Last Man, not Frankenstein] is prob hickboy arty eco-gothic enough to qualify as meta-country)

dow, Friday, 25 July 2008 04:32 (sixteen years ago)

Strangely, I prefer Escovedo playing bar-band rock (at least when he's got Tony Visconti producing it) to, um, whatever he was playing last time, and the time before that, and whenever else I've heard him do in the recent past. (And coming out the speakers, his bar-band rock sounds better than the Hold Steady's bar-band rock. But Craig Finn is still a way better songwriter, no contest. And vocalist too, oddly enough. So in the long run, the Hold Steady CD might be better after all -- if only because it leaves more of an impression when it's not on. And yeah, Escovedo's really no more country per se' than they are this year. But given that, albeit ridiculously, he was No Depression's Artist of the '90s or whatever, I'm assuming he must be grandfathered in as permanent alt-country, somehow.)

Anyway. Me on Lee Brice, etc:

http://idolator.com/399245/numbers-letters-exclamation-points-real-world-alums-and-the-countercultural-reclamation-of-ike

And on the Road Hammers, etc:

http://idolator.com/398357/these-new-acts-are-big-on-myspace-big-in-japan-and-even-bigger-in-the-monastery

xhuxk, Friday, 25 July 2008 17:34 (sixteen years ago)

Roadhammers have been on country cable for a couple months off the video for "Girl on the Billboard," a song that's pleasant but just OK. They have the same instrumental attack as the Georgia Satellites. Plus they have a half-hour special running now on trying to "make it." Wow, snore.
Surprisingly, it's an eight part series although I couldn't marshal enough interest to watch more than five minutes of it. They're somewhat less inert and predictable than Alberta's prime export, oil sand.

However, their CD isn't in any stores in Pasadena, and I suspect, has pretty shabby distro elsewhere. So they're fucked unless someone wakes up and starts shipping it.

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Summary:

Success in Canada is hard enough, but making it in the U.S. as a recording artist can be a particularly daunting experience.

The difficulty of the task fuels the new GAC reality series The Road Hammers, which follows a band from north of the border as it tries to break into America's top tier. The band features Jason McCoy, who's twice won the Canadian Country Music Association's Top Male Vocalist Award, plus Clayton Bellamy, Chris Byrne and Corbett Frasz.

Fellow Canadian Jason Priestley directed the eight-part series, in which the Road Hammers uprooted themselves, tried to get a U.S. recording deal and hit Nashville without a single friend waiting for them. And they discovered that they have to weigh their desire to succeed against their integrity as musicians. It's not an easy road, and it's left the band members frustrated at times over the hurdles they've encountered.

"There better be a payoff at the end of this whole thing," Corbett insists. The show is similar in concept to a GAC series dedicated to Taylor Swift at the beginning of her career. The Road Hammers premieres June 12 at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Gorge, Friday, 25 July 2008 17:58 (sixteen years ago)

"Every Head Bowed" I'm not as into to, mostly cause I think the natural humor in the song disappears a bit the way he sings it. I like "Everything That I Own (Has Got a Dent)" for how loose it sounds...I like the "Don't Think Twice It's All Right" cover because of how contrary it seems, how he sings it all giddy, like he doesn't understand that the song is bitter

You like the album more than I do. Though weirdly, I seem to be having the same problem with the dent song that you have with head-bowed song -- with the former, I keep thinking of how much livelier and funnier it would be if, say, John Anderson was singing it. For that Dylan cover (which Anderson did a lot better back on I Just Came Home To Count the Memories), somebody should have forced Randy to watch the final episode of the first season of Mad Men; maybe he would've understood it then.

xhuxk, Friday, 25 July 2008 19:01 (sixteen years ago)

What I wrote on here about Alejandro's previous album, two years ago:

So, speaking of music about deserts, what do people think of Alejandro Escovedo? I'm five songs into his new one, and drawing a blank. Once in a while the guitars will bunch up for dramatic effect, I guess. Mostly it sounds like "mood music to go onto a soundtrack of a romantic indie movie about the desert." Hard to imagine what *purpose* it would serve, beyond a movie soundtrack. The first song, "Arizona," seemed best at this -- sort of like Stan Ridgeway with a less interesting (which maybe just means less off-key) voice, or something. Second song had new wave production touches. But now I'm getting bored. (Do people think of Alejandro as a songwriter? I was under the impression they did, but if so, I'm not hearing why.) (Though as a desert soundtrack, I guess this beats the new Calexico.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 16th, 2006.

xhuxk, Friday, 25 July 2008 19:16 (sixteen years ago)

"Don't Think Twice" can work giddy, like on Before The Flood, Dyl sounds giddy with relief and grief (maybe like Little Richard's quoted in Mystery Train, "He got what he wanted and he lost what he had!"). Alejandro's Cale produced-tracks tended to sound like Cale tracks with a nebbishy stand-in on vocals, but (at least in his various "Austin City Limits" sets), when he did stuff that didn't beg comparisons, could work okay, especially cos in those "ACL" sets you could pay a lot more attention to his band (and chorus too, when they performed the show about his father, "In The Name Of The Father")

dow, Friday, 25 July 2008 21:02 (sixteen years ago)

Escovedo defines No Depression's ethos as much as Lucinda does, guess which one I like better? I mean, shit, Real Animal sounds great, and one track works fine for me. He's cool, he looks like a melted-down version of Lou Reed on the cover of the record; thing is, Lou Reed made a great I'm-older-but-still-cool record twenty-odd years ago, New Sensations, which beats Escovedo by a mile. I'm a Chuck Prophet fan and I do think Prophet adds something to the record. And at least John Cale at his hoarsest had vocal finesse (at his best Cale is what Escovedo would like to be, but to me this kind of music, even with noted Brit-lover Visconti producing, just smacks of that Springsteen rock-will-save-us shit, a stupid American version of the kind of angst Cale blew to bits on "Guts" or "Dirtyass Rock 'n' Roll"). But the thing will be a revered album for this year.

Still digging Rebecca Lynn Howard's No Rules, which does up some Mother's Finest/Ohio Players funk and then a ballad that's more definitely country called "Better Someday," all wistful for a new tomorrow and her voice just the right kind of icy. Kind of the same vocal approach as the chick in Sugarland but George this record ain't raw but it's felt--feels for real. When the Sugarland babe sings like this it reminds me of panic, like I lost my keys and I'm in a parking lot, whereas Howard rocks and rolls, I mean fuck I think she sounds real dirty on "Lettin' It Burn," another one that's funky country at its best.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 25 July 2008 23:17 (sixteen years ago)

and Howard on the intro to "One as Two Can Be" ups the ante with acoustic guitar that evokes the Allmans of "Sweet Melissa." A great example of the power ballad here that really works.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 25 July 2008 23:20 (sixteen years ago)

Man, I'm gonna sound like a total artsy-fartsy snob for once, but the only non-Velvets John Cale albums I even own are those three volumes of experimental Sun Blindness CDs recorded around 1967-68, and an even more experimental Inside the Dream Syndicate thing he did with Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise, La Monte Young, and Marian Zazeela in 1965. I used to own a best-of called, I think, Fear on vinyl, but it's been gone a long time. Probably should have kept it. But either way, I'm really not getting Edd's Escovedo/Cale comparison at all. Not really getting the comparison to New Sensations, which I haven't listened to for 24 years but back then I always thought it was a big letdown after Blue Mask and Legendary Hearts (which I also shamefully no longer own copies of), either. I guess I'm not really in tune with whatever it is that Alejandro is trying to do with his new album; haven't really perused the press kit or lyric sheet all that much, and nothing in his singing or songwriting really demands that I pay close attention. It's just a suprisingly playable if undeniably stodgy rock album for grownups, is all. It doesn't fall short of my expectations because his track record led me not to expect anything, even if some silly alt-country folks do think he's a genius.

As for non-grownups, I'm not loving much on the Miley album. I guess "Four Walls" is my non-"See You Again" favorite, then probably "Fly On The Wall" and "Simple Song." (And "See You Again" is better in its non-remixed version, which isn't on this album.) Think the Carter's Chord album is way better than Miley's record, which I wish had a song I liked as much as I like "Different Breed" (which might not even be the best song on their album, actually.)

Heard Faith Hill's surburban patio celebration "Sunshine and Summertime" from a couple years ago in the laundromat today, and it sounded amazing -- really surprised to hear it on a pop station, had no idea it ever crossed over, though it must have at some point. Then a couple hours later heard Billy Swan's "I Can Help" in a Rite-Aid, and it sounded even better. Are there any other pop hits where the singer offers to be a step-dad?* If so, they're not this good. Wish I'd kept the album.

* -- As opposed to songs by the Winstons (and Blaine Larsen) where step-kids thank step-dads.

xhuxk, Sunday, 27 July 2008 02:04 (sixteen years ago)

Actually, just checked AMG; "Sunshine and Summertime" was not a pop hit (see below). So why is it getting played on a pop station (or AC or whatever -- no country radio here!) in New York City two summers later? Hell, if I find out it's being pushed as pop now, it may be my single of the year:

2006 Sunshine And Summertime Hot Country Singles & Tracks 7
2006 Sunshine And Summertime The Billboard Hot 100 70

xhuxk, Sunday, 27 July 2008 02:09 (sixteen years ago)

Speaking of suburban patio celebrations, I really likrd Rebecca Lynn Howard's "Pink Flamingos" (I think it was called) a few years ago, too. And would love to hear her new album, so Edd, if you've got the publicist contact info, I'd be much obliged if you were to email it to me. (As I've written elsewhere, like Jessica Andrews and Alecia Elliot and Cyndi Thompson, it seems to me Rebecca was an attempt for Nashville to market teen-pop country a few years before Taylor Swift, when neither Nashville nor the rest of the world was quite ready for the concept yet. Then again, none of those other gals made an album nearly as good as Taylor's.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 27 July 2008 02:33 (sixteen years ago)

(Actually, the title was "Pink Flamingo Kind Of Love." And I haven't done the math to check on whether any or all of those earlier girls were as young as Taylor. I'm pretty sure Alecia was, though.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 27 July 2008 02:44 (sixteen years ago)

xhuxx, the Cale/Escovedo thing came up because Cale produced E.'s previous album, that's why I said some of his songs sound like Cale tracks "with a nebbishy vocal stand-in." The Cale comp you had was Guts, not Fear, unless you had the original, non-comp Fear (feat. "Guts"). You might well dig Fear, Slow Dazzle (two of his most focused, rockingest evah),Paris 1919 (greatass popspiration, like "Graham Greene," which is reggae like the Kinks should've done, and some awesome ballads, incl with steel guitar). Then I'd get the more reckless Helen Of Troy, rough-slick Sabotage--and, on the artier side, Church Of Anthrax, with Terry Riley, and Vintage Violence, where he takes country-associated compontents, again steel guitar, sort of Continentalpolitan piano x orchestra, dense verdant(and sometimes violent) verbiage, and one actual country song, the way he does it: "Fairweather Friend," by Garland Jeffrys (from when G., old Cale & Reed compadre, was in Grinderswitch or Grinder Switch, anyway the one that wasn't the Southern boogie band).

dow, Sunday, 27 July 2008 03:19 (sixteen years ago)

The basic compontents of his persona, the rough macho times gentility, could satisfy me in a way that Outlaw Country singer-songwriters could til they put me to sleep; he never did that (but all those albums are like 1970 or 71 to 1980; got a bunch of his from then on I've never listened to nearly as much, although several are good)

dow, Sunday, 27 July 2008 03:24 (sixteen years ago)

The band was nominated for a 2006 Grammy as best new artist, but Ms. Hall left, saying that she wanted to concentrate on her songwriting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/arts/music/27ligh.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

Also, in case you missed it:

Flaunting his credentials as a music geek, Mr. Bush pointed out a bus shelf packed full of books from the “33 1/3” series

xhuxk, Sunday, 27 July 2008 19:39 (sixteen years ago)

with five extra tracks and access to additional material online

The on-line stuff, rubbish.

Where do you put Miley Cyrus these days? Starz has been airing the Hannah/Miley concert movie in advance of its release on DVD. There are digital dropouts shot through it, seemingly to curb the actions of those trying to duplicate it through TiVo.

Merciless dancing! An exhibition of rock concert mechanization at its finest. Band of superb hacks playing hard power pop, slinging their Gibson axes around and it seems OK until three songs in and one realizes every number sounds perfect but the same! Last two songs, "Girls Night Out" and "Best of Both Worlds" were the best. "Let's Dance" is Miley doing Madonna with Gogol Bordello doing "Fernando's Hideaway" or something. Billy Ray is Miley's official mouthpiece. Sweat-inducing segment of ultra embarrassing-looking fat dads running dashes in high heels to win Miley tickets. That was almost nausea provoking. Lots of laughable lyrics about being just like you and empowerment. Updated Norman Vincent Peale-ism: "Life's what you make it/So let's make it rock...With a new attitude everything can change! Just take a situation and turn it all around!"

Great gosh awmighty, some of this stuff's toxicity and awfulness with a 100-watt smile delivery.

Turned me off on looking over the new Miley CD for a bit, that's f'r sure.

Gorge, Monday, 28 July 2008 02:57 (sixteen years ago)

New Taylor EP is three new songs, all mediocre (but one of which is getting the shit played out of it on Radio Disney), and several good but superfluous acoustic versions of great songs from her album.

The mediocrity of the new material does not bode well, but a couple of the originals on last year's Christmas EP were quite good (e.g., "Christmases When You Were Mine").

Haven't yet heard the Live In Soho EP that came out several months back (except the version of "Umbrella," which is nice but not as good as the live on YouTube "Umbrella" I linked way upthread).

Frank Kogan, Monday, 28 July 2008 19:30 (sixteen years ago)

Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" elicited instant hatred from everyone I know except Xhuxk, and I'm someone I know and it elicited instant hatred from me too, my reasons being that she's loud, stupid, obvious, coy, and grating, and more homophobic than not (literally "homophobic" in that she's desperate to make sure we understand that this doesn't mean that she's a LESBIAN). But at least two of the haters - me and Nia - nonetheless like the song. (If you look at my list of adjectives, none of them preclude the music's being good.) Also, she's just a few years away from her days as a god-loving, faith-needing evangelical Christian singer. Listen to her proclaiming that her faith won't fail while in the music she's a raw-voiced, dance-oriented Alanis. I'm a sucker for the massively conflicted, which she most certainly is. But I've yet to try to hear the rest of her alb, so I guess I'm not that much of a sucker for her, yet.

She's a really poor dancer.

I could continue on at length, but she's not country.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 28 July 2008 20:12 (sixteen years ago)

Tracks on the Lil Wayne alb are hit or miss, as always, but two or three great tracks are often enough to get an LP onto my year-end ballot if the rest is bearable. And I'd like an excuse to vote for him, since even when the music flags he rarely goes more than a minute without saying something that cracks me up. "I'm a do it again like nigga backwards." (See, if you pronounce "again" backwards...)

Not that Wayne is country, either.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 28 July 2008 20:27 (sixteen years ago)

On the original version of That Lonesome Song, in the epilogue to "Next Ex Thing," one of Jamey's buds recites this rather poor limerick (doesn't even scan):

Into the Garden Of Eden strode Adam
He was strokin' the behind of his madam
He smiled with mirth
'Cause he knew here on Earth
There was only two balls, and he had 'em

Frank Kogan, Monday, 28 July 2008 21:02 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, the bit about "concentrating on songwriting" re Sugarland is suspect--but was it because she was "husky" or gay, dunno.

i thought it was always pretty much understood that the other members of the band wanted her to keep her sexuality quiet and she wanted to be out and proud, and that was that. but maybe that's just me confusing internet rumors with the truth. but i can well imagine sugarland would have a business interest in NOT having one of its members showing up on compilations like this one, released this spring:

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Aisle-Lesbos-Various-Artists/dp/B001AD1P5U

fact checking cuz, Monday, 28 July 2008 21:06 (sixteen years ago)

Heh. A fly in the ointment, so to speak. The decks of aircraft carrier Sugarland were cleared of ammo and inflammables prior to going into the big battle. The NY Times did not touch upon this in yesterday's major feature.

Anyway, Sugarland's is easy one in the top half of my year's playlist.

Gorge, Monday, 28 July 2008 21:18 (sixteen years ago)

http://www.myspace.com/kristenhallmusic

Sounds California singer-songwriter. She lists Deep Purple's Machine Head as one of her influences, though I can't say where this shows up in the sound.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 28 July 2008 21:53 (sixteen years ago)

Thoughts on Trailer Choir and Woodbox Gang:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/the-funniest-al.html

Maybe five or ten years from now I'll be convinced that Lil Wayne's album is as funny as those country albums I name. As of now, though, I feel like it would take way more listening energy (probably with headphones) than it's worth to sort through all his holding patterns and fillerbusters and rote hookless thug bullshit and pick up on all the punchlines Frank insists are there (including the one he quotes, which is admittedly pretty funny) -- same thing I'd apprently have to do with the 50% of no-doubt smartly punchlined songs on the new Hold Steady album that don't reach out and grab me on their own. (That said, Lil Wayne's album is growing on me. Favorites now are probably "Dr. Carter," the parts of "Phone Home" where he raps in the martian voice, and the parts of "Mr. Carter" that doesn't feature Jay-Z but does feature Wayne talking about being in war with the seasons. The "Shoot Me Down" track Frank loves hits me like the "Tie My Hands" track with Robin Thicke -- some good ominous soul gloom, very lovely, but I forget it as soon as it's over. And I like that Weezy mentions Orville Redenbacher and Elliot Ness, and samples "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," though sadly not the Animals or Santa Esmeralda versions. Very impressive. So impressive than whenever I play it, it feels like I'm fulfilling my obligations as a rock critic.)

And yeah, I understand Frank's two-great-songs-can-make-for-a-good-album-these-days claim. Thing is, I've heard songs as great as the Wayne ones I like on lots of albums this year. I'll take my two favorite Carter's Chord songs over my two favorite Tha Carter III songs, and Carter's Chord will be nowhere near my top ten (probably even country top ten) at the end of the year. (Their album, it turns out, is a lot spotter than I was thinking.)

Not remotely convinced that Katy Perry is an evil homophobe, though lots of Frank's other adjectives sound accurate. But either way, "I Kissed A Girl" is nowhere near my favorite song by her. Her album is more fun than the new Miley Cyrus album. Yeah, she's not country (nor is Wayne), but here was my review:

http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=5184

George has some good comments about the Road Hammers album on the hard rock thread. Not sure yet whether this is pretty much the same album they've put out again and again every year for the last three or four in either Canada or the U.S. (and only just recently charted with here), but either way, George's comments wish my copy of their CD (the one I had two years ago, which at very least has plenty of the same songs) was not in storage right now.

xhuxk, Monday, 28 July 2008 22:08 (sixteen years ago)

(Fwiw, Lil Wayne's album is one my second favorite uneven album this year by a rapper whose first name is "Lil." First place would go to Lil Mama, easy.)

xhuxk, Monday, 28 July 2008 22:10 (sixteen years ago)

Here's the Road Hammers album I have from '05:

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0ifrxqedldte

Here's the one George just bought:

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ajfwxz9jld0e

Lots of the same songs -- many of them shuffled; not sure if they've been re-recorded or not, though.

xhuxk, Monday, 28 July 2008 22:14 (sixteen years ago)

typos:

parts of "Mr. Carter" that DON'T feature Jay-Z...

George's comments MAKE ME wish my copy of their CD..

Lil Wayne's album is ONLY my second favorite...

(And maybe I meant "rote hookless T-Pain bullshit" as much as "rote hookless thug bullshit"; who knows!)

xhuxk, Monday, 28 July 2008 22:21 (sixteen years ago)

Looks like they added the outsider-written throwaway, "Workin' Hard at Lovin' You" and the best song on the LP, co-written by the singer with two hacks, "I've Got the Scars to Prove It." I thought they looked like Shooter Jennings and company and have a hard time imagining an irony-slurping nerd rock audience liking them.

I'm a bit curious to know if the 2005 album was considered a demo by Nashville. Sort of like the first two Katrina & the Waves records did for their major debut.

Gorge, Monday, 28 July 2008 22:33 (sixteen years ago)

Is Katy trying to brusquely busk right by her own inner tensions (saying it out loud doesn't resolve anything, turns out, but must be done and on with the show and the bildungsroman, or however yall spell it)(and/or, "Hell naw this ain't a bite of Jill Sobule's song, backdafucup now") Xxhux, even though McMurtry's not on that Metacritic chart, I looked up the album title, and there were several reviews, including yours and mine, although why they had us supposedly giving him a 70 I dunno, other than what I said about "Cheney's Toy," and that ratings are partly based on somebody's opinion of the writer and where he's published, or so they used to explain it.

dow, Monday, 28 July 2008 23:47 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, that's weird -- McMurtry gets an 80 average, based on eight reviews, so who knows why he's not listed among the albums on the metacritic home page. (My 70, though, makes literal sense, since I gave the album 3 1/2 stars out of 5. But that's a pretty high grade for me! They make it seem like a low C+.)

http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/mcmurtryjames/justuskids?q=james%20mcmurtry

And btw, re: Katy, I know Frank didn't call her an "evil" homophobe. But really, I don't get the homophobe accusation at all. Emphasizing one's straightness doesn't necessarily prove one is scared of people who classify themselves otherwise. (As for "Ur So Gay," my 18-year-old daughter dated a guy in an band who wore mascara last year, so I'm kind of biased. Also, I was born with a sense of humor.) (Ur so gay u probably think this song is about u.)

The Road Hammers album I have might only have come out in Canada, though I think it got a little CMT push here. (I remember talking about it with much missed Canuck Anthony Easton -- a big fan of Jason McCoy -- on an earlier rolling country thread.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 01:06 (sixteen years ago)

So, I keep meaning to ask, has anybody heard this singer El Gringo that Josh Kun wrote about in the Sunday Times a couple weeks ago -- a cowboy-hatted Anglo singer with Mexican stepkids signed to a regional Mexican label, and who has put out Spanish border-music versions of Toby Keith and Rodney Crowell songs? I haven't, but I'm totally intrigued:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/arts/music/20kun.html?ref=music#

From the other direction, Gabe Garcia survived (with two women I don't like as much) to the final three of Nashville Star; last night, he did really good versions of "It's 5:00 Somewhere" and one of Kenny Chesney's lesser hits. I'm still rooting for him, though I am still kinda bummed out that the black singer, Coffey, was finally eliminated last night after covering "Sweet Home Alabama," of all things. (He didn't rock it much, anyway, and in general the judges often criticized him for being "not country enough," though John Rich at one point called him "a country soul singer like John Anderson." Rich always raved about Garcia, though, and seems to think he may be the key for country finally crossing over to the all-important Hispanic demographic.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 22:26 (sixteen years ago)

Carter's Chord will be nowhere near my top ten (probably even country top ten) at the end of the year.

Actually, the more I listen, the more I think it might have a shot at both. They're pretty great in both hard pop-rock and blues-pop mode -- I'd count seven or eight good songs out of 10, maybe more.

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," though sadly not the Animals or Santa Esmeralda versions

Though bizarrely, I heard the Santa Esmeralda version coming out of my 16-year-old kid's room today -- it was playing on the MySpace page of one of his friends, who'd apparently originally discovered it on the Kill Bill soundtrack. A few days ago, a different friend of his had been playing "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen on his page. Gotta say I'd take either of those over Soulja Boy.

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 July 2008 00:30 (sixteen years ago)

haha John Rich wrong about this as about so many things -- Mexicans are already country to the core and their music is more country than anything Gabe Garcia is ever going to sing. nice to think so though.

Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 31 July 2008 00:42 (sixteen years ago)

What exactly are you arguing with, Matt? When did Rich say (other) Mexicans weren't country? He just said Garcia might be a way for Nashville reach the Hispanic audience (as, say, Freddie Fender or Emilio or Johnny Rodriguez were in the past -- he didn't mention those names, but that's his point.) I can see how you can call him mercenary -- Nashville has noticed a growing demographic, and wants in its spending power -- but "wrong" is another question. (And I have no idea what it means for Intocable, say, to be "more country" than what Garcia sings. Though you're welcome to explain it, if you want.)

On that crabby note, have you heard El Gringo (who compares his own county to Intocable's, by the way)?

(Also, fwiw, when I've tried listening to Intocable, I had trouble hearing what was so country about them. Which isn't to say it's not there.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 July 2008 00:49 (sixteen years ago)

Of course, Rich could be wrong, and really presumptuous, to assume that a significant Latin audience would cross over to listening to country radio just because country radio added a singer with a Latin surname (which might be Matt's point, I dunno.) But it's just as wrong and presumptuous to presume that the Mexican-American audience just listens to Regional Mexican stations. And there have been demographic radio studies (which have been linked to on these rolling country threads, though maybe not this year) indicating that the Latin audience listening to country radio in certain markets is already growing. So I doubt Rich is nuts.

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 July 2008 01:08 (sixteen years ago)

(And in fact, one article about Latin country listenership studies that ran in Billboard when I was there, maybe a year and a half ago, indicated that Latin country listeners in the U.S. actually tended to prefer acts who were "less" country -- i.e., more pop, like Faith Hill -- to more traditional and historical country acts. So the "regional Mexican is more country than Garcia" claim might be a moot point.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 July 2008 01:13 (sixteen years ago)

I can see how you can call him mercenary -- Nashville has noticed a growing demographic, and wants in its spending power -- but "wrong" is another question

Well, when you were at Billboard you could have sent out reporters to get an empirical feel for the truth of the matter. Billboard has an office in LA, right? So it's an easy thing to send stringers or staffers to the big country star gigs in the arenas and fairs and ask them what they think the mix of the audience is. Perhaps they've already done this and no one has seen it because Billboard pieces rarely disseminate to any net news tabs that I've noticed.

F'r instance, Sugarland's at the LA County Fair in September. I'm absolutely sure the fair drags in a polyglot. But how many people are getting the extra tickets for Sugarland and what color are they? 'Course, Jaguares is also gonnna be there. And Gavin Rossdale, so the country fair caters to everyone on different nights.

Gorge, Thursday, 31 July 2008 19:56 (sixteen years ago)

John Rich Pens McCain-Themed Song

Billboard
July 31, 2008 , 5:05 PM ET

Country music star John Rich wants like-minded voters to join him in "Raising McCain."

The other half of the Nashville duo Big and Rich, the singer/songwriter has penned lyrics for a rock-infused anthem focused on the 5-1/2 years Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and his refusal of an early release.

"He stayed strong, stayed extra long til they let all the other boys out. Now we've got a real man with an American plan, we're going to put him in the big White House," the song says. Its refrain: "We're all just raising McCain."

Rich plans to debut "Raising McCain" tomorrow (Aug. 1) at the Country First concert in Panama City, Fla., with McCain on hand.

In an interview, Rich said he hadn't been involved in politics before but got excited about the Arizona senator's campaign. He finished the song about a month ago and sent it to McCain's daughter Meghan, who sent it onto campaign officials.

"I wanted to offer him something that he didn't have, a rally song, one that really captures that maverick spirit," Rich said.

Rich said McCain's Vietnam experience motivated him to compose the song, which he planned to offer on his Web site without charge. "This guy is a hero," Rich said. "He was physically tortured for years, and yet he gets out of bed every day and serves our country for decades."

Rich said that while he admired Barack Obama and was "proud as an American" that a black candidate was on the verge of winning the Democratic nomination, he disagreed with the Illinois senator on most major issues and felt he didn't have enough experience to be president.

"The entire world is looking for a way to sucker punch us," Rich said. "National security is absolutely at the top of the list of issues. That's why I think John McCain is the guy to keep us safe."

Frank Kogan, Thursday, 31 July 2008 23:10 (sixteen years ago)

John Rich wrong about...so many things

OK, this is OTM then. (We already kinda knew that, though.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 July 2008 23:23 (sixteen years ago)

And likely Hispanic support for the Republicans has reportedly been slipping lately, right? Ha.

xhuxk, Thursday, 31 July 2008 23:48 (sixteen years ago)

yeah i wasn't talking specifically about this before but mostly about other asinine things he's said & stands he's taken.

as for the hispanic thing -- i never said that mexicans only listen to regional music; there is also norteno (intocable) and cumbia and all sorts of music in espanol, as well as country and rock and funk and emo and metal and basically every kind of music.

what i MEANT was that many mexicans are already living more of a typically "country" lifestyle, even more than most country music listeners...and that most of the music they listen to fills their needs more than any big-studio glossy nashville stuff, no matter whether or not a mexican-american person sings it.

rich's simple-minded racial equation reminds me a lot of how his boy mccain is running this campaign. they can have each other.

Dimension 5ive, Friday, 1 August 2008 04:18 (sixteen years ago)

...as well as country and rock and funk and emo and metal and basically every kind of music.

Right -- increasingly including English-language music of all stripes, as many second/third/fourth- generation Mexican-Americans increasingly grow up in households where Espanol is no longer dominant.

i never said that mexicans only listen to regional music; there is also norteno (intocable)

Weirdly, or maybe not, Billboard and R&R would list norteno as part of Regional Mexican -- radio-wise, anyway. This makes me wonder to what extent the Regional Mex radio format could be broken down even further: I'm guessing some stations might be more norteno, others more banda, and so on, and I'd assume this would be predominantly determined by locality, though maybe in L.A. or Houston somewhere there might be two competing Regional Mex stations, with one perhaps more "country" than the other one? Never thought of this before, and now I'm curious.

at Billboard you could have sent out reporters to get an empirical feel for the truth of the matter... it's an easy thing to send stringers or staffers to the big country star gigs in the arenas and fairs and ask them what they think the mix of the audience is.

Conceivably (though not as easy as you might think, given staff limiations in the sparsely populated L.A. office), and no doubt such situational color about live crowd makeup has been used in Billboard pieces on occasion. But I get the idea this evidence would still merely be anecdotal -- probably a lot harder to reliably quantify than numbers at radio.

xhuxk, Friday, 1 August 2008 19:26 (sixteen years ago)

In an Ann Powers LA Times piece this week, on the state of rock criticism roiling from "poptimist" straw men who I'm not convinced actually exist:

pop critics have found a way to turn it confrontational. Prefer Ray LaMontagne to Toby Keith? You're an NPR-listening square!

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-ca-pop27-2008jul27,0,10460.story

I actually listen to NPR fairly often myself(especially "Car Talk"), but I've never given half a minute of thought to Ray LaMontagne -- Anybody out there have an opinion about him? I was under the impression he was just some innocuous hack who got by pretending to sing like Van Morrison. But maybe I should paying attention to him, and I didn't know it?

xhuxk, Friday, 1 August 2008 19:40 (sixteen years ago)

Well, I do know there are a lot of NPR-listening nerds -- or at least those who think NPR is important -- in the LA Times features section. It's one of their favorite name-checks in their nerd rock coverage, the one's I lampoon on my blog.

Powers, doesn't see herself as a nerd. But I do. She's only different from her coworkers in that she turns everything into fifteen minutes of lecture from a gut course on music and society at a small but expensive private college. Fits into the demographic of music journalist wishing to be a prof.

Gorge, Friday, 1 August 2008 20:05 (sixteen years ago)

Fact of the matter is the Times music writing is ruled by a noticeable degree of namedropping.

For the most part, the various critics simply can't write a piece without dropping the name of some other famous rock critic as the voice of some received wisdom. In the Sunday edition, which is where this piece ran, it was preceded by another full page piece which invoked Greil Marcus and someone from the Wire as furnishers of some theological peer-reviewed proof. How many did Powers drop? Christgau, Jody Rosen -- who actually is a tedious cultural studies college prof, right? Who else?

Gorge, Friday, 1 August 2008 20:15 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, sending out staff to events might provide the color, but I dunno about basing an analysis solely on that--re this Hispanic question...I need to download the Edison Project's '07 report on country music and Latinos, actually.

as for Ray LaMontagne, I heard him as a pretty dismissable soulful white dude with beard kinda thing, and, right, Van Morrison approximately. I listen to NPR around this time of day, 4-5 p.m., and find it soothing.

Saw this Scots phenom do a Showcase last night here--Amy Macdonald. On Decca, anyone heard the record? A cute, intense, big-voiced lass, and her songs sounded to me like folk music does coal mines and dead dogs (one song about her dead dog actually--they will meet in heaven) and Glasgow (where she's from) grit, I guess. But the songs were all fairly tedious minor-key strums from the time-honored folkie handbook, and real Euro and kind of sing-songy. But an enormous voice, and one song, something rock and roll, that was kinda good really, and it's the hit song. Guess I need to look this up. Anyway, she was pretty good, with a really loud voice that rose in that folkie sadness and indignation. And her stage patter was charming, in that it was almost indecipherable. The drunks at the bar where I was, loved her. So maybe she just needs better material: I don't hear her cracking country with that voice, it's just too bothersome and fierce. The best thing she did almost was the last song, that Springsteen song, "Dancing in the Dark."

I'm starting to hear a trilogy for '08, White Males on Their Way Down: McMurtry's record, the new Randall Bramblett (one song about the people who used to rule the world but now are scrambling like everyone else) and that Walter Becker record (he's richest of the three but not really as nasty as that might imply, since he's got his doubts about the whole setup too).

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 1 August 2008 21:23 (sixteen years ago)

Wrote this about Amy Macdonald last year on the actual poptimists actual website:

Amy Macdonald "This Is The Life": A strong, rich voice, singing the sort of mournful melody that dates back to the 1960s, or the 1860s, or the 1770s. Tick! (Why am I the only one to tick this? I've never heard of this woman. Has she committed crimes in the past?)

She's charted a few times in Britain; I'd missed her previous hit "Mr. Rock & Roll," which I'm sure I subsequently listened to but I now don't remember, and a followup less successful single, "Run," that I remember not liking enough to tick but that I don't remember what it sounds like. William Bloody Swygart wrote in response to my query:

Amy Mac's previous single was the fairly dreadful "Mr Rock & Roll", so I suspect that not too many will be bothering with this. I dunno about it, really: her lyrics have this kind of wrong-footed precociousness about them, though nothing like as terrible as "Mr Rock & Roll"'s were; then again, the arrangement is pretty great, and her voice has a rather interesting (dare I say Dolores O'Riordan-esque?) quality to it. It'd still be a marginal tick, mind. Something about it doesn't quite stick, it feels more like a first draft than a finished article.

And Kat Stevens said:

Amy M - get one chorus mdear!

Anyway, still like the song, though as I suggested above it's not world-changing.

(If you actually follow the link, I'd say now that I underrated "Don't Stop The Music," though there may still be ten or so songs on Blackout that I like more. Or eight, anyway. Not sure why I was making the Britney comparison, though. Probably she was Britney's main competition in poptimists' artist of the year and albums polls, then underway. I think Britney ultimately won both, though I don't remember.)(Well, I'm sure she won the albums poll. And Rihanna romped in the singles category w/ "Umbrella.")

Frank Kogan, Friday, 1 August 2008 22:34 (sixteen years ago)

Don't think it's at all fair to accuse Ann of name-dropping. She's quoting people and giving examples, as she should, and where she's got a personal interest (she and Xgau really are friends) she feels obligated to say so. And Jody Rosen's hardly more prestigious than Ann herself is, so I don't see any name-dropping.

That said, the piece is worse than piffle, and everything about it is lame, from praising Xgau as a troublemaker to inventing a nonexistent clash of generations. And good rock critics don't write the way they do because they're shameless but because they're intellectually responsible, actually give good reasons for saying some music is good and saying other music isn't good, and they write in styles that are meant to convey who they are and the world they write from. By good reasons I mean reasons beyond "this music is in a category or made by people we approve/disapprove of." And the reason Ann's piece was so totally vacuous is that she didn't say a damn thing about what those reasons might be - e.g., what reasons anyone ever gave for saying Toby Keith is better than Ray LaMontagne or vice versa - but instead implies a never-ending contrarianism.

(Btw, I knew Ann when I lived in San Francisco and found her very likable and generous - same with her boyfriend/future hubby Eric, though he and I never found a way to work together professionally that didn't have us falling into power struggles, so there are leftover antagonisms and I'm hardly a disinterested observer. There are certainly worse personas for Ann to take than that of The One Who Explains Intellectual Trends To The Common Reader, Without Acting Hip About It. But the explanations have to have substance.)

Frank Kogan, Friday, 1 August 2008 23:07 (sixteen years ago)

I've mentioned this before, but up in the hills, my Mom's hometown, the first place I ever saw a Wal-Mart, ca. '81, has become home base for migrant workers, and yonder Wal- some years ago sprouted a Latin CD section, carefully subdivided and labelled norteno, banda, tejana, etc. It's since shrunk, but so has the whole section o course (compensated for by downloads? I dunno, but a local, bilingual online/broadcast station plays a lot of it, and ditto the national or international cable channels) I think a lot of references to "NPR" seem to mainly mean "All Things Considered," a scattershot, sometimes devious and/or sloppy show (though I just heard fairly encouraging frags of a Nordeste Brazilian band into Hank Williams, Dickey Betts, and something I think of as a skiffle beat [in the neighborhood of Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime"], reviewed by Banning Eyre, so maybe I'll check out the full tracks on the NPR website, which has a pretty good range of music, also boring stuff like Ray LaMontagne etc. Better are shows like "Beale Street Caravan," and sometimes "Woodsongs" and "E Town," if you can take the eager beaver hosts, and the sometimes great/sometimes appalling "World Cafe"--all these shows are built around live sets, ad feature a fair number of performers who fit this thread (not mentioning good jazz shows or the great "Afropop Worldwide," though the latter did have at least one excellent showcase/history of forro; "Forro, Etc" on Luaka Bop is one of the best country collections ever!)

dow, Friday, 1 August 2008 23:22 (sixteen years ago)

Btw, not that her NPR jibe was necessarily a reference back to my "PBS" argument, but I wonder how many people who were aware of and supposedly influenced by the argument - the doofus Simon Reynolds thinks I'm the godfather of poptimism, or something - actually know what the argument is. That is, I wasn't saying that GG Allin and Psycodrama and the Mentors (for instance) appealed to people who watched PBS and listened to NPR (though maybe they did!) but rather that they were a part of a general context - postpunk indie-alternative - that was playing a role among music fans similar to the role that PBS was playing in the larger culture. And then of course, the argument went on to talk about what that role was and where it came from. (Argument summarized by me here, I'm not sure how well.)

Frank Kogan, Friday, 1 August 2008 23:24 (sixteen years ago)

Don't think it's at all fair to accuse Ann of name-dropping. She's quoting people and giving examples, as she should, and where she's got a personal interest (she and Xgau really are friends) she feels obligated to say so. And Jody Rosen's hardly more prestigious than Ann herself is, so I don't see any name-dropping.

But it's not a peer-reviewed article in Science, Nature, JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine. It's the features section of a newspaper. So we'll just have to disagree. Can't think of any other place in the LA Times where someone can get away with talking about their "pals" as experts.

Hmmm, I'd say One Who Explains Intellectual Stuff That Doesn't Bear Much Explaining.

Gorge, Friday, 1 August 2008 23:30 (sixteen years ago)

And the reason Ann's piece was so totally vacuous

You missed the one a couple months back on the heartbreaking plight of Michael Jackson. Google that, I'm sure it's still around.

Gorge, Friday, 1 August 2008 23:34 (sixteen years ago)

inventing a nonexistent clash of generations

Yeah, the "younger" in "This 1980s generation has lately been taken down by younger 'poptimists,' who argue that lovers of underground rock are elitists for not embracing the more multicultural mainstream" struck me as especially disingenuous, if not an actual, outright boldfaced lie. If Ann had to name names in the piece, naming some actual names here would have been somewhat more useful than naming Christgau. Who are these youngsters, anyway? Do they really call underground rock fans "elitists"? Where, exactly, have they done this? And what, exactly, are they doing that, oh I dunno, Chuck Eddy and Frank Kogan and Metal Mike Saunders and George Smith and Michael Freedberg and Davitt Sigerson and Deborah Frost and Rob Tannenbaum, say, hadn't done long before this imaginary "80s generation" came along?

xhuxk, Friday, 1 August 2008 23:48 (sixteen years ago)

I mean, if she was going to quote Christgau, maybe she should've quoted his 1987 Pazz&Jop essay instead:

"Radio is a good, weird machine," Greil Marcus insisted last year, and this year the theme was reflected in the singles lists of many critics who've never met--for instance, Frank Kogan, Rob Tannenbaum, Chuck Eddy, and Ted Cox. All were Amerindie partisans five years ago, and to an extent they still are, with Cox and Tannenbaum in the Lobos-to-Hüskers tributary and Eddy and Kogan down with noise bands like White Zombie and Pussy Galore. But for singles they listen to the radio and get off on getting manipulated. Cox and Tannenbaum go for pop-to-schlock, Fleetwood Mac or Eddie Money, while Eddy and Kogan list a lot of street-rap. But all fell for diva/girl dance records that five years ago they almost certainly would have dismissed as, dare I say it, disco: Whitney Houston, Deborah Allen, Company B, Exposé.

http://robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pj87.php

But uh, this is sort of derailing the country thread, right? Not really my intention! I honestly just wondered whether Ray LaMontagne was any good.

As for Amy McDonald, her advance CD is now in my changer. It had been in there briefly, before, and my reaction was more or less "wow, this isn't as bad as I thought it would be." I knew nothing about her back story until the comments above. I will try to develop some sort of opinion about her, if I can.

xhuxk, Friday, 1 August 2008 23:53 (sixteen years ago)

(By the way, that Xgau passage is pretty screwy in its own right -- personally, I was at least as "manipulated" by White Zombie as by Spoonie Gee or Expose', and I liked plenty of disco in 1982, and Eddie Money sounds no less schlocky than Los Lobos in retrospect -- but uh, let's not go into that.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 2 August 2008 00:09 (sixteen years ago)

One thing (the only thing, so far) I like about John Rich's politics (unless we also count the sympathetic if purple, but observant tales of Real People) is the song about the lost patrol on Vietnam, going round and round in a thicket of music while the copter's on its way. He and the narrator sound amazed by the whole thing, not just the rescue. And it was on the radio--a hit? I dunno, but I always noticed when it was on, there was nothing else like it at the time--which was when the Liberation Of Iraq was really coming apart, trapped in the propwash. I don't know how Rich thought of it, but it wasn't controversial, it got past knee-jerk reactions like "Traveling Soldier" did before and after the Chicks furor: it reappeared on the radio in Bruce Robison's original version, so no one had be driven insane by the poison honeytones ov Saddam's Angels, as the cost of hearing other parts of the truth, quietly adding up, and padding around behind that "Angry American."

dow, Saturday, 2 August 2008 02:52 (sixteen years ago)

And what, exactly, are they doing that, oh I dunno, Chuck Eddy and Frank Kogan and Metal Mike Saunders and George Smith and Michael Freedberg and Davitt Sigerson and Deborah Frost and Rob Tannenbaum, say, hadn't done long before this imaginary "80s generation" came along?

Or that Xgau himself and Paul Nelson and Richard Goldstein and Nik Cohn and Simon Frith and Greil Marcus and Richard Meltzer and Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh and Vince Aletti and scores more hadn't done in the '60s and '70s. (Well, in the '60s they weren't taking down the '80s generation, obviously, but I'm damned if I know what the big thing is that "poptimists" are doing now that these guys weren't doing back then.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 3 August 2008 00:41 (sixteen years ago)

As for elitism..., well, back in the '80s I was arguing that the postpunk "we" I identified with was something of an elite, albeit a poorly remunerated one. "Despite our marginality, we have an effect on music as a whole. We can't get everybody to listen to our music - but we can be arbiters of taste." But that's true whether we're plumping for indie rock or for Teena Marie or (nowadays) LCD Soundsystem or Rihanna or Miranda Lambert. And embracing a mainstream for being "multicultural" is exactly the sort of thing I was deriding as "PBS" (speaking of rendering something lame in the context of our appreciation - I mean, gag!).

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 3 August 2008 01:05 (sixteen years ago)

In the Eighties, I went from doing fanzine punk rock to noise since dug up by music bloggers feeding their jones for nerd rock to white boy blooz classic biker rock. Some of it simultaneously. Plus I wrote some for Creem but more for a daily newspaper which covered the usual mainstream stuff traipsing through eastern Pennsy.

"This 1980s generation has lately been taken down by younger 'poptimists,' who argue that lovers of underground rock are elitists for not embracing the more multicultural mainstream

Actually, it struck me as total crap. But that's part and parcel of the regular shtick.

Today it was American's are withdrawing from flying their inner fag flag because "American culture is retracting ... People are terrified by the crashing economy and our slipping status in the world. In such times, fantasies go backward too."

This in extended equation and proof built off Katy Perry not kissing a girl in "I Kissed a Girl." "What bothers me about 'I Kissed a Girl," it is claimed, "is that in the song's video, Perry never actually kisses a girl."

Jill Sobule was more daring, it is claimed. "So what has changed since 1995? I think the shift has to do with what Americans can tolerate right now in terms of risk." Emphasis mine.

So that's why one of the gay bars in Pasadena closed. But, wait, we just legalized gay marriage. Jeezus H. Christ on a pointed stick, am I confused! Haw!

Gorge, Sunday, 3 August 2008 20:52 (sixteen years ago)

Jill Sobule (whose song was a lot lamer than people seem to remember, and a lot less catchy than Katy Perry's) also only hit #67 on the Billboard 100 with her girl-kissing song, not #1 for several weeks. So yeah, a somewhat logically flawed hypothesis, sounds like -- even without bringing the housing crisis and fuel prices into the equation, and/or any other this-is-indicative-of-the-historical-zeitgeist malarkey.

By the way, pretty sure my favorite Katy Perry song is still "Simple," on the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants soundtrack from three years ago.

xhuxk, Sunday, 3 August 2008 22:14 (sixteen years ago)

Speaking of traveling pants for the sisterhood, I kinda like the Felice Brothers, whose baggy pants sideshow sleaze has sufficient lonely gypsy planet boy appeal, somewhat like a cooled-out slightly Wild & Innocent-era Springsteen, if such might be born in the 80s, thus now minus the ambition, one who realizes he's never gonna get out of the year-round carnival town: as it was before the Age Of The Album-Earned Arena (most of the history of the world), so mote it be after. So they're a-doin this and a-doin that, and tryin to make some girl, and when/if she says. "Baby better come back, maybe next week, cause-" no prob and never mind why, Vi, they'll be back around, travelling for another gas money gig, on this ol merry-go-round. They're too damn cute for me sometimes, but it's not me they're looking for babe (although if I buy a ticket, they'll punch it)

dow, Monday, 4 August 2008 01:56 (sixteen years ago)

....and they're travellers of the boondocks, as much a born "too late" (for some things) Hawks/Band as ditto Bruce, so country enough for my Top Ten this year.

dow, Monday, 4 August 2008 04:25 (sixteen years ago)

Toby Keith reportedly puts foot in mouth bigtime (and people from all corners add their own dumb two cents):

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/342063

xhuxk, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 01:43 (sixteen years ago)

Hmmm, some dweeb from the Huff Post double-dipping in The Nation denting Toby Keith? Might whip up a storm for a day if there's no other news.

It's like expecting Ted Nugent to be chastened for saying the various whacko and offensive things he's said about the damn liberal Democrats who wanna take his guns.

Here's a Toby Keith tracker on the Google News tab. Story's nineteen hours old. You can sort it "by date" to see it gets any traction. So far, not really.

Gorge, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 02:31 (sixteen years ago)

This is sort of definitive, in its own wacky way:

Describing Keith's over-produced truck commercial schmaltz as "country music" besmirches the dignified tradition established by Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, while insulting the innovative artists propelling the genre into the future, from Neko Case to Son Volt to my good friend Dave Bryan (hear his music here). At his best, Keith is Merle Haggard with a lobotomy.

Alejandro Escovedo, an Iron City Houserockers for our time (only not as good)?:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/08/alejandro-escov.html

Reviews I've written of recent country-related songs by Hacienda Brothers, David Banner, Toby Keith, Randy Travis, Emily West, and Alejandro Escovedo again (along with some non-country-related songs by Black Kids, Lady Tigra, Beat Union, Motley Crue, and the Knux) can be found here (but please note that I did not write ALL these reviews, only half-to-most of them in the past few weeks -- the ones I wrote have my byline if you open them; the ones I didn't write say "By Rolling Stone." Strange, I know):

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/rs_sotd/

xhuxk, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 19:47 (sixteen years ago)

Oh yeah, I wrote the Dr. John one, too.

Liking Rebecca Lynn Howard's often hard-rocking soul-country album a lot; thanks, Edd, for the contact info. Like the new Randy Rogers Band album (due in September on Mercury), too, though I wish he was a less average singer. Band can pack a punch, though.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 19:51 (sixteen years ago)

what i find amusing about the current dust-up over the lyrics to "beer for my horses" is how reluctant anyone is to mention that it's a duet with willie nelson. if toby sings it, he must be a slave owner. if willie sings it, well, "he's willie nelson! maybe he was high at the time!"

fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 21:25 (sixteen years ago)

Pretty plausible alibi though! Oh he works all the angles. Toby's starting to remind me of Bill Clinton or 80s Dylan, or any number of people spooked by the parade's passing peaks, can't resist blurting some shit to get attention. Charlie Daniels, Ted Nugent--you know, performing artists become part of the landscape real easy, even or especially when they're still at a peak: no matter how many people are truly entranced, many others are attracted by the chance to meat and greet, deal and steal--just a little piece of the action, no biggie. So performers see a lot of shit from the stage, no wonder they think about it later when they've got time, all the time left in the world, eventually. Not that all these guys aren't still doing good work, except Bill (well, if he gets back on the humanitarian safari with Daddy Bush, he'll be okay--head out on an Endless Tour like Dyl,Willie Charlie, pick up Ted and Toby while you're at it)

dow, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 22:24 (sixteen years ago)

Anybody that deals with the far-rippling mass (incl ass) of humanity, incl those who work in stores and schools, though it may take them years to deal with as many people as Toby encounters in any stadium, much less via any radio song or Ford commercial(and they don't have his kind of organization, filteration) finds themselves stretching perspective, maybe trying to find a Big Picture frame, a Big Dipper, something like that. If the performing artist knows how to work that, keep it relating to the guy down the chain, keeping in mind their somewhat similar but diffrent deals, results can ring true in various ways.

dow, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 22:46 (sixteen years ago)

(Oh, speaking of working all the angles and a Big Dipper, too bad Willie didn't extract a duet with Toby on W.'s version of "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other," in exchange for the duet on "Beer For My Hosses")

dow, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 22:51 (sixteen years ago)

there's nothing in toby's resume or bio to suggest he wouldn't have done that in a heartbeat. he's got a solid sense of humor and he's not so secretly fond of willie.

fact checking cuz, Thursday, 7 August 2008 00:59 (sixteen years ago)

Good, mebbe it'll happen yet. Watch the skies! And YouTube.

dow, Thursday, 7 August 2008 01:47 (sixteen years ago)

George Strait vs Randy Travis vs John Anderson:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/08/george-strait-a.html#more

So does anybody have a Carolina Rain opinion I can borrow? I don't have one. Their new single "American Rain" seems okay, I guess. It namedrops both Strait and Travis, plus "Gimme Three Steps," "Free Bird," "Jumpin Jack Flash," "Missing You," "Purple Rain," and Barry White. Last two slightly surprising.

Curious what people think about Kristy Lee Cook, too. Single is "15 Minutes of Shame," which again, seems not bad, not great, probably, but more likely great than bad. How's that for non-committal? (So, was she a reality show competetitor? She seems like one, judging from all the MySpace pages by fans.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 August 2008 16:23 (sixteen years ago)

So, was she a reality show competetitor?

american idol. (but, hell, who HASN'T been an american idol contestant at this point?)

fact checking cuz, Thursday, 7 August 2008 17:50 (sixteen years ago)

Canadian country-rock trio covers Genesis (among other less country things):

http://idolator.com/400026/we-search-myspace-for-the-stoopidest-most-genesis+loving-acts

xhuxk, Thursday, 7 August 2008 18:41 (sixteen years ago)

Guess I was wrong about the royalty checks. Naughty Sugarland.

Gorge, Friday, 8 August 2008 15:51 (sixteen years ago)

My review of the Jamey Johnson album:

http://www.spin.com/reviews/jamey-johnson-lonesome-song-mercury

So, what the music taught me that I didn't know (as I mentioned in reply to Frank above) had a lot to do with the use of open space and sound effects in new country music. (The song I'm reffering to there is "When The Last Cowboy's Gone"; the song I call a "Where's the Playground Susie" update is "Mary Go Round.") Weird that such a serious and theoretically immobile Waylon-style singer would have such an effect on me, when I've never been a big Waylon fan at all. Maybe I should revisit him. Or maybe Jamey's voice is doing something that Waylon's didn't. (Jon Pareles gives the album a good writeup in tomorrow's Sunday Times too, for whatever that's worth.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 9 August 2008 15:40 (sixteen years ago)

Pareles's writeup:

Jamey Johnson thanked his ex-wife when he shared the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award for writing a George Strait hit, “Give It Away.” He can also thank her for his own “That Lonesome Song” (Lost Highway), an album built around post-divorce songs that revel in the morose. In “High Cost of Living” he’s a guy who sets aside his marriage and steady job for “cocaine and a whore,” while the steady-chugging “Mowing Down the Roses” has him jump-starting the old John Deere to destroy his ex’s flower bed. When he’s not thinking about the ruined marriage, he’s equally sullen about the state of country music. An open admirer of Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, Mr. Johnson favors older styles. He sings more than one waltz and uses lean, subdued band arrangements that ooze pedal steel guitar into the empty spaces. He and his collaborators come up with couplets like “That Southern Baptist parkin’ lot/ Was where I’d go to smoke my pot.” And near the end of the album one woman can still reach him: his momma.

xhuxk, Saturday, 9 August 2008 15:44 (sixteen years ago)

don't have a Carolina Rain opinion. But, starting to really like the upcoming Chris Knight, Heart of Stone, which is in the mold of Jamey Johnson. I totally agree with Xhuxk: sonically the record's pretty special, and wide-open, detailed, all that. I don't really hear Jamey as "sullen" so much as just in a hairy kinda mood, like the shaggy-dog story they include here, about a sojourn with a certain kind of woman. That line about cocaine and a whore is stark, I hear the record as a pretty creative fucking stab at self-recrimination without a lot of guilt. He's not as good a songwriter as Waylon, though, I think, but I like his singing better. I guess the only great Waylon is Dreaming My Dreams, and to tell you the truth I like it, but revisited recently in light of that Chuck Prophet re-creation, and it sounded...mild, actually, milder than I remembered it.

Man, Heidi Newfield's record stomps along like the trainwreck she says she is in the first song, but I think her drawl is overdone and a bit phony. Kind of like how this record sounds as opposed to the cover, where she's almost like some anonymous Canadian diva with cleavage or something. On the other hand, I sorta like the slide and southern rock of "Can't Let Go" and the classiest song is one cowritten by Lori McKenna, "Wreck You." Pretty good. On the other hand, "Johnny and June" makes me want to throw up from its first line, "something about a man in black makes me want to buy a Cadillac." And I like the thud-rock and non-guilty self-recrimination of "Knocked Up." And shit, the Many Moods of Heidi in the booklet, from saucy in a vest to in boots 'n' black and looking casual with scarf at the loadout. But the voice seems weird, infantile, too much creaking and croaking with emotion for my taste.

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 9 August 2008 18:56 (sixteen years ago)

I like the Newfield a lot myself; favorite song is the closing one. Here's my review of that:

http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=5249

Just put Chris Knight into the changer before I clicked on this thread and read Edd's post. He never did much for me before, but this time who knows...

xhuxk, Saturday, 9 August 2008 19:46 (sixteen years ago)

Not liking it so far, for whatever that's worth. His congested voice just seems to making the thing drag, no matter how tough it seems to be trying to be. Don't get the Jamey comparison. But I'll keep trying.

xhuxk, Saturday, 9 August 2008 21:59 (sixteen years ago)

Just seems to be making the thing drag. (obv.)

I'm pretty sure Knight's voice is what got in the way before, too. But I'm not hearing any interesting songwriting yet, either -- though I'm not sure whether that's because it's not there, or just because his singing is incapable of putting it over.

xhuxk, Saturday, 9 August 2008 22:16 (sixteen years ago)

So far, The first four songs seem musically congested, infected by his determination to be jest plain folks, and too dependent on working a tag line that includes the title phrase, very economical-like: So the "Homesick Gypsy" is home once he's left you(though that had promise when it seemed like it was gonna be like "Payday" the movie, then got stuck in repeat); "Hell Ain't Half Full" cos there's room for us all (that one might be good when I can prise its packing loose, it's partly the mix of these four); somebody'll probably do an okay cover of "Something To Keep Me Going"("when I'm gone"); also, you should nver break yerself on a "Heart Of Stone." But on tracks 5 through 12, the music's circles grow some circuits and heat up the words, which grow some characters, who rattle their cages, like on "Another Dollar," the guy asks why the more money he gets the more he needs, hell yeah, and it gets to some headbanging. All the good combo stuff seems to come from the implications of drummer, the only player uncredited on the promo sheet, anybody know who it is? Mostly guitars, bass, drums, little B-3, sometimes fiddle and/or banjo from Tammy Rodgers of the Steeldrivers, anybody heard their album? Some pretty good (though brief) live sets on radio, but the lead Steeldriver guy's voice is so thick and meaty, like if Hood had Cooley's lungs, and they don't seem to go in for lengthy solos--all in all, I don't see how they fit into bluegrass, but apparently they do. (Sort of like a rougher Chatham County Line, who are also more about the songs than picking)

dow, Sunday, 10 August 2008 01:11 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, that new Knight album is growing on me -- just takes a little while for the nuances to sink in, I guess. Still real skeptical, but I'm opening up to it. I'm starting to hear some Mellencamp in the guy -- mostly post-Jubilee Mellencamp, not my favorite era obviously, though the working man's wage statement "Another Dollar" has "Pink Houses" subliminally in there somewhere, in its melody.

The Rebecca Lynn Howard album, meanwhile, is shrinking on me a little -- There's a lot of pro-forma stuff on that record, though there's also a few songs I really love. As young-gal soul-blues country goes, I think I definitely prefer the Carter's Chord album, which doesn't seem to bend over backwards so much to try convince me that incoporating soul and blues is such a big deal. I mean, Rebecca actually does songs about the topic, and not especially interesting ones. Still, I like her. May write about those two albums together somewhere. (Carter's Chord is still not out til September physically, but already widley available digitally. Though my own advance is physical, natch.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 August 2008 15:21 (sixteen years ago)

My inclination, though, is to think that Knight has more in common with, say, Hayes Carrl (or even Eric Church) than with Jamey Johnson -- a folkie leaning toward heartland rock. (Though there is something dark and inexorable -- hence, Johnson like? -- about "Almost There." Not to mention hints of Link Wray in its heavy reverberating guitar twang.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 10 August 2008 15:52 (sixteen years ago)

Watched a CBS Sunday Morning tv feature on Shelby Lynne this morning and thought I heard them say that her Dusty Springfield tribute is her biggest selling cd. Is that right? Interesting piece although Shelby came across a little full of herself with her repeated mentions of being an artiste and a rebel.

curmudgeon, Sunday, 10 August 2008 16:15 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, i hear ya: SHUT UP WOMAN, leave the rebellion to the men (j/k)

Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 10 August 2008 17:30 (sixteen years ago)

I guess I big difference in the Knight and Jamey albums is that Knight situates his music on the old road, and his voice is thinner. they're both bluesy, though, and do a lot with a limited voice. I also like the relative spareness--the subliminal banjo on "Homesick Gypsy"--of the Knight record. plenty of John Cougarisms on the record, which is also more anthemic than Jamey's. perhaps more sodden, too, as on "Danville," which I really like. so maybe Knight's still on the road to fucking up and Jamey's done been. I like the attempted indecipherability of "Another Dollar," I mean if Jamey's big influence is Waylon, then here's another Exile on Music Row thing right here. I'll link my profile of Jamey when it comes up; meanwhile, if anyone wants to read about Dallas "Mohair Sam" Frazier, my interview with him is up at Perfect Sound Forever. The Raven reissue of his Capitols is definitely in my top 10 reissues of the year.

speaking of Hayes Carll, I picked up his comic book that goes along with the new record. anybody else seen this, it was apparently given away as a promo in the brick-and-mortar shops. it's hilarious, well-drawn, and in some ways,er, better than the album itself. The Search for Ooga Kabooga Juice and Other Adventures, kinda Head Comix for Texas singer-songwriters. in my fave adventure, Hayes gets a job down on the beach for "Rembrandt," a truly funny-looking old dude who does body painting on the beach, so Hayes is enlisted to do the special job of painting on big, beautiful beach breasts, since Rembrandt himself is a Fabulous Furry Freak Brother, Texas division, and the women are creeped out by his look, not to mention his touch.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 10 August 2008 18:44 (sixteen years ago)

I think Shelby Lynne is a little nuts, frankly, and her Dusty record is music for people on painkillers. the only time I could get into it was when I screwed up my knee about a month ago and the doc put me on some codeine derivative or another. I liked it--the spareness, the repetition, the electric piano--but went back in the cold light of day and it was as boring as I thought. these kids, they're on drugs.

last night I saw a new trio from Virginia who might be interesting, down the road. called Gold Hearts--the 3 Gold sisters from out there somewhere, and they do their own songs in a bluegrass kinda style. energetic and they are really sisters--one tall one, one short one, one who writes all the songs, I think. making a record here, so I'm gonna investigate. maybe when you're related, then there are no lawsuits to worry about...

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 10 August 2008 18:53 (sixteen years ago)

well, here's the link to Dallas Frazier interview in PSF.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 10 August 2008 18:57 (sixteen years ago)

Have to check that on the good or better computer. Meanwhile, anyone who was frustrated by Shelby's Dusty trib, also anyone who wasn't, should spin Cat Power's Jukebox, which emulates (and sometimes updates, re the beats, and some song selections) rather than imitates that awesome sound and sensibilty.

dow, Sunday, 10 August 2008 23:15 (sixteen years ago)

Haven't heard the Shelby album but do you really think the Cat Power is anything at all? I don't think she even exists.

Dimension 5ive, Monday, 11 August 2008 03:56 (sixteen years ago)

Never had any use for her before, but now I'm a believer. Guess I should also check out The Greatest, with the Hi Rhythm Section.

dow, Monday, 11 August 2008 04:16 (sixteen years ago)

press release, via email:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 11, 2008

DON IMUS UNLEASHES THE IMUS RANCH RECORD

Available September 16th From New West Records

Readers Digest, NM -- Don Imus today announced the September 16th release of The Imus Ranch Record (New West Records) a 13-track album featuring eight Grammy® Award winning performers. The CD will benefit the Imus Ranch, a working cattle ranch run by Don and Deirdre Imus, which hosts children who are afflicted with cancer or other serious blood diseases.

The album boasts eight Grammy® Award winning artists including Patty Loveless, singing the Stevie Nicks penned “Silver Springs,” Dwight Yoakam putting his signature sound to “Give Back The Key To My Heart,” and Lucinda Williams singing “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” which was made famous by Waylon Jennings. Big & Rich cover the Beastie Boys classic “Fight For Your Right To Party” playing with the lyrics to work in a line about the Ranch. Little Richard, Delbert McClinton, Willie Nelson and Randy Travis all recorded standards.

The compilation was produced by Imus along with Kyle Lehning (Randy Travis, George Jones) and Tracy Gershon (well known A & R executive). Imus selected each song and matched it to a specific artist. A complete list of the tracks follows:

Tracks & Artist List:

Silver Springs – Patty Loveless
Lay Down Sally – Delbert McClinton
Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys – Lucinda Williams
You Better Move On – Levon Helm
Life Has Its Little Ups And Downs – Raul Malo
I Ain’t Never – Little Richard
I Don’t See Me In Your Eyes Anymore – Randy Travis
You’ve Got To Fight For Your Right To Party – Big & Rich
What A Difference A Day Makes – Willie Nelson
Give Back The Key To My Heart – Dwight Yoakam
What Happened – Bekka Bramlett
Welfare Music – John Hiatt
A Satisfied Mind – Vince Gill

xhuxk, Monday, 11 August 2008 17:42 (sixteen years ago)

Apparently "Welfare Music" is a Bottle Rockets song (and its main character is a fan of Loretta Lynn and Carlene Carter, so most likely not race-baiting.) And
I'll be really (albeit pleasantly) surprised if Big N Rich's Beasties cover isn't completely horrible.

Jon Caramanica gives the Heidi Newfield album a pretty good review in this morning's Times, and calls Trick Pony a "rabble-rousing country trio" who did "five years of songs about whiskey and outlaws and rough relationships." Strange-- I always perceived them as a lot less tough than he makes them out to be. Was I not listening, or is he wrong?

New Chris Knight album -- man, I keep going back and forth on this thing. NOW, the more I listen, the more it's drowning in sluggish suckage again. Weird!

xhuxk, Monday, 11 August 2008 18:05 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, Heidi Newfield's record is pretty good, but I guess I still like Rebecca Lynn's voice better and Greta Gaines' attitude ditto.

I'm going to review the Knight record, and it does sorta vary don't it? gets a little tedious--the voice does, for me--but I have a perhaps inexplicable liking for "My Old Cars." a nice companion to Jeff Bates' "I Can't Have Nothing Nice," from his self-titled record also from this year. So I dunno.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 11 August 2008 19:43 (sixteen years ago)

real quickly:

Chris Knight -- Wound up pretty much hating the thing, beyond a couple passably Cougaresque moments. Christ, what a lethargic fuck.

James Otto -- Liking his voice, which sometimes reminds me of Leon Russell. Wishing his material was better. First song is a tolerable generic BnR rip. Last song is probably his best. Good guitar solo.

More Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country -- Second volume, just came out. Awesome. I really need to hear more O.B. McLinton now, and Bobby Womack's country album(s). And more Johnny Adams, I guess. And Junior Parker. Like the Ruth Brown "Tennessee Waltz" way more than I would have guessed; not sure why I've never explored her before. And Sammy Davis Jr. might just have the best version of "Smoke Smoke Smoke" I've ever heard.

Conventions -- Willie and Jerry Jeff playing for the Dems; John Rich and Cowboy Troy and Gretchen and CDB playing for the Republicans. Jeez. Wonder where Big Kenny stands on this. Also kind of curious about Kid Rock and Eminem and Bob Seger, now that Time magazine has been saying that my sweet home suburban Detroit (particularly Oakland Country, where I grew up) may have the swing votes to decide the election.

Charlie Pickett (mostly with the Eggs) -- Best-of comp on Bloodshot is half great, half (including several live cuts, and sadly at least one of the two Flamin Groovies covers) a real snooze. Hmmm....

Cat Power -- I'm with Cibula on this one. She did the two dullest live shows I've seen in my life. It is said she's improved (which I guess would mean she actually has a pulse now), but I'm beyond skeptical.

xhuxk, Friday, 15 August 2008 13:21 (sixteen years ago)

[Oakland COUNTY I mean, duh.] (Where I never heard much country growing up, for whatever that's worth. Though a lot of the Bob Seger music I heard would be considered country if it came out now.)

xhuxk, Friday, 15 August 2008 13:28 (sixteen years ago)

As for Knight's "My Old Cars," it's a good song, or at least a real good idea for a song -- basically, All My Exes Live On Broken Axles -- and at least there's probably some logic for that one trudging along at 5 mph, I'll give it that. But that doesn't mean I actually enjoy listening to it.

xhuxk, Friday, 15 August 2008 13:46 (sixteen years ago)

And oh yeah, should have mentioned this, too; he's been on country's periphery for a few decades:

Randy Newman -- Did not make it through his new one. Tried. Used to be able to handle his voice. Can't anymore. Maybe I've changed; more likely, he has.

xhuxk, Friday, 15 August 2008 13:49 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, I wound up kinda wishing Knight had more oomph in his voice. Still like some of the songs, though.

The Bittersweets' Goodnight, San Francisco is pretty alt-country, with some tragedy implied in their tales of on-the-road and so forth, but Hannah Prater's vocals are maybe too prettified for me. Decent enough record but for this kind of thing, I think the Coal Men, who record here in Nashville, do it far better.

I'm a Randy Newman fan; his voice was pretty scary on Bad Love, oafish, but I thought it was a great record. his new one is on the pile. speaking of singers who have covered Newman's songs, Irma Thomas has a new one on Rounder and it's quite good--she does "Early in the Morning" as well as Nilsson did it back in the '70s. Her voice (this is turning into a disquisition on voices) betrays its age ever so slightly, but this is an intelligently done neo-Orleans album, and the piano players they picked to go along with Irma are all great.

Heard Glen Campbell on NPR last night. He's interesting, talks as though his mind is running a mile ahead of his voice. He only got really animated when he remembered playing sessions; said that he'd slip off to do them even when he was at his height, back around '68 and '69. I detect the mind of a real technician in his comments, and that coldness might be what's keeping me from really loving Meet Glen Campbell. And it was funny to hear the Fresh Air dude (not Ms. Gross, who sometimes even acts as though she's listened to the music she's talking about) refer to the people who did "Jesus" as "Velvet Underground" (you need the definite article, doncha?), guess they just refer to Capitol's retarded crib sheet of a press release, which doesn't bother to list the actual songwriters.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 15 August 2008 15:09 (sixteen years ago)

They did play (excerpts of) both versions; pretty intriguing.( I don't remember the original that well, but it doesn't sound ironic (no doubt Lou knew its shock value, for those raised on "Heroin," but hey, "When I'm rushin on my run, and feel just like Jesus' son"--although the luridness of that line [lurid-->Lou Reed] and the hokiness of the band's name made me think they were tourist-bait, when I was fifteen--couldn't fule me boy!)Also, in Ken Tucker's recent review of Alejandro, excerpts sounded better than his usual, like Los Lobos, a bit, so maybe that's where the "bar band" thing comes from? Oh, Kid Rock's come out for McCain, think I saw on CMT.

dow, Saturday, 16 August 2008 03:17 (sixteen years ago)

I haven't heard James Otto at all yet, but I was reading a Jamey Johnson press thing where he credited Otto with writing the melody for the hook of "In Color", which is a great hook. Driving across Michigan a few days ago, somewhere near Saginaw I think, I heard "In Color" on a country radio station and it sounded really comfortable there. I wonder if it's getting much play on country radio overall, it surprised me to hear it for some reason (it was great to come across it while skipping through lots of nothing across the dial).

erasingclouds, Monday, 18 August 2008 14:00 (sixteen years ago)

Looks like it's at #26 on the (entirely airplay based) R&R/Billboard Country Songs chart, which means it's definitely getting some radio time. (My mediabase link for some reason isn't working lately, so I can't investigate the geographical breakdown.)

Not being a country radio listener, and not having checked for a few weeks, I'm surprised to see Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" (which I like a lot more than Frank or George do -- in fact, it's got a good shot at my year-end singles top 10) at #13, which means country radio must be playing that one lots.

Real quick: Tried the imminent Lucinda Williams CD; got bored quick, though I didn't mind the guitars in a couple songs. Tried the new Avett Brothers EP; got bored quicker, and pissed off to boot. (Can somebody explain to me why people call them "punk"? They just sound like bland folkie wimps to me. Not just alt-country; almost emo-country. Supposedly they have a good rep for live shows, but I have trouble believing you can turn pig shit into...um...whatever it's impossible to turn pig shit into.) Tried the new George Jones duets record, and that didn't remotely excite me either -- not even "Burn Your Playhouse Down" with Keith Richards helping out.

xhuxk, Monday, 18 August 2008 14:36 (sixteen years ago)

Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" (which I like a lot more than Frank or George do -- in fact, it's got a good shot at my year-end singles top 10) at #13

It was getting good play on the cable channels as early as a couple months ago. Couldn't stand the ripped off music as backing for the laying on thick of the white trash salt-o-the-earth-booze-and-dope-party-on-the-lake thing. Reminded me of a family-rated version of the scene from the beginning of Black Snake Moan where the drunk Christina Ricci, who plays the town slut, gets abused by white boys while being the only girl playing pick-up football in nothing but panties and shoulder-pads at the booze and dope party (by the lake). Only the music was better in the movie.

Gorge, Monday, 18 August 2008 16:30 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, I know -- song's a total cheat, and absolute sucker-bait. Unfortunately, in this instance, I am apparently that sucker, because Kid's schtick here gets me every time. Especially that line about Northern Michigan. (I bet the station erasingclouds heard around Saginaw loves this song -- almost as much as "Saginaw, Michigan" by Lefty Frizell.)

TS: Kid Rock "All Summer Long" vs Beach Boys "All Summer Long" (American Graffiti helps give a boost to the latter, I admit.)

xhuxk, Monday, 18 August 2008 19:48 (sixteen years ago)

I'll have to see that movie (for the music of course)

dow, Monday, 18 August 2008 22:39 (sixteen years ago)

Toby likes Obama:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080819/ap_en_ce/people_keith_obama

xhuxk, Tuesday, 19 August 2008 22:53 (sixteen years ago)

John Rich, an even bigger asswipe than you thought, vs. Roseanne Cash, who hasn't made a decent album in decades but who is still right as rain this time:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7572040.stm

Me on Carter's Chord and Rebecca Lynn Howard:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/08/the-soul-of-you.html

xhuxk, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 19:24 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, can you believe that Rich would actually put words in the mouth of Johnny Cash--a notorious liberal, pothead, all-round crazy dude? John Rich has clearly let stuff go to his head.

well, the new Brad Paisley leads off with an instrumental--wait, are they all instrumentals? No, there he is singing on "Start a Band." "Just get your guitar and learn how play/Just cut your jeans and come up with a name." I don't have the heart to forward to the B.B. King cut just yet so I'm gonna keep listening. What can I say so far, he sure can play, and this is a real surf 'n' turf kinda record...

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 20:44 (sixteen years ago)

and "Cluster Pluck" features John Jorgensen, who is great--he sat in with Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen and it was like seeing Django himself in the Station Inn...

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 20:49 (sixteen years ago)

also good to see Buck Owens coming out of retirement to do "Come on In." don't sound like the layoff has hurt him none.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 20:57 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, those dirt naps are the pauses that refreshes, lemme tellya. Good instrumental with Brad on Charlie Daniels' Duets set.

dow, Thursday, 21 August 2008 00:49 (sixteen years ago)

Hey Edd -- tried that new Irma Thomas; seemed pretty dull to me compared to her previous one from two years ago (which I liked); my theory is that it's too weighted down by Important Concepts (Katrina Songs with Big Stars doncha know); maybe I'm deaf.

Meanwhile, I write about Justin Moore backing azzes up on the country chart (plus Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band and Marvin Sease, country in their way):

http://idolator.com/400724/scanning-the-internet-for-the-best-acts-to-back-lick-andor-wind-you-up

Also, really liking the current album by these clearly ZZ Top-influenced Seattlies Too Slim and the Tail Draggers (who I wrote about on Idolator earlier this year when they hit the blues chart, though I've only finally heard their album this week); George, I'd be curious to hear any thoughts you might have:

http://www.myspace.com/tooslimandthetaildraggers

xhuxk, Friday, 22 August 2008 17:31 (sixteen years ago)

that irma thomas album seems like it might be boring (concept is her + different pianists, right?), i just want to hear the tracks with david torkanowsky and davell crawford. dudes are so sick.

Jordan, Friday, 22 August 2008 17:33 (sixteen years ago)

Some of the piano playing would probably have been excellent on its own, but I couldn't work up the patience for figuring out where, and I sure didn't notice it propelling Irma in any way; seemed more like it was straightjaceting her. Compared to her last album, she seemed out of her element, somehow.

xhuxk, Friday, 22 August 2008 18:37 (sixteen years ago)

(straightjacKeting, that is.)

xhuxk, Friday, 22 August 2008 18:38 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, Chuck, on the Irma Thomas maybe you're a little deaf. I hardly see how "Too Much Thinking" and "Early in the Morning" could be improved upon, and the Toussaint cover "Somebody Told You" is ace. Tom McDermott on "Early" is great. She's in her element--don't know what you're talking about there, either, since I've been listening to her old shit and realizing how out-of-time and kinda reflective and wounded her classic material was. The voice is getting a bit out of hand, I hear some intonation problems here and there, and sure it's just another Rounder record. I dunno, Chuck, I guess if my city was basically destroyed and changed beyond recognition and I were a singer from that city, maybe I'd do some songs about that myself. Me, I like it best when she's a little uptempo. As usual, the cast and crew they bring in to sell the fucking thing to the NPR crowd is partially a drag. It's no masterpiece, but I guess I just like New Orleans piano and these pianist are fairly apposite. I could do without "I Wish It Would Rain Today," why don't she do "Have You Seen My Baby" or even "You Can Leave Her Hat On" and duet with Vince Gill or someone.

Valorie Miller's Autumn Eyes might be a companion to Kath Bloom, Don...I dunno, I like her when she sings "I was livin' a primitive life" and "with no telephone to call firemen" in waltz time and rough guitar opening. I mean this is better than any of that Holly Golightly stuff. The artier (than this) shit is more tedious, but I admit I like her singing, she don't overdo any vibrato and I think she has a sense of humor. I suspect the relative funkiness of the nervous "Hurry Up and Wait" with its elementary stomp, combined with the arty slow material, will make her this year's quality item for neo-folkies everywhere. She's from NC and she reminds me of a female Malcolm Holcombe, an Eccentric, and in some weird way she sings like I always wanted Amy Rigby to sing, "better voice" and more finesse. What's she really singing about, that I have to figure out but I hear references to "gamblers pushing on the gate" so maybe it's some comment on society today...but "sometimes I slip away to a darker kiss" is a lousy line, she sounds just as woebegone and tastefully textured (strategic vocal overdubs) and anyone else doing post-neo-alt.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 22 August 2008 21:05 (sixteen years ago)

"You Can Leave Your Hat On," ha.

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 22 August 2008 21:07 (sixteen years ago)

edd, did you like that blind boys record?

Jordan, Friday, 22 August 2008 21:07 (sixteen years ago)

I don't begrudge Irma singing about the hurricane and flood, of course; she was doing that last time, too, and it worked fine for me (see review below.) Maybe I'm just ready for New Orleans legends to start singing about, uh, something else. (Dr. John's new album has a similar concept, though he's more artsy about it.) Still, maybe I need to listen to Irma's new one more, I dunno. I love New Orleans piano myself; just have reservations about it being turned into a museum piece, and I heard the album as draining the life from it. But I'll try to revisit...

What I wrote (in Harp) about her last one, fwiw:

IRMA THOMAS *After the Rain* (Rounder) She’s 65, her voice still makes her the Soul Queen of New Orleans, and the rain is clearly Katrina, backdrop for “Another Man Done Gone”’s blues, “Soul Survivor”’s funk, “Flowers” (by the roadside), and the closing shelter-from-storm piano ballad. But the two best cuts might be the two prettiest: the very country “Till I Can’t Take It Anymore” and a Drifters cover counting tears.

xhuxk, Friday, 22 August 2008 21:32 (sixteen years ago)

Well this seems promising. I've seen Marty handle hosting (incl intros, repartee and co-picking) on a couple of TV specials.

MARTY STUART TO DEBUT
"THE MARTY STUART SHOW"
ON RFD-TV IN NOVEMBER
COUNTRY MUSIC: THE MASTERS
TO BE RELEASED ON NOVEMBER 11
BY SOURCE BOOKS
NASHVILLE, TN - (August 26, 2008) - Country Music Icon Marty Stuart will premiere his new television series The Marty Stuart
Show this November starting with the first 26 episodes airing Sunday nights on RFD-TV. The Marty Stuart Show will begin
production
in September at Nashville's NorthStar Studios, home of RFD-TV.

The 30-minute episodes, hosted and produced by Stuart, will be a part of RFD-TV's new
Sunday night prime time lineup with HEE HAW, Postcards From Nebraska, and Music & Motors. Each show will feature music by
Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, as well as his wife Country Queen Connie Smith and performance segments from the best that country music
and American music has to offer. Radio personality Eddie Stubbs will serve as the show's announcer and Stuart's sidekick on every episode.

"I want to establish a show that gives a voice and stage to traditional country
music," explains Stuart. "This show is about authenticity...from the artists who visit us in the studio every week to the people watching at
home in America who enjoy watching weekly shows like The Porter Wagoner Show, The Wilburn Brothers and Flatt and Scruggs. This show
will be related to that style of programming and hopefully entertain Country Fans in a similar way"
RFD-TV is a rural lifestyle network with programming that focuses on agriculture, equine, rural lifestyle and music/entertainment. Broadcasting to 40
million homes across the country, the RFD-TV line-up includes Imus In the Morning, Crook & Chase, Big Joe's Polka Show and Ralph
Emery LIVE.
The four-time GRAMMY winner will also release his second photography book Country Music: The Masters on Nov.
11. Chicago's Source Books will publish the 342 page collection that includes Stuart's personal photos of friends including Johnny Cash,
Waylon Jennings, Buck Owens, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Ray Charles and more. The book's forward is written by long-time
pal
and country music fan Billy Bob Thornton.

As an avid collector and historian of country music, Stuart 's other ventures include
his renowned private country music memorabilia collection
entitled "Sparkle and Twang Marty Stuart's American Odyssey" opening at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio, October 30, 2008 - March 1
2009, as well as his weekly XM Radio show titled "Marty Stuart's American Odyssey" that explores music unique to the United States.
For more information, visit www.martystuart.net.

dow, Tuesday, 26 August 2008 23:35 (sixteen years ago)

Oh, I'm geeked about this! Stuart's a very appealing guy on TV, knows everybody, & of course can make that guitar talk.

briania, Tuesday, 26 August 2008 23:42 (sixteen years ago)

xp Thinking now that my complaint about New Orleans legends turning Katrina songs into an empty cliche was a little harsh and cranky. Sorry, if so. Still, I guess my problem is that I'm still not sure I've heard any especially noteworthy Katrina songs, from acts associated with New Orleans or otherwise (nope, not even Black Lips). Maybe if the songs were better, it wouldn't bug me. What have I missed? (The song on the new Dr. John album where he blames Cheney and Halliburton has an interesting sound that kind of reminds me of his old Gris Gris sound -- i.e., proto There's a Riot Goin' On and Trout Mask Replica at the same time -- but I honestly don't think it's really much of a song, regardless. Most of the other songs I've heard are vagueries about, like rain. Or you know, Randy Newman covers. Oh... Amanda Shaw's "Chirmolito," about the Chicano construction workers who rebuilt her house after the flood; I liked that one. What else am I not thinking of? There must be a few.)

Also wondering why I haven't loved much New Orleans R&B in general lately. Where are the '00s (or even '90s) equivalents of Wild Tchoupitoulas or Crawfish Fiesta or Night People or even say Fiyo on the Bayou? Do they exist?

Just saw Alejandro Escovedo do a song onstage at the DNC; as usual, his band was better than his singing and his songwriting, though not necessarily less generic. Still, nice to see him there. The governor of Michigan (leading a pretty great energy panel) and (Republican!) mayor of Fairbanks rocked harder though. (Been watching as much as I can on CSPAN. Sen Casey of Pennsylvania on now; liking him, too.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 01:31 (sixteen years ago)

haven't heard the Blind Boys record. And yeah, I hear ya Chuck, maybe it's time for New Orleans singers to adjust their focus a bit...meanwhile, if anyone hasn't seen Make It Funky!, it features Irma and a slew of other performers and I picked it up for three bucks new the other day.

Hmm, rare that a bluegrass record catches me, but darned if I can hear anything wrong with Dan Tyminski's Wheels, from the instrumental that doesn't go on too long to songs about being locked up after being wrongly accused of murder and waiting to die to a country boy whose wife don't love him and so he leaves the suburbs and goes back to being a farmer to several tales of domestic travail. The guy has a great voice and he never overdoes it, and this is sequenced like a mainstream country record. Really good, and I generally find bluegrass aseptic at best and anal-retentive at worst...

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 01:38 (sixteen years ago)

Chirmolito! -- feeling that one, too.

briania, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 06:38 (sixteen years ago)

I generally find bluegrass aseptic at best and anal-retentive at worst...

Good thing you don't live in Asheville, Edd. This place would drive you crazy!

QuantumNoise, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 14:49 (sixteen years ago)

not sure I've heard any especially noteworthy Katrina songs...Maybe if the songs were better...

Interestingly (as I didn't find out til this morning) this is actually the topic of a piece in this week's Voice by Alex Rawls, who comes to a similar conclusion -- though, unlike me, he doesn't let Lil Wayne or Juvenile slip his mind. (Though, to be honest, I've always wondered whether people more respected that those guys simply did Katrina songs than anything they actually rapped in those songs. Rawls makes a good case otherwise, though.)

Anyway:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-27/music/new-orleans-still-struggles-mdash-in-song-mdash-with-katrina/

xhuxk, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 19:20 (sixteen years ago)

By the way, in case anybody missed it, Gov Brian Schweitzer of Montana is a rancher who came out and gave his DMC speech yesterday wearing a bolo tie, which counts as country in my book. His over-the-top regular-schmoe cheerleading schtick totally cracked me up, but I may just be easily amused (though I have to say it makes me wonder about people who claim McCain was going uncriticized until Hillary came on; McCain was being criticized plenty all day, it seems like to me, and though the criticisms were often vague "four more years of the same Bush crap", Schweitzer actually went into detail about the futility of offshore drilling, and got at least one great punchline out of it. Also liked the overall populist bent of the proceedings yesterday -- laid off auto workers from Grand Rapids, our local rep from Brooklyn/Queens talking about small businesses, etc. -- and am kind of dumfounded by folks who were bored by it all; maybe they weren't watching CSPAN? I never watch TV at all, beyond Netflix, and I was fairly riveted. Actually thought Mark Warner came off better than people claim too, though I hated his haircut and cheekbones. Regret that I didn't get to see Kucinich, though. Anyway, here's Schweitzer):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8iatxuU3OU

xhuxk, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 19:59 (sixteen years ago)

DNC, I mean, not DMC, obv.

Also, the new BB King album produced by T Bone Burnett is surprisingly listenable (surprising, I guess, because I never really listen to BB King much otherwise), though never actually exciting enough to make me think I'll choose to put it on again.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:03 (sixteen years ago)

my favorite katrina song is "made it through that water" by the free agents brass band (you can here it here).

also i there's stuff like john boutte doing "louisiana, 1927" and harry connick's "all these people".

Jordan, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:23 (sixteen years ago)

Also wondering why I haven't loved much New Orleans R&B in general lately. Where are the '00s (or even '90s) equivalents of Wild Tchoupitoulas or Crawfish Fiesta or Night People or even say Fiyo on the Bayou? Do they exist?

have you heard jon cleary's band? i haven't heard many of the records but they are super sick live, way tighter than a lot of the jammier funk bands (big sam, dumstaphunk, whatever). and you've got to hear shannon powell's album from a few years ago, it is a classic.

also New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

Jordan, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:29 (sixteen years ago)

is it the NoLA diaspora, perhaps?

gabbneb, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:33 (sixteen years ago)

is what?

Jordan, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:36 (sixteen years ago)

nm; misread

gabbneb, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:39 (sixteen years ago)

I enjoyed Schweitzer's crowd warm-up antics too, xhuxk. Hope you don't mind if I link to your post from ILE's Democratic Convention Thread.

o. nate, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:40 (sixteen years ago)

No, go for it!

xhuxk, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 20:41 (sixteen years ago)

last night:BB King rippling (in a way I associate with New Orleans as much as his Memphis) through "One Kind Favor" ("see that my grave is kept clean"), of all things, with the Tonight Show Orchestra (the woman shouter who is always tantalizingly glimpsed re-warming the audience in/out of commercial breaks, on congas, and timables, I think)Hope that's on his new album, and works as well, prob does, T-Bone knows how to do that stuff better than O Brother country (I much prefer bluegrass with female vocals usually, though haven't heard any Rhonda Vincent that floats my wagon) Also, was wondering about this guy, and now this (Anthony Easton to thread!):

Randy Bachman and Crystal Shawanda to Perform at

Canadian Country Music Association Awards

Adam Gregory, Aaron Pritchett, Lisa Brokop, Jimmy Wayne and Tara Oram to present on the show

(Toronto, ON) August 27, 2008 - The Board of Directors of the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) announced today that International music legend Randy Bachman and up and coming artist Crystal Shawanda have been added as performers for the Canadian Country Music Awards in Winnipeg, Manitoba on September 8, 2008.

Country music sensations Adam Gregory, Aaron Pritchett and Lisa Brokop have been added as award presenters, along with former Canadian Idol contestant Tara Oram. Country music songwriter and recording artist Jimmy Wayne will also be on hand to present, along with CMT Canada's Paul McGuire and Elissa Lansdell.
Born in Winnipeg, Canadian music icon Randy Bachman has over 120 Gold and Platinum singles internationally and over 40 million records sold. Bachman continues to tour throughout North America and Europe with his own band and under Bachman/Cummings with Burton Cummings.

Manitoulin Island and Native American country music newcomer Crystal Shawanda's debut disk Dawn of a New Day was released in summer 2008 in both Canada and The US. Her single You Can Let Go is the fastest climbing single by a Canadian in the history of the BDS Country Charts and is currently Top 25 on American charts.

The 2008 CCMA Awards will be broadcast nationally on CBC Television at 8pm with encore broadcasts on CMT Canada. Terri Clark will host the show, which will feature previously announced performers Gord Bamford, Dierks Bentley, George Canyon, Doc Walker, Emerson Drive, Jessie Farrell, Kellie Pickler and Johnny Reid, with special guest presenters Michelle Wright, W. Brett Wilson and Jim Treliving from CBC's The Dragons' Den and songwriter Bill Anderson.

dow, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 22:05 (sixteen years ago)

"of all things" just because I for one don't associate that song with that kind of sound, but I shoulda, it fits, and certainly as well as any Katrina-specific track I've heard.

dow, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 22:07 (sixteen years ago)

Also, the new BB King album produced by T Bone Burnett is surprisingly listenable (surprising, I guess, because I never really listen to BB King much otherwise), though never actually exciting enough to make me think I'll choose to put it on again.

The second song on the album, "I Get so Weary," a T-Bone Walker tune, is pretty darn heavy. Listen the thundering low end groove. It was produced by T Bone Burnett, and I think he did a fine, fine job. Fun record. I dig how BB didn't do the acoustic thing. He stuck to electric, but freshened it up.

QuantumNoise, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 22:24 (sixteen years ago)

So did anybody notice (and/or has anybody mentioned) that the song that the Obama family and Joe Biden gathered together to onstage after Barack's great speech last night was Brooks & Dunn's great (and very Cougaresque) "Only In America"? (Not the best verse, but a somewhat appropriate one: "One kid dreams of fame and fortune/One kid helps pay the rent/One could end up going to prison/One just might be president.") So, does this mean that Brooks & Dunn had to okay the Dems' use of the song? I'm still unclear how that works. (Most entertaining song choice of the convention, though, was still Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" immediately after Bill Clinton's speech Wednesday -- "There's no doubt, you're in deep/Your throat is tight, you cant breathe/Another kiss is all you need" -- which had us staring at the TV in disbelief, but supposedly you only heard it if you were tuned into CSPAN.)

Got 3/4 of the way through this antiseptic Charlie Haden and Family bluegrass album before giving up on how bland and tedious it was; enjoyed the old-timey murder song with Jack Black talk-singing, but that's about it. I'm guessing this thing is destined to be one of '08's big prestige items, come Grammy time or whatever --a well-respected (and sometimes great) jazz guy dabbles in a different genre; fellow well-respected prestige types Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Elvis Costello, etc, sit in as guests; as do Charlie's kids (including Petra Haden -- somebody who I gather I'm supposed know or care who she is, right? I've heard her name before, that's about it).

In other news...Sarah Palin. Wow.

xhuxk, Friday, 29 August 2008 16:45 (sixteen years ago)

petra haden is an indie violinist and singer who is sadly married to jack black

Jordan, Friday, 29 August 2008 16:50 (sixteen years ago)

oh sorry, i guess tanya is married to jack black

Jordan, Friday, 29 August 2008 16:54 (sixteen years ago)

too bad it's boring, i was kinda looking forward to that

Jordan, Friday, 29 August 2008 16:55 (sixteen years ago)

Manitoulin Island and Native American country music newcomer Crystal Shawanda's debut disk Dawn of a New Day was released in summer 2008

Anybody heard this, btw? I liked the 3 or so songs I heard on her MySpace page a couple months ago...

xhuxk, Friday, 29 August 2008 17:52 (sixteen years ago)

So did anybody notice (and/or has anybody mentioned) that the song that the Obama family and Joe Biden gathered together to onstage after Barack's great speech last night was Brooks & Dunn's great (and very Cougaresque) "Only In America"? (Not the best verse, but a somewhat appropriate one: "One kid dreams of fame and fortune/One kid helps pay the rent/One could end up going to prison/One just might be president.")

Yes, you answered my question. I thought it was Brooks & Dunn but wasn't sure.

Anyway, re Petra Haden. She was in a upper-class charity case LA indie band called that dog to which the LAT calendar section frequently dispensed hand-outs. They were utter rubbish.

Gorge, Friday, 29 August 2008 18:42 (sixteen years ago)

Oh yeah, and she did that The Who Sell Out remake which everyone lied about and said was really great but which wasn't at all.

Gorge, Friday, 29 August 2008 18:53 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, Petra was in the band with Lenny Waronker's daughter...is that right? I've got one of the That Dogs around here, and bought it at the Great Escape here for two dollars. It was about worth it, actually "I'm [or She's?, can't recall], anyway, Somebody's Kissing Christian," that was the song my friend who likes that kind of thing said was an emblematic '90s song and then Christgau gave it like an A minus, but it's one of those '90s records that sit in my collection inert, like some Freedy Johnston thing.

Eddie Stubbs looks like he's playing a sidekickin' role for Marty Stuart in that RFD-channel series...Eddie Stubbs is the grave, ascetic announcer for WSM here. He dresses like an insurance man or an undertaker every time I see him; he recently did a Q&A with Kitty Wells, he came to town in the '90s to play steel guitar with Wells. He knows, like, everything about every country record ever made, at least up until maybe ten years ago, not sure he likes the new stuff. He's sort of a legend around here for his great radio voice and his knowledge of everything. He reminds me how the early days of WSM and the Opry were intertwined with the city's insurance industry...Kitty Wells, who I am proud to say I interviewed recently, told me her insurance man gave her family tickets (she grew up in south Nashville) to go to the Opry, back around 1936...

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 29 August 2008 20:19 (sixteen years ago)

Oh wait; I still have a That Dog CD, too! Retreat From the Sun from 1997 on DGC (I probably paid a buck or two for my used copy, too), and as jangly mid '90s fake-indie biz-orchestrated flops go, it's far from awful: Always kind of liked "Gagged And Tied," "Minneapolis," and "Long Island," which at least struck me as comprehensible songs with coherent melodies once upon a time, rare beyond belief in that genre. And yeah, sure enough -- Anna Waronker (lead vocals, piano, guitars); Petra Haden (vocals and violins); Rachel Haden (vocals and bass). So, clearly a trust-fund recording contract, even if I never got around to reading the credits.

xhuxk, Friday, 29 August 2008 20:34 (sixteen years ago)

related to joey waronker (the drummer)?

Jordan, Friday, 29 August 2008 20:37 (sixteen years ago)

So, does this mean that Brooks & Dunn had to okay the Dems' use of the song?

From the article that Gabbnebb linked to here, it doesn't sound like they specifically approved it:

Your 2008 Democratic Convention Thread

o. nate, Friday, 29 August 2008 21:18 (sixteen years ago)

Nashville songwriter Don Cook was amused when a song he co-wrote with the duo Brooks and Dunn followed Barack Obama's acceptance speech last night. "I can imagine blood pouring out of the ashes of my Republican friends, mainly the two co-writers of the song," he said in between chuckles in a phone interview. Cook's longtime partnership with Brooks and Dunn in some ways exemplifies the "purple America" Obama described in his speech last night: Cook is a founder of the Music Row Democrats, while Ronnie Dunn is known to be a staunch Republican.

o. nate, Friday, 29 August 2008 21:19 (sixteen years ago)

My mediabase link for some reason isn't working lately, so I can't investigate the geographical breakdown.

Mediabase became subscribers only a couple of months ago, though in the article I read about that I also read that they were reevaluating the decision.

(By the way, hi, haven't been here recently. Trying to catch up.)

Frank Kogan, Friday, 29 August 2008 23:04 (sixteen years ago)

I heard four songs of Chris Knight, whom Edd likes and Xhuxk hates upthread. I'm on the like side, at least for those four tunes ("Hell Ain't Half Full," "Danville," "Another Dollar," "Miles To Memphis"). Reminds me of why Johnny Cougar in his early days was compared to Lou Reed: fiddles and drums creating a hard drone, the sound of a building compulsively trying to break through its own floorboards. (I actually haven't heard much of the earliest Cougar, so the comparison I made above may be full of shit; a Coug of my imagination. Anyway, Knight's slugging me harder than any of the Hayes Carll types are, though I take it that over the length of the album the slugging became a slog for Xhuxk.)

Frank Kogan, Friday, 29 August 2008 23:19 (sixteen years ago)

I think xxhuxx did come to like some of it, at least for a while (hard to keep up). I like most (?) of it too; prob be an hon. mention in my Scene round-up. I've finally heard Jamey Johnson or Johnston: his war memoir ("in color," good) has a video on CMT, in black and white, and it comes off as cut and dried, not necess as written, but as a very distant *sounding* (no matter how the old guy actually feels) view, of course those guys are famously cautious about carrying on about their experiences I hope I'll never forget the veteran in Ken Burns' (excellent)The War who finally (and cautiously, but clearly enough) allowed as how there was "bad economy" re loss of life resulting from U.S. decisions. But the singer's understatement got a bit too close to tedious eventually, a prob Chris Knight can have as well, with similar material and vocal approach. Not that I don't want to check out the rest of J.'s album.

dow, Saturday, 30 August 2008 00:17 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, I can understand how all my flip-flopping was misleading, but Frank is right in suggesting that the Chris Knight album mainly dragged for me when considered cumulatively, and Don is right in suggesting that I don't hate all of it; my notes have "Hell and High Water," "Danville," "Another Dollar," and "Almost There" marked as tracks I actually like -- albeit with reservations (mainly re: voice and tempo) even in those select cases.

Not sure whether John Cougar ever got compared to Lou Reed, though I can see similarities, and I'd love to actually read an old review that made that comparison. I don't doubt that the Coug was a Velvets fan himself; bet he even used to cover them on stage (and maybe even on one of those very early pre-stardom LPs?? Dunno; I'd have to check.) Thing is, the phrase "John Cougar in his early days" is potentially as ambiguous as "old school rap" by now -- I'm wondering which early days Frank is referring to, exactly. He barely used fiddles much at all before Lonesome Jubilee, as I recall.

xhuxk, Saturday, 30 August 2008 19:44 (sixteen years ago)

Though I'd still say that Jamey Johnson's "High Cost of Living" (mood-wise, subject-matter-wise, obsessive-groove-wise) reminds me more of the Velvet Underground than anything on Knight's album, by far.

xhuxk, Saturday, 30 August 2008 19:55 (sixteen years ago)

Xgau on Obama & Brooks & Dunn:

http://www.najp.org/articles/2008/08/only-in-america-yeah.html#comments

xhuxk, Saturday, 30 August 2008 21:50 (sixteen years ago)

Checked the credits on my LP copies of The Kid Inside, Nothin' Matters And What If It Did, John Cougar, American Fool, Uh Huh and Scarecrow; no fiddles at all credited on any of those, as far as I can see (though a couple of them do list guests without saying what instruments the guests are playing). Lisa Germano's fiddle enters the picture (along with other folk embellishments) on Lonesome Jubilee, pretty much as I suspected.

It occurs to me now that Richard Riegel may well have likened the early Coug (who he liked a lot, and interviewed a couple times I believe) to Lou Reed in Creem; I certainly wouldn't have put it past him (though I bet he would have tossed Eric Burdon in there too), but I have no copies here to check.

Pretty sure Chris Knight's most Coug-like song -- also my favorite on the album, I think -- is "Hell Or High Water." Pretty sure I liked his "Heart of Stone" more back when Don Henley called in "The End Of the Innocence." The guitar in Knight's "Maria" also reminds me of some song I can't quite place yet.

Liking the album by this guy James Dunn more than I expected to. This other guy Aaron Watson is hitting me as ignorably generic, though not un-likable. No thoughts about Brandon Rhyder yet whatsoever (though he actually charted this week).

xhuxk, Sunday, 31 August 2008 00:31 (sixteen years ago)

(Actually, duh, the Chris Knight song isn't called "Hell And High Water" or "Hell Or High Water" -- it's called "Hell Ain't Half Full," which is a much more orginal title than those other two.)

also I meant: "...back when Don Henley called it "The End Of the Innocence."

xhuxk, Sunday, 31 August 2008 00:35 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, James Dunn's The Long Ride Home isn't half bad. I think I like "Cards on the Table" best. The voice is a bit fake, sounds like to me--bit overripe, maybe? Pretty similar to Chris Knight but more so to Mando Saenz, if anyone remembers that record from late last year.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 31 August 2008 00:43 (sixteen years ago)

xp Oh yeah -- Also been listening some to Darius Rucker's album this week. Basically like his voice; wish the material was better, though a couple songs definitely stand out. Need to listen more, though.

xhuxk, Sunday, 31 August 2008 00:46 (sixteen years ago)

Also wondering why I haven't loved much New Orleans R&B in general lately. Where are the '00s (or even '90s) equivalents of Wild Tchoupitoulas or Crawfish Fiesta or Night People or even say Fiyo on the Bayou? Do they exist?

Isn't this like asking why aren't there Dayton or wherever funk records like there were back then or Nigerian highlife records like there were back then? Or were you asking for an explanation of the cultural, economic, and social factors regarding the number of African-American (and/or Creole-American)or whatever origin musicians now versus then (plus using instruments versus digital programmed tech), or why New Orleans bounce or hiphop records or jamband records or neo-r'n'b records on Rounder or other small labels don't measure up the best of the '70s New Orleans music. Or were you asking why performers who were at their peak in the '70s are no longer releasing music as striking?

Like Jordan I'm a fan of the current hiphop-inflected New Orleans brass bands. I'm waiting for singer John Boutte's latest self-released cd to arrive in the mail (can't find it elsewhere), and I need to get Irma Thomas' latest. I saw jam-band Galactic live once and while I like that they have brass banders guesting with them, I was not otherwise inspired by their instrumental solos or their melodies.

curmudgeon, Sunday, 31 August 2008 16:46 (sixteen years ago)

Rucker has a video in heavy rotation on cable. It's awkward in the way that a black man singing in a mowed cornfield while a white couple in a pickup truck act out the lyrics can be. Decent song, terrible vehicle, maybe stilted enough to win over the white trash viewers it's aimed at.

Re the Brooks & Dunn song, I still think reaching across the aisle in this election is a total waste of time. McCain's Veep appointment was simply another example of the culture/class war strategy -- an extremist to rally the closet bigot evangelicals holding their noses because McCain wasn't reactionary enough for them.

If I were to speculate, I'd say that the election will be won on the more successful get-out-the-vote drive which, if the spam mail from the DNC in my inbox is any indication, is what they're really aiming at.

Gorge, Sunday, 31 August 2008 17:42 (sixteen years ago)

Isn't this like asking why aren't there Dayton or wherever funk records like there were back then or Nigerian highlife records like there were back then?

I don't think so. The style (and in many cases, the songs) that Longhair, the Tchoupitoulas, etc. offered up on those albums I named weren't exactly new or current in the '70s or '80s, either; hell, Longhair had been playing that kind of r&b since the late '40s, right? But if you're telling me that style has since been abandoned, and that the good musicians have moved on to other sort of rhythms, I guess that answers my question. But yeah, I suppose I'm also sort of saying that the best music I've heard from New Orleans since doesn't really stack up, to my ears; certainly there's tons of stuff I haven't heard (and time and resources willing, I hope I eventually get a chance to check out some of the recommendations people have offered here since I asked that question.) But the thing is, one really didn't have to be a specialist in New Orleans' local offerings to come across those old LPs I named, either; most of them, for instance, did pretty well in the Pazz & Jop poll. So I'm partially asking why, if there are albums just as good as those (even in updated styles), why I haven't come across them. (Maybe critics are just lazier now; who knows.)

For what it's worth, I've never really been all that much impressed by what little supposedly hip-hop-infused brass band music I've heard in recent years. But maybe if I heard more of it, I'd think otherwise.

black man singing in a mowed cornfield while a white couple in a pickup truck act out the lyrics

Not the first time a video on CMT has cut its losses with a singer of color this way, I don't think.

McCain's Veep appointment was simply another example of the culture/class war strategy -- an extremist to rally the closet bigot evangelicals

Sadly, that's a get-out-the-vote tactic itself, obviously. I'm just hoping to hell it doesn't work.

xhuxk, Sunday, 31 August 2008 18:10 (sixteen years ago)

Maybe critics are just lazier now

Or maybe they're less lazy -- not so lazy to all gravitate around one album, that is, when there might be so many good ones out there. Or something. (I'm lazy when it comes to this stuff; that's why I'm asking other folks to do all my research for me.) (And of course, as I say all this, an album from New Orleans has a good shot at winning Pazz & Jop this year! But I don't think chart-topping mega- star Lil Wayne is quite analogous to the cult acts I named. Maybe Katy Red or DJ Jubilee or Junie-B or some other obscure local '90s bounce act on Take Fo Records would be analogous --- some of that stuff I've heard is awesome -- but it never got much crit love. And it's not quite what I'm talking about.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 31 August 2008 18:42 (sixteen years ago)

Chuck: you, Matos, Rickey Wright and I were the only ones to vote for that chitlin circuit soul comp in critics polls I think. There is arguably less concensus in roots music tastes these days than there was in the late '70s and 80s. How old were the Nevilles and Lee Dorsey in the late 1970s who you named in addition to Longhair? They weren't that old and out of fashion at the time (maybe a little). I was not saying that good musicians have moved on to other sort of rhythms---I was saying that those good musicians at that time have aged and are not as relevant now, and that due to the economy, school issues, cultural trends, etc., less new young musicians in the tradition have replaced them (and instead we have good but different bounce and hiphop programmers and still some brass banders and jazz musicians notwithstanding Greg Tate's black rock coalition efforts in NYC and various others). Some jambanders have attempted to adopt some aspects of New orleans r'n'b but with little success.

curmudgeon, Sunday, 31 August 2008 19:45 (sixteen years ago)

Well, I mean I liked that chitlin circuit comp. Of all the people mentioned re New Orleans and how that city's music has changed, Professor Longhair was the most atypical--not his influence, which is bedrock (but you could argue that Huey Smith was a more influential pianist on rock and roll itself, and that Byrd's piano style was always on its own planet). Dorsey only made a couple of albums in the '70s; he did most of his work between about '61 and '70 (he did some early stuff for Constellation). By 1970 the classic New Orleans r&b/rock and roll style had seeped into the mainstream, cf. Dave Edmunds, and then later, Labelle, Manhattan fucking Transfer, etc. Glen Campbell doing Toussaint. Stuff like Stanton Moore is an outgrowth of the Meters (also of the most important New Orleans drummer of the era, James Black, who played on a lot of the stuff we regard as classic, and yeah, I know, Earl Palmer, but Black was a deeper drummer than Palmer in some ways). Most of the records coming out of New Orleans since the '70s have been specialist records, like Snooks Eaglin on Blacktop, or whatever by the Neville Brothers. Just listening yesterday to the new Iguanas record--it's strictly a genre piece, well done, of course. And while I'm sure Katrina nixed a lot of this stuff, what's made New Orleans different musically has been the sheer complexity of the mix that goes into its history, and the high quality of music education itself in the schools, where folks in the know have always sworn there are 13-year-olds who could step up on stage at the Village Vanguard tomorrow.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 31 August 2008 20:39 (sixteen years ago)

I guess the other thing, too, is that New Orleans, much like Memphis, is a fucked place to live in many ways, so that's gonna affect the music coming out of an essentially third-world island in a sea of conformity. (The Tennessean reports that infant mortality in Memphis last year was at levels only seen in the third world. And god only knows what'll happen if another storm surge hits New Orleans soon.

whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 31 August 2008 20:43 (sixteen years ago)

http://www.americanamusic.org/site.php?content=contact

Where is the chitlin circuit soul, the Louisiana and Texas Creole zydeco, and the Mexican-American norteno? Their definition of Americana as indicated by the list of performers for their September event is pretty narrow. I like some of the folks they list btw.

curmudgeon, Sunday, 14 September 2008 03:07 (sixteen years ago)

Eh?

Gorge, Sunday, 14 September 2008 21:38 (sixteen years ago)

I had never heard of these (are they trademarking the name) "Americanamusic.org" people who are holding a conference and festival in Nashville from Sept. 17th to the 20th. If you click on the link you'll see that they are interested in the rootsy alt-country folks that No Depression covered, but not other stuff that No D covered (and stuff that could arguably be 'Americana' that No D did not cover).

curmudgeon, Monday, 15 September 2008 02:48 (sixteen years ago)

But....What about Alaskana??

(Supposedly taught in some schools up there, according to something I read this week. Includes moose-hunting, snow-shoeing, ice-fishing, igloo-building, and pork-barrelling, I believe.)

xhuxk, Monday, 15 September 2008 02:59 (sixteen years ago)

I bet Alaskana includes real authentic maverick music

curmudgeon, Monday, 15 September 2008 03:06 (sixteen years ago)

Belated thoughts on Alan Jackson (many of which I've previously stated on this thread), plus cranky thoughts on mavericks (not thee Mavericks, who were pretty good), etc:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/09/alan-jacksons-c.html

xhuxk, Monday, 15 September 2008 21:08 (sixteen years ago)

Nice post. I see he's touring as well (not exactly common man prices but I guess that's what arena shows go for these days--thanks Live Nation):

American Freedom Festival 150.00,
73.50,
62.50
Featuring Alan Jackson and Trace Adkins

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 02:18 (sixteen years ago)

Me on Donna the Buffalo, the Duhks, and Old Crow Medicine Show. (I haven't looked at this edit yet; Rob H. told me they'd have to trim more for space if it was to run this week than they would if it was saved for next week. Hope it's still halfway coherent):

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-09-17/music/fun-with-the-duhks-donna-the-buffalo-and-old-crow-medicine-show/

xhuxk, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 00:24 (sixteen years ago)

I had a feeling Donna the Buffalo was not my thing and your description confirms it.

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 03:20 (sixteen years ago)

So can somebody explain the appeal of Blitzen Trapper to me? Their new album gets glowing reviews from Jon Dolan in Blender and I think Christian Hoard in Rolling Stone; Dolan calls them "ramble-tamble roots-rock (that) evokes the transitory things hard men with worried minds do between gunfights -- High Plains drifting", etc...which would suggest that they might have some sort of country element in their music. But when I tried to play their album they just sounded more like average indie-rock nerds to me -- like, maybe a lesser version of Spoon or somebody like that. I wasn't hearing the supposed rustic stuff at all. Lalena said that one song sounded like they were trying to sound like Rubber Soul to her. Anyway...am I missing something? (Christgau really liked their previous album too, I think.) Maybe they're country like Wilco are country these days, which is to say not very (and boring)? (I think Hoard called them "psychedelic folk" or something, but I don't hear much psychedelia either. And I'm not entirely opposed to indie rock nerds sounded pyschedelically folky; I've got Sixth Great Lake and Fruit Bats CDs that probably fit that description. Also, that I See Hawks in L.A. one I overrated earlier this year; that seemed closer to these descriptions than Blitzen Trapper to me, too.) Anyway, I'm stumped.

Darius Rucker album didn't hold up, not for me anyway, though Caramanica called it one of the year's best country albums in the Times a couple days ago. Some of it is okay -- first song reminds me of Dierks Bentley. But it's never great, and even its better songs seem pretty average, even despite Hootie's voice being somewhat distinctive itself.

I do like that Joey & Rory single "Cheater, Cheater" (supposedly getting CMT play -- just entered the bottom of Billboard's Country Songs chart) though. Liar Liar pants on fire. Cheater Cheater pants on the heater. Etc.

xhuxk, Thursday, 18 September 2008 17:58 (sixteen years ago)

But when I tried to play their album they just sounded more like average indie-rock nerds to me -- like, maybe a lesser version of Spoon or somebody like that.

This seems to be some kind of trend as of late. There's this band on Rounder(!) called Delta Spirit. Folks have described them as Americana, soul, and 60s folk music. But to these ears it's all Strokes, emo and Coldplay. Strange.

QuantumNoise, Thursday, 18 September 2008 18:19 (sixteen years ago)

Cheer up Fokes! With--Marty:
MARTY STUART THROWS
50TH BIRTHDAY BASH
AT THE GRAND OLE OPRY
Stuart Redesigns Dressing Room
as Tribute to Porter Wagoner
NASHVILLE, TN - Sept. 18, 2008 - Country music icon Marty Stuart will celebrate
his 50th birthday with an hour-long bash airing nationally on GAC's OPRY LIVE on
Saturday,
Sept. 27 at 8:00pm CT. Friends joining Stuart to honor the milestone year include fellow guitar slinger Keith Urban, Stuart's wife and "country queen" Connie Smith, the much buzzed-about N.C. string
band The Carolina Chocolate Drops, and as always, his Fabulous
Superlatives with other surprise guests.
Stuart has been playing music professionally for an astonishing 38 of his 50 years, starting
at age 13 on tour with legendary bluegrass duo Flatt and Scruggs. He joins pop and rock icons including Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince in
turning 50 this year.
"I love that old gospel song that says, 'when you're trying to make a hundred, ninety
nine and a half won't do,'" said Stuart. "In the light of that, fifty means that I'm just getting warmed up. I've heard that saying,
'fabulous at 50' and I'm going to try to live up to that."
Stuart will also mark his recommitment to the Opry by revitalizing dressing room No. 14.
Previously belonging to Opry legend Porter Wagoner, the backstage haven will be transformed into Stuart's home away from home, and will also serve as
a tribute to the life of his longtime friend. Stuart sketched the designs himself, handpicking furniture, fabric and memorabilia, including a
selection of photographs from renowned photographer Les Leverett to adorn the walls and fully rhinestoned tapestries by Nudie and Manuel
protg, Jaime Custom Tailor of North Hollywood, California.
The four-time GRAMMY winner will premiere his new television series The Marty Stuart Show this November starting with the first 26 episodes airing Sunday nights on RFD-TV. Stuart will
also release his second photography book Country Music: The Masters on Nov.
11.
As an avid collector and historian of country music, Stuart 's other ventures include the
largest private music memorabilia collection in the country "Sparkle and Twang: Marty Stuart's American Odyssey," which will take up residency at the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio on Oct. 30.
For more information, visit www.martystuart.net.

dow, Thursday, 18 September 2008 21:40 (sixteen years ago)

I've been on a bluegrass kick of late, listening to Dailey & Vincent and Darrin Vincent's big sis Rhonda, Cherryholmes, and then bluegrassy stuff like Langhorne Slim, O'Death, and so forth, plus the fusionoid blew grass of Cadillac Sky's Gravity's Our Enemy, and Jan Bell in her various incarnations. Speaking of Americana, that shindig is in town with the big guest Glen Campbell, also they gave a award to Jason Ringenberg and the Scorchers, a controversial move. Laura Cantrell, the everybodyfields, nelo (I think both of them are actually supposed to be lower-case), etc. Anyway, I caught Dailey & Vincent last night and they're great--the music kicks in where it's supposed to and of course the banjoism and fiddle are ace, and Vincent is short and bald and looks like the accountant for the mega-church that Dailey presides over (they're very devout, and Vincent asked the audience to consider bringing on Jesus as their personal savior). And tonight I saw Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric play some of hers and some of his, and Wreckless Eric cracked jokes about Alabama and told the tale of a guy at their show in Birmingham who didn't wear proper trousers and the escaped testicle. Funny guy, and they harmonized on the Flamin' Groovies' "You Tore Me Down" like a songriting-summit indie couple of Sonny and Chers. I thought he was quite good, Amy sang some of her later songs and was good too, but he was funnier and got all squinty-eyed a few times ripping off some feedback and surprisingly recommendable guitar solos. In fact he was the liveliest thing I am likely to see at the Americana fest, come to think of it, altho I do want to catch Glen Campbell and the Sin City tribute to same, and I guess Larry McMurtry and maybe Randall Bramblett. The big story in the Nashville Scene this week by Jewly Hight touches on the problems the Americana Ass'n (word around her is that they desperately want to be CMT and are maybe screwing up their act by not getting more Youth, but I think Americana hasn't come to grips with all this post-string-band-folkie-bluegrass-Romanian-gypsy-doodle shit.) Seems like last year they did in the sense that the Avett Brothers performed and everything, and I guess there is a blog showcase with Aquarium Drunkard and My Olde Kentucky Blog or whatever, with Le Switch, I believe, from L.A. I listened to one of their tunes last night, not bad, and got me to musing on a pop generation whose main influences really do seem to be Eno and Supertramp and, like, Toto and Sparks...or for Americana, Dock Boggs and Roger Miller or something...

whisperineddhurt, Friday, 19 September 2008 02:00 (sixteen years ago)

Notes on Whitney Duncan (plus non-country people):

http://idolator.com/5052232/we-search-the-internet-for-up+and+coming-country-singers-phat-jazz-musicians-and-other-musical-microstars

This seems to be some kind of trend as of late. There's this band on Rounder(!) called Delta Spirit. Folks have described them as Americana, soul, and 60s folk music. But to these ears it's all Strokes, emo and Coldplay. Strange.

Progenitors of the trend might be Kings of Leon, who for years have been referred to in every single review ever written about them as "boogie" and "Southern rock" despite the fact that their most rocking moments sound like nondescript cross between the Strokes, Counting Crows, and Blind Melon, occasionally ineptly attempting Jamaican rhythms. (Or at least the most rocking moments I've heard sound like that -- not gonna swear I've sampled all their music, but the albums I've tried have bored me silly. New one seems to be getting the same stupid reviews they always get, but I probably won't hear it, seeing how the publicist is saying promos of it are only be sent out as mp3s. Fuck that shit.)

Speaking of emails from publicists, I swear I got a mysterious one about some event involving Big Kenny yesterday, but when I went back to actually read it, it was all gone, and I couldn't find it in my email trash either. Anybody have any idea what it might have been? Seeing how he probably counts as the only musician who was conspicuously absent from the Republican Convention, I have my hopes up, though I probably shouldn't.

And now totally off topic, I really wish everybody (Obama included) would stop using that Wall Street vs. Main Street cliche. Isn't Main Street, like, mostly chain stores by now? Or at best, really big small businesses? What about River Road, and Front Strete, and Dead End Street, and all those lonely side streets, and Skid Row, and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams?

xhuxk, Friday, 19 September 2008 18:41 (sixteen years ago)

another day in Americana. listened to the new Taylor Swift album--the same record as the first one, except John Rich co-wrote a song (about how Taylor loves the bad boy she left and also loves the good guy she's got) and one real good one called "Hey Steven." a bit repetitious actually.,

other than that, caught Those Darlins as part of the AMA--they were typically good, but I wish they'd sing harmony sometimes and not just in unison. the best thing I did was catch a completely obscure film, That Tennessee Beat, from '66--one of those strange narrative films they shot around here back then, with exploitation touches and cameos from various musicians. This one (never out on VHS or DVD and probably never screened since then, a guy here who runs the Belcourt Theater has a print, which looked great) features a:

sub-Elvis wannabe whose father runs a horse farm and who is sick and tired of his wastrel ways, so dad kicks him out and he makes his way to Nashville where he encounters a washed-up country star and his nubile sister, who take him under their wing, but not before the sub-Elvis ends up doing penance in a church run by Minnie Pearl (in a wheelchair!), where he initially sings a salacious song for the assembled. then he writes a hit and makes it big and his old flame from back home tries to blackmail him (the guy knocked out a friend of his dad's and the girl's dad, played by Merle Travis), but it all turns out fine in the end. Other musical sequences by Boots Randolph, and Pete Drake (playing that voice-guitar shit on his pedal steel years before Frampton), and the Statler Brothers, who do "Flowers on the Wall." It's a masterpiece of Z-grade filmmaking.

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 20 September 2008 04:24 (sixteen years ago)

I mean, I'm not sure why they put Minnie Pearl in a wheelchair for this movie, but she has real authority even sitting down.

whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 20 September 2008 04:26 (sixteen years ago)

I've been on a bluegrass kick of late, listening to Dailey & Vincent and Darrin Vincent's big sis Rhonda, Cherryholmes, and then bluegrassy stuff like Langhorne Slim, O'Death, and so forth

I went to the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion all day yesterday -- caught Chatham County Line, Cherryholmes, Infamous Stringdusters, some Sam Bush, some Doc Watson (totally packed, of course) and other stuff. Chatham County Line were my faves -- going for that bluegrass/West Coast country rock/the Band/Southern soul mix that was the basis of the intial "progressive" bands like Seldom Scene, pre-Bela New Grass Revival, Muleskinner, etc. As with a lot of string band stuff it's better live than on disc. The mandolin player can totally howl like NGR bassist and singer John Cowan.

Cherryholmes female lead is a bit too Melissa Etheridge/Bonnie Tyler for my taste. But man, that band can jam hard. Plus, they wore sequins, always a good thing.

QuantumNoise, Sunday, 21 September 2008 21:05 (sixteen years ago)

x-post

That movie sounds fantastic, whisperineddhurt. I'll have to track it down. Has anybody else seen the newly restored version of Payday? Rip Torn is just so in-your-face 1970s -- goes all out. I always wanted to see this film since reading about it in Guralnick's Lost Highway.

QuantumNoise, Sunday, 21 September 2008 21:10 (sixteen years ago)

That Tennessee Beat isn't on DVD or VHS; as far as I know, the screening the other day is the first time anyone's seen the thing in 40 years. Apparently, the film was supposed to be Nashville's big entry into Hollywood big time. It's a dog but an essential exploitation film in every way, and of course, a Nashville allegory or whatever. {Best lines: "Why don't you try to write songs? Or is that too much like work??" Big laugh from the audience.)

I love Payday; Maury Dan is a great character.

Listening again to J.D. Souther's new one. It's a sophisticated Eagles record, with a horn section, and better than I first thought.

whisperineddhurt, Monday, 22 September 2008 01:03 (sixteen years ago)

hey, y'all! what's this, no mention of Lucinda's AC/DC cover on here yet? no opinion whatsoever, Chuck?

Xgau featured it on his NPR review of her new album, btw. if anyone's at all interested.

Ioannis is all "YAHHH TRICK YAHHH" (Ioannis), Friday, 26 September 2008 10:57 (sixteen years ago)

xxhuxx, main street means like (stories in the local papers here and there, surfacing on radio regional news) people with good credit who suddenly can't get a loan to buy a car, or buy other things; mom n pops and some local chains that can't make upgrades (like after all these storms) or in some cases can't make or safely assume all of payroll cos can't get a short term loan, or "parent" chain can't, plus like in some places apparently something of a run on some local (branch)banks, as relatively small depositors switch to the bank with least bad rumours swirling aorund it (thing about FDIC is: how soon can you access deposits from a failed bank; how soon before FDIC makes it all good?) Anyway, here's my two cents (given word limit) on the Creedence 40th Anniversary Series, or I should say on Creedence on this occasion-title isn't my choice
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-10-01/music/revisiting-the-curt-cosmic-populism-of-creedence-clearwater-revival/

dow, Wednesday, 1 October 2008 17:05 (sixteen years ago)

Also, here's Whisperin' Edd on the Orbison box--so some Wilburys on the last disc Edd? And his "Cryin'" duet with k.d lang, I hope?http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-10-01/music/roy-orbison-delivers-torment-casually-and-schlock-gracefully/

dow, Wednesday, 1 October 2008 17:13 (sixteen years ago)

with good credit who suddenly can't get a loan to buy a car, or buy other things

On the other hand, one could make a bigger cash downpayment or fuck off. What's wrong with that? Or drive the junker into the ground, as many do.

Gorge, Wednesday, 1 October 2008 19:56 (sixteen years ago)

Hey Don, yeah, I knew that's what the media means by Main Street. I still think it's a dumb name for it, though. (Was the phrase just arbitrarily applied to that definition in the past month? Not sure I ever heard it used in this sense before.)

Chris Knight album, after all the slandering I did about it upthread, wound up growing on me bigtime once its songs finally sank in. (Just wanted to state that for the record.)

New Billy Currington is better than I would have predicted, not that I expect to be playing it a whole lot.

Country-etc. albums I am playing a whole lot this week, for what it's worth:

(Various Artists) -- Hard Times Come Again No More: Early American Rural Songs Of Hard Times And Hardships: Classic Recordings From The 1920's and 30's (Yazoo, 1998)

(Various Artists) -- Poor Man's Heaven: Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression (RCA Bluebird, 2003).

xhuxk, Thursday, 2 October 2008 00:17 (sixteen years ago)

Btw, think I tossed out my advance of Lucinda's album before I noticed she covers "Long Way to the Top" on it. (What can I say, watermarks make me nervous.) I'll hear it eventually, I'm sure. Uh....can't be any worse than Big N Rich's AC/DC cover, I guess. (Not to mention their crappy Beastie Boys cover -- "your mom threw away your best country mag"??? -- which I just heard five minutes ago.)

Bluegrasswise, I'm pretty sure I like the Junior League Band album a lot more than the Joey and Roy album (none of which, "Freebird" cover especially included, lives up to the promise of "Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater," as I now call it, which turns out to be a song that Bombshel tried first and didn't hit with, if Wikipedia is to be believed, though it's not on my advance of the Bombshel album that never came out on Curb last year.)

Anybody have any thoughts on Holly Golightly? Never listened to an album by her before; haven't played her new one much, but from what little I've heard on it, it's not bad (if not necessarily a keeper.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 2 October 2008 01:16 (sixteen years ago)

(Well actually, I like the Junior League album more than Joey & Rory -- their true name -- but I'm not positive yet about a "lot" more. Time will tell.)

And Edd and Don, I will read your Orbison and CCR pieces on actual newsprint (actually picked up a Voice today!), I promise.

Most country song, I think, on the (not bad) new Labelle album: "Superlover," the melody of which at least in part reminds me of "Easy" by the Commodores. (Most rock song on the new Labelle album: "The Truth Will Set You Free." Most rock song on the new Demi Lovato album: "Party".)

xhuxk, Thursday, 2 October 2008 01:21 (sixteen years ago)

Speaking of CCR, here is Richard Riegel, on rockcritics.com a few days ago:

CCR were good liberals first of all (weren’t we all?), and made good records as such, but I’ve always found their endlessly heavy rotation on all the oldies shows way out of proportion to the their lack (for me) of a real rock’n'roll EDGE. Something I’ve wondered for years: Are there ANY Creedence originals about SEX?!? (”Suzie Q” doesn’t count, that’s a cover of Dale Hawkins.) It seems to me that all their big songs come not from the sensual realm, but from a sepia photo hanging on Greil Marcus’s American Studies office wall, and a lot of Guys evidently prefer that no-touching sociolgical playbook. (Not me, baby, 7 & 7 still IS.)

I came up with "Sweet Hitch-hiker" as an original CCR sex song, which Richard acknowledged, but to my surprise I couldn't think of any other ones. J.D. Considine mentioned "Proud Mary," which until this week I for some reason always assumed was a cover version (it's not), not to mention about a boat.

xhuxk, Thursday, 2 October 2008 01:35 (sixteen years ago)

The Carolina Chocolate Drops who first met at the 2005 Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina mostly play pre-WW II and older ol timey music on banjo, dobro, fiddle and jug, but they they do Blu Cantrell's 2001 r'n'b/pop song "Hit 'Em Up Style (oops!)"

"Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)" Carolina Chocolate Drops version

curmudgeon, Thursday, 2 October 2008 04:29 (sixteen years ago)

lacking "a real rock 'n' roll EDGE": that's what I'd tended to think (despite remembering the call to nerves of "Up Around The Bend" and "Fortunate Son") til I heard the albums. That's the point of the piece, the way the sound, the performances charged and carried forward the historical stuff, incl the ultimate limitations of social-commentary lyrics, good as his could be. I think J.D. was just being funny about "Proud Mary," it really is a song about a boat, a boatopia ("people on the river are happy to give"--but what they're gonna give you ain't all good, as the albums indicate--Huck Finn on a sonic raft, a barn door, grid, etc)(but Pendulum mostly drops the hoodoo stuff, and its social commentary could be as much about marriage truces etc as anything else, then going out for a night on the town)"Sweet Hitchhiker" has him zooming by her, turned on but caught up in wondering "How long can I last"--then he crashes, and watches her zooming by, he thinks she's thinking to herself, "How long can I last": could be sex, could be career, they were such a phoenomenon--it's a funny song, as written and delivered; this and his other songs on that last album (Mardi Gras, whoopee) are ironic, as his bandmates finally got their own spud-say at the last minute. (h'mm, it's not part of this reissue series)

dow, Friday, 3 October 2008 17:23 (sixteen years ago)

I actually think their faster tracks like "Travelin' Band" and "Commotion" had plenty of r&r edge; I have a feeling Nazareth (for instance) were listening to them. Nazareth did way more rocking (and just plain compelling) cover versions, though -- as I mentioned on that rockcritics.com link, I've never really understood the appeal of CCR's versions of "I Put A Spell On You," "Suzie Q," or "Heard It Through The Grapevine"; I like them way better as a speedy proto-punk band than a boring proto-jam band. Judging from Don's (nonetheless captivating!) Voice review, this is somewhere he and I clearly have (in presidential debate terminology) some fundamental differences, you betcha.

xhuxk, Friday, 3 October 2008 17:44 (sixteen years ago)

(after partially recovering from involuntary vision of xxhuxx in Halloween Palin drag, glasses 'n' all, you betcha)Thanks! Yeah, I like the speedy stuff too, except for inst those pooty little licks on "Good Golly Miss Molly," which of course is left in teh dust by Mitch Ryder & Detroit Wheels, and Little Richard, for that matter. They did have some duds, long & short ("Graveyard Train," yeesh, although there may be a better version in the vaults) I gotta catch up on xxhuxx's writing, Edd's Dallas Frzier opus in Perfect Sound Forever, lotta stuff--after I finish or do more of my homework.

dow, Friday, 3 October 2008 18:19 (sixteen years ago)

It's not country per se' (though it is sometimes pub-rock), but Edd said upthread that he preferred the Baseball Project album to the Boxmasters album. Here's something I wrote about the former:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/10/i-think-about-b.html

xhuxk, Friday, 3 October 2008 23:54 (sixteen years ago)

oh yeah, meant to thank curmudgeon for the Carolina Chocolate Drops vid up there;also, I heard them do a couple of good, brief sets on Public Radio's "Woodsongs" recently. "Will James Breakdown" was built from variations on the Burundi/Bo Diddley beat, but fit in wtona
tonally with any number of pre-bluegrass mountain tunes. The Ebony Hillbillies are also in this vein, ditto, in a more Mississippi (Hill Country?) way, was a fairly recent "Beale Street Caravan" set by The Banjo Project, incl Otis Taylor and (I think) Alvin Youngblood Hart, among other African American performers who don't usually do this kind of music, and you could tell (not as developed as CCD or EH), but they had the spark. Oh yeah, and that album by the 59th Street Blues Project, with James Blood Ulmer and the fiddler from the Odyssey Band--blanking, but you know who I mean, and here he also plays mandolin and sings-ngs--it's not out like Odyssey Band, but a Delta/Hill Country/Downhome NYC thing, sharp-eyed observations under a low brim etc jees I can't see enough of this screen, distractiing, sorry

dow, Saturday, 4 October 2008 20:10 (sixteen years ago)

Lucinda's "Long Way to the Top" can't be any worse than Big N Rich's AC/DC cover, I guess. (Not to mention their crappy Beastie Boys cover

Well, I was right about this. Turns out her AC/DC cover isn't all that bad. It's not all that good, either (probably no better than Celine Dion's or Shakira's AC/DC covers -- was going to say Joe Dee Messina's, but I'm pretty sure that was just her band between songs like, without Joe Dee singing -- though I don't have the energy to check them out back to back.) But at Lucinda's guitar player (named Doug Pettibone, apparently) sounds okay. I also like his Zeppelin riffs at the beginning of the otherwise fairly bleh first song on her album, "Real Love," too. But nowhere near as much as Demi Lovato's guitarist's Zeppelin riffs in "Party," which is a way more rocking and engaging and lively song, no comparison. (For whatever it's worth, Christgau liked B&R's AC/DC cover, too. I'm still not sure why.)

I like "The Downside of Being A Fuckup" (which is way more Eric than Amy) on that Wrecklesss Eric and Amy Rigby album. The rest of the album was boring me, though, so I quit it.

Starting playing the advances I was sent of those Creedence reissues a few weeks back, by the way, but they just pissed me off. People would actually spend...what, $10? $15? more? on these things, instead of just picking up the LPs that have been sitting in a dollar bin in the country for the last 30 years or more? Really? Why?? People are stupid sometimes.

I do agree with Don, though, that not being able to see enough of the screen is distracting.

xhuxk, Saturday, 4 October 2008 21:00 (sixteen years ago)

typos:

"...at least Lucinda's guitar player...."

"...in every dollar bin in the country..."

It's a real pain in the ass to proofread here anymore.

And as usual, Kathleen Edwards made a much less boring Lucinda Williams album than Lucinda did this year.

And I approve of this Ralph Stanley message:

http://idolator.com/5058218/ralph-stanley-takes-to-the-airwaves-for-obama

xhuxk, Saturday, 4 October 2008 21:05 (sixteen years ago)

"Started playing the advances I was sent...."

Jeez.

xhuxk, Saturday, 4 October 2008 21:17 (sixteen years ago)

Oh yeah, made it through that Don Imus compilation, too. Definitely some tolerable tracks (Willie, Dwight Yoakam, Levon Helm which I wouldn't have guessed, John Hiatt doing the Bottle Rockets' hillbilly-welfare-mom song, maybe a couple more), but the only thing that seems like a keeper to me is Raul Malo's Charlie Rich cover.

xhuxk, Saturday, 4 October 2008 22:24 (sixteen years ago)

I'm one of those who neglected the Creedence crate-digging (because I tethought I knew their whole range just from the singles, because I neglected etc), so can't compare, but the CDs sound fine, for CDs, and a bunch of good bonus tracks: I didn't have room to deal with more of 'em, not and also tell my tale of why non-bonus mavens should bother, the 'why' waiting in plain sight for me and others, all these years. (Tried to include the bonus tracks that fit with the theme of dealing with historical tags, dust etc)Also some bonus filler of course. Yeah, re Lucinda and Kathleen, I love how some derivitive artists can give bonus value beyond the original's limitations (you could say Mellencamp's "The Night Jesus Left Birmingham" templates Prine, but certainly has a bounce Prine doesn't, preferring to keep the cuteness in the writing and the vocal--why can't we have all three? You could also say *some* of Prine's songs go deeper than some of Mellen's, but even if that were true, still Mellen's pop smarts, plus the same concerns etc, can make him preferred listening at times, even in their mutual decline).

dow, Saturday, 4 October 2008 23:31 (sixteen years ago)

also, "original" ha: Prine's whole thing comes from alt universe's tasteful ageing of early 60s Bobby D. (except for the part that comes from his early Chicago colleague, Steve Goodman, though maybe they influenced each other)

dow, Saturday, 4 October 2008 23:34 (sixteen years ago)

So, I:

1. Decided Holly Golightly's new album isn't really that good after all.
2. Decided the Junior League Band album isn't really all that much better than the Joey & Rory album.
3. Wrote this about Kid Rock:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/10/maybe-its-about.html

xhuxk, Thursday, 9 October 2008 01:38 (sixteen years ago)

With some of the same appeal, ‘tude-wise, but with retro more in the music than the lyric, and at the opposite end of the financial spectrum, comes now Backyard Tire Fire, telling tales out of school, of daring dumbass robberies and backdoor luv, various other blind and/or bold ambitions,and yall check their music at
http://www.backyardtirefire.com I’d say start with the earlier, no-budget EP tracks, barefoot skiffle with rueful-to-absurdist butt basically hopeful assertion, also the live sets linked from there to archive.org, where they crank it up, and then the new album gets a bit studio (somebody got some $ somewhere, by cracky), but it’s still theyum. Here’s a show preview I wrote, slightly bleeped for supposed “family newspaper”:

Backyard Tire Fire’s got catchy, itchy tunes, and talking points to sing: “I’m sick of debt. I wanna be out of it.” But leader Ed Anderson knows he’s well-nourished: “I only cry when my Mama’s sick. Otherwise, I can handle my sh**.” He’s also ambitious: “I wanna be be Tom Petty!” Then again, their Petty-est epic is about giving and getting a local non-hero’s greeting: “How the hell did you get back here?!” Live sets spill rowdy boondock beans; the new studio album, “Places We’ve Lived”, burns electric blue atmosphere (and tires).

dow, Thursday, 9 October 2008 22:33 (sixteen years ago)

Most pointless country reissue of the year might be Love Is Overtaking Me by Arthur Russell, maddeningly dull and quiet small-voiced singer-songwriter demos on which the semifamous New York post-punk dance music auteur and cult hero wears a cowboy hat on the cover. I'm a big fan of his Dinosaur L and Dinosaur and Loose Jointz and "Let's Go Swimming" stuff (almost all of it collected on the 2004 Soul Jazz set The World of Arthur Russell, always have been, even have "Kiss Me Again" on a red vinyl 12 inch, but this stuff is even more embarrassing to his legacy than those avant-minimal new age instrumental doodles or whatever they were that came out a few years ago. I really wish people would just let the poor guy rest in peace.

A surprise that came in the mail the other day was a DVD plus three previously unrelased song EP set from Big N Rich called Super Galactic Fan Pack 2. No idea when I'll get around to watching the DVD; I have a feeling John Rich's face will just want to make me throw things at the TV screen, so it may be a while. But they go two for three on the EP; I like both rockers. The ballad "Find a Heart" strikes me as one of sappiest and the most tedious songs they've ever done, though there's been some major competition in the last couple years.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 00:55 (sixteen years ago)

Toby dumber than I hoped:

http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1596198/toby-keith-registering-as-independent-voter.jhtml

xhuxk, Tuesday, 14 October 2008 15:20 (sixteen years ago)

Some (but not all) ILX posters less adventerous than I hoped

Why is The Genre Of 'Country' so maligned?

curmudgeon, Saturday, 18 October 2008 13:34 (sixteen years ago)

If only I could spell and correct my typos

curmudgeon, Saturday, 18 October 2008 13:36 (sixteen years ago)

Obama listening to Phil Vassar as much as you'd hope:

"But everybody’s screaming up the ladder
Gonna get the attention of the man on top
Make it louder, shake and rock
It might just come tumbling down
Spread all that wealth around"

What a bunch of elitists!

(Great CD by the way, just got it, thanks for tip Xhuxk.)

dr. phil, Monday, 20 October 2008 15:43 (sixteen years ago)

robo-calls in Virginia 2008

Hank Williams Jr for McCain

Ralph Stanley for Obama

curmudgeon, Saturday, 25 October 2008 14:23 (sixteen years ago)

Taylor Swift '08: The Hype, Anticipation & Appreciation Begins Right Here

curmudgeon, Saturday, 25 October 2008 14:33 (sixteen years ago)

Ha ha, I guess I haven't looked at this thread for a couple weeks, and I was just re-listening to the Phil Vassar CD yesterday and realizing he's a socialist that future Nashville star Joe the Plumber would hate, but Dr. Phil beat me to it, damn. (Also decided that Vassar's CD had more mush than I'd remembered, so not a Top 10 candidate, not even close, but it's still good.)

Better than I would have predicated: New Billy Currington, new Trace Adkins.

Me on the new Hank III:

http://www.spin.com/reviews/hank-iii-damn-right-rebel-proud-sidewalk

Me on Too Slim and the Tail Draggers and Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band (the latter of which do several songs applicable to the new depression economy):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/10/maybe-it-just-m.html

Reviews of new Leann Womack I wrote that got killed for space somewhere:

LEE ANN WOMACK
CALL ME CRAZY ***
MCA Nashville

Lee Ann Womack’s sound has long walked a line between older country and modern Nashville’s poppier proclivities, and on 2005’s There’s More Where That Came From, the synthesis hit paydirt: songs crafted catchily enough for radio, but with a ‘70s-retro sheen that struck insiders as classy enough to win her a stack of awards. Her belated followup likewise piles on trad trappings: gospel piano, bluegrass mandolin, sweet strings, weepy Wurlitzer. It starts out strong – the forlorn opener, about a suitor who only dials her drunk, will break hearts for sure. But though the bare-bones mating of pretty melody with puzzling lyric in “The Bees” provides momentary mystery, most of the rest settles for generic good taste; by the end, Womack is blatantly cloning her 2000 smash “I Hope You Dance.” Tastefulness, we’re reminded, can turn tepid quick.

xhuxk, Thursday, 30 October 2008 02:45 (sixteen years ago)

(Vassar's "Love is a Beautiful Thing" -- first hit song to use the word "vestibule" since "My Dingaling" by Chuck Berry, I believe, not to mention one of the best wedding day songs since Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" -- is still a shoo-in for my top ten singles list, however.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 30 October 2008 02:49 (sixteen years ago)

About the Lee Ann Womack album, I was struck most by "The Bees" as well. It's a strange song, at first it was just the chorus about bees that I heard but then I realized there's this whole story in there. In my review of the album (on PopMatters) I tried to pin the story down like this, but I know it doesn't capture everything:

"The song tells a lot quickly. The main character’s mom ran away, her father beat her, and now she sits on the front porch thinking back on those times, listening to the bees buzzing and thinking of what their families are like."

erasingclouds, Thursday, 30 October 2008 19:21 (sixteen years ago)

From the front page of today's NY Times, in a (not all the revelatory in terms of tellus us stuff we didn't already know) article on the differences between Obama/Biden rallies and McCain/Palin rallies: "The D's bounce to blaring folk-rock and Motown (Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder) and the R's counter with country-pop (including Dolly Parton's "9 to 5") and arena rock (AC/DC)."

I guess the R's missed the part about "9 to 5" being a socialist if not Marxist song ("Nine to five, yeah/They got you where they want you/There’s a better life/And you think about it, don’t you?/It’s a rich man’s game/No matter what they call it/And you spend your life/Puttin’ money in his wallet.")

Also, I agree that some Springsteen counts as "folk-rock," but I somehow doubt they're blasting, say, Nebraska at the rallies.

(By the way, Phil Vassar's album still has a shot at my 2008 country top ten, just not my Pazz & Jop ten ten, which is what I meant a few posts up.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 30 October 2008 21:02 (sixteen years ago)

Ann Powers in (today's, I think) LA Times about Nickelback/Hinder-type "flyover rock" and its relationship to country. She quotes me speculating (maybe stupidly) off the top of my head about Sarah Palin's musical tastes, which I'm not entirely sure is directly related to the topic at hand (and I talked about a lot of other stuff when she interviewed me, too, which she doesn't quote me on), and I'm not sure she ever convincingly makes the case about the country/post-grunge connection (never mentions Travis Tritt's and Jack Ingram's Nickelback and Hinder covers), and I get the idea she might be in denial about the elephant-in-the-room vocal influence of Eddie Vedder (who she was always a huge fan of, and mysteriously goes unmentioned), but what the heck, I can't complain really:

http://www.calendarlive.com/music/cl-ca-flyover2-2008nov02,0,3826251.story

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2008/11/flyover-rock-wh.html

I like the new Nickelback album, by the way -- at least a lot more than I expected to. Wrote a review for Rolling Stone, of all places. But I still do hate that kind of singing. In fact, Lalena just came into the room and told me that, if Jamey Johnson was singing rock music, I'd hate him for having a similar kind of voice. Which might be true, since I usually haven't even been a huge fan of country people (i.e., Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings) doing the low sodden anchored-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-of-gloom thing. (Lalena correctly says though that I'm a huge fan of Merle Haggard, who despite his deep bariton-or-whatever to me seems in a completely category, though I'm not sure I can explain why right now. His voice doesn't drag at all to me, never has; am I nuts?)

Frank Kogan says the Jamey Johnson album has too many slow drones for him, and I do admit that, after peaking unbelievably high right off the bat with my favorite song of the year "High Cost of Living," it takes longer than I'd thought at first to get its gears going again, but once it hits "In color" and especially the almost goth "When The Last Cowboy's Gone" at the halfway point, I'd say it cooks pretty well despite all the droning dolor. So, still my album of the year, at least for now.

Been going back and listening again to other '08 country albums I like, too. Carter's Chord and Woodbox Gang totally hold up, and increasingly seem to be sewing up their spots in my yea-end top ten. Trent Willmon (whose proof of God's existence song sounds even stupider months down the line) and, most sadly and surprisingly, Dolly Parton (whose squeaking can be really annoying to be honest), sound a lot thinner than I'd thought in my head; they're both slipping drastically down my list. Keith Anderson sounds better than both of them to me now, even though his Sunday morning in America song only seems to care about certain kinds of Sunday mornings in certain parts of America; so does Kathleen Edwards. Chuck Wicks's album sounded really marginal, and Chris Cagle not a whole lot better than that -- both might be on their way out of my apartment. I think it's possible I've always had a tendency to overrate albums that come out in the beginning of the year, just out of, um, hopefulness or something, and some of the ones from back then seem to falling by the wayside now that I go back and revisit them. The new albums by Trace Adkins (not out til November), Toby Keith, and Billy Fucking Currington (the latter of which I never would have guessed) just have way more memorable hooks and interesting songs and stronger singing than Willmon/Cagle/Wicks, across the board.

xhuxk, Sunday, 2 November 2008 22:16 (sixteen years ago)

(By "So does Kathleen Edwards" I mean her album also sounds a lot better to me now than Dolly's or Trent Willmon's, not that she only cares about certain kinds of Sunday mornings.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 2 November 2008 22:21 (sixteen years ago)

And actually, I don't even really think that Jamey Johnson, as a whole, is all that depressive or soporific, or addicted to the drone. The only song where Jamey really goes into Chad Kroeger vocal mode, really, is the title track, which is still pretty good, and what's most goth about "When The Last Cowboy's Gone" isn't so much the tempo (though it is pretty slow) as the belfry bells and open space at the beginning, which is really beautiful. And the song that most falls into an inexorable drone is also, by far, the best song on the album. And a bunch of the songs, in the second and fourth quarters of the album especially, are actually fairly upbeat pop-country, just a much higher grade of pop-country than the norm. And I'd say Johnson, like Haggard, can actually give his singing a lightness and sprightliness that keeps him from feeling like he's got a ball-and-chain tied to his ankle, which to my ears Cash and Jennings weren't always all that great at. Curious what other people think about this, though (assuming anyone's still out there.)

xhuxk, Monday, 3 November 2008 01:09 (sixteen years ago)

I've only listened to Jamey once and it was all mixed up on MySpace, but it did sound kind of slow and drony to me and I didn't like it as much as his first album. THAT SAID, I like his voice a lot--but then, I've always liked Eddie Vedder's voice too. They seem legitimately intense--not so much emotionally intense, but they have an intensity of tone that seems to bore its way into my forehead. Plus they have distinctive vowel shapings. Now I grant you, I could use the Kogan rule to say that these descriptions could also apply to singers I hate, like Chad Kroeger. But maybe since I grew up with Eddie and I can sing along to all the songs I find his singing more amusing than pretentious, and Jamey just sounds really good, like he's chewing his words. Almost like Rihanna?

But Haggard's not really like them. He seems to dance around his songs, even the sad ones, like "If We Make It Through December." Sometimes I can imagine him in a supper club, like Bobby Darin or somebody. Maybe Jamey's got some of that, so I'll go back and listen to him on MySpace again when I have a chance.

dr. phil, Monday, 3 November 2008 03:24 (sixteen years ago)

I can't imagine Jamey Johnson singing in a supper club (and I do hear that in Haggard), but I do hear some lightness in his singing. Maybe it's really about the material, though. He sings "Mowing Down the Roses" in that same deep growling kind of voice that he does the first couple songs but the humor in the song balances it out. The album is constructed to leaven out the pain, without ever leaving it behind. So the darkest songs give way to more ruminative ones, plus familiar cover songs that are similar in nature and a joke song ("Women") that's really a loneliness song. Not to mention "In Color" standing in the middle - I think its presence there is somehow the key to all this, the way it takes this personal-pain thing and addresses it as something universal, as a radio single.

I'm getting away from his singing per se, I know, but I think it's all connected - his singing might strike me as too broody if every single song was like, say, "Angel". The mood of the songs is more varied than it seems at first, since they all tie into that 'lonesome song' theme. I haven't heard the previous version of the album (mentioned somewhere upthread), I'd be curious to know how the different songlist affects what I'm talking about.

erasingclouds, Monday, 3 November 2008 14:29 (sixteen years ago)

Strangely, "Mowing Down Roses" (which I know a lot of people love, and which I certainly love in theory) and "Mary Go Round" (which I also love in theory, though it really isn't anywhere near as good as its spiritual role model, Glen Campbell's "Where's the Playground Susie") both made me impatient to sit through when I played the album yesterday. But yeah, the album is definitely more varied that it seems at first. And it's kind of neat he saves what might be the prettiest song ("Stars in Alabama") and funniest songs ("Women" and "Somewhere Between Jennings and Jones") for the end.

You guys are both right about Merle Haggard's singing. He's got a lot of Tin Pan Alley pop in there -- not to mention jazz, obviously. So he dances in ways these other guys (Johnson included, but definitely Jennings and Cash) don't.

I much prefer Chad Kroeger to Eddie Vedder, who I always thought was ridiculous and basically unlistenable. I much prefered Scott Weiland to Vedder, too. (Still do, actually.) They both bring Vedder's bullshit down to earth for me. Though I may well still prefer Vedder to Scott Stapp.

xhuxk, Monday, 3 November 2008 14:49 (sixteen years ago)

Don't tell Jamey, but he's now shelved between Jewel and Jones.

dr. phil, Monday, 3 November 2008 16:07 (sixteen years ago)

Ha ha, on my CD shelf he's in between Sarah Johns and Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Chris Cagle promo best-of from late December-ish holds up much better than his January-ish actual (third, I think) album. Heidi Newfield album still sounding really good; George Strait album from this year sounding better than I'd remembered, but then I probably always underestimate him. (Really love "Brothers of the Highway," very atypical-for-George Southern rock about big trucks made in Detroit. Has he ever made any song so blatantly rock before?)

xhuxk, Monday, 3 November 2008 16:23 (sixteen years ago)

...That's "Southern rock" as in Marshall Tucker, though, fwiw, not like Blackfoot or Black Oak Arkansas somebody. So it's not all that rock, if you're not George Strait. And the more or listen to the rest of the album, the more I remember that the reason that I underestimate the guy so much is that he's so fucking boring so much of the time (even when he does Western Swing, for Crissakes), and honestly, this album has plenty of that, too. So yeah, really, it's just about as pretty-good as I figured a few months ago. (Which is still better than I would have figured, before I had heard the album.)

xhuxk, Monday, 3 November 2008 18:27 (sixteen years ago)

Voted at 11 a.m.; only four people ahead of us in line. New York still has the old lever-pull machines (only state that still does, apparently), but it was still easy.

Rollingstone.com Song of the Day: Phil Vassar, "This Is My Life":

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/rs_sotd/758/song-of-the-day-phil-vassar-this-is-my-life/

Went back and listened to these 2008 albums:

Ashton Sheppherd -- Consistently pleasant sound; indistiguishable songs that still don't stick, except bluesy "Whiskey Won the Battle." Sasha Frere-Jones still had this album in his tentative year-end overall top ten last time I checked (though behind Taylor Swift, which I still haven't heard.) It may well not make my country Top 30.

Hayes Carrl -- Catchy songs sound catchier, and dull sounds sound duller, than I'd remembered, which means it's more or less as good but not-good-enough as I thought. Tom Waits cover and left-me-for-Jesus song irritated me less than I expected them to.

Alan Jackson -- Just hits for a really low batting average, whiffs way too many times, despite a few songs (especially the bologna on white bread one) I still like a lot.

Amanda Shaw -- Went in expecting to be disappointed, and was happy not to be. Falls kind of flat when it tries to get funky, but otherwise her band really carries her -- the Zeppelin rip is almost as rocking at Demi Lovato's Zep rip, the fiddle jam hoedowns are consistently energetic and catchy, and the prettier poppier songs ("Pretty Runs Out," "Garden Of Eden") still grab me. A January release, so I may have overrated it a little after the early winter release drought, but I didn't overrate at much as I thought I might have. Good shot at my year-end country top ten still (though not Pazz & Jop.)

James McMurtry on now; liking it a lot more than Hayes Carrl. Just sounds tougher and more obsessive. Pretty great music for Election Day, it turns out. (For instance "Cheney's Toy," which I'd thought was kind of corny and obvious when the album came out.)

Non country stuff, fwiw: Kill Rock Stars Raincoats-type off-kilter Northwest Corridor politically correct possibly vegan overweight biracial lesbian trio with violin the New Bloods holds up way better than I expected (and given that description I was really surprised I liked the thing in the first place); so does Ashlee Simpson, though the first half of her album really kills the draggy second half. Both have a shot at my Pazz & Jop list. Lil Mama doesn't -- more of a chore than I expected to get through, especially when she tries to be hard or serious and just winds up boring me in the process, though when she starts getting lovey-dovey r&b-ballady toward the end (in the song where the guy wants to swim with her for instance), she sounds suprisingly good. (As does "Lip Gloss," still.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 4 November 2008 21:11 (sixteen years ago)

(Well, the hit single on Ashton However You Spell Her Last Name's album is good too, obviously. My main point is that I still think there is something really samey sounding about the album, even above and beyond the Nashville norm. And not in a good way, even though I basically like how she sounds.)

(And I guess what I'm saying about Hayes Carrl is that, compared to McMurtry -- or probably, say, Chris Knight, not to mention Eric Church, to name a couple people more or less in his aesthetic neighborhood -- he comes off kind of like a wuss. Except when he doesn't. But he comes off wussier way more often than I wish he did.)

Also, didn't mention Ross Johnson's Most Of... album from this year, which still amazes me. Pazz & Jop shoo-in; curious whether anybody else who's heard it (is Edd Hurt still out there?) thinks its intermittent rockabilly quotient should qualify or disqualify it from a country list. I'm still undecided about that pressing issue, myself.

Okay, initial Virginia and Pennsylvania results in maybe an hour and a half. Guess I'll kill some more time now by making a sandwich.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 4 November 2008 21:27 (sixteen years ago)

(And sometimes Carrl's wussiness is actually really likeable -- in "Beaumont," for instance. But generally I wish he'd cultivate his non-wussy mode -- e.g., "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart," "Faulkner Street," etc. -- more. Worst song, I think: "Don't Let Me Fall.")

xhuxk, Tuesday, 4 November 2008 22:01 (sixteen years ago)

Ross's rockabilliness makes him at least as country as Phil Vassar. Or, for that matter, David Banner, who I seem to remember had a sizable country voting bloc a couple years ago. If Most of was a Yazoo comp called Creepy Uncles of Memphis or something, there'd be no question.

dr. phil, Wednesday, 5 November 2008 02:48 (sixteen years ago)

John Rich (doing "I Walk The Line") and Hank Williams Jr, seen on TV performing for ignorami and bigots and maybe even a couple well-meaning good people I just disagree with in Arizona last night, are presumably not dancing in the streets this morning.

Sugarland etc.'s version of "Life in a Northern Town" (also now included on a pointlessly expanded-by-four-songs new major label version of the Little Big Town album from last year) sounded really good the morning after the election for some reason. Maybe that JFK line? I dunno. (Sugarland album as a whole sounds better than I would've guessed now too, a few months down the line. Real nice guitar solo in "What I'd Give" playing now as I type.)

Just figured out "God Bless America (Pat Macdonald Must Die)" by James McMurtry sounds like "Jungle Work" by Warren Zevon. And "Faulkner Street" by Hayes Carrl sounds like "The Wanderer" by Dion. Sort of, in both cases.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 November 2008 15:34 (sixteen years ago)

Alejandro Escovedo – Why did I think this sounded so rocking a few months back? I get pretty good recall on the songs, in terms of mostly recognizing them when they come on, but the sound is a lot weaker than I thought, and Alejandro is just not a very compelling singer or songwriter, period. He has an okay band, I guess. But hardly a great one.

Mechanical Bull – Good songs, more demo-like and laid-back and unduly subdued than I let on when I was loving this early in the year. The guy’s songs are better than the girl’s. But even his would be better if he gave them to an actual band, with an actual production budget.

Trailer Choir – Less high-larius than I thought. Also more pop-punk in the country pop-rock than I’d prefer; played it back to back with Big N Rich’s new 3-song EP, and this has better cornball punchlines I guess but B&R totally kill them in terms of rock chops and singing chops (even in B&R’s sappy self-help ballad). Also used to think Trailer Choir’s country-rap opener wasn’t up to their other three songs, but now I’m starting to think the other three aren’t much better than the country-rap. They’re all kinda cute, though.

James Dunn – Man, his songs and singing are never as interesting as the guitar playing, are they? Somehow, I don’t think a singer-songwriter album is supposed to work that way. (See also Escovedo.) Lots of really meh material. Favorite is still the closer, “Til The Sun Comes Up.” Where he slimes out like he wants to be the Birthday Party or Gun Club or somebody.

Sugarland – Basically a really well-put together, diverse pop album, like pop superstars at this band's commercial level used to make in the mid ‘80s. And sometimes sounding like mid ‘80s pop, too. Uneven, but not that uneven. Fast songs are almost always better than the slow ones. Favorites: probably “Take Me As I Am,” “It Happens,” “Operation: Working Vacation.” Inching toward my 2008, though probably still a bit too inconsistent to actually get there.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 November 2008 21:29 (sixteen years ago)

("toward my 2008 Top 10," that is.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 November 2008 21:31 (sixteen years ago)

Actually, "Fading Fire" on that James Dunn album really kicks, too -- mainstream blues-based non-weirdo hard rock with killer guitar solos, as good if not better than any on the Escovedo album. And Dunn's voice is better than competent even if the words are more or less dumbass cliches about heat and fire and burning. So I should stop complaining and overthinking things and just sit back and enjoy the record (when it's enjoyable, which I guess just like Hayes Carrl mainly means when Dunn's not wussing out on us).

xhuxk, Thursday, 6 November 2008 00:09 (sixteen years ago)

And "Chelsea Hotel '78" and "Smoke" and "Chip N Tony" and maybe "Real Animal" are why I thought the Escovedo sounded so rocking a few months back -- in other words, because sometimes, it does. And sometimes he writes okay. It's just that, like the Dunn and the Carrl, you really have to sort through the sap to get to the good parts.

Left Lane Cruiser's two-guy punk-blues rockabilly/Howlin Wolf holding up pretty well when swallowed in small doses, too, though they're at least as one-trick-pony as Ashton Shepherd, in their own way.

Sugarland's Achilles heel, when they have one, is Nettles' drawl, which she sometimes has a tendency to exagerrate into nothingness sometimes -- usually when they slow down.

xhuxk, Thursday, 6 November 2008 01:58 (sixteen years ago)

I've had no use for Alejandro Escovedo's since about two weeks after I bought it. Sugarland -- I still play. Usually after three cans of cheap beer.

Haven't listened to the Road Hammers in months. But Ashton Shepherd still comes out every so often. And speaking of drawls, boy does she have one. The "cooler slushin'" line is so OTT you could almost mistake it for a Pennsy Dutch accent. Honest.

Everything on the Kathleen Edwards' Asking for Flowers is dead to me except "The Cheapest Key," which I'll still play. And since it's the most un-Kathleen Edwards tune on the disc, this means I don't really like her so much as I thought I did.

And still haven't been moved to buy Brad Paisley's Play -- even though I play guitar and liked the cover story they did on him at Guitar Player earlier this year.

Gorge, Thursday, 6 November 2008 03:21 (sixteen years ago)

George, how are Boxmasters holding up for you? Because even despite the occasional funny lyrics and decent stolen melodies, Billy Bob's vocals are sounding increasingly like nothing to me (as dead or deader than any other singer I've mentioned here), and it's not like they have the guitars to make up for it, I don't think. (Never cared about the covers disc, really; new Xmas album didn't even last an entire listen.)

Left Lane Cruiser's vocals are at least a growl, which is something even if it's a done to death schtick. And their guitars can actually be pretty great; the music stomps, even when the singing doesn't. But they're so monochromatic that they're destined to be future storage-bin fodder, at best. Probably not quite worth getting rid of, but not all that far off.

Lady Antebellum still sounding pretty good as a minor-league Sugarland in hooky commercial pop-rock disguised as country terms, though the girl could probably afford to drawl a little more in their case. The guy singer's Rob Thomas moaning should bug me, probably, but for some reason it still doesn't.

xhuxk, Thursday, 6 November 2008 18:35 (sixteen years ago)

Actually, I think I'd maybe even say that Lady Antebellum's "Lookin' For a Good Time" is a catchier Sugarland single than either of the Sugarland singles off their own album. (But then again, my favorite songs on the Sugarland album have not yet been singles.)

Left Lane Cruiser and the Boxmasters should merge, maybe. The two styles of half-assed singing would balance each other out like in a ugly-vocal/clean-vocal metal band, and between LLC's stomping noisy boogie and the Boxmasters' melodies and sense of humor, they could combine for a pretty good album. (The Boxmasters' guitars probably are okay, actually; just in a much more trad country way that I have a harder time getting excited about. And LLC can be kinda humorous in their own right, espeically when the topic is food; it's just harder to make out their words.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 6 November 2008 19:22 (sixteen years ago)

Sugarland song (a live "bonus track" cover of some singer-songwriter, apparently) that always makes me go ewwwwww: "Come On Get Higher," the one that goes "loosen my lips/Faith and desire and the swing of your hips." Sounds like Christian grandma sex or something. Cringe.

Reckless Kelly and the Road Hammers both in the CD changer now. Both good, neither great. Two kinds of country-rock bands; Road Hammers more four-square, Kelly more expansive. Both would be better if their singers sounded less plain and normal. Road Hammers stomp more and have more memorable songs (the best of which usually tend to be cover versions); Kelly have better (more powerpop, really) melodies and guitar solos but often go in one ear out the other. (I like their album better than Drive By Truckers' this year, but DBTs definitely still have more personality, not that they make me care about it or like it v very often.) (Least unmemorable '08 Reckless Kelly song, easy: "American Blood," about a soldier coming back from the war.)

Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band have blues (and old-timey) guitars as raunchy as Left Lane Cruiser, but better hooks and at least marginally graspable non-singing. And definitely better songs, especially when they talk about not having enough money, which is often. Which makes them timely (as is Mechanical Bull's version of "Debts No Honest Man Can Pay.")

xhuxk, Friday, 7 November 2008 16:14 (sixteen years ago)

Ha ha, hadn't noticed before that Restless Kelly's very un-barbecued-iguana-like "Guy Like Me" steals parts of its melody from "Mexican Radio" by Wall of Voodoo. (Their best steals still probably come from the Beatles, though. They made a lot of sense in the changer alongside the reissue of '70s cult powerpop major-label flops Blue Ash I just got in the mail from Collector's Choice yesterday.)

And Road Hammers' guitar parts often pack considerably more punch than Restless Kelly's; the latter just seem to do more (very likeable) exploring, I guess.

Mother Truckers sound more Stonesy and fun in general than I remembered, though their hippie-Deadhead choogliness still leaves me kinda skeptical.

And Chris Knight's voice still sounds really sodden, no matter how good his songwriting and Cougar heartland-rock riffs are when you listen close for them.

xhuxk, Friday, 7 November 2008 18:26 (sixteen years ago)

In fact I'd say Mother Truckers' happy hippie-dippie party-in-the-old-barnhouse rock could even afford to be a little more sodden -- It lacks gravity, somehow. The MTs and Chris Knight could both teach each other some lessons if they were locked in a room.

Track that makes me want to throw things at the stereo on the Road Hammers album is "Flat Tires (Bloopers, Out-Takes N Such)," the collage of song snippets and car-horn honks at the end. What is it there for? Is it supposed to be a radio commercial or something? It's not funny, just annoying. (Rest of the album is real good, though.)

xhuxk, Friday, 7 November 2008 18:39 (sixteen years ago)

The repetitiveness of the long run-on sentences in "Girl on a Billboard" kinda feels like water-board torture sometimes, too, but actually, the more I listen the more I really do like the guitars, and Jason McCoy's singing. The guitar solos are concise and compact, barely even solos really, but they really do kick. And there's a real power to his singing in the almost commercial-country (but with blues guitars) "I Don't Know When To Quit" (a single, like almost half of the other songs on the album according to Wikipedia -- guess they just keep throwing songs at the charts to see if any of them will eventually stick; been doing it with these batch of songs for three years now.) Country-radio-worthy singing in "I Got the Scars To Prove It" too; that one could almost be a Jamey Johnson song. Also like how so many of Road Hammer songs, appropriately given their fiarly single-minded trucker lyrics, have that chugging road rhythm underneath. How many albums have two different songs with the word "bound" in their title, neither about bondage no less? (Also just noticed that Chris Knight wrote "The Hammer Going Down," another really tough kicking track. And Paul Thorn wrote "Heart With Four Wheel Drive," another tough one. And dipshit John Rich wrote "Workin' Hard At Lovin' You," fairly rote ass-man lyrics but good hard music to go with it plus manly working-on-chain-gang grunts.)

Great Mother Truckers song: "I'm Comin' Over," early '70s hard rock bubblegum disguised as roots rock, with handclaps and everything. (George, you'd like this. And Restless Kelly too, I think.)

xhuxk, Friday, 7 November 2008 19:11 (sixteen years ago)

Boxmasters' still gets played. I like "Poor House" and "Shit List" a lot. The former, mostly because of the video I saw first, with Billy Bob mugging his way through it. "Shit List" because it has the best melody on the first disc. I also still like a lot of the covers disc, particularly "Original Mixed Up Kid" and "Sawmill." Plus Billy Bob did really make it sound late-Sixties vintage except without the vinyl crackle. It does.

Read the interview of Mother Truckers in Guitar Player. Saw the CD. Still not quite moved to spec buy.

Gorge, Friday, 7 November 2008 19:57 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, in these last few posts I'd given both the Boxmasters and Ashton Shepherd CDs more grief than they deserved -- They're both good albums, and the more I go back and listen, Billy Bob sings better than Ashton is less one-trick than I suggested.

I love at least one more song on the Kathleen Edwards album than George does (namely I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory" -- I'm a sucker for a good catchy hockey song), but there are definitely way more songs that put me the sleep than songs that wake me up on that album. (Also, "The Cheapest Key" might only be my second favorite letter-by-letter alphabet song of the year, behind "Mars is for Martians" by the Boss Martians, featuring Iggy Pop on guest vocal. But it's a close call.)

New Toby Keith, the more I listen, sounds really phoned-in, by Toby standards. Still a keeper (not many singers do lazy as well as Toby does), but quite possibly my least favorite album he's made this decade (not counting Xmas albums or any other non-regular-albums that shouldn't count because I never listened to them.)

xhuxk, Monday, 10 November 2008 00:08 (sixteen years ago)

Phil Vassar's album still has a shot at my 2008 country top ten, just not my Pazz & Jop top ten

Looks like my obsessive-compulsive reappraisals have scared everybody away, but what the heck, I take this back (again). I'm falling back in love with Vassar's album -- a more audacious and consistent '80s pop album than Sugarland's, actually (Robert Palmer/Phil Collins/'80s Elton/'80s Seger style, in Vassar's case.) If the year ended right now, it'd make my Pazz & Jop; as is, the only country albums with better odds right now of making my list are Jamey Johnson, Ross Johnson, Woodbox Gang, and Carter's Chord, in that order.

Next several, after Vassar: Road Hammers, James McMurtry, Sugarland, Amanda Shaw, Chris Knight, Heidi Newfield, Reckless Kelly, Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, Mother Truckers, Montgomery Gentry, Old Crow Medicine Show, Trace Adkins, Ashton Shepherd, Billy Currington, Lady Antebellum, Hayes Carrl, Toby Keith, Dolly Parton, Keith Anderson, Too Slim and the Tail Draggers, Alejandro Escovedo, Kathleen Edwards, Boxmasters, Those Darlins (EP), Rebecca Lynn Howard, James Dunn, Alan Jackson, Mechanical Bull, Left Lane Cruiser. (Biggest surprise on that list for me is Old Crow Medicine Show, which finally really kicked in; pretty confident now in thinking I underrated it in the Voice.))

Still haven't heard Taylor Swift yet, though.

xhuxk, Monday, 10 November 2008 23:57 (sixteen years ago)

I'm always way behind with these EOTY lists (The Josh Turner ended up being my favorite of '07 though I didn't hear it until '08) but right now my top 10 would have to include Jamey Johnson, Toby Keith, Kathleen Edwards, Lee Ann Womack, George Strait, Billy Currington, Sugarland, Patty Loveless, Montgomery Gentry and Hayes Carrl. Or maybe I'll swap one of them out for Alan Jackson.

I haven't listened to the Joey + Rory or the Ralph Stanley II CDs that Country blogs are excited about, or the new Kasey Chambers, and I'm only once through OCMS.

President Keyes, Tuesday, 11 November 2008 19:41 (sixteen years ago)

I'm not sure how this'll change by the end of the year, if I do Pazz & Jop or some other poll, but this week I had to submit a top 10 for the main website I write for. My list included three country albums - Jamey Johnson, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. None others were that close to making it. Maybe Montgomery Gentry was closest. There's a bunch of other albums where I really like a good half or more but couldnt quite get behind the whole thing, not enough for a top 10 - Alan Jackson, George Strait, Lee Ann Womack, Trent Willmon, Randy Travis, Sugarland, Patty Loveless. Maybe Kenny Chesney too, though half or more is probably an exaggeration for that one, it's just a few songs I really like. Another album that stands out for me as interesting is Murry Hammond's album of train songs and religious songs, for the atmospheric sound/style of it and for his singing being better than I expected.

erasingclouds, Tuesday, 11 November 2008 19:58 (sixteen years ago)

Oh add Trace Adkins to that list of almost-there albums too. It may be more consistent than most of those actually.

erasingclouds, Tuesday, 11 November 2008 20:09 (sixteen years ago)

Oh,and I forgot Ashton Sheppard's album (which I was about to give up on until my wife made me listen to it in the car few dozen more times.)

President Keyes, Tuesday, 11 November 2008 20:18 (sixteen years ago)

Since this is the first year in many where I didn't free-lance any reviews, I'm not doing polls. Sugarland's been my favorite of these. The rest, except for Boxmasters, only fair to eh overall. Of them all, Shepherd definitely had the best-sounding LP. Jorgensen doing guitars may have had something to do with that.

I'll be assiduously avoiding anything to do with Taylor Swift. Of minor interest in yesterday's NYT feature was the nugget that she was originally from Wyomissing, the high-property value 'burb of Reading, Pennsyltucky, where I once went to college.

Gorge, Tuesday, 11 November 2008 20:58 (sixteen years ago)

Having trouble with this screen since the re-launch, but maybe I can say : 1) good call on New Bloods, though I wouldn't say "off-kilter," they just have their own sense of balance (like Nick Nolte on a good night) and the fiddle isn't a million miles from Charlie Burnham's work with Blood Ulmer's Odyssey (album and later Odyssey The Band, as the reunited session crew's billed), and when they both play in the 52nd St. Blues Project, whe Burnham also plays mandolin and sings.We've talked about Carolina Chocolate Drops on a couple of RC Threads, and I've mentioned Ebony Hillbillies a year or two ago (linking then to Kandia's feature)but also, I just heard some eerie calm mountainy tracks from Laura Love's Negrass album). Somewhat in the same vein (mines and mountains, but really more of a stringband than bluegrass, though they're new stars on the circuit): self-titled debut of the Steeldrivers--sort of like if Seger were to make an album backed by the Del McCoury Band, like Earle did--only even less trad(making wise use of P.Domain for copyrights, however) yet non'trad in in a subtle enough way(not counting the nongrass vocals, which aren't subtle, just unaffected)yet not newgrass ect (re today's country as retro rock, something like "Heaven Sent" evokes one of Dickie Betts' higher-flying solos, but it doesn't even have electric instruments, much less solos--the whole album is pretty much unplugged, but moves right along, unhurriedly, yet 10 songs in 36 minutes )Gets better as it goes along, too. The second half kicks in quicer than the first. It's on Rounder. Sorry bout any typos, this box keeps distending.

dow, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 02:10 (sixteen years ago)

I had trouble on the first day of re-launch. What you need to do is go into personal choices and reset your "look" choice to old ILX style sheet. That should fix the squirmy, distending input box phenom on
what I'm assuming is your PC. Anyway, it did for me.

Gorge, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 02:20 (sixteen years ago)

Good call on Carter's Chord too--thought the guitars might overwhelm the vocals, but they don't (although the vocals aren't that distinguished--but they put the songs across, like vocals are supposed to do, but often don't--glad I don't have to listen around them, which happens too often)Gorge, tha instrumenal Paisley did on Charlie Daniels' Duets album was pretty appetizing (always leave 'em wanting more), so I think I will check out the new album. I'm also really enjoying Willie Nelson's guitar on his halbum with Wynton's band (which is a pungent witty country-blues-bop landmark like I've hardly heard--some live Clarence Gatemouth Brown, yehah, and Sonny Rollins' Way Out West--not that far from Dylan's "If Dogs Run Free," either, on the cute snide ricochet finale, which also has something to do with the cute snide etc. "Making Whoopee" on Ray Charles Live, from'65 or so)I'll do that Gorge, thanks for the tip!

dow, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 02:24 (sixteen years ago)

one more: Miss Lana Rebel, All I Need. Unlike blurbs had me expecting, not so very much the lonesome cowgirl, or not so girly or retro about it, and she sounds small, clear, strong enough, vocals and spare backing (electric strumming mix and mingle with electric piano, liquid with a citric aftertaste, slightly burbly, steel guitar sometimes, and taut, discreetly attentive drums--taut, discreetly attentive everything, really)Confiding, but she might tell you a few home truths, as the Aussies say, if you get too moony.Telling you this as a friend, natch, but then another sip another song. www.lanarebel.com myspace.com/lanarebel

dow, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 04:48 (sixteen years ago)

good call on New Bloods...the fiddle isn't a million miles from Charlie Burnham's work with Blood Ulmer's Odyssey (album and later Odyssey The Band

I hadn't thought of that, and it makes sense, actually! So, that said, given that you've heard the New Bloods, Don, do you think they would or should qualify for a country poll, to your ears? I'd been going back and forth on the question, and decided "no" despite their occasionally hoedowning fiddles, but I may defer to your expert opinion...

I'll be assiduously avoiding anything to do with Taylor Swift.

Ha ha, so I guess that officially makes Taylor 2008's answer to Miranda Lambert. Way to go!

xhuxk, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:23 (sixteen years ago)

And I think I may have mentioned this in passing upthread, President Keyes, but I thought the Joey & Roy album was really dull, once I got beyond their catchy "Cheater, Cheater" single (allegedly a Bombshel cover, strangely.) Had no idea the country blogs (which ones?) were pushing them so much; some people are such suckers for bluegrass. (Assuming bluegrass is what Joey + Roy consider themselves.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:27 (sixteen years ago)

the country blogs (which ones?)

the9513.com is a pretty big blog now--to the point where they get unsolicited phone calls from Billy Currington and such--and they've been on about it a bit.

President Keyes, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 20:22 (sixteen years ago)

CmA awards on ABC right now. Started a half hour ago but i forgot.

curmudgeon, Thursday, 13 November 2008 01:33 (sixteen years ago)

Ha ha, Kid Rock doing "All Summer Long," with Lil Wayne on guitar!

xhuxk, Thursday, 13 November 2008 02:13 (sixteen years ago)

Toby skipped it, so I did too. Xhuxx, New Bloods' music instantly took me run skip hop dub through the big bad woods with these somewhat gunpowdery little red riding hoods, but woods, like folk, pastoral tec don't nec.=country, they seem a little too urban, in the sense of "I know trouble when I see it three blocks away, cross the street [or the creek] almost without thinking"--not making as big a deal of it, in bravura and/or brooding a way as country tends too--not that some big ceety types don't make a big deal too, but either way goes with urban (New Bloods do take note of shadows etc but they're used to it, wothout getting that mountain-fatalistic about it, or maybe I'm distracted by the music, but that's part of the non-country feel)(but I'll listen some more) Joey and Rory are a total snooze so far, except for the first song, "Play The Song": good point about stop pitching and bitching and working the angles etc but that also applies to their terminally monotony-as-modesty delivery.(Not that the writing isn't also to blame, at LEAST some of the time: "Sweet Emmylou" makes me gag, and I really like Emmylou, who should sue.)I admit I haven't yet stayed awake through the whole thing, but that's what I mean (maybe I'll try Random Play)(nah)

dow, Thursday, 13 November 2008 05:45 (sixteen years ago)

one more: Miss Lana Rebel, All I Need

I should listen to this. I actually grew up on the same block as her. She was in a noise band called Last of the Juanitas and a country spin-off called Juanita Family & Friends.

President Keyes, Thursday, 13 November 2008 16:36 (sixteen years ago)

so, based on the CMAs, country is dead, except for Brad Paisley and the Capitol popsters, tho i'm guessing Lady Antebellum (terrible name) is a singles act

gabbneb, Thursday, 13 November 2008 17:51 (sixteen years ago)

and i like the will.i.am more than the fergie

gabbneb, Thursday, 13 November 2008 17:52 (sixteen years ago)

based on the CMAs, country is dead ― gabbneb, Thursday, November 13, 2008

Are you saying this because George Strait and K. Chesney and Brad P. won the big awards again? There were 21 live performances, you did not like any of them or did not consider them country?

That guy singer for Lady Antebellum sounded kinda like Eddie Vedder gone country. That's not a compliment for me. But maybe I need to hear the album.

curmudgeon, Thursday, 13 November 2008 18:16 (sixteen years ago)

His singing definitely sounds like Vedder (via Rob Thomas, I'd say), as I pretty much wrote a few months ago, at the link below. Not a compliment for me, either, but strangely I like the album anyway:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/05/test.html

xhuxk, Thursday, 13 November 2008 18:31 (sixteen years ago)

Frank Kogan says the Jamey Johnson album has too many slow drones for him

Actually, what I said was that, though I like almost everything on the alb, each track goes about 30 seconds too long, so the nonstop baritone bathos becomes a bit wearing. Baritone bathos and slow drone aren't quite the same concept. The Velvet Underground's "Heroin" is a slow drone but it's not baritone bathos. It's tenor bathos.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 14 November 2008 00:20 (sixteen years ago)

Are you saying this because George Strait and K. Chesney and Brad P. won the big awards again? There were 21 live performances, you did not like any of them or did not consider them country?

no, admittedly i was only half-paying attention, but i'm saying this because everything except Darius and Lady Antebellum and Brad seemed really tired and looking back for old material to recycle or outside of country for something to freshen the proceedings up. Alan Jackson was fine, but seemed like an afterthought. Fat Vince Gill symbolized things well.

gabbneb, Friday, 14 November 2008 00:28 (sixteen years ago)

xp Frank's probably right that I misinterpreted his Jamey Johnson complaint; I didn't have it in front of me when I made that post. Thing is (as I pointed out upthread) neither Jamey's baritone nor his bathos is as nonstop as it seems. (And as I also pointed out upthread, I've never been a big baritone bathos fan myself, and I find the album easier to get through than any other album I've heard this year. Never really noticed that the individual songs outwear their welcome, either -- at least, no more than anybody else's songs I can think of lately.)

I barely watched the CMA's at all, myself, but hasn't "looking back for old material" pretty much always been business-as-usual for country award shows?

xhuxk, Friday, 14 November 2008 00:56 (sixteen years ago)

Yep, and I guess Darius R. and Lady Antebellum looking back to Rob Thomas and other pop-rockers is more new than looking back to the traditional country canon but I just have trouble enjoying that singing style. Maybe I need to give it more of a chance (or maybe not).

curmudgeon, Friday, 14 November 2008 04:56 (sixteen years ago)

There was south of the border country and ballads on the Latin Grammys on univision tonight. I enjoyed Julieta Venegas on accordion and singing catchy pop with some other accordion players joining her.

curmudgeon, Friday, 14 November 2008 04:59 (sixteen years ago)

Sometimes I agree with Bob Leftsetz and other times his rockist nostalgia and melodramtic take on stuff annoys me. Here's part of his take on the CMA's. I don't buy it.

As for Taylor Swift, I loved her once, but those days are through. Everybody applauding her high school drama performances is delusional. Last year with the water, this year with the costume change? What's that got to do with music?

And that's what bugged me. The music. It was just too formulaic.

And then came the Eagles.

Talk about a mismatch. It would be like Stevie Wonder closing a Jonas Brothers show. Illustrating the roots, where it all came from, but the performance being lost upon the assembled multitude.

And unlike last year, the Eagles were rehearsed, the mix was right, but the song was never a hit. Yet the lyrics packed a punch absent from all the other numbers. George Strait won because he saw God, what a cheap shot. Don Henley was singing about real life.

That's what our stars used to do. They used to tell us about us. By exploring the fringes, the limits, delivering insight that eluded us.

curmudgeon, Friday, 14 November 2008 05:10 (sixteen years ago)

i'm not preferring a pop singing style, i don't think. was referring to the music as a whole - real pop hooks (with lyrics that aren't totally formula or dumb), guitars that are punchy without being all macho southern rock about it. my complaint is that the traditional country stuff right now (as represented on the CMAs) seems really flat in comparison, i.e. i'm proposing that it need not be, but is because even a traditionalist genre seems to have gotten tired the way hiphop did a while back. but speaking of the voices, i'll note that darius - whose voice i've been willing to take in any form for over 14 years - precedes rob thomas and has nothing to do with him, and that i'd say the lady antebellum guy (who i don't mind; the girl has grown on me too) is more after the guy from 3 doors down.

gabbneb, Friday, 14 November 2008 05:20 (sixteen years ago)

Sorry, I'm going to be the annoying person who pops in to ask 'What's this year's 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'?" Taylor Swift? Something else on the horizon?

Tape Store, Friday, 14 November 2008 06:55 (sixteen years ago)

Maybe it's me but I find the lady antebellum guy approach as formulaic as the the traditionalist approach or the southern rock one (and in part that's what country is about--stretching the bounds but never straying too far away). Maybe it's just a matter of taste, but for the newish style folks, I'll take the singers and groups who crib from Fleetwood Mac over the ones who borrow from Hootie or Rob Thomas or Eddie Vedder or other recent popular approaches ( and yes they are all a bit different, but that's me--I embrace popular rap and r'n'b much much more than popular rock for some reason)

curmudgeon, Friday, 14 November 2008 13:00 (sixteen years ago)

That's recent popular rap and r'n'b over recent popular pop rock. I'm an East Coaster Ann Powers! Actually Nickleback and Hinder et. al. are embraced in the DC area (Virginia's now blue) just as they are in 'fly-over country.'

curmudgeon, Friday, 14 November 2008 13:02 (sixteen years ago)

Perhaps Ann realized that people in LA and NY like what she was calling 'flyover rock' as I think she said 'others' were using that term and 'red state' rock

curmudgeon, Friday, 14 November 2008 13:04 (sixteen years ago)

I'm sorry, I've been listening to the thing for a couple days, hoping it would sink in, and I'm sure some of it eventually will ("Love Story" is real good, and I actually might like "You Belong To Me" even more -- it's really catchy), but I just gotta say, up to this point, this new Taylor Swift record is SO FUCKING DULL. Who told her to make a damn Lisa Loeb album, anyway? I don't get it.

And I'm starting to get worried that this (from Tom Lane, on his blog) will more or less sum up the critical consensus, from people who missed the boat on Taylor's debut album and now won't admit they regret it: "Christina Aguilera was once what Taylor Swift is now: a teen pop princess on the verge of womanhood. Both released new albums this week. Swift's is a followup to her debut, and Aguilera's is a Greatest Hits with a couple of new songs. Listening to them back to back, Swift's first, I wondered if Swift will be where Aguilera is now. For Aguilera shook off the teen idol tag and was able to find songs (some of them she co-wrote) that let her mature. Now she's a respected singer, and the teen years are long gone. Swift is only 18, but has been writing her own songs since she was in middle school. On Fearless, she's like a running diary of her years up to 2008. The best song is "Fifteen" about, well, being that age and its cusp of adult life. Notice I described Swift as a Pop singer, because there's very little Country about her. Like Carrie Underwood she crosses over because her songs lack that Country twang. Swift is half the singer that Underwood and Aguilera are, but what will keep her around are her songs, which are getting better. By album #3 I expect she'll sing more about life after 18, and that for a young woman could make for even less songs about growing up and more about growing older."

No, Taylor's songs are NOT "improving." Following up one of the most consistently great pop albums of the decade with an album with almost no hooks on it is not in any way an "improvement." And the fact that Christina Aguilera hasn't made a great record since "Genie In The Bottle" apparently didn't cross Tom's mind. Sad.

FWIW:

http://tomlanesblog.blogspot.com/

xhuxk, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 02:19 (sixteen years ago)

(Actually, the phrase Tom used was "getting better," not "improving," obviously. Same difference.)

Another thing he wrote on his blog recently that pissed me off: "When Country women stray from their roots they get lost. On her first album in 3 years, Lee Ann Womack is strong with the traditional stuff on Call Me Crazy. Womack has never been a chart monster. But her albums are usually worth a listen. But when she tries to Pop her records, it's painful. But Womack is but a handful of women who started their careers with traditional ideas, only to get sucked up by record company folks telling them to cross over, and in return put out the worst music of their career.
I'm thinking of Patty Loveless, Martina McBride, Sara Evans, Lorrie Morgan, Trisha Yearwood and the mother of them all Dolly Parton. The lure to keep up with the new and latest crossover Country cutie has just about derailed most of these women.
Country music execs want hits. That's the price you pay for being signed to a big label. If you want to experiment they say go Indie. Lee Ann Womack is still signed to MCA and her new album is produced by Tony Brown. But at least she has stuck to her guns and given us a decent Country outing. But I wouldn't bet she'll do it again on the followup."

I still have no idea when Leann Womack is suppposed to have been "traditional." She's always had one foot in the trad camp and one in the pop camp; it's not selling out if you've been half pop from the gitgo. (And if her new album is more trad than usual, maybe that's also part of why it's more boring than usual. Just like that useless Martina McBride all-covers record a couple years ago.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 02:28 (sixteen years ago)

(AMG agrees with me, btw. From their review of Leann's 1997 debut album: "Lee Ann Womack's eponymous debut showcases a promising country vocalist who is more comfortable with ballads and pop than down-home honky tonk.")

Her best single ever, "I'll Think Of A Reason Later" from her second album in 1998, was totally a pop-country song.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 02:34 (sixteen years ago)

Frank Kogan thinks more highly about the Taylor album than I do, by the way, but I gather he still thinks it's a disappointment, after the debut. An email exchange the other day:

Me (not talking about Taylor Swift): Favorite songs on Ne-Yo so far, for whatever it's worth: "Lie To Me," "Fade into the Background," "Closer," "Miss Independent," probably in that order. Lots of the rest fades into the background, but I definitely like it despite
frequently being bored by it. Wish he did more "Closer"-type disco songs, though my two favorites are lovely slow ones that wrack the hell out of my emotions. Outside shot at my album top ten, I'd say; easy top 20 though.

Frank: This is pretty close to my opinion as well. It's probable for my top ten,
but that's because I've only listened to about one-sixth the number of
albums that you have. A lot of the boring stuff is beautiful, though. My
initial reaction to the Taylor Swift is the same, beautiful even when
boring. Also seems that, as opposed to the last album, this time she's
trying to deliver the choruses by blaring away rather than making them
melodically distinctive (though I doubt that she sat down and said, "Let's
not make our choruses melodically distinctive"). The verses sound wonderful.
Haven't listened all that much, or since a few days ago, so this opinion is
subject to revision. I might end up raising its rank on the basis of its
overall feel. I usually don't do that, instead going by my "All albums are
EPs rule," but sometimes I'll love an album without having any particular
favorite songs, e.g. White Tra$h With Money. (Too bad, however, that Taylor
doesn't do a song whose theme is "Take one for the team." Would be a nice
change of pace. But it doesn't seem to be her nature.) (Btw, Joe Jonas
recently said publically it's hypocritical of her to complain about the
shortness of the breakup phone call when SHE WAS THE ONE WHO HUNG UP.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 02:43 (sixteen years ago)

So maybe the beauty of Taylor's album will eventually sink in, even if the songs don't. So far, though, it mainly just feels...quiet. (And the beauty of the Ne-Yo album sank in pretty much right away, even in several of its boring parts.)

As for Leann Womack, actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure her new album is especially trad. It's just got a severe shortage of good songs of any stripe. (And her much better There's More Where That Come From was basically a '70s-style countrypolitan album, which means pop-country by definition -- even if it's a more historically traditional kind of pop than what we've got now.)

Finally, speaking (as people were a few posts back) of flyover rock, here's the unpublished unabridged version of my Nickelback review that wound up running (in a much shorter remix) in Rolling Stone:

NICKELBACK
Dark Horse
Roadrunner
3 1/2 Stars

What’s a poor rock band to do when their previous album stayed Top 30 for 112 weeks, and sold 8 million copies in the U.S. at a time when nobody buys CDs anymore? Well, they can hire a guy who produced AC/DC and Def Leppard and Shania Twain albums that sold even more. And once Mutt Lange is in their corner, they can let him craft catchier hits than the seven they got on the radio last time.

Nickelback’s stock-in-trade is still the dreary post-grunge plod that Pearl Jam passed down to them through Creed. But on Dark Horse, Lange finds ways to lighten things up, applying guitar shimmer to apologetic prom ballads and detonating big beats under “hey! hey! hey!” frat-shouts and rap-like vocal parts. “Just To Get High,” about a friend-turned-mugger’s overdose death, even has some Metallica melodrama to it.

Two of the liveliest songs – “Burn It To The Ground,” built on a disco-metal groove out of Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave” or Blondie’s “Call Me,” and the uncharacteristically good-timey choogle ‘This Afternoon,” which namedrops both Bob Marley and Creedence – celebrate getting wasted with the bros; two others honor strippers shaking their moneymakers. The lyrics revel in dorkitude, hair-metal style: “We got no class/No taste/No shirt/And shit-faced.” “She ain’t no Cinderella when she gets undressed/ ‘Cause she rocks it like the naughty Wicked Witch of the West.”

Lange manages to keep the party rolling -- and self-important gutbusting or no, Chad Kroeger comes off more regular schmuck than rock star. “Get your hands off my glass/Last call, my ass”: In dude-rock, being a mean drunk beats not being drunk at all.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 03:09 (sixteen years ago)

In terms of spicing up canned rockola for the holidays (sorry--the Holidays), this album probably has more in common musically with that there quart of Nickelback than anybody including me is ever gonna admit, but it seems fitting (here comes another show preview):

Americana diva Lucinda Williams's more-rocking-than-usual new album, "Little Honey," finds "A Real Love, standin' behind an electric guitar." The new guy, who can "squeeze my peaches, sendin' me postcards of girls on beaches," may already know her too well. She observers a Winehouse-like "Little Rock Star" with dry-eyed compassion, having been there (or too close); "Tears of Joy" is brighter for the same reason. "Jailhouse Tears" finds her wryly co-dependent on manipulative duet partner Elvis Costello. Other guests include mountain patriarch Charlie Louvin and the Bangles' own little honey, Susannah Hoffs(cute couple).

dow, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 06:47 (sixteen years ago)

Didn't see the complete RS review of Nickelback, xhuck, so can't tell how the revised context made it seem. But whatever they're selling, I'm still not buying. "Party rolling" -- hmmm, what kind of party? Anyway, new 180 degree rule in effect: If Ann Powers grinds a socio-demographic thumbsucker out of the record, and it's hard rock, it's really awful.

Video on cable of Taylor Swift doing "Photograph" live with Def Leppard for a touted episode of Crossroads. Beyond wretched, spry young girl flouncing around amid old grizzled guys gamely trying to keep things going without being dragged down by a blown performance. Everyone looking mildly embarrassed.

Gorge, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 19:04 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, that sounds gruesomely plausible, but I'll prob check it out anyway. As far as the Vedder-Stapp-Kroeger line of descent goes, I'd say it really is descent, coz I find Vedder to be pretty decent, or did when I was still paying attention. I think his voice is more nimble, lighter (also in the sense of less pompous than) the people he's usually lumped with. Even Stapp's voice had *some* of the same appeal on the first Creed album: sort of wistful, which went with the dent in his stiffness (and his diction)--wasn't surprising to learn that he'd been raised religious, and some of it took, but he got kicked out by his deacon-dentist dad (who later bragged about tough love leading to his son's success--yeah, send the royalties to you, minus something for the grandparents who took him in, and sent him to college). Think that had to do with the success of the album, that yearning (or yrr-rr-ningg). The one of Vedder's vintage, or earlier, and maybe an influence, was and is Chris Cornell, that's who I have trouble with, though obviously Soundgarden had more going for them than Creed. And ditto even Audioslave, I guess, since the one about "Doesn't remind me, of any-thing" made my Top Ten whenever it came out, though mainly because it did remind me of some of Vedder's better chedder--butt more typical of Audioslave, in my experience, was sad stoner cheese like "Cherokee", which makes me want to go buy body jewelry at Coconuts, but I can't because it closed, sniffle--

dow, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 06:03 (sixteen years ago)

top unknown singles 2008

Rosie Vargas, "I Got Your Number (From a Friend)"
J.C. Hardaway, "Twirl Me Again"
Her and the Hims, "I'm Feelin' It"
Denym, "Throwdown at the Hoedown"
Lil Tony, "What's Your 20"
Dan "Brass" Nichols, "It's Just the Wind (Whistlin' Thru Your Ears)"
Wendy Swenson, "The Yodel Song"
Ignacio Guzmán, "Dame Tu Mano, Dame Tu Corazón"
Burton Swallow, "Fist City Revisited"
No No Nancy, "Trailer of Tears"

Dimension 5ive, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 06:35 (sixteen years ago)

Ha ha, Matt, that list of titles sounds awesome! Where is it from??

Really liking "Fifteen" (cf. Tommy Conwell's "I'm Seventeen") and "The Best Day" (cf. Lou Reed's "Perfect Day") on the Taylor Swift album now. Hmmm.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 15:53 (sixteen years ago)

You haven't heard these songs, Xhxxx? Surprising, that I have scooped the master of obscure-ass MySpace Country Music Groupage! A great day for me!

Actually they are fictional. Still though.

Dimension 5ive, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 16:52 (sixteen years ago)

That occured to me, actually. Still, some real funny ones there. I wish they were real (unless they were just shitty Brooklyn alt-country acts pretending to be clever.)

xp Thing is, those Tommy Conwell and Lou Reed songs are better than those two Taylor songs. Which still sound real small and reserved, somehow. I do like them, but they are missing something. And most of the rest of album is missing something more than that.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 19:25 (sixteen years ago)

My project for 2009 is to write those songs, and to make them good. Anyone who wants to compose the music is welcome to contact me and we will make money cash dollars.

Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 20 November 2008 01:14 (sixteen years ago)

So I finally heard Blue Ash's renowned and finally reissued No More, No Less: power pop as passionate and blood-sugary as it is stylized, folk-rocking Dylan's otherwise-unknown-to-me "Dusty Old Fairgrounds" like Thin Lizzy's version of "Whiskey In The Jar"; non-laidback country rock and tinges and twinges of real-country country pop--restless ain't-love-somethin' domestic ruminations--before hitting the stage again, stomping those platform shoes (you can tell they played out A LOT, as well as writing and tape-recording, before and after their brief LP career)(so how is the second album, and the demos/outtakes Around Again?)They've been playing together again the last few years, and scheduled for their native Youngstown OH 11/15

dow, Thursday, 20 November 2008 05:57 (sixteen years ago)

Ad there's a thread about this album, so I'll just say that Fotheringay 2 includes a slowed, but not slow "Silver Threads And Golden Needles," hitting me like the usual approach never has--and, like the rest of the album, it totally benefits from the way voice and "rhythm section"( apparently including some piano and guitar as well as bass and drums) were the whole of the original masters, and the garden of arrghh-me-lads grooves (trad and original)remain unscrewed with by discreet Miracle-Gro. Trevor Lucas's speeded-up, tossed-off "I Don't Believe You" accentuates the low-down blood sugar of young Dyl in Johnny Pissoff mode: country enough, as bartenders of all genres keep an eye on.(Sandy sings "Silver...", and silver.)

dow, Thursday, 20 November 2008 06:11 (sixteen years ago)

Also for instance the way the drums play around Denny, when she is the dogged, slightly swaying timekeeper, when she is "John The Gun"(one of only a couple of tracks, I think, that were re-recorded for her solo albums)

dow, Thursday, 20 November 2008 06:18 (sixteen years ago)

THREE GIRLS & THEIR BUDDY featuring EMMYLOU HARRIS, PATTY GRIFFIN, SHAWN COLVIN, & BUDDY MILLER $110.00*Fanclub Presale begins Fri. 11/14

Ow, this is expensive.

curmudgeon, Thursday, 20 November 2008 16:26 (sixteen years ago)

I have one of the Blue Ash records. Newspaper format on the cover. Never cared for them. Not as catchy when it should have been, nor as "power" as far as the power pop part of it went. Bad Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers record before TP started making bad records?

Taylor Swift does the title song from Tommy Conwell's second record? Well, if it's a hit he'll be back in the money. She couldn't have been alive to have seen him do it the first time. Good song to cover, though. Really hard to screw up if you can sing and get someone to play piano like Bruce Hornsby, which was what stuck out on the recorded version of the original.

The big production number she did for the CMA TV broadcast sucked major eggs, though.

Gorge, Thursday, 20 November 2008 17:59 (sixteen years ago)

Nah, sorry to mislead you George -- Taylor's song about 15 just reminded me of Tommy's song about being 17 (his biggest hit, at least in my head) by being sort of pop-rockish and about how teenagers of a certain age stubbornly have a mind of their own. Or something like that. She doesn't cover Tommy's actual song, which would indeed be cool.

Been listening to those Blue Ash and Fotheringay reissues a bit myself; definitely prefer Fotheringay, though I have been liking Blue Ash more than I'd remembered liking them back when I had the album on vinyl -- when, yeah, they definitely struck me as too powerless for a good powerpop band. Jason Gross compared them to Cheap Trick on his blog this week, and I'm not hearing it. Actually hear a little Grateful Dead choogle in there, though, which I didn't expect (and I'm not sure whether I approve of yet.) Cool that they come from Youngstown, though -- Chris Stigliano country, right on the Ohio/Pennsy cusp. I've actually spent nights in crappy hotels there with my kids, while driving from Philly to Detroit. Pittsburgh's not far enough for one day, and if you get all the way to Toledo, you might as well just finish the trip, right? I'm sure Joe The Plumber would tell you the same.

As for Nickelback's "kind of party," George does have a point with that one. I'd probably just stay home, myself. But I kinda like the song where the play CCR in the seedy bar (good rhyme!) after smoking weed all day at their backyard barbecue regardless. (Don't think they actually mention barbecues, though.) Even the strip-bar songs are palatable.

Don probably has a point, too, when he says Vedder was a more wistful singer than Kroeger will ever be. The former had some Michael Stipe in him, I suppose. The difference between me and Don is that I never particularly thought that was a good thing. Nothing against wistfulness, but clumsy wistfulness sort of cancels out what's good about it. the Pearl Jam songs (well, song -- "Not For You") I liked were definitely not among their more wistful ones.

xhuxk, Thursday, 20 November 2008 18:21 (sixteen years ago)

Ah, Blue Ash, they probably had a half-assed Beatles/Byrds things going, too. The Records covered one of their songs. I liked the Records, still have a live one by them with everything from Rock 'N' Roll Letter to the Blue Ash thing. If I were going to pick something to reissue at a reasonable price, I would've picked Pezband. They were in the same vein but managed to last for four albums or so, about one and a half which I actually enjoyed.

Gorge, Thursday, 20 November 2008 19:28 (sixteen years ago)

Pezband yeah, at least the first one, only one I've heard. Vedder was good on the harsher, knuckle-dragging stuff too; lost some fans when he went from that (remember when some of the radio hit cavemen all went sensitive at once, Pearl Jam and Seven Mary Three and a couple of others? Maybe this was around the time of Metallica's Load too? Lots of snarling in the audience.This one customer of mine, drummer/junior construction magnate/bouncer, got so frustrated he bought the Cars boxset and some Bowie! Just gave up on the rough boys altogether,for a while). Some of the Fotheringay took a couple of spins, xhuxx, at least those long opening tracks did.

dow, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:29 (sixteen years ago)

But I kinda like the song where the play CCR in the seedy bar

Nickelback playing CCR? Listening to CCR, I can imagine. Playing it -- no way. Their rhythm section's way too fatty to pull off Creedence. It's why they stank up ZZ Top, too. They could, of course, play it for stupid young people who maybe don't vaguely know more than one CCR tune. Oh, that song about the rain, that's it. Play that one, guys.

Gorge, Thursday, 20 November 2008 23:22 (sixteen years ago)

Ha ha, no, they actually say CCR is playing on the jukebox. And I totally agree -- Nickelback covering CCR is a very scary thought (especially those two rain songs).

xhuxk, Thursday, 20 November 2008 23:30 (sixteen years ago)

Deadline for this year's country's critics poll is Sunday, December 14, 2008, at 11 p.m.

That blows, though I suppose if the Nashville Scene's major criterion is now timeliness, it makes sense.

But I've got no chance of a good list, that means, unless I copy one of yours without listening to the music.

If I had to create a top ten right now this might be it, though surely there are a lot of country tunes out there that are better than most of these:

1. Taylor Swift "Should've Said No"
2. Willie Nelson "You Don't Think I'm Funny Anymore"
3. Taylor Swift "You're Not Sorry"
4. Jamey Johnson "In Color"
5. Carrie Underwood "Just A Dream"
6. Allison Moorer "Dancing Barefoot"
7. Ashton Shepherd "Takin' Off This Pain"
8. Taylor Swift "Love Story"
9. Jessica Simpson "Come On Over"
10. Brooks & Dunn "Put A Girl In It"

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 23 November 2008 03:35 (sixteen years ago)

Frank, down in the section where G. lists his addys, he also lists the deadline as "Wednesday, January 2, 2008," so, probably that is indeed just left on from the previous mailing, especially since the publication date is Jan. 15, 2009, but (since I've recently gotten several press releases from various sources that also herald early '08 events), it's barely possible he did mean Jan.2 '09, so anyway I just now emailed him to make sure. Boy, singles are gonna be the problem for me. I do like the video of LeeAnn Womack's "Last Call," where she looks like a younger Carmela Soprano, already smoldering in the winter of her discontent. Not that hot an song or performance though (it's aite, might grow on me). Otherwise...?

dow, Sunday, 23 November 2008 03:49 (sixteen years ago)

Don, the first six of the singles I listed are actually viable choices, even if my number one is from an album that was released 26 months ago.

This'd be my album's list, which is even more ridiculous:

1. Willie Nelson Moment Of Forever
2. Jamey Johnson That Lonesome Song
3. Taylor Swift Fearless
4. Brittini Black Good Happens
5. Ashton Shepherd Sounds So Good
6. Dolly Parton Backwoods Barbie

In desperation I could vote for people like Heidi Newfield and Phil Vasser and The Mother Truckers, I suppose. I really wish I could rank the Dolly album higher, but her voice creaks too much (she's only eight years older than I am, so I'm not happy about that criticism, but it's the truth).

Wasn't there going to be a new Jack Ingram album about six months ago? Whatever happened to it?

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 23 November 2008 03:55 (sixteen years ago)

Oh yeah, there's also this thing called lala.com where you can listen to all kindsa tracks for free (haven't found a catch, but also haven't had time to check it out much lately) and Rhapsody's still got the 25-free-tracks-a-month option. Lastfm.com is too quirky or glitchy or something, eMusic I haven't really tried much so far (AOL also plays whole new albums for free, like I heard the two-disc version of Tell-Tale Signs, which I so far dig mainly for the voice-drums-bass-keyboard connections, though words and guitars are usually also worth hearing, but the She Done Him Wrong theme gets tiresome after a while, so for a similar voice-drums etc vibe I so far kinda prefer Fotheringay 2 even though he is the greater artist yadda yadda)

dow, Sunday, 23 November 2008 03:59 (sixteen years ago)

Also a thing called YouTube and another called MySpace where you can listen to scads of tracks for free. Problem is that listening takes time.

Funny how a lot of singers' Wikipedia entries will list them not just as singers but as philanthropists (and models and actresses and stuff like that too, when appropriate).

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 23 November 2008 04:02 (sixteen years ago)

No, I want to get away from the video, but yeah time is a problem (so maybe I should stick to video, since watching TV takes no time at all, just comes naturally)(you haven't got one, and you're not missing mutch, except a bunch of old movies you've prob already seen, and other stuff you could rent and watch on your computer, sorry if I'm the serpent with that)

dow, Sunday, 23 November 2008 04:22 (sixteen years ago)

Still only taking in Taylor's new lyrics out of the corner of my ear but as far as I can tell they have the exact same themes as her previous lyrics except they're less vivid and less emotionally complex. Basic themes are (1) Boys Hurt Me And It's Their Fault, (2) Here's A Boy Who Should Love Me But He Loves Someone Worse, (3) Here's A Boy Who Does Love Me, (4) Here's A Boy Who's Really Nice But I Prefer Boys Who Hurt Me. (#4 makes me wonder what would happen if she started writing with Ne-Yo. She did a better job than Rihanna on the Ne-Yo-penned "Take A Bow." There's a leaked version by Ne-Yo where he's the one who got caught and has to take the bow. Maybe Taylor could cover that Ne-Yo song where he portrays himself as worthless and undeserving and doesn't even do the dishes and he can't figure out why the woman doesn't leave him. Taylor could change "I" to "you" on that one and have a fine old time.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 23 November 2008 04:32 (sixteen years ago)

I'll have more soon (including my own most tentative and ridiculous singles list ever, from a year in which I barely heard country radio and CMT at all), but Frank -- Re: your album mentions, I'm surprised you didn't mention Chris Knight (who you seemed to like, though maybe you never heard the whole album?) or Hayes Carrl (who I thought you at least had mixed feelings on.)(Fwiw, I believe Hayes was the only country singer other than Taylor Swift to make Blender's top 33 albums of the year.)

Main thing holding me back from finalizing my own album list is that I still haven't half decided what I think of the Taylor Swift record. (Haven't heard Paisley, Chesney, and several others though -- including Brittini Black, who Frank mentioned -- and still assume I won't.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 23 November 2008 08:19 (sixteen years ago)

Someone apparently thinks a Pasadena zip is rural and red-state. Holiday gift ideas. People buy this stuff?!

Gorge, Sunday, 23 November 2008 19:15 (sixteen years ago)

I guess my singles list might include: Zac Brown Band, "Country Fried"--basically like "Dixie Fried", but an easy-rolling, toe-tapping, Danny O'Keefe feel, no boom-boom, appropriate for a food-related song; Toby Keith, "God Love Her": the wild girl who (eventually) saved him, but they're both untamed, at least in memory's gusto; Jamey Johnson, "In Color"; documentary detail, chorus climbing up the title phrase, leaving you with the implications of context (color of artime blood, of Kodachrome holidays, etc); Damien Jurado, "Best Dress": like Richard and Linda Thompson, but more secular--the anthem of the couple every bartender dreads; Sugarland, "Already Gone": not an Eagles cover, and she's not overselling it this time. Sexuality a redolent given, and yet she sounds like Reba (and, in the video, the guy finally has a decent hat!) Carrie Underwood: can't think of the title, but it's the bride whose fiance is killed right before the wedding. One of those endless choruses, but appropriate here, as she's inconsolable, unravelling 9and singing well). Maybe: Kenny Chesney feat. the Wailers, "Everybody Wants To Go Heaven, Nobody Wants To Die"; Lee Ann Womack, "Last Call" (comment in prev. post)

dow, Sunday, 23 November 2008 19:44 (sixteen years ago)

"chorus climbing up to"; "wartime blood" (nope, not meant to be "art time blood," not this time)

dow, Sunday, 23 November 2008 19:46 (sixteen years ago)

Oh, and Himes just confirmed: deadline is indeed Dec. 14, despite Jan. date at end of instructions.

dow, Sunday, 23 November 2008 19:52 (sixteen years ago)

I wonder if anyone's heard the new Blake Shelton (I haven't.) Pure BS made some people's lists for '07, but I haven't heard much about the new one.

President Keyes, Sunday, 23 November 2008 21:39 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah. Not nearly as good as his last two. Too many ballads, for one thing. Looks like the interview piece I did for Billboard went out on via Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/musicNews/idUSTRE4A003R20081101

Favorite thing I learned: Blake's girlfriend Miranda Lambert a big Ashlee Simpson fan. (He told me she likes Fall Out Boy, too. And Blake likes Earl Thomas Conley -- who I know almost nothing about -- as well as John Conlee.)

Song on the Taylor Swift album that sounds the most like Lisa Loeb: "Breathe" (also one of the dullest tracks)

Weird line on the Taylor Swift album that I may be mis-hearing and I keep meaning to check against the lyric sheet: Does she really talk about "the leader of the stairwell" in one song? What is that, like the leader of the pack but in an apartment building??

Live version on the Dierks Bentley best-of album from this year that inexplicably and amazingly starts with guitar that sounds like the Jimmy Castor Bunch: "Lot Of Leavin' Left To Do."

Only song on Trent Willmon's 2008 album that hasn't been boring me as I replay the thing way too much to unsuccessfully try to figure out what I heard in it in the first place: "The Truth."

xhuxk, Sunday, 23 November 2008 23:30 (sixteen years ago)

Hayes was the only country singer other than Taylor Swift to make Blender's top 33

Actually, Al Green and Randy Newman were on there, too -- Not sure whether anybody considers those "country," though they might. They've both had country-ish moments before. (The word "country" was in fact used in the graph describing the Newman album. Not that I heard any country on it myself, when I tried listening to it. Then again, I wasn't really able to get past his horrible singing, so you never know.)

xhuxk, Monday, 24 November 2008 01:34 (sixteen years ago)

Country albums in the Paste magazine Top 50 (unless My Morning Jacket -- who were also on the Blender list, come to think of it -- count, since some people consider them "Southern rock"):

44 Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers (Zoë)
26 Lee Ann Womack - Call Me Crazy (MCA Nashville)
09 Lucinda Williams - Little Honey (Lost Highway)

Other albums on the Paste list that I never heard of, but sound like they might be (probably really bad alt-) country:

49 Sandra McCracken - Red Balloon (Towhee)
43 Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer (Roadrunner)
37 Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit - A Larum (Lost Highway)
27 Liam Finn - I'll Be Lightning (Yep Roc)
19 Gentleman Jesse and His Men - Introducing Gentleman Jesse and His Men (Douchemaster)
14 Langhorne Slim - Langhorne Slim (Kemado)

xhuxk, Monday, 24 November 2008 01:49 (sixteen years ago)

My Morning Jacket still do a little countryoid warbling in concert, but their '08 studio album, Evil Urges only sounds countryoid to me, on "When You Touch Me I Scream Pt. 2": that sounds sorta like if the Eagles had gone disco and had more spirit (in other words, not very Eagles, except what they seemed to be creeping toward on The Long Run). Mainly it's that sort of Gnarls Barkley falsetto with some psychedelic soul and Classic Rock strap-on (Daltry's higher range etc) A concept album about "why can't they let us do our Evil Urges thing, ooo-ooooooooo baby" (got some more airplay after Nov. 4 victory of anti-gay marriage referendums, reportedly)Previous studio album, Z, was kind of Boz Scaggs goes psych-pop, so also a little countryoid, like maybe they're playing a Houston wedding of rich hipsters (Boz being from Texas before Frisco)

dow, Monday, 24 November 2008 06:19 (sixteen years ago)

Albums in Decibel magazine's year-end Top 40 that sound like they might be country: None. Though, in the Most Antipated Releases of 2009 portion of the issue, there is a blurb on an upcoming album by a band named Job For A Cowboy.

Mordy, on another thread, said "The Kathleen Edwards + Laura Marling on Paste is good to see." I have never heard of Laura Marling, either, but I assume she's not country, since her album is on Astralwerks. (Actually, I should probably assume the same about Amanda Palmer's album on Roadrunner. Was Amanda Palmer the name of the girl who was killed on Twin Peaks? That would explain that album's title, if so. I'm too lazy to look it up and check, though.)

xhuxk, Monday, 24 November 2008 15:04 (sixteen years ago)

* - "Most ANTICIPATED Releases of 2009," I meant

xhuxk, Monday, 24 November 2008 15:16 (sixteen years ago)

Countryish albums in Mojo Top 50:

13 - Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark
32 - Seasick Steve - I Started Out With Nothin' and I Still Got Most of It Left

Actually, though, Seasick Steve is more a blues guy. I haven't heard his album, but here's whatt I wrote in an Idolator Next Little Things blurb that never wound up running:

SEASICK STEVE

Speaking of sea-farin’ stevedores, how ‘bout this scraggly old cuss, huh? Though his MySpace page lists him as being from “the United States,” his new I Started Out With Nothin’ and Still Got Most Of It Left mysteriously entered the European album chart at No. 39 last week and has slipped only three notches since. “Steve and computers don’t really mix,” we’re also told, so somebody named Skunk does all the pesky new-media stuff. Jools Holland of Squeeze fame, who has a TV show in the U.K., recently had Steve on, and called him “brilliant” and “unique,” after which Steve introduced his band: “on percussion, the Mississippi drum machine,” which appears to be a wooden box he stomps on, “and on my lap is the three-string trans-wonder,” which looks a lot like a guitar, except with fewer strings. Then Steve starts howling and growling and busking and choogling about being in a doghouse all his life and his parents splitting up when he was four and Mom remarrying when he was seven and how he done left home at 14 and he’s often been cold and hongry with no school edumacation since then so please give him your spare change. It’s not all that interesting a story, really, but his dirty “Roadhouse Blues” tone is quite tasty. Also he looks at least as Vikingy as anybody in Amon Amarth.

http://www.myspace.com/seasicksteve

(on Jools Holland’s show)

xhuxk, Monday, 24 November 2008 15:37 (sixteen years ago)

Some singles I may consider for my top 10 county singles list. Might find time to relisten to some of these; more likely, in the long run, I'll just go with my gut instinct like I always do, and regret it later. May decide to dock ones (like Little Big Town and Miranda Lambert etc.) off 2007 albums I voted for last year several notches just because they seem old to me by now. (Have already decided I probably won't vote for Miley Cyrus's not country enough even though vaguely rockabilly "See You Again," even though it's likely to place near the top of my Pazz & Jop list. Unless I change my mind.) (And Daveigh Chase's "The Happiest Girl In the U.S.A.," as heard on Big Love, would almost definitely make my list if it existed on an actual single or even mp3, but I don't think it does.)

Anyway.

Phil Vassar – “Love Is a Beautiful Thing”
Taylor Swift- “Love Story”
Road Hammers – “I Don’t Know When To Quit”
Ashton Shepherd – “Takin’ Off This Pain”
Kid Rock – “All Summer Long”
Runrig – “Clash Of The Ash”
Kathleen Edwards – “I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory”
Road Hammers – “I’m a Road Hammer”
Little Big Town – “Fine Line”
Carter’s Chord – “Different Breed”
Sarah Johns - "He Hates Me”
Brooks & Dunn - "Cowboy Town"
Kathleen Edwards – “The Cheapest Key”
Joey + Roy – “Cheater, Cheater”
Jamey Johnson “In Color”
Lost Trailers – “Holler Back”
Montgomery Gentry – “Back When I Knew It All”
Taylor Swift – “You Belong To Me”
Zac Brown Band – “Chicken Fried”
Taylor Swift – Should’ve Said No”
Miranda Lambert – “Gunpowder And Lead”
Lady Antebellum – “Lookin’ For A Good Time”
Whitney Duncan – “When I Said I Would”
Rehab – “Sittin’ At A Bar (Bartender Song)”
Sugarland featuring Little Big Town and Jake Owen – “Life In A Northern Town”
Emily West – “Rocks In Your Shoes”
Toby Keith – “She’s A Hottie”
Dolly Parton – “Better Get To Livin’”
Johnny D - “Disco Cowboy”
Willie Nelson – “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore”
Kenny Chesney – “Shiftwork”
Chris Cagle – “What Kinda Gone”
The White Stripes – “Conquest”
Cole Deggs and the Lonesome - "Girl Next Door"
Gretchen Wilson - "You Don't Have to Go Home"

xhuxk, Monday, 24 November 2008 18:06 (sixteen years ago)

I briefly was able to get that on BBC America. However, it seems to have gone away more recently.

Sounds like an album I might like.

ZZ Top review with longer one on Chinese Democracy. Billy Gibbons tries his hand at situational stand-up comedy for the bonus track and isn't too bad at it.

Gorge, Monday, 24 November 2008 18:10 (sixteen years ago)

George xposting about Seasick Steve, obv.

I still haven't heard the GnR album. Really don't feel like going out of my way to do so, especially the more I hear about how mediocre it is (which is pretty much what I've always expected, anyway). Who knows, maybe a copy will fall into my lap.

Re Miley's "See You Again": Guess I decided that, in my head anyway, the intermittent Duane Eddy twang feels more "surf" to me than "rockabilly." (Mainly, though, the song just still sounds like Corey Hart.)

xhuxk, Monday, 24 November 2008 18:24 (sixteen years ago)

Speaking of ZZ Top, I got a garagey, klanky, manic mechanic buzz from podcast-excerpted tracks by Waylon Jennings and the 357s--Waylon singing much faster and therefore better than I'd ever imagined possible: no time for buttery vibrato mellerdramer, and suspect a lot of this is in the original tapes of teenage mad scientist Shooter, who'd put together his home studio (stuff about this in a Waylon interview of the time, early 90s?) No syths, not in what I heard, but some speedy organ, I think, and spiraling, maybe speeded-up, (but full-bodied, not twirpy-chirpy) steel guitars. Waylon Forever is the title, I think. Anybody heard that? Also wondering about the new Toby.

dow, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 02:22 (sixteen years ago)

Hey Don, I briefly mentioned somewhere not to far upthread that I think Toby's new one is his most mediocre of the '00s (and still pretty good, being Toby. Just sounds phoned in , a lot of it. But he sings and occasionally writes well.)

Here's what I wrote about one song:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/rs_sotd/862/song-of-the-day-toby-keithmissing-me-some-you/

Meanwhile, countryish albums in Q magazine's Top 50 of '08:

38 John Mellencamp - LifeDeathLoveAndFreeedom
49 Emmylou Harris - All I Indented To Be

Also Newman, My Morning Jacket, again. And Lindsey Buckingham, though I wouldn't count him, either. Their #1 is Kings of Leon -- nobody's stupid enough to call them Southern Rock anymore, right?

xhuxk, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 14:48 (sixteen years ago)

Fwiw: New Zac Brown Band CD >>> New Gourds CD >>> New Jason Isbell CD. At least so far, but I don't think that's gonna change.

19 Gentleman Jesse and His Men - Introducing Gentleman Jesse and His Men (Douchemaster)
14 Langhorne Slim - Langhorne Slim (Kemado)

Hard-copy year-end-poll issue of Paste just came in the mail, and it compares Gentelman Jesse to Nick Lowe/Elvis Costello/Exploding Hearts (so, powerpop I guess) and Langhorne Slim to Blonde On Blonde, which I guess means they both still may or may not count as country. (Only the top 25 albums get writeups in the magazine, looks like.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 27 November 2008 02:15 (sixteen years ago)

Hey, Amanda Palmer is the singer from that group Dresden Dolls. They are always described as Brechtian gothic-punk cabaret but I've heard 'em. Her solo release is produced by Ben Folds. I haven't heard that either.

Any Chitlin circuit soul fave this year, Chuck?

TOP TEN "BREAKING" SOUTHERN SOUL ALBUMS: OCTOBER 2008

Based on September Sales & Airplay As Compiled By

-----------BLUES CRITIC----------

1. Who's Got The Power-----------Marvin Sease (Malaco)
CD

2. Me Loving You---------------Mr. David (Waldoxy)
CD

3. Remix Album----------------Team Airplay All Stars (Team Airplay)

4. My Story-----------------Sir Charles Jones (Mardi Gras)
CD

5. Transformation-------------Wilson Meadows (M & M)
CD

6. Keepin' It Real-------------------Jeff Floyd (Wilbe)

7. Still Standing-----------------The Soul Children (JEA)

8. Look At What You Gettin'-------------Bobby Rush (Deep Rush)

9. Time Served ---------------------Omar Cunningham (Soul 1st)
Time Served CD

10. I'm A Bluesman's Daughter-----------------Sheba Potts-Wright (Ecko I'm A Bluesman's Daughter CD

curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 November 2008 04:40 (sixteen years ago)

That should say "but I've never heard 'em." I have heard a Jeff Floyd song I like and a Sir Charles Jones one as well.

Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Easley's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 November 2008 04:43 (sixteen years ago)

Flipped on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on tv for a minute and saw the end of Sugarland doing a song. Not bad. They looked cold

curmudgeon, Friday, 28 November 2008 17:32 (sixteen years ago)

Hmm...Spin compares Gentleman Jesse (apparently a member of punk band the Carbonas, whose album I heard wasn't as good as I hoped it would be) to Dwight Twilley. Interesting. Maybe.

Laura Marling is allegedly an "18 year old folkie" (whose music gets compared to Nick Drake.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 30 November 2008 18:07 (sixteen years ago)

Slightly amusing excerpts from South Bend newspaper interview with Billy Bob Thornton on the Boxmasters.

Bitter ballads such as “The Poor House,” “20 Years Ago” and “2-Bit Grifter” are paired with countrified takes on The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright.”

Actually, "Poor House" is not a ballad. One assumes the reporter didn't really listen to the album.

“We recorded twice as much and narrowed it down,” Butler says. “We even did a cover of ‘Iron Man’ by Black Sabbath, which is pretty great. It really came down to what made the most sense. I don’t know how it works. I’m just glad it does.”

The Boxmasters recent holiday release, “Christmas Cheer,” is equally irreverent.

This was reviewed in the LA Times yesterday, tepidly.

Thornton recorded in Muscle Shoals, Ala., with Hot ’Lanta in 1974. He also was a member of Tres Hombres, a ZZ Top cover band that opened for such acts as Humble Pie and Ted Nugent. Then his acting career blossomed.

Original

Gorge, Sunday, 30 November 2008 21:29 (sixteen years ago)

Notes on Billy Currington and James Otto:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/billy-currington-james-otto-keep-countrys-yacht-rocking.html

So anybody still out there who's planning to vote in the Nashville Scene poll: Who are you thinking about the "best songwriters" category? I've got three names penciled in, but they all sing their own songs, which seems wrong, somehow. But when I go back and look at the writing credits of other (non-singer-penned) country tracks I liked this year, I'm not really noticing any names that come up more than once. Any ideas?

xhuxk, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 16:15 (sixteen years ago)

Haven't kept up well enough to have any such ideas yet, but just starting to delve for ballot. in comments for ballot, I'm also prob going to include thing from several months ago on Phil Vassar's country-as-yacht-rock for hardworkin' folks, so if Himes quotes it, please don't think I'm biting your thots xhuxx (great minds think alike). Some on Billy Currington and Hot Apple Pie (what happened to them?)(he dropped out for quite a while too, going into therapy)-- a Charlotte weekly piece, archived at TFM: "Howdy, Ma'am: The Midnight Plowboy and Your Favorite Dessert, Reporting for Duty"
thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com

dow, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 16:58 (sixteen years ago)

Dang! Sorry! To get more spee-cific:
http://thefreelancementalists/12_05_01_archive.html

dow, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 17:05 (sixteen years ago)

http://thefreelancmentalists.blogspot.com/2005_12_05_01_archive.html although it clains there are "space characters found in link"-- but it won't put all that URL on one line.

dow, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 17:14 (sixteen years ago)

Great, now a typo. Nobody's ever gonna check the link, but this is all correct, finally:
http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/2005_12_05_01_archive.html

dow, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 17:19 (sixteen years ago)

uh no that isn't but this is:
http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_archive.html

dow, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 17:24 (sixteen years ago)

4th Quarter Aristo Media Group's report on country music around the world. I'm fairly familiar with some of the Canadians and Australians, heard good things about the Brazilian guy, and will have to check out the multilingual message board of the German mag.

Canada

The 2008 Canadian Country Music Awards were held Sept. 8 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The night's big winner was Doc Walker, taking home five awards, including Group or Duo of the Year, Album of the Year and the coveted Fans' Choice Award. Johnny Reid won Male Artist of the Year, while Jessie Farrell won Female Artist of the Year and CBC's Rising Star Award.

Next year's Awards will be held in Vancouver, BC and for the first time is scheduled for a Sunday night. Mark your calendars for Sept. 13, 2009. Seminars, panels and related events kick off a day earlier this year on Thursday, Sept. 10. Visit www.ccma.org for more details.

The British Columbia Country Music Association held their annual awards show Oct. 25. Aaron Pritchett and Jessie Farrell won Male and Female Artist of the Year honors, respectively, and Delta, B.C. group The Higgins swept the evening with six awards, including Group, Single, Album and Video of the Year honors.

Speaking of Jessie Farrell, she recently completed several Canadian dates with Aaron Pritchett and superstar Toby Keith.

2008 CCMA Male Vocalist of the Year Johnny Reid was named "Canadian Country's Next Big Thing" on CBC's The National on Nov. 7. His latest CD, Kicking Stones, has already been certified platinum in Canada.

"Canadian Idol" finalist Tara Oram released her debut effort, Chasing the Sun, to coincide with her interactive CMT television series 'The Tara Diaries.' The strategy proved successful, scoring a #1 position on the iTunes Country Chart the week of Oct. 13. Her holiday schedule is a busy one, as she prepares to star in the CMT Christmas special 'Tara Oram's Christmas Carol.' Her version of the Elvis classic "Blue Christmas" appears on the Open Road Recordings holiday compilation CD, Christmas on the Open Road.

George Canyon is currently touring Western Canada in support of his fifth album for Universal Music, What I Do, released Nov. 11. He has also been tapped to make several guest appearances on the CBC television series "Heartland."

Nashville transplant Adam Gregory is "wrapping up" a busy year with the recent release of his second U.S. single and video for "What It Takes." The Canadian star is signed to Big Machine Records (home to Taylor Swift) and has partnered with Cricket Communications, Inc. in a deal that includes in-store appearances at Cricket retail locations and cross-promotion of his fall club dates with radio stations nationwide. He was also selected by CMT Canada to post an ongoing blog on the CMT.ca site of his CMA Award Week activities. His debut album is slated for an early 2009 release in both the U.S. and Canada.

Crystal Shawanda's newest song, "My Roots are Showing," continues to climb the charts. She is scheduled to support Brad Paisley and Dierks Bentley for the Canadian dates of The Paisley Party Tour on Feb. 12 - 24, 2009.

The Road Hammers hit the road hard this year in a series of firsts across the U.S. They released their first U.S. album, Blood, Sweat and Steel, debuted their original CMT Canada television series, "The Road Hammers" on GAC and played the Grand Ole Opry for the first time.

Canada 2009 touring and festival news...

Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift and Montgomery Gentry have been announced as headliners at Sarnia Bayfest (July 17 - 19) in Sarnia, ON.

CMA Single and Album of the Year award-winner George Strait has been confirmed as a headliner at the Calgary Stampede (July 11).

Kenny Chesney and Johnny Reid have been confirmed for Mountainfest in Merritt, BC (July 9 - 12). Chesney will also play an additional date at the Saddledome in Calgary, AB July 10.

Keith Urban is currently organizing plans to tour Canada in September.

Kenny Rogers will play a total of 17 shows in November and December this year for his Canadian Christmas tour.

Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean, Doc Walker, Johnny Reid and Crystal Shawanda will perform at next year's Dauphin Countryfest (July 2 - 5).

The Craven Country Jamboree has confirmed Taylor Swift and George Strait for performances (July 9 - 12).

Tim McGraw will appear at the Big Valley Jamboree (July 30 - Aug 2) in Camrose, Alberta.

Australia

2008 Telstra Road to Tamworth winner Jasmine Rae released her debut album, Look It Up, in September to rave reviews. It debuted on the National Country Music chart at #5, and the newest single ("Look It Up") spent seven weeks at #1. Jasmine performed early this year at the CMA's Global Artist Party and on the Riverfront Stages at the CMA Music Festival.

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson received the ARIA Award for Country Album of the Year at the 2008 ARIA Awards in October.

Steve Forde's sophomore ABC/Universal album, Guns & Guitars, debuted at #3 on the National Country Music chart. Plans for a 2009 release with U.S. producer James Stroud have just been announced as well.

Nominations for the 2009 CMAA Country Music Awards of Australia were announced a few weeks ago. Leading the way is John Williamson with nods in six categories (including Album of the Year and Male Artist of the Year) on the heels of his 38th album, Hillbilly Road. Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson received five nominations, as did newcomer Peter Denahy. The McClymonts, Catherine Britt and Melinda Schneider each received four nominations. Jasmine Rae was nominated for two awards, including Female Artist of the Year. The 2009 awards will be held at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment and Convention Centre (TRECC) on Jan. 24, 2009.

The 22nd Mildura Country Music Festival, held over 10 days beginning Sept. 26, was another solid success this year, with more than 12,000 attendees, 100 artists and 24 venues.

The Grabine Music Muster Country Music Festival, spotlighting some of the finest Australian country music talent, will be held December 5 - 6, 2008. Adam Brand, Steve Forde, Lee Foster, Shea Fisher, Amber Lawrence and The Choirboys are featured performers.

Nashville based expatriate and guitar hero Tommy Emmanuel recently toured through Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore in October with sold out shows in each market. Dates for his upcoming European tour include shows in France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland, among others. He will also appear in the U.S. in February and in Australia in June.

Veteran country radio legend Nick Erby continues to broadcast his CMR Online, streaming nonstop country 24 hours a day at www.countrymusicradio.com.au

Now, looking ahead to the 2009 Aussie touring and festival schedules...

CMC Rocks the Snowys has announced part of next year's lineup, held March 6 - 7, 2009 in Thredbo (NSW). Confirmed artists include: Taylor Swift, Joe Nichols, Deana Carter, Old Crow Medicine Show, Jonah's Road, Mike Carr, Sinead Burgess, Pete Murray, The Waifs, Ash Grunwald, Corb Lund, Steve Forde, The Audreys, Sunny Cowgirls, Jasmine Rae, Amber Lawrence, Morgan Evans and Jake Nickolai.

Brooks & Dunn will return to Australia in May 2009 with special guest Dierks Bentley, playing shows in Perth (May 1), Melbourne (May 4), Sydney (May 6) and Brisbane (May 9). Their first visit in February 2008 was widely heralded as a smash success.

Taylor Swift will headline the CMC Rocks the Snowys, but will also make appearances in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne in March 2009.

The 2009 Tamworth Country Music Festival will be held Jan 16 - 26. Advance ticket presales indicate another strong year for one of the world's Top Ten festivals. Last year, more than 740 artists played 2,300 events in approximately 100 different venues.

Adam Harvey, Lee Kernaghan and John Williamson will headline the May 2009 Urban Country Music Festival at Caboolture, Queensland.

New Zealand's Topp Twins have announced details of an extensive Eastern Australian tour in January/February 2009.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom's popular country music radio station, Voice of Country (based in Nashville, Tenn.), has partnered with UK magazines Linedancer and Maverick to provide exclusive on-air programming that reflects the contents of each month's issues. For CMA Awards week in Nashville, VOC offered their first ever listener tour, which offered fans the chance to win an all-expense paid trip to Music City, tickets to the Awards show and an exclusive live performance by a rising star.

Glen Campbell has recently completed a run of sold-out shows in Ireland, while several other stars have already been booked for next year, including Sugarland (March), Kenny Rogers (March), Collin Raye (May) and Nanci Griffith (February). George Jones is reportedly looking to return to Ireland in late 2009.

UKCountryRadio.com celebrated its first birthday on Sept. 5. The station, which plays "the Hottest Country Music for the UK," now boasts fifteen different presenters in its lineup. You can also find some of the artists on their playlists for purchase in the new UKCountryRadio.com music store. Additionally, host of the 'Songwriters' Hour,' Graham Rodgers, recently completed the move to Nashville and has begun broadcasting his monthly show from Music City.

The Kings of Country tour finished an eight-day run of dates in Ireland earlier this month in Belfast. The lineup featured the traditional country sounds of Jim Ed Brown, Stonewall Jackson and Vernon Oxford, among others.

In upcoming UK touring and festival news...

JW Promotions has a number of artists heading for the Irish shores in the coming months. In addition to the aforementioned Kenny Rogers, Sugarland and Collin Raye, the veteran promotions company has also secured dates for Doug Stone, Pam Tillis and John Conlee.

Fifty-five acts have already been confirmed for the 2nd annual UTV Country Fest at the King's Hall in Belfast next year as well, including Dwight Yoakam, Ray Price, Hal Ketchum, Janie Frickie and Georgette Jones (Aug. 1 & 2).

Scotland's premier Winter music festival, the 16th annual Celtic Connections 2009, will feature more than 230 events next year. The 2 ½ week festival (Jan. 15 - Feb. 1) will feature artists such as Kathy Mattea, Nanci Griffith, Dan Tyminski, Bela Fleck, Rodney Crowell, Tim O'Brien and Tift Merritt, plus hundreds of other artists from all over the world.

The Northern Nashville Caithness Country Music Festival has confirmed several artists for their 6th annual event, held in Halkirk, Scotland, April 10 - 12, 2009. Artists thus far include Heather Myles, Becky Hobbs and Billy Yates, as well as numerous Scottish and Irish bands.

Northern Ireland's 2009 Belfast Nashville Songwriters Festival will feature 30 concerts, 100 songwriters and 20 workshops and seminars over a five-day period Feb. 18 - 22.

Cross Country magazine is reporting that there will be more than 18 regional country music festivals in the UK next year.

Europe

One of Europe's most popular Country Music radio stations, CMR Nashville, celebrated two years on the air this November. The station has begun syndicating shows in numerous countries around the world and reports a 10 percent growth in visitors last month, with more than 26 DJs hosting shows each week. Their newest addition, 'Up Close and Personal,' is a series of interview segments hosted by Chris Koppin from Nashville. Guests so far have included Kenny Chesney, Emerson Drive, Josh Turner, Dierks Bentley, Wynonna and Joe Nichols, among others.

According to a recent poll by Rajar (Radio Joint Audience Research), 8.1 million people in the UK alone listen to Internet Radio.

Misc. European festival news...

Tracy Byrd will depart for his first European tour in March, performing in the UK, Germany and Switzerland.

The Bellamy Brothers are scheduled for shows in March and May in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the UK.

Aaron Tippin will once again spend his holiday entertaining troops in the Persian Gulf. Bo Bice and the Honky Tonk Tailgate Party (Mark Wills, Trent Willmon, Ray Scott) all returned home recently from tours in Iraq.

Cowboy Crush are scheduled for some European dates this spring.

Featured Countries & Territories

Switzerland

The 20th anniversary Country Night Gstaad festival in Switzerland was another success this year. Held Sept. 12 & 13, this year's event was marked by packed performances from Clint Black, Ricky Skaggs, Bomshel and Swiss act Marko Gottardi. The weekend also featured a film highlighting the previous 19 festivals, a giant 20th anniversary cake (see photo below) and 90 Swiss yodlers! Next year's Country Night Gstaad will be held Sept. 11 - 13, 2009.

The Country Night Grindelwald event was held Oct 3 & 4 in Grindelwald, Switzerland. Rick Trevino and the Tex Mex Experience were featured performers at the two-day festival.

The world's longest running (7 ½ weeks!) country music festival will be held Jan. 30 - March 22 in Zurich at the Schutzenhaus Albisgutli. Confirmed performers so far include Tracy Byrd, Cherryholmes, The Bellamy Brothers and Rosanne Cash.

Greece

The 7th annual Greek Country Music Festival has been set for Sept. 12, 2009 in Athens. Promoter and radio host Niko Garavelas announced that he is hosting his own weekly radio special on legendary Nashville radio station WSM. Garavelas, a past recipient of the "Best International Broadcaster" award from the Country Music Association, will produce the weekly feature from his radio studio in Athens, Greece. "In our 83-year history, this is the first show that we've aired that originated from another country," said WSM general manager Chris Kulick. "We feel it's a significant statement that our genre has grown to true global status." The show, titled "The International Hour," is airing Sunday mornings following the Grand Ole Opry

Japan

The Country Gold Festival was held Oct. 19 in Kumamoto, Japan. This year's lineup included headliner Dierks Bentley, plus Whiskey Falls (see photos below), Danielle Peck, John Cowan and Charlie Nagatani and the Cannonballs. More than 20,000 attended the festival, which is held in Japan's largest ACTIVE volcano!

Latvia

Country music continues to extend its reach into Eastern Europe, as the success of the 10th annual Bauska Country Festival proves. The festival, held July 11-13, featured a headlining country act for the second year in a row. This year it was Asleep at the Wheel; the Bellamy Brothers headlined last year. More than 17,000 music fans attended the festival, which boasted a total of 10 foreign bands and 15 local bands.

South America

Brazilian country music artist Rodrigo Haddad was named a 2008 International Country Music Ambassador following the release of his latest album, From Brazil to TN. The award was presented by the International Country Music Day Organization and named Haddad an Ambassador for 2008 on Sept. 17.

The 6th San Pedro Country Music Festival in Buenos Aires was held Sept. 27 & 28, with thousands of fans attending the 35+ live performances over the two-day event. Country, gospel, bluegrass and folk acts are all represented at the festival.

China

James Stroud and Ronnie Gilley Entertainment, in partnership with Investors Equity, will conduct a series of events and concerts in both China and the U.S. in 2009. To mark the occasion, the parties involved had a signing ceremony on Nov. 14 at the Country Music Association offices in Nashville. Stroud/Ronnie Gilley Entertainment will oversee all artist relations and production for the BamaJam-China Music & Arts Festival in the Province of Hunan on May 21, 2009.

France

The French Association of Country Music (FACM) announced winners from the 6th annual French Country Music Awards, held Sept. 27. Brad Paisley took home Entertainer of the Year, while Josh Turner won Male Vocalist of the Year and Sara Evans won Female Vocalist of the Year.

The Country Rendez-Vous Festival in Craponne, France has been scheduled for July 24 - 26, 2009. Lineups to be announced.

Germany

Germany's CountryHome Magazine has added an international forum and messageboard for its readers in French, German and English. Visit
http://groups.myspace.com/CountryHomeMagazine

Tracy Byrd's upcoming concert in March (his first European tour) sold out so quickly that promoters quickly added a second show, which also sold out.

International Industry Awards

Nashville-based Australian producer Mark Moffatt (see photo below) was awarded the Jo Walker-Meador International Achievement Award by the Country Music Association for supporting Country music's marketing development outside the United States. One of the most experienced and respected producers to emerge from Australia, Moffatt worked extensively in the early stages of Keith Urban's solo career. He recently reunited with Ross Wilson (who he had his first platinum album with in 1982) to finish work on his latest project, as well as Greek writer and performer Costas Bigalis. Moffatt has been the musical director of CMA's popular "Global Artist Party" and global showcase events since 2004.

Judy Seale was named an International Country Music Ambassador and winner of the Best International Country Music Personality Award earlier this year. The ICMDO officially announced Seale as an ambassador at International Country Music Day, held Sept. 17 in Uruguay. Additionally, the Greek Country Music Association awarded Seale the 2008 Best International Country Music Personality on July 12 in Athens, Greece. Seale founded Judy Seale International in 2001 and has produced more than 200 international country music tours and festivals. She is responsible for producing festivals in 12 different countries this year, including Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and Mexico.

Dennis Muirhead was inducted in to the Music Managers Forum Roll of Honour for 2008 in London this year. Longtime friend and Grammy award winning producer Hugh Padgham presented the award. As co-founder and first chairman of the MMF in the UK, Muirhead helped to establish the group worldwide. Muirhead is a member of the CMA in Nashville, the CMA UK Advisory Group and a Director of the video network t5m.com.

Trisha Walker-Cunningham was presented an Award of Merit earlier this year for "30 years of faithful service to Country Music in the best interests and in the highest traditions of the State of Tennessee" by former Executive Director of the CMA, Jo Walker-Meador. A talent buyer, publicist, manager, tour manager and consultant, Walker-Cunningham has taken more than 300 artists overseas for festival and live performances. She has represented both the Gstaad Festival in Switzerland and the Craponne Festival in France since their inception.

"Extra Credits"

DigitalRodeo.com continues to expand their reach in the international marketplace with nearly 50 countries registering members on the site. The world's premier country music network has recently run exclusive contests with Taylor Swift and legendary Nashville radio station WSM and Ronnie Milsap. They were also seen everywhere during CMA Awards week. Visit www.DigitalRodeo.com/Video to see some of the exclusive footage and interviews they shot at the 42nd annual CMA Awards on Nov. 12.

Canadian owned music publisher ole was recently named the Canadian Country Music Association Music Publishing Company of the Year for 2008 and 2007. This marks the first time in 15 years the honor has gone to an independent publisher. The company continues to focus on acquisitions, creative development and administration worldwide. With offices in Toronto, Nashville and Los Angeles and more than thirty-five thousand songs, ole has grown into Canada's largest music publisher in only four years.

Feel free to forward this newsletter to friends within the music industry! If you would like to add friends or colleagues to our distribution list, please contact us at glo✧✧✧@aristome✧✧✧.c✧✧.

Don't forget to send us your news features and photos for inclusion in our next Aristo International Newsletter!


Former Executive Director of the CMA, Jo Walker-Meador, cuts the 20th anniversary
cake atSwitzerland's 2008 Gstaad Festival while promoter Marcel Bach looks on.


Producer Mark Moffatt receives the Jo-Walker Meador International Achievement Award.

(L to R): CMA Director of International Bobbi Boyce, Jo-Walker Meador, Moffatt and

President of The AristoMedia Group and CMA Board Member Jeff Walker.

Photo Credit: Amanda Eckard / CMA


Dierks Bentley with Japanese radio personality Hiromi Chida backstage at the Country Gold

Festival in Kumamoto, Japan. Hiromi presented Bentley with a handmade sign she made

for him that spells out his daughter's name in Japanese.


Whiskey Falls at Suzenji Park in Kumamoto, Japan. Pictured with
Japanese Promoter/Country Music Star Charlie Nagatani (center).

dow, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 18:14 (sixteen years ago)

Fox and Bill O'Reilly try to foment culture war between "country" and "pop" music. Why are John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen such public pinko America-hating liberals, yet the country people don't preach to their audiences? Trace Adkins mostly refuses to bite, gets new album plugged.

Gorge, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 21:57 (sixteen years ago)

So, what the heck, I decided to go ahead and send in my Nashville Scene critics poll ballot, since it seemed futile to wait around and see what other people are voting for that I might regret neglecting. Most votes are self-explanatory; singles list is a little weird, since I decided to arbitrarily forgo all Taylor Swift and Jamey Johnson singles (which I mainly heard as "album tracks" in real life anyway -- lame excuse, but wha tht heck) and also decided that Miley is more country than Runrig after all. Anyway, here goes:

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2008:
1. Jamey Johnson – That Lonesome Song (Mercury)
2. Woodbox Gang – Drunk As Dragons (Alternative Tentacles)
3. Carter’s Chord – Carter’s Chord (Show Dog Nashville)
4. Phil Vassar – Prayer Of A Common Man (Universal)
5. The Road Hammers – Blood Sweat & Steel (Montage Music Group)
6. James McMurtry – Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod)
7. Taylor Swift – Fearless (Big Machine)
8. Sugarland – Love On The Inside (Mercury)
9. Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
10. Montgomery Gentry – Back When I Knew It All (Columbia)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2008:
1. Miley Cyrus – “See You Again”
2. Phil Vassar – “Love Is a Beautiful Thing”
3. Kid Rock – “All Summer Long”
4. Ashton Shepherd – “Takin’ Off This Pain”
5. Kathleen Edwards – “I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory”
6. Sarah Johns - "He Hates Me”
7. Lost Trailers – “Holler Back”
8. Billy Currington – “Don’t”
9. Whitney Duncan – “When I Said I Would”
10. Emily West – “Rocks In Your Shoes”

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2008:
1. Ross Johnson – Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson (Goner)
2. Toby Keith – 35 Biggest Hits (Universal)
3. (Various) – More Dirty Laundry: The Soul Of Black Country (Trikont)
4. Charlie Pickett — Bar Band Americanus: The Best Of (Bloodshot)
5. Finn and the Sharks – Breakfast Special (UpSouth )

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:
1. Toby Keith
2. Jamey Johnson
3. Trace Adkins

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:
1. Taylor Swift
2. Ashton Shepherd
3. Jennifer Nettles

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2008:
1. Jamey Johnson
2. Hugh Deneal (of Woodbox Gang)
3. James McMurtry

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2008:
1. Woodbox Gang
2. Carter’s Chord
3. Road Hammers

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2008:
1. Carter’s Chord
2. Ashton Shepherd
3. Lady Antebellum

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2008:
1. Jamey Johnson
2. Ross Johnson
3. Woodbox Gang

xhuxk, Saturday, 6 December 2008 19:25 (sixteen years ago)

What's the Woodbox Gang?

dow, Saturday, 6 December 2008 20:46 (sixteen years ago)

Wrote about them here (though their album definitely holds up a lot better for me than the Trailer Choir EP):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/07/the-funniest-al.html

Their Myspace page and website:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=50679893

http://woodboxgang.homestead.com/

xhuxk, Saturday, 6 December 2008 21:09 (sixteen years ago)

Hey, Amanda Palmer is the singer from that group Dresden Dolls. They are always described as Brechtian gothic-punk cabaret.

My nephew says they sound like Siouxsie & the Banshees.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 7 December 2008 18:36 (sixteen years ago)

I saw the Charlie Pickett reissue at Amoeba. In the mid-Eighties I seem to recall them getting mentioned regularly in the fanzine press and pubs like Option. Didn't they perform some Flamin' Groovies material?

Instead of the Christmas CD, Billy Bob and the Boxmasters should have made an EP of songs written around all the B-grade movies he's made in the last three years (which I like): Mr. Woodcock, The Man Who Wasn't There, Bad Santa, Farmer Astronaut. Mr. Woodcock was absolutely a character out of Boxmasters character songs.

Gorge, Sunday, 7 December 2008 19:46 (sixteen years ago)

Didn't they perform some Flamin' Groovies material?

Yep, but not terribly well to my ears -- both "Slow Death" and "Shake Some Action," oddly enough two of the less sprightly and rocking songs on the disc. Favorite tracks (out of 19) are "All Love All Gone," "Get Off On Your Porch," "In the Wilderness," "Penny Instead," "A On Horseback," "Marlboro Country," and "Phantom Train." (Hey, that's a lot!)

xhuxk, Sunday, 7 December 2008 22:55 (sixteen years ago)

I'm surprised you didn't mention Chris Knight (who you seemed to like, though maybe you never heard the whole album?) or Hayes Carrl (who I thought you at least had mixed feelings on.)

In regard to Hayes Carll: "They do sound like Vietnamese folk music, and I'm no folkie! I despise that jerky, over-rhythmic, open-ended clatter. Give me the progressive jazz anytime - Peanuts Hucko, 'Big' Tiny Little - and I am happy. A man must move with the times, and the times demand bop: how can a man in my position say that bop is wrong? I didn't get here by swimming against the tide."

In regard to Chris Knight: Only heard the four tracks that Edd sent me. I doubt that I'd like his alb more than Heidi Newfield's, anyway.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 8 December 2008 03:56 (sixteen years ago)

(Though to be honest concerning the folkieness, I sent my other nephew a Limeliters two-fer for his birthday.)

Frank Kogan, Monday, 8 December 2008 04:00 (sixteen years ago)

Spent the day trolling around MySpace in hopes I'd come up with a good number ten for my singles list to displace a relatively lethargic Brooks & Dunn Stones beat. And whaddya know, not only did I come up with number ten, but I found eleven through twenty-six as well. Here's the latest, a bit more ordered at the top than the bottom but don't go holding me to any of it:

Taylor Swift "Should've Said No"
Willie Nelson "You Don't Think I'm Funny Anymore"
Taylor Swift "You're Not Sorry"
Allison Moorer "Dancing Barefoot"
Jessica Simpson "Come On Over"
Ashton Shepherd "Takin' Off This Pain"
Toby Keith "She's A Hottie"
Jamey Johnson "In Color"
Taylor Swift "Love Story"
Carrie Underwood "Just A Dream"
Trisha Yearwood "They Call It Falling For A Reason"
Darryl Worley "Tequila On Ice"
The Road Hammers "I Don't Know When To Quit"
Taylor Swift "You Belong With Me"
Billy Currington "Don't"
Willie Nelson "Gravedigger"
Alan Jackson "Country Boy"
Rissi Palmer "No Air"
Sugarland "All I Want To Do"
Trisha Yearwood "This Is Me You're Talking To"
Lee Ann Womack "Last Call"
Rodney Atkins "Invisibly Shaken"
Brooks & Dunn "Put A Girl In It"
Tim McGraw "Let It Go"
The Road Hammers "Homegrown"
Heidi Newfield "Johnny and June"

The Newfield track was docked several spots for glorifying Johnny.

I heard a Trisha Yearwood LP from several years ago and was bored silly, but the three singles I've heard from her latest (which is more than a year old, but it emitted singles into this year) have me curious. "This Is Me You're Talking To" is sung with a Karen Carpenter smoothness and then suddenly she's shooting thick Cosmic Sound Rays beyond the top of the solar system. And "They Call It Falling For A Reason" is a good ride-the-groove bus ride through Cougar territory with tiny little squirts of Kinks-like proto-psychedelic harmonies in the breaks and the fadeout.

The Atkins track is a bit unexpected too; a piano creates minor-key arty explorations, while Rodney raises his voice in the standard way to testify as to the state of his mind.

When the Road Hammers go "when to quit," the melodic twist is very similar to the melodic twist when Miley sings "see you again." So of course I think Xhuxk's entirely justified putting the latter on his list. I would have put it on my own except I voted it last year.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 8 December 2008 04:32 (sixteen years ago)

They do sound like Vietnamese folk music

Oh, c'mon. What does this mean?

Standard piece of Ann Powers lightweight cooked-up dogshit re Taylor Swift in the LA Times over the weekend. (Everyone who's been there for twenty years -- people I know -- getting fired at the Times as Sam Zell's business empire goes upside down. But no losses among the dilletantes writing oh-so-important stories about the national psycho-sociology of Grammy nominating shows and comic book exhibitions.) Powers' sissy crap about how Swift's appearance was daring re Grammy's even though her performance was not so hot.

Gorge, Monday, 8 December 2008 06:53 (sixteen years ago)

They do sound like Vietnamese folk music
Oh, c'mon. What does this mean?

I think "what does this mean" was the point of the passage Frank cited. (My first guess is that's Bangs on Jethro Tull, though for all I know I could be wrong, and it could actually be some '50s jazz critic, though I doubt it. Reminds me though that Lalena pulled out her Jethro Tull Xmas CD last night while tree-trimming, and it was as gorgeous as ever; always makes perfect sense between her Celtic Xmas CD and her/our Excelsis Vol. 2 darkwave goth one. Liked the Jethro Tull acoustic collection than came out last year, too; they were probably more country than Runrig, actually. Not a bad loud rock band, either.) (Actually, that Runrig song I keep mentioning is probably more Big Country than country, despite the fiddle hoedown break.)

I heard a Trisha Yearwood LP from several years ago and was bored silly, but the three singles I've heard from her latest have me curious.

I haven't kept up with her; always had mixed feelings about her even back in her commercial heyday, though I like the '97 best-of CD Songbook. Favorites were always "Walkaway Joe" and "XXXs and OOOs (An American Girl)." Did hear maybe three-quarters of a somewhat gospel-rocking recent hit on the radio this year or last that intrigued me, though.

the Road Hammers go "when to quit,"

I like that song a lot. (George does too, as I recall.) I disqualified their singles from my country singles list, too, seeing how I'm voting for their album and maybe half the songs on it seem to have been singles at some point, either here or in Canada, though I never heard any of them on the radio or TV myself.

Dresden Dolls.... My nephew says they sound like Siouxsie & the Banshees

Given what little Dresden Dolls I've heard (which I found pretty unbearable) and what little more Siouxsie I've heard, the latter were definitely more rock and less cabaret oriented, at least in their early days. Though maybe the Dresdens sound like some later version of the Banshees I've never heard, who knows. ("Peek a Boo," which I like, definitely had a '30s German cabaret shtick going on. And I guess even their punkier early stuff was more cabaret than rock, when you get down to it.)

Heidi Newfield "Johnny and June"... was docked several spots for glorifying Johnny.

Yeah, not surprisingly, that bugged me, too. Definitely one of my least favorite songs on that her (which almost made my country top 10, though eventually I picked Montgomery Gentry over Heidi or Dolly or Chris Knight. Surprised Frank lists no MG singles on his list, actually.)

xhuxk, Monday, 8 December 2008 15:32 (sixteen years ago)

"...one of my least favorite songs on her album," I meant

xhuxk, Monday, 8 December 2008 15:35 (sixteen years ago)

In other matters, second amendment stories always attract readers. Guns & Santa

Gorge, Monday, 8 December 2008 19:09 (sixteen years ago)

So, in the midst of a Top 50 full of shitty indie rock crap and competent r&b/hip-hop hits that I mostly have trouble understanding why anybody would get excited about, popmatters.com listed Jamey Johnson's "In Color" the # 28 single of the year:

28
Jamey Johnson
“In Color”
In the middle of Jamey Johnson’s outlaw-country LP of deep despair stands this fine ballad with an outstanding melody. The verses tell stories of childhood, war, marriage. In each someone looks back and admits they were beyond scared-to-death. Within the album the song reveals the universality of the hurt personalized in the other songs. On country radio, it does that even better. For times when people’s lives are filled with fear and hardship, the song is a compact reminder that humans have gone through this before, even if it wasn’t any easier then than today or tomorrow. Dave Heaton

Meanwhile, Time magazine named Lucinda Williams' boring album their #9 album of the year.

xhuxk, Monday, 8 December 2008 21:19 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah I wrote that paragraph on "In Color". Slightly surprised to see it as high as 28, that must mean other people voted for it besides me. I voted for two or three of the indie and hip-hop songs that you may be talking about, though most of the songs I voted for didnt make the list, and there's a ton of songs in this 50 that I havent even heard before. I'll be interested to see what, if any, country albums show up in the albums list. I had I think three country albums in my top 10 when I voted, but I dont know if any of them made the cut. Someone else is writing a best-country of 08 article, too, so I'll be interested to see what's on that list.

erasingclouds, Monday, 8 December 2008 22:17 (sixteen years ago)

My Nashville Scene Country Critics Poll Top 10 Singles:

1. Reba McEntire & Kenny Chseney, "Every Other Weekend" (MCA Nashville)
2. Joey + Rory, "Cheater, Cheater" (Vanguard/Sugar Hill)
3. Luke Bryan, "Country Man" (Capitol Nashville)
4. Billy Currington, "Don't" (Mercury)
5. Brad Paisley & Keith Urban, "Start a Band" (Arista Nashville)
6. Kenny Chesney, "Got a Little Crazy" (BNA)
7. Kristy Lee Cook, "15 Minutes of Shame" (19)
8. Dierks Bentley, "Sweet & Wild" (Capitol Nashville)
9. Carolina Rain, "American Radio" (Equity)
10. Heidi Newfield, "Cry Cry ('Til the Sun Shines)" (Curb)

It's the only category I'm voting in--all I listen to in that realm are singles, pretty much. And I have no idea what's going on in singles outside of the Billboard Country Top 60. So that's how I voted: I listened to all the new entries on the Top 60 this year (that I could find), and out of that came this list. Chuck suggested I post it here, and I figure I might as well take my brickbats where I can get them, right? Fire away!

Matos W.K., Wednesday, 10 December 2008 05:02 (sixteen years ago)

Hi Michaelangelo. Welcome. No brickbats from me (I was considering Joe + Rory but decided that though the song was a good pop tune the delivery was too much Vanguard Records gentility that me and General Thieu don't approve of).

By the way, I don't think I ever apologized to you for my grouchiness in late 2006 concerning Idolator (not that the grouchiness was meant for you).

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 15:16 (sixteen years ago)

I was considering Joey + Rory, that is. Strangely, the Bomshel version, which doesn't have any folkie gentility to hamper it, nonetheless isn't as good as the Joey + Rory; too busy, or something.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 15:19 (sixteen years ago)

Only heard the MG singles once or twice so far, but they seemed like old news, done worse. I was surprised by and liked the prettiness of the McGuinn-like 12-string interludes (close to "Turn Turn Turn") on "Back When I Knew It All," but didn't think the lead melody was all that.

Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 15:24 (sixteen years ago)

Agree MG's '08 was old news done better before, which is why their album only ranked 10th on my list this year, instead of in the top five or top one; a less-good version of great is still pretty good, in my book. I feel like I sort of underrated it all year, then was always surprised by how good it was every time I put it on -- They've got a pretty high level of medicrity, in other words. And as old reliables, they did better than Toby (or even less reliable Trace) (not to mention Alan or George or ....) this year. Still, it's not like I seriously considered voting for any of their singles myself. But I still liked all but one song on their album. (And the singles weren't its best tracks, and the one song I didn't like was at the end. And like I've also said before, the distance between their best and worst albums is really not all that great a distance.)

I considered "Cheater Cheater" for my singles list, too; it's the one catchy song on their album. Raved about it somewhere upthread. Still haven't heard the Bomshel version; oddly, it's not on the never-released album from 2006 that I've still got my advance of.

Need to relisten, one of these days, to some of the other songs on Michaelangelo's list, too. Remember shrugging my shoulders at the Carolina Rain and Kristy Lee Cook tracks at the time. And I'm pretty sure I thought the Chesney/McEntire divorce-song duet was better in theory than in execution.

According to someone on the year-end poll thread, these possibly country-related albums were among a longer list picked by AMG as albums of the year:

Calexico - Carried to Dust
Rodney Crowell - Sex and Gasoline
Lila Downs - Shake Away/Ojo de Culebra
B.B. King - One Kind Favor
Shelby Lynne - Just a Little Lovin’
Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis - Two Men with the Blues
George Strait - Troubadour
Taylor Swift - Fearless

I'd forgotten all about that Shelby-snoozes-through-Dusty thing; it fell off the map real soon after it came out, seems to me. Surprised anybody liked that half-okay George Strait album that much, but it was admittedly better than I'd expected it to be. Lila Downs went in one ear out the other when I hear it, and given their track records I bet Crowell and Calexico would have too, had I heard them (which I didn't).

xhuxk, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 16:40 (sixteen years ago)

"...high level of MEDIOCRITY..." I meant.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 16:41 (sixteen years ago)

I'd compared the guitar solo in "Back When I Knew It All" to the Byrds too, by the way:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/06/montgomery-gent.html#more

And here's what I just wrote this week about Toby's and Trace's new albums (complete with a couple typos, looks like):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/not-ready-yet-to-go-live.html

xhuxk, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 16:45 (sixteen years ago)

Here's my Nashville Scene ballot, submitted a couple days ago. Looking over it after I finalized it, it was more heavy with dudes than I expected, and dudes crying about their broken hearts, especially in the songs list. I wrote something in the comments about feeling like the mood of the Johnson album affected the rest of my ballot, in that sense, especially with all the lonely-man ballads on the songs list. Also wrote something in the comments about Alan Jackson's album being on there cause as a character he fascinates me on that album - he keeps alternating between seeming like a creep and not. Sometimes I agree that the George Strait album is mediocre; other times in a more positive mood towards it I change that up to "solid", but maybe it means the same thing. I put Rodney Clawson on the songwriter list less because of him co-writing the Strait song "I Saw God Today", which is fine but not that special, than because of him writing one of my favorite non-singles of the year, Trent Willmon's "The Way I Remember It", which is the main reason, along with a few other songs, that the Willmon album is on here too, cause it gets pretty bad towards the end.

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2008:

1. Jamey Johnson - That Lonesome Song (Mercury Nashville)
2. Willie Nelson - Moment of Forever (Lost Highway)
3. Dolly Parton - Backwoods Barbie (Dolly)
4. Murry Hammond - I Don't Know Where I'm Going But I'm On My Way (Humminbird)
5. Trace Adkins - X (Capitol Nashville)
6. Montgomery Gentry - Back When I Knew It All (Sony)
7. Alan Jackson - Good Time (Arista Nashville)
8. George Strait - Troubadour (MCA Nashville)
9. Joe Ely and Joel Guzman - Live Cactus (Rack Em)
10. Trent Willmon - Broken In (Compadre)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2008:

1. "In Color" - Jamey Johnson
2. "I Can't Outrun You" - Trace Adkins
3. "You Don't Think I'm Funny Anymore" - Willie Nelson
4. "I Still Miss You" - Keith Anderson
5. "Roll With Me" - Montgomery Gentry
6. "Takin' Off This Pain" - Ashton Shepherd
7. "Anything Goes" - Randy Houser
8. "Jesus and Gravity" - Dolly Parton
9. "Down the Road" - Kenny Chesney
10. "Things to Do in Wichita" - Mark Chesnutt

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2008:

1. John Anderson - All the People Are Talkin' (Collectors Choice)
2. John Anderson - I Just Came Home to Count the Memories (Collectors Choice)
3. John Anderson - Eye of a Hurricane (Collectors Choice)
4. John Anderson - Tokyo Oklahoma (Collectors Choice)
5. Tom Russell - Veteran's Day: The Tom Russell Anthology (Shout Factory)

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:

1. Trace Adkins
2. Jamey Johnson
3. Alan Jackson

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:

1. Dolly Parton
2. Taylor Swift
3. Lee Ann Womack


COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2008:

1. Jamey Johnson
2. Dolly Parton
3. Rodney Clawson


COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2008:

1. Montgomery Gentry
2. Sugarland

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2008:

1. Randy Houser
2. Ashton Shepherd

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2008:

1. Jamey Johnson
2. Willie Nelson
3. Trace Adkins

erasingclouds, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 19:44 (sixteen years ago)

1. John Anderson - All the People Are Talkin' (Collectors Choice)
2. John Anderson - I Just Came Home to Count the Memories (Collectors Choice)
3. John Anderson - Eye of a Hurricane (Collectors Choice)
4. John Anderson - Tokyo Oklahoma (Collectors Choice)

I never did hear these reissues (though I voted for reissues of Jawn's first two elpees last year). Back in their day, though, I probably would have ranked the ones listed above in this order: 1 - 4 - 2 - 3. Even gave Eye an iffy Voice review at the time.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 23:22 (sixteen years ago)

Welcome Matos, we need new blood bad. A few comments from my ballot:
Arthur Russell's Love Is Overtaking Me is a wonderful country-folk-rock collection, from 70s to 90s, tracks interpspersed with approximately countless other projects, many unfinished--but these fit prefectly together, no matter how vast the overview. Seamless but homely detail, bumping and keening and perfectly articulate, his most linear and spelled-out, verse/chorus-wise, or at least as much as those on The World Of Arthur Russell, the other perfect introduction. Not that there isn't plenty of heady atmosphere and momemntum, it's just about the way "realism" and "mysticism" fit, when you follow them right, as much as with young Dylan, but musically it's closer to say the Feelies, esp. mebbe The Good Earth, though haven't heard that in along time; also the Individuals' "Fields": Asleep in your bed/I'm drunk in the fields/I walk by your houuuse" (their Fields/Aquamarine finally reissued by Collectors Choice this year: Fields' LP tracks still uneven, but overall a lot of good-to-great stuff, much of it as rare as these Arthur tracks) Also really enjoying Waylon Forever, which filters teenage Shooter's studies of industrial (and ZZ Top's better electro grooves are also called to mind, whether he was thinking those or not), further advanced by his and the present-day 357s skills and empathy with Waylon, who never gets crowded: "Ainnnn't livin' long like this, am I Bay-bay?" No yer not, but it's short sharp sweet.

dow, Thursday, 11 December 2008 17:20 (sixteen years ago)

Really like "Ain't Livin' Long Like This," the third song on that Waylon Forever (mini?)-album -- the hard boogie one with the AC/DC riff. First couple tracks were a drag to sit through on first listen, but "Waymore's Blues" has a great guitar solo, and the rest is okay (passable Creem cover and all), and eight-songs-only is a good length.

Didn't make it through the Arthur Russell. Wrote this is the comments section of a recent Idolator post: (Don't remotely understand the appeal of Arthur Russell singing so-quiet-it-barely-exists lethargic fake country/folk songs, either, fwiw. I get the idea that people just want to like that stuff because it exists. And I say that as somebody with both Dinosaur L *and* Dinosaur 12-inches on my vinyl shelf, not to mention "Let's Go Swimming.") (Sadly, I only own "Is It All Over My Place" by Loose Joints on CD.)

But you're gonna post your actual ballot (as in, what you voted for), right Don?

xhuxk, Thursday, 11 December 2008 17:28 (sixteen years ago)

Not nec. so quiet, just TURN IT UP (the first few tracks are a little watery, but only compared to the later ones, and yeah I'm not big on the murmuring and cello-ing around and around like he did so much of later, but this stuff is not that--I can really see why he was invited to join Talking Heads, and I also wonder what Robert Forster would think of it, and wondering if The Evangelist should've been on this ballot, which I'll prob post later, when back on the computer where ballot is archived) Also finally schooling myself re Jamey Johnson on free monthly allotment of Rhapsody.com, especially digging the way his Man in Black bit goes with primetime Cash's own pop sense (like on "Ring of Fire" or even/especially the money "Shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die")--in JJ's case, the band seems to stay frisky whether he's mowin' down roses or clean-and-sober testifyin'. But they know when to play it straight, re "In Color" (which still doesn't lack dynamics, but they're written in, so no need to play around)

dow, Thursday, 11 December 2008 17:49 (sixteen years ago)

The lack of props for Tim's Let It Go (album AND single) on these polls is alarming.

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 11 December 2008 18:40 (sixteen years ago)

The album came out March 2007, so it wouldnt be on these. Single was 2008 - didnt make a huge impression on me but I'd love to hear more about what you think of it, why its absence on individual best-of ballots alarms you.

erasingclouds, Thursday, 11 December 2008 19:26 (sixteen years ago)

Looks like Tim's album finished #27 in the Nashville Scene poll last year. I voted for "Suspicions" as my #1 country single; Frank Kogan voted for "Last Dollar (Fly Away)" has his #10. (Taylor Swift's "Tim McGraw" also got votes at the time.)

xhuxk, Thursday, 11 December 2008 19:44 (sixteen years ago)

Whoa, I actually had to double check that album release date. I was about to throw a similar fit about Miranda not being included anywhere, but I guess 208 kinda breezed on by!

As for the single, I think it's a strong one, from one of our more consistent country artists, and certainly head and shoulders above some others here ("Roll With Me?" Come on). I admit I have not heard Jamey Johnson's album, but the single seems like another in a long line of "You're Gonna Miss This" / "Don't Blink" / "It Won't Be Like THis For Long" songs that seem like the theme du jour for mainstream country these past two years.

Refreshing that no one above is buying what Darius is selling, though.

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 11 December 2008 19:49 (sixteen years ago)

I like the singing on "Roll With Me", and the melody. The lyrics sort of compactly phrase this whole masculine self-help/trying to be a better man theme that runs through the album, but what I like about it is mostly the tune and how they carry it.

The Jamey Johnson single ("In Color") is different than those others you mentioned, in sentiment. Its sentiment is more like 'everyone is scared to death and always has been', more than any kind of carpe diem thing. The album has a lot more pain and turmoil in it, it gets more brutal than your average country album these days, I think.

erasingclouds, Thursday, 11 December 2008 20:33 (sixteen years ago)

I think I need to hear the album, based on the praise here, but I guess you're right about the sentiment. Its almost as if "In Color" is truly nostalgic, while the others are more 'nostagia-in-reverse' or something. It's still getting to be a tireseome go-to lyrical theme.

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 11 December 2008 21:01 (sixteen years ago)

I might well have voted "Suspicions" myself last year if I'd given it more listens before the poll date.

Frank Kogan, Friday, 12 December 2008 22:57 (sixteen years ago)

Let It Go the album was one of my favorites of last year--though it had some lame tracks: "Kristofferson" and especially "Fly Away," probably my least favorite McGraw single evah. But on the great side were "Working" "Suspicions" and "Between the River and Me." The title track sounds great on the radio.

President Keyes, Friday, 12 December 2008 23:39 (sixteen years ago)

My favorite 08 singles:

1. Ashton Sheppard- Sounds So Good (Liked this far more than "Takin' off this Pain"--has the great over the top celtic riffs and the phrase "cooler slushin'"
2. Lee Anne Womack- Last Call
3. Toby Keith- God Love Her
4. Jamey Johnson- In Color
5. Josh Turner- Everything is Fine
6. Sugarland- Already Gone
7. Dierks Bentley- Trying to Stop Your Leaving
8. Billy Currington- Don't
9. Lady Antebellum- Looking for a Good Time
10. Heidi Newfield- Johnny & June

Rodney Atkins' "Cleaning this Gun" hit number one this March, though it came out on the album years ago. If that's actually an '08 single it would be in the top half of my list.

President Keyes, Friday, 12 December 2008 23:48 (sixteen years ago)

bored as balls in birminghammy tonight; should i go see this hayes carll y/n?

extremely intoxicated & uncooperative outside a Hסּסּters in Winston-Salem (will), Saturday, 13 December 2008 00:38 (sixteen years ago)

Well--if you're still wondering--yeah, since John Evans Band is opening, so Carll may not have started yet, and he seemed a pretty okay live presence doing a set on Pub Radio not too long ago, and mainly cos he's at Bottletree, which is a pretty interesting and versatile place, or was when I checked it (so even if you don't like him, you might like milling around)

dow, Saturday, 13 December 2008 03:25 (sixteen years ago)

Kerry Collins threatens entry into country music on slow news day in Tennessee:

Not exactly up to Mike Reid snuff yet.

"Beer for My Horses" showed up on my local Pay-per-View. I'm guessing this, which stars Toby Keith in a vanity project, went straight to video. The trailer looked OK in the way of a poor man's Billy Jack-type B-movie. Anyone seen it?

Gorge, Saturday, 13 December 2008 18:12 (sixteen years ago)

It's hilarious and terrible. About what you'd expect. Toby actually could go this straight-to-video action star route full time. Don't expect much in the way of plot, character development, etc, but there's enough Dirty Mary Crazy Larry type stuff going on, and one totally hilarious Rodney Carrington scene that I think justifies a rental at least. The Nuge is great, natch.

No one's feeling Blake Shelton on these year end lists? I'd agree "She Wouldn't Be Gone" is a tad overwrought, even for the genre, but I really liked it. Kinda jealous dude gets to bone Miranda.

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Saturday, 13 December 2008 18:30 (sixteen years ago)

Speaking of Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, I'm seriously considering going to see Gran Torino this weekend. Can't remember when the last time was that I wanted so badly to see a movie the weekend it came out. Probably can't afford it, though.

Also, Tom Lane's Nasvhille Scene ballot:

http://tomlanesblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-nashville-scene-2008-ballot.html

xhuxk, Saturday, 13 December 2008 21:59 (sixteen years ago)

I honestly think what happened with Blake Shelton (not that he said this when I interviewed him) is that a decision was made somewhere (maybe his idea, maybe his label's, who knows) to up his ballad-mush quotient after "Home" hit. And actually, the label is pretty open about that fact that he's being targeted more to female listeners now. Aesthetically, it doesn't work. It's an extremely dull album after his last two. (Exchanged a few emails with Xgau -- who liked Blake's previous record -- the other day, and he agrees about the album being a stinker. Though Bob doesn't like Jamey Johnson either, fwiw. Does like the '08 albums by Swift, Rucker, and Travis, though.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 13 December 2008 22:10 (sixteen years ago)

Got Jessica Simpson's Do You Know. Agree with what Stephen Thomas Erlewine once wrote over at Allmusic about her having a warm voice that she's never really figured out what to do with. The only track that's afflicted with her recent tendency to go aggressively cute when she's being "fun" is the first single, "Come On Over," and it's still by far my favorite, totally shameless, no redeeming moral content - inviting purr at the start, giant fake twang in the chorus, packs a great tingle. The mistreated-gf track that follows is good enough, then there's some dull mush, followed by slightly better mush, and then the album closes with several reasonably strong Faith Hill-style big-lunged show stoppers, the Dolly duet at the end grinding and building its way into a big rave-up. Better than I'd feared, worse than I'd hoped, not a surprise.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 14 December 2008 03:24 (sixteen years ago)

Just realized (watching a Netflixed episode of Swingtown, no less) that Trace Adkins' "Til The Last Shot's Fired" is, structurally at least, basically the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" backwards. At least as far as both songs' weird choir parts are concerned. Still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's definitely an interesting thing.

xhuxk, Sunday, 14 December 2008 04:52 (sixteen years ago)

Screw Blake Shelton, plenty of *good* albums are also aimed at country's predominately female audience.
DON ALLRED’S BALLOT FOR TENTH ANNUAL COUNTRY MUSIC CRITICS POLL

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2008:
1. Cat Power: Jukebox (Matador)
2. James McMurtry: Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod)
3. Arthur Russell: Love Is Overtaking Me (Audika)
4. Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis: Two Men with the Blues (Blue Note)
5. Drive By Truckers: Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (New West)
6. Steeldrivers: S/T (Rounder)
7. Randall Bramblett: Now It’s Tomorrow (New West)
8. Miss Lana Rebel: All I Need (Wantage)
9. Chuck Prophet: Dreaming Waylon’s Dreams (Evangeline/Revolver)
10. Waylon Jennings & The 357s: Waylon Forever (Vagrant)
TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2008:
1. Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh: “Death Letter” (Drag City)
2. Jamey Johnson: “In Color” (Mercury)
3 Kenny Chesney & George Strait: “Shiftwork”
4. Damien Jurado featuring Jenna Conrad: “Best Dress”
5. Blitzen Trapper: “Furr”
6. Jamey Johnson: “Mowin’ Down The Roses”
7.Toby Keith: “God Love Her”
8. Woodbox Gang: “Termite Song”
9. Sugarland: “Already Gone”
10. Zac Brown Band: “Country Fried”
TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2008
1. Bob Dylan: Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (Sony BMG)
2. Creedence Clearwater Revival: The 40th Anniversary Reissue Series (Fantasy)
3. Dallas Frazier: The R&B Sessions: Elvira/Tell It Like It Is! (Raven)
4. Ed Sanders: Sanders’ Truck Stop/Beer Cans on the Moon (Collector’s Choice Music)
5. Nimrod Workman: I Want To Go Where Things Are Beautiful (Drag City)
COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2008:
1. Willie Nelson
2. Hackensaw Boys
3. Backyard Tire Fire
COUNTRY MUSIC’S BEST THREE SONGWRITERS OF 2008:
1. Bob Dylan
2. James McMurtry
3. Arthur Russell
COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2008
1. Steeldrivers
2. Carter’s Chord
3. Felice Brothers
Albums Continued: 11. Various Artists: Always Lift Him Up:A Tribute to Blind Albert Reed (Proper American) 12. Carter’s Chord: S/T (Showdog Nashville) 13. Giant Sand: proVISIONS (Yeproc) 14. Silver Jews: Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (Drag City) 15. Chris Knight: Heart of Stone (Drifter’s Church) 16. Eef Barzelay; Lose Big 17. Felice Brothers: S/T (Team Love) 18. Kathy Mattea: Coal (Captain Potato) Marty Stuart’s production makes sure well-chosen songs achieve a suitably dark, brittle, austere glitter, but this set leaves out the way that coal country, people have fun; Nimrod’s acapella workouts demonstrate one frugal but unabashed way this can be done (whatever the cost of labor and non-musical play) Eric Sardinas and Big Motor: S/T (Favored Nations) 19. Jeb Loy Nichols: Days Are Mighty (Compass) crisp vocals, electric piano, complaints—real tasteful and dignified and autumnal, but not bad
More Reissues: 6. Various Artists: Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story (Ardent) (country and other, and yeah more other than the first five) 7. Ross Johnson: Make It Stop! The Most of Ross Johnson (Goner) (“most” incl best and other)
Hon. Mentions: Tony Joe White: Deep Cuts (Swamp) 8. Ronnie Hawkins: Mojo Man/Arkansas Rockpile (Collector’s Choice Music)
Choice Cuts: Drakkar Sauna: “Tiny Broken Heart” “Lorene” “The Weapon of Prayer” “Don’t Laugh” “When I Stop Dreaming” “Are You Afraid To Die?” (from Wars and Tornadoes: Drakkar Sauna Faithfully Sing Songs of the Louvin Brothers(Marriage): Really enough gooduns for Hon Mention, but the shift in quality is frustrating for spoiled fan. When they don’t get stuck in just reciting doctrine, religious and historical, it really works: “When I Stop Dreaming” exemplifies the power of dreaming, surely a DS fuel/concern; “Lorene” dares to rock a bit, etc. Eden & John’s East River String Band: “Ain’t No Tellin’” “Rolling Log Blues” “Do Dirty Blues” “On Our Turpentine Farm” (from Some Old Rainy Day [East River Records]) : Two voices, male and female; two sets of strings, guitar and ukulele. Too even-Steven, steady-Eddie a pace, on most tracks—this is East River Delta, after all yall (mebbe if they’d covered more Mississippi John Hurt? Or gotten Terry Waldo’s bluesy ragtime piano in there more. But some rare songs chosen, for those who could use some more such, and the cover art by R. Crumb don’t hurt) Don Cavalli: “New Hollywood Babylon” “Wonder Chairman” “Cherie De Mon Coeur” “Casual Worker” (from Cryland[Everloving])Don C. is sort of the French Hirth Martinez x J.J. Cale: easy rolling, peripheral visions and off-handed sleight: new releases for cratediggers! Choice Cut from Dud of the Year: Jody + (sic) Rory: “Play The Song” (from The Life of a Song [Vanguard])Yeah, stop calculating and re-working the angles and tweaking the atmospherics, just play the damn thing! Good advice to Music Row and ever'body. Including themselves on the rest of this soporific, terminally tasteful turkey.
More comments:
Arthur Russell, Love Is Overtaking Me: title denotes a longterm experience, as tracks from the 70s through the 90s find him forever all along the fecund fringe, passing under keening wires and across bumpy crossoroads, futher into closely watched contents of the Big Sky, where “dreams are realler than they seem,” and so are other people. He’s very thoughtfully plausible and speculative about both, although “I could just forget her” remains an option, or so he hopes, and that’s part of the power, the fuel of these bluejean jacket ruminations on the glide. Russell at his most linear, spelled-out and down to earth, but also “I will find you near and far”—no doubt!
Phil Vassar’s Prayer For The Common Man is contemporary country as 80s-based yacht rock, rolling smoothly through his Steinway. Also, as required by this Michael-McDonald-helmed tradition, Prayer can get a little funky, a little twangy, a little footloose, a little too sentimental (for yrs. truly, anyway). It’s a fairly well-balanced diet of well-stocked songs, and Phil tirelessly fills his still-expensive CD (remember those?) with respectfully observed characters who work hard for the money. As credit evaporates and financial bubbles roll further off-shore once more, Phil’s folks rail against “Fat cats, getting fatter…they can kiss my price of gas” (Update: and now they will kiss it, in passing, as such expenses heard back toward Atlantis for a while)
Eef Barzelay, former “leader” of the smooth, tense Clem Snide, specializes in hitching smooth, tense, occasionally gee-orgeous melodies, neuroses and shtick to the devoutly twisted visions of those who make and break deals with self-gratification and self-denial. If you decide either way, your sweet and mortal self becomes too real. So there’s always another exciting opportunity to “Lose Big,” per the title song of Barzelay’s new solo album. And when he comes to town again, we can sing along on old choruses, such as “I don’t wanna know me better,” with a passing stranger, one raised on the gospel of punk.
Blitzen Trapper are six guys from Oregon, so they have plenty of rainy days to make up their own myths, of the Wild West or anywhere, and play quietly, or whoop it up. Going to their shows, especially, you never know how they’ll approach their songs, and the people in them bump and roll through new and old clues to everything. They also have their own take on said clues: somebody sings about “The Walls of Jericho” being raised by a shout, which isn’t the way the Bible tells it, but still sounds right as rain can.
Too bad about Shelby trying to sing Dusty, but yall should hear Jukebox, by none other than Cat Power, whom I never cared about before. So? revelatory revisionism is the rule here, albeit on songs that didn’t need it like the singer did. Chan Marshall’s dry-ice smoke rings around her sincerity are guided by the shining spine of historee, stepping stones/bones rippling together again. She moves over and through the connections between and within songs by Hank Williams, James Brown, Billie Holiday and Cat Power—rounded by brilliantly simple tempo-adjustments of “Blue”and “New York New York”, of all thangs. She’s also guided by the Dirty Dozen Blues Band, actually a small combo, itself helmed by Jim White (of the Dirty Three; no resemblence to the same-named Luaka Bop semi-eminence). Still romantique, of course, but no longet playing the waif card too hard. This girl is a woman now!
Speaking of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Shearwater’s Rook is the antique future, a rolling and tumbling eco-gothic art-hick evocation of Mary Shelly’s The Last Man, seemingly with input from “MacArthur Park”-era Jim Webb and a foretaste of Roxy Music, a mantlepiece masterpiece of trilling, sometimes thrilling, blood-simple Lost Boys, hearts like empty cages, nature and nurture wheeling maybe right past end times: not close enough to be listed as country, but too close for comfort, as history repeats itself with the friction and sparks of seemingly random variations, riding that turntable in the sky, the transistor radio’s Top Forty coming back in constellations of singed feathers and quill pens.
On “The Twilight Zone,” a guy might find himself walking through empty streets, or the desert, to who knows where or when. Ray Raposa is that guy, and Castanets was once his murky shadow, then the Grand Canyon of bands, and now, as he creeps, rides and runs, to and through new album City Of Refuge (even meeting or seeing a woman), it’s a Southwestern-to-Appalachian, radioactive river of sound. When Castanets discovers outright Country, where will we be?
Felice Brothers suggest baggy-pants carnies trailing Wild & Innocent-era Springsteen and backroads-backing-band to-stardom The Band, only at the other end of the Album era. The tide’s gone out, mebbe never to return, so, in the classic manner, they treat records as promotional devices and calling cards, the way early 20th Century labels strongly urged artists to do. On the merry-go-round, going to get their ashes hauled. Too darn cute for me sometimes, but it’s not me they’re looking for, babe (though if I buy a ticket they’ll punch it). The men might know, but the little girls understand.
Miss Lana Rebel: unlike the blurbs had me expecting, All I Need is not so very much the campfire of the lonesome cowgirl, or not so girly or cowed about it, it and she sounds small, clear, strong enough, vocals and spare backing (electric strumming mixes and mingles with electric piano, liquid with a citric aftertaste, slightly burbly, steel guitar, sometimes, and taut, discreetly attentive drums, discreetly attentive [and avid] everything, really). She’s confiding, but that might include slipping you a few home truths, as the Aussies say, if you get too moony.Telling you this as a friend, natch, but then another sip, another song.
Singles comments:
Zac Brown Band, “Country Fried”: basically like “Dixie Fried”, but an easy-rolling, toe-tapping Danny O’Keefe feel (with Mungo Jerry appetite). No boom-boom, which is appropriate for a food-related song. Toby Keith, “God Love Her”: the wild girl who (eventually) saved him, but they’re both untamed, at least in memory’s gusto. Jamey Johnson, “In Color”: documentary detail, all the pieces fit, while remaining in pieces, and stacking, climbing up to the chorus, which climbs up to the title phrase, another seemingly small piece of something, ending abruptly, with the implications, as veterans tend to do, no matter how they take you detail-wise (all about rations, budgets, markers).Damien Jurado, with Jenna Conrad (who wrote) “Best Dress”: like Richard and Linda Thompson gone way secular, with theswaying, just-getting started anthem of the couple every bartender knows too well. Sugarland, “Already Gone”: not an Eagles cover, and Jennifer Nettles isn’t in oversell this time. Sexuality a redolent given, in memory yet green, and yet she sounds like Reba—plus, in the video, the guy finally has a new hat! LeeAnn Womack, “Last Call”: the (somewhut) younger Carmela Soprano, already smoldering through the winter of her discontent.

dow, Sunday, 14 December 2008 05:00 (sixteen years ago)

There were some more comments, like the later ones about Arthur, and about Waylon, prev. posted, and more to come, but it'll all get rounded up for the blog mix later on.

dow, Sunday, 14 December 2008 05:02 (sixteen years ago)

Come on dude. I mean, Drive By Truckers and Damien Jurado are pushing it, but Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh ain't no one's idea of country. I mean, if there are no standards, where does it end? Pissed Jeans?

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Sunday, 14 December 2008 06:41 (sixteen years ago)

First listens:

The Road Hammers Blood Sweat & Steel: Consistently rocking Southern chug-chug out of Canada, blues-gon' metal riffing. Singing is only adequate, but adequate it is. Pretty good set.

James McMurtry Just Us Kids: Good growl and slop from voice and guitar. Best when groove is on; much duller when it relies on Springsteen-style storytelling. (Not that I've paid much attention to the stories and lyrics yet - but they seem to get in the way, from what I've heard. So I basically like the stuff at the beginning that Don derided upthread as sludge, nod out on the rest.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 14 December 2008 12:04 (sixteen years ago)

Anthony Easton's often interesting country ballot (received via email):

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2008:

Brad Paisley Play

Ignore the actual songs here, they are either goopy or inappropriately jokey and admit that it not nearly as much of an independent gesture as he thinks it was, nevertheless it was a masterful extension/synthesis of the guitar as a country and rock instrument.

Toby Keith That Don't Make Me a Bad Guy

Country's primary libertine continues his long streak of odes to pleasure but not devotion. He still is as obsessed with women, booze, and a feral seeking of pleasure, the older he gets, the less apologetic he is about these pleasures,in a Nashville that seems to be more blanched and less outlaw, it's nice to have someone conquer Bocephus's crown.

Kellie Pickler

I always assumed that people who were young and recording were neither stupid, and had a sense of autonomy, that and a continued love of artifice, means defending the seemingly indefensible. This album was so much a Xerox of more effective albums, singles, singers. It has the angry break up songs of Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood, the mawkish and reactionary odes to pseudo-empowerment of Martina McBride, the teenage longing of Taylor Swift—it is so calculating, and I do not think she is smart enough to pull it off. All of that said, the album grabbed me, it made me feel sad where I was supposed to be, angry where I needed to bed, and turned on when she wanted me to do be. The twang was nice, and the songs were technically competent, and all of these things added up to something more significant then its mediocre whole. To put it another way, some of the magic of popular music, is the ability to emotionally manipulate the listener, and have that listener either not notice, or enjoy the experience---Pickle is a master at this.

Jenny Lewis Acid Tongue

What Laurel Canon grew up to be, lovely and difficult, melodic and broken.

Ricky Skaggs Honouring the Fathers of Bluegrass

You all know what this sounds like, and it does not disappoint. Skaggs is so good at just doing what he needs to do, no muss, no fuss, up the scales, down the scales, a little super fast picking, and on to the next track. Something so seemless, and so devoted to a minor craft, should be amply rewarded.

Dolly Parton Backwoods Barbie

Something interesting has happened here, Dolly's crystalline voice has grown older, and it can no longer do the adventitious sweeps that it used to. So she chooses material that is lower on the register, but there is nothing missing. She has done an album of summing up, of life experiences, and of history, that seems new. The new voice now allows a gravitas that was always present, but sometimes lost in the hair and the tits and the soprano.

7.The Baseball Project, Various Artists

I like the idea of using the most clichéd of American metaphors to tell stories about failure, loss and devotion. That it manages to be nostalgic, and self reflexive about its nostalgia is charmingly necessary, that it manages to be a serious moral document, while still be historical, and frankly, fun, would be an almost impossible task.

George Jones Burn This Playhouse Down

Hearing the Possum sing is pure pleasure, even if the duet shtick is a little dated.

Glenn Campbell Meet Glenn Cambell

There is something to be said, about how artificial, and how earnest Campbell has always been, how seamless the oily production matched the domestic melodrama of songs like Galveston or Wichita Linesman. Listening to him doing the American Recording thing, with a set of incongruous covers, one is reminded of how slippery earnestness can be. Campbell cannot slide by on Cash's gravitas or Nelson's democratic vistas, so he has his charm, and his sadness, and one is forced to spend a lot of time processing exactly what he is doing, exactly how meta he is being, especially since his voice is shot with too much booze and not in a whiskey and gravel pleasantness. It becomes fascinating in it's instability.

Jonathan Rundman Insomniaccomplishment

This Lutheran singer-songwriter, has been playing music, figuring out Jesus, and begging grace for two decades, this small and very intimate suite of songs done in the middle of the night while his children sleep, has a writing that is sophisticated, a music that is deceptively simple, and a discussion of issues that are vital but often forgotten.

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2008:

Kenny Chesney and the Wailers Everyone Wants to Get to Heaven

I keep trying to figure out the racial politics of Chesney's cultural tourism, I suspect that it has some of the same problems as Paul Simon's relationship to Los Lobos or Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which is a problem that needs to acknowledge before anything else is written about this song. I like how the song swings, the percussion is excellent, the chorus is polyphonic, and anything that injects new instrumentation into an often moribund chart is appreciated. Plus, he is looking forward, and his cult of nostalgia was getting a little tiring.

Dean Brody Undone

He's an Alberta boy, now in Nashville, which might mean that I am a bit biased plus he is really cute, so my critical acuity is suspect, but his voice is lovely and young, the music is laid back, and he just doesn't reach. The album can be lazy, and the writing needs work, but this one song, about driving out to the country, having a picnic, with someone special, is full of precise details over a bed of accoustic guitars. Pretty and low key in a way that suggests Brody has a future.

Josh Turner Everything is Fine.

The song does not have a but, and this might make me a sap, but in a year of both disaster and hope, of crashing disasters and rising hopes, to have someone say the basic gifts of living—a truck that works, a steady job, somewhere to be on a Sunday morning, people that love you and people you love, is fine—and fine, that even keel without any rapids, is something to praise the lord for, is a message that sets me right and reminds me of my priorities.

Justin Moore Back that Thing Up

First things first, more country songs should have chicken noises in them and more videos should have women with very little clothing using a cross cut saw. Second things second, is the coded ode to anal that we have been waiting for, sort of a Baby Got Back for the jocks in the pick ups—because it does have an undeniable erotic frisson, or in the words of my friend RM Vaughn "He keeps calling himself Daddy, and he looks 11 years old!!! That is a type of genius, I guess. Idiot savant type. Not that I wouldn't blow him." (for the record, he is definitely on the list of people I would let blow me) All joking aside, this is sort of like Honky Tonk Bandonkadonk—something so camp and absurd that it starts as so bad it's good and then moves into pure fun. Living in Toronto now, I have yet to see the obligatory line dance, but I suspect everyone west of Winnipeg has it memorised.

Carrie Underwood Just A Dream

Domestic melodrama at its red neck best, a Douglas Sirk mini-epic, with that heart breaking voice that moves somewhere between singing and talking, that skates on the edge of total collapse, the one line take away "a pregnant war widow at 18", says more about the murderous and particularity inept American foreign policy then all of Nashville in the last 8 years , and I am glad that someone has mainstream as Underwood is finally speaking angrily at such senseless loss.

Randy Travis Faith in You

Delicious piano, and that sensuous croon, understated with a nice little pick up in the middle, and all about middle aged regret and the redemptive power of love, but as a series of socratic questions and gnomic decelerations---and it kind of makes me lonely, and kind of reminds me of my mama, and it makes me hopeful that I will find a husband and have children—what else do you need from a country song.

Eric Church Two Pink Lines

One of three songs about being knocked up that charted this year, this one gets the nod for having a pretty awesome central rock riff, and an innovative real time structure. Plus it has at my favourite verse of the year:

Yeah I was foolish and wild
she was classic and regal
we were fresh out of school, both barely legal
we were young and on fire and just couldn't wait
six weeks in, she was three weeks late

8.Shooter Jennings This Ol' Road

On Chelsea Lately, he admitted to not being very country, but he named his daughter Alabama, and likes speed more then coke, plus he loves his daddy, and for some reason they let him play the Ryman this year, but this single works like a bulldozer, laying flat personal history, genre differences, and family legend into one smooth rock riff.

Danielle Peck Bad for ME

Mostly for the twang, and how she sings the vowels in don't and won't

Lee Ann Womack—Last Call

Drunk and exhausted, a sort of louche desire to do wrong, and a moral responsibility to preserve the self, plus cleverly meta with out being obnoxious about it, and so bloody lonely, makes me want to drink myself into oblivion.

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2008:

1. Tim McGraw Best of Vol. 3

More Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country

Why are all the best, histoicizng releases, that talk about the diversity of Country, coming out of Germany?

Best of Bob Dylan's Old Time Theme Radio Hour

Cheesy jokes, sweet little titbits of unknown information, an exquisite curatorial sense, and Dylan sounds like he is having fun, for perhaps the first time ever.

The Best Of The Johnny Cash TV Show: 1969-1971
In this two years, on national television, Johnny Cash played with, among others, Mel Tillis, Kris Kristofferson, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan and James Taylor. Each of these songs allows for both the best of Cash, and the best of who he is playing with, suggesting a lack of purity and a generosity of spirit that the best artists internalise.

5 Shel Silverstein Boy Named Sue and His Other Country Songs

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:

Josh Turner

He is slowing down a bit, becoming more confident in his ability to deliver without perfection, and his learning how to use that bullfrog croak, he has moved from a brilliant technical singer, to someone more complicated and beautiful.

Eric Church

Rockabilly talk-singing, ballad crooning, and almost everything in between, the ability to move his voice to the narrative needs of the texts in question is almost unparalleled.

3. Kid Rock

I like how he has used what can be learnt from both rock and hip-hop and then re-contextualised it into a country argot.

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:

Heidi Newfield

Listen to her live, for someone so young, she refuses to go to bombast, and in a delightful new trend, there is no real need for her to lose the lovely accent. Can be sweetly jazzy when she needs to be.

Carrie Underwood

She can sing. She knows how to deliver her lines, she knows that singing is at least part acting, and the emotional rawness is held in check by a devotion to technical perfection.

3.Jenny Lewis

Eccentric, and in control of an instrument that should not really be recording, without devotion to strangeness for it's own sake, Newsom should take notes.

COUNTRY MUSIC'S BEST LIVE ACT OF 2008:

Weston Johnson

Sweet kid singing all your favourite country hits via youtube live from his Wisconsin dorm room, his placement on this list is mostly a convenient excuse to point out some of the most interesting live singing is coming electronically, in a culture that sort of requires this constant documentation of media sources, the idea of live singing as going somewhere m,ight be heading to the same place as the album format. That said, the intimacy, his controlling of texts, his wavering voice, and his gentility make me wish the best for him.

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2008:

1. Rodney Crowell

2. Dolly Parton

3.Toby Keith

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2008:

1. The Roys

2. The Wreckers

3.

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2008:

1. Heidi Newfield

2. Jennifer Hansen

3.Dean Brody

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2008:

1. Toby Keith

2. Shooter Jennings

3.Carrie Underwood

xhuxk, Sunday, 14 December 2008 15:21 (sixteen years ago)

Never heard Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh myself, so I can't vouch for whether there's anything country about them. One of the albums on Anthony's list -- the Baseball Project one -- I deemed to be less than 20 percent country-related myself, and therefore not qualified for my own ballot. Not sure why Don didn't vote for Arthur Russell and Waylong as reissues (actually, when was the Waylon Forever stuff recorded? My copy came with neither a press release nor liner notes, and I haven't googled), though I guess it;s never-before-released recordings (albeit probably all more than five years old, hence a reissue by Nashville Scene rules, but why split hairs?)

Artist on Don's list I'm most curious about now by virtue of them having a silly name: Backyard Tire Fire.

xhuxk, Sunday, 14 December 2008 15:28 (sixteen years ago)

Didn't get what was country about Blitzen Trapper when I heard their snooze of a nerd-rock album earlier this year, either. (Posted about that upthread back in September.) And what Jenny Lewis I've heard never hit me as country, either (much less interesting), though admittedly I've never spent much time with any of her music.

Curious whether all the '07 releases on Anthony's lists just came out later in Canada, or whether he just took a while to get to them. (Either way is fine; just mainly wondering what the release lag is in that direction.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 14 December 2008 16:03 (sixteen years ago)

More first listens:

Randy Houser Anything Goes: Made intellectual history several years back when he and Jamey Johnson and Dallas Davidson wrote "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk." Has a voice like Ronnie Dunn's though not nearly as distinctive or evocative, but big enough to take care of the ballads and flexible enough for soft soul. Comes through on the hard blues-rockers and on the weepers, and doesn't seem to write bad songs.

Trace Adkins X: Got a great deep voice, doesn't always have pace or sense, so this is better than I thought it'd be - especially "Better Than I Thought It'd Be." Also "Sweet," where the chick he brings home to mom can't cook or sew but, he explains, has other merits, and what she's got is sweet.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 14 December 2008 16:58 (sixteen years ago)

Couldn't find "Death Letter" on MySpace or YouTube but did locate some other Helena Espvall - generally plinking or scraping mood fragments on classical instruments but did include a drifting arty-folkie bit of Trad-Brit called "Klingklang Traditional," acoustic geetar an' all, so I can imagine that a version of "Death Letter" - assuming it's the old blues - could register as within a stone's throw of country, even if the performers themselves are generally leagues away.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 14 December 2008 17:15 (sixteen years ago)

(Houser also wrote the country "Back That Azz Up." The man is versatile.)

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 14 December 2008 17:26 (sixteen years ago)

Adkins' "Sweet" actually annoyed me. It struck me as a way more cynical (and less good) (probably at least in part because less convincingly trashy) version of "Trashy Women" by Confederate Railroad. May grow on me, though.

Listening to the new (due early '09) Buddy & Julie Miller CD. Have never connected with them, despite others' consistent raves. Don't think I'm gonna connect with this one, either.

xhuxk, Sunday, 14 December 2008 20:49 (sixteen years ago)

"Death Letter" is on E&B's self-titled album, and yeah it's the old country blues song, very spooked, very you-are-there, and a "nowhere is now here", as Col. Bruce would say. Yeah I should change Arthur and Waylon to Reissues, by def of this ballot:" any album where at least 50% of the performances are more than five years old", even if they are prev. unreleased, as those two are. Good point xhuxx, I'll change those and re-send, was about to re-send anyway, with some typos fixed and comments added. thx

dow, Sunday, 14 December 2008 20:57 (sixteen years ago)

Oh yeah xxhux: I pasted in a Backyard Tire Fire show preview upthread, and thanks for telling us about Woodbox Gang (bands of a similar sensibilty, though Woodbox seem stylistically more like Mungo Jerry or Holy Modal Rounders, kinda)

dow, Sunday, 14 December 2008 21:02 (sixteen years ago)

Here's my Nashville Scene ballot. Didn't have time to go back and reevaluate Lady Antebellum, Carter's Chord, Montgomery Gentry, Phil Vassar, Amanda Shaw, or The Mother Truckers. Never did hear the Woodbox Gang LP, though I liked the three tracks from it I found on MySpace.

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2008:

1. Willie Nelson - Moment Of Forever
2. Jamey Johnson - That Lonesome Song
3. Taylor Swift - Fearless
4. Heidi Newfield - What Am I Waiting For
5. Ashton Shepherd - Sounds So Good
6. Brittini Black - Good Happens
7. Dolly Parton - Backwoods Barbie
8. James McMurtry - Just Us Kids
9. Randy Houser - Anything Goes
10. The Road Hammers - Blood, Sweat & Steel

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2008:

1. Taylor Swift "Should've Said No"
2. Willie Nelson "You Don't Think I'm Funny Anymore"
3. Taylor Swift "You're Not Sorry"
4. Allison Moorer "Dancing Barefoot"
5. Jessica Simpson "Come On Over"
6. Ashton Shepherd "Takin' Off This Pain"
7. Toby Keith "She's A Hottie"
8. Jamey Johnson "In Color"
9. Taylor Swift "Love Story"
10. Carrie Underwood "Just A Dream"

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2008:

1. Toby Keith - 35 Biggest Hits

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:

1. Toby Keith
2. Jamey Johnson
3. Trace Adkins

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2008:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Trisha Yearwood
3. Brittini Black

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2008:

-

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2008:

1. Randy Houser
2. Jamey Johnson
3. Brittini Black

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2008:

1. The Road Hammers
2. Carter's Chord
3. The Mother Truckers

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2008:

1. Heidi Newfield
2. Ashton Shepherd
3. Brittini Black

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2008:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Willie Nelson
3. Jamey Johnson

COMMENTS: We were staring at a brick house in Denver, and a teenager said, "This brick house is like a ton of clichés." Well, you had to be there for this to make sense, but the house was sitting in its brick obviousness, at least that's how it hit us. Anyway, Ashton Shepherd sounds like a caricature of country music, a twang as wide as rivers are deep, no heart left unwrenched, no string untugged, the result being uncannily gleeful and exuberant; then at the end, "Whiskey Won The Battle" - as clichéd as the rest - is a gutkick of total conviction. Country song of the year, except maybe for Willie Nelson's "The Bob Song," a cover of some old Big & Rich fanpack folderol about a guy sitting in his tree taking the piss out of everything he sees, or something, Willie turning it into utter beauty. Brittini Black last told a joke in third grade, in response to which the mean boy next to her twisted her arm behind her back, squashing all silliness like Godzilla stomping a bunch of foreclosed houses. (Oh! Woe! The economy is bad!) So Brittini laments pawn shop angels and runs wild with the horses. Excellently passionate. Meanwhile, Jamey Johnson sings a forest of tears, tells us the reality was even more vivid than the song, more complicated, worse and better. James McMurtry throws up a screen of Springsteenish words between me and him, only crosses through when his voice goes to growls and slops, and the guitars to gurgling sludge. Taylor Swift is determined and tenuous and confident and wavering and incandescent and the time is hers and behind it all is a bomb of pain, and this pain has a name, and its name is "boys." Dolly Parton is only eight years older than I am, so I hate to say this, but her voice has creaks and scratches; but she also has songs, does better on the ones she wrote than on the ones she borrowed, scratching her way into the old sadness of "Only Dreaming" and "Cologne." Randy Houser never came up with his voice in the first place, aims for Ronnie Dunn, is neither as distinctive nor as evocative, a player who'll end up doing better as a coach, gets across anyway, on songwriting and smarts, rocks without being hard, is sentimental without being dumb. The Road Hammers' singing is only adequate, but adequate it is, as the music rides the mighty hammer.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 15 December 2008 04:32 (sixteen years ago)

Don't know why you wouldn't get into most of McM's words, unless it might take more listening, but otherwise, you provide some intriguing leads (I've yet to hear Willie's Moment of Forever, or the Toby collection; otherwise, they might well have made my list--gotta rectify)

dow, Monday, 15 December 2008 05:03 (sixteen years ago)

You're right that McM will take more listening, but he's too much Here Are My Stories About Characters In Songs (as opposed to 95% of country music, which is stories about characters in songs).

(I'm resorting to capitalization in lieu of explanation.)

(Not that I'm necessarily against distancing devices - love 'em when undertaken by someone like Eminem who claims distance and then dares you to think the distance isn't really there. But I don't think McM's narrative style is particularly meant to be distancing; it just is distancing.)

You've probably heard everything on the Toby collection except "Hottie." Is just a double hits LP.

Frank Kogan, Monday, 15 December 2008 14:27 (sixteen years ago)

I would say the specificity of McMurtry's stories and characters, and the momentum of his delivery, more than make up for any perceived detachment (much in the way it's worked with, say, Hold Steady in the past, or people who the new McMurtry album reminded me like say Warren Zevon or T-Bone Burnett in the far more distant past, or any number of rappers including yeah Eminem but probably more to the point guys like say Buck 65.) Though I still do have serious reservations about McMurtry's delivery myself, probably stated up above and definitely stated in the past on other threads (such as especially one about a No Depression poll he won a few years ago, which the search engine isn't helping me find)..

xhuxk, Monday, 15 December 2008 15:51 (sixteen years ago)

You mean his vocal delivery? I like it, but his tunes, guitar and band help a lot (check a live "Choctaw Bingo" that might still be on his MySpace)

dow, Monday, 15 December 2008 17:36 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, I mean vocal -- His singing has always struck me as a little wooden. But way less so on this new album, and right: He finally has the music to support himself, seems like.

xhuxk, Monday, 15 December 2008 17:52 (sixteen years ago)

Always like to see the middle-aged artists continue to improve! Doesn't happen that often. But also, especially with the lifers, you get a range of goodness (certainly true Dylan, and even Shakespeare: Hamlet and King Lear and uh mebbe something else be his peaks, and then you look down the ridges, plateaus, etc., get a flow chart of quality). Also, especially with lifers, long-distance runners/waddlers etc,the listening/evaluating experience can be much better for the digestion if you take the artist as representing country, rock, whatever tags apply, rather than weighing him or her down with any absolute "category" of Artist (so McM and Dyl in with Willie, Merle, Toby, Tim McG, as well as any other comparisons/Great Expectations, in a non-absolute sense--which tends to lead to Canon Police on one hand and autohype or hero worship on the other, and admixtures of those [as Paul Nelson tended to do])

dow, Monday, 15 December 2008 18:14 (sixteen years ago)

(and McM's moving his stiff/heavy approach from plod to thud more often, which is good, see Thud Rock thread)

dow, Monday, 15 December 2008 18:17 (sixteen years ago)

And ballot notes from '06, among those on thefreelancementalist.blogsopt.com:
Childish Things: James McMurtry's bent, scorched, barb-wire guitar, especially on "We Can't Make It Any More," isn't charred, done, reduced, like a truly crispy critter. Instead,it pulls the shrinking, reductively raging range of this song's lyrics (which don't include the *mixture* of America, the good and bad stuff tangled up) through the fire. And then their pulled-forward rage pushes the rest of the music past (or much further into) the expected display of countryoid boogiestentialism. (With a Reedy harmonic wrinkle or two.) I associate this grim lil pill's process with the way the bad, reduced/reductive American stuff can work with the good, for the better. Not that this happens very often anywhere, so when it does, it's Top Ten!

dow, Monday, 15 December 2008 21:33 (sixteen years ago)

Yes, if I must mention it at all, get it right:
http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com

dow, Monday, 15 December 2008 21:38 (sixteen years ago)

More thought on the country back-that-azz-up video:

http://idolator.com/5111099/no-51-justin-moores-back-that-thing-up-video

By the way (referring to a comment on Anthony Easton's ballot), Zac Brown Band's "Chicken Fried" has chicken noises in it, too right? 2008 was a pretty good year for chickens.

(Also -- I think we talked about this theme before -- Zac Brown Band might kind of count as an "underground"/alt band crossing over to the country charts a la Pat Green and Jack Ingram before, right? Except I get the idea Zac had mainly played for Bonnaroo types, or at least their regional equivalent. Were they ever actually considered a "jam band," I wonder?) (Not far from Hootie Rucker's early pre-superstardom audience too, I'm guessing)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 18:58 (sixteen years ago)

Sort of a skiffle effect on "Chicken Fried" (how's the album?) So, for that track anyway, not too far from Woodbox Gang or the earlier, more barefootin'/unplugged Backyard Tire Fire (archived on their eponymous site)

dow, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 19:39 (sixteen years ago)

The Gaslight Anthem The '59 Sound Don't know where to put this and it's Americana, so here by default.

Heavily influenced by late period Replacements and some Hold Steady, I think. Which makes it sound hand-wringingly sincere and Bruce Springsteen as filtered through indie types. Lots of ringing guitars but not in the classic rock sense ala Tom Petty. Ringing guitars in the sense that everything sounds the same and indie after fifteen minutes and all the guitar solos are octave riffs and nothing ever sounds like Chuck Berry or Little Richard.

Guys singing about standing in the pounding Jersey rain. Forget this dead man's town! O-ooo-oo-oh-o---ooh! Yo-ho! Eesh. Fuck me, why do I get sucked in by stuff like this? Just ain't my style. When I think of the '59 Fullerton Fender guitar sound, I don't think Jersey/Long Island bar band as reinterpreted by dudes doing the indie thing. Why doesn't this stuff ever sound like the Norman Nardini's or Joe Gruschecky's of the real genre. Makes the Mudcrutch album earlier this year sound inspired.

Can you believe they've actually entitled songs "The Patient Ferris Wheel" and "Here's Looking at You, Kid"?

Gorge, Friday, 19 December 2008 22:06 (sixteen years ago)

Ha, I was actually wondering this morning (after hearing so many people's "Springsteen-type bar band" claims in year-end top 10 writeups) whether I should have checked out Gaslight Anthem. Thanks for letting me off the hook, George. (Though I still might give it a listen, should a copy fall into my lap.)

Meanwhile, I wouldn't have guessed this: Only album in any genre to make three of the four NY Times critics' year-end top 10 lists in Sunday's paper (Chinen, Ratliff, Caramanica) is by....not Lil Wayne (2 lists), not TV on the Radio (2 lists), but...Jamey Johnson. Weird. Seems like there's sort of a year-end groundswell for the record; Rolling Stone placed it at their #32 for the year, and Jody Rosen at Slate (who I should read more) made it his #3. Which I'm guessing means it seems like a shoo-in now to place within the Pazz & Jop Top 40, if that means anything at all at this late date. Could even finish higher than Taylor Swift, maybe. (Caramanica, who also top-tenned both Swift and Darius Rucker -- not to mention, uh, Gaslight Anthem as his #3 -- made Johnson his #1 album, just like I am. Seems like lots of critics who list it are listing it fairly high on their lists, so high P&J point-to-voters ratio should help it out. Not that I expect anybody at the Voice to compute that math anymore.)

Rosen at Slate listed a lot of other country albums and singles among his favorites, which are here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2206848/entry/2206850/

xhuxk, Saturday, 20 December 2008 17:30 (sixteen years ago)

Oops...actually, Pareles listed the Johnson album, not Ratliff.

Christgau, on the other hand, has no use for the thing. I disagree with a lot of what he says at this link below (from the same Slate discussion as that Rosen link), starting with his condescending assertion that those dumb hicks are just trying to keep up with us smart city folks, but what the hell:

http://www.slate.com/id/2206848/entry/2207241/

My initial attraction to Shepherd and another Jody fave, the Cool Kids, failed to deepen after too many exposures; Jody fave Sugarland (also cited by Ann last time) I'll buy for a coupla singles (including the glorious womanist "Take Me as I Am"); and his beloved Jamey Johnson, which he Absolutely Guaranteed when he hipped me to it months ago, will be a Dud in the next Consumer Guide. Johnson's drug-advisory "High Cost of Living" resembles Blake Shelton's environmentalism-tweaking "Green" (That's funny? I'll take my hundredth replay of Elmo and Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" any day) in begrudgingly acknowledging a pointy-headed urban modernity it doesn't understand as well as it presumes. I sympathize with the messages of both. But I got minimal pleasure and learned not a thing from either—not even about country music. Hayes Carll's "She Left Me for Jesus" on Ann's singles list? That one goes somewhere. But he's really an alt-"Americana" guy.

He also thinks critics are vastly underrating this year's Drive By Truckers' '08 album (which I at first thought wasn't bad, at least compared to their last few albums, but which dragged more -- like, 2/3 of the record, easy -- the more time I spent with it; I eventually decided the tedium wasn't worth the trouble.):

I promised myself that in my first post I'd put in a good word for the most underrated album of the year. I've been playing the Drive-By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark for more than a year—it was one of my last reviews before Rolling Stone offed me. It never quits. Anyone who knows the band knows what songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley can be. Here they're never anything else—they have three songs in the top 25, Lil Wayne only one. Hood's best work is about what Obama calls the middle class—small-time entrepreneurs, the local gay guy, a couple of GIs. Cooley's focus is more countercultural—the rocker's life. The compassion in these songs is never-ending, and the melodies range from better-than-average to unforgettable. Stylistically, however, they're kind of retro boogie, Skynyrd sans soloists, and Hood's rough voice wouldn't pull you in if the words didn't. Maybe that's why they've been shut out in the year-end lists of Blender, Spin, or Stone. It's an outrage nevertheless.

xhuxk, Saturday, 20 December 2008 17:42 (sixteen years ago)

He doesn't mention that the DBTs are also Skynyrd sans rhythm section, and frequently sans hooks, but whatever.

I also wonder where precisely Bob thinks Hayes Carrl's "She Left Me For Jesus" "goes." The concept struck me as cute the first time or two (just like Shelton's "Green," actually), but increasingly shallow and obvious once the initial cuteness wore off. Don't think it's even one of the best songs on Carrl's extremely uneven album (which Xgau has at #8 on his year-end album list.) (Like Frank says above, Carrl is basically a folkie. Not a mortal sin, if you're a good one, though it does make Xgau's "I was an outspoken 'poppist' myself, though back then the opposition was folkies, not 'rockists'" at that link above maybe a little more ironic than intended.)

xhuxk, Saturday, 20 December 2008 17:52 (sixteen years ago)

Why did discussion of Auto-Tune become the novelty? Someone wrote about it in LA Times Calendar (Chris Lee) with reference to T-Pain a bit over a month ago. And music pubs went copycat over the subject, (why? was there a universal press release?) thus ensuring that everyone who reads entertainment writing knows T-Pain uses Auto-Tune (even if they've never heard him) and he's chapped at those who copycat his style.

But on the records I've been listening to, it's use as a correction was either in decline or a more subtle than it was -- say -- three to five years ago. For at least a decade, most people with any sense have realized you never had to use computerized error correction to make a worthless singer work in any format of pop music. The only record I listened to repeatedly where overuse made it's pipe organ quality stick out was with Axl Rose on Chinese Democracy.

Or maybe I've heard it so much my brain does an auto-error correction and subtracts it out from what comes out of the speakers.

Gorge, Saturday, 20 December 2008 18:16 (sixteen years ago)

This was the best quote -- perhaps unintentionally hilarious -- from the LA Times piece.

“As I was ending my rap career, I was thinking about switching to singing full time,” T-Pain, 23, said. “If I was going to sing, I didn’t want to sound like everybody else. I just wanted something to make me different. Auto-Tune was the one. So I just stuck with that effect.”

The article states that T-Pain-style Auto-Tune, which I've still not heard, is the "new normal" in hip-hop. Which explains why I don't hear an obvious overuse of Auto-Tune on the records I bought this year. As for radio in Pasadena, not much T-Pain or Lil' Wayne on the airwaves in this section of town.

Gorge, Saturday, 20 December 2008 18:25 (sixteen years ago)

Music journalists have been writing about auto-tune ad nauseum for the past two years--and they always mention T-Pain & Cher.

President Keyes, Saturday, 20 December 2008 19:34 (sixteen years ago)

True. Speaking of bar bands, or pub rock, that live Carla Olson & The Textones album is pretty decent Words matter to her,and social life as fun & danger-they do the song Dylan gave her, "Clean-Cut Kid"("They took a clean-cut kid a killer outta him") and some other good covers and originals, but never get too preachy or melodramtic (even the sax is okay, despite being very 80s; never gets or takes too much airspace). Oh yeah, and the drummer is Phil Seymour of the Dwight Twilly Band; he even sings lead on a couple tunes, way better than his solo hit,"Can't Let You Go," which he doesn't reprise here, thankfully.It's no masterpiece, but pretty good. Now I should listen to the double-disc collection of her work with Mick Taylor (did they play with Dylan at the same time? Any legit tracks of that, if so) Wonder how her albums with Gene Clark are, I've got those reissues too, somewhere (Clark's Silverado Live, which came about around the same time as the live album and the Taylor collab collection, is pretty decent West Coast country rock etc, pretty spare musically, tho couple of songs have some kind of purple rants in their baggy pants)(also a couple of co-writes with founding Flying Burrito/Eagle Bernie Leadon, from when the Eagles were better)

dow, Saturday, 20 December 2008 21:44 (sixteen years ago)

"They took a clean-cut kid, made a killer outta him" that is.

dow, Saturday, 20 December 2008 21:45 (sixteen years ago)

Lex-Nex search for Auto-Tune, all English language news stories, last 90 days.

Your search produced 298 documents

Keep in mind, if you've never used Nexis, that some of these are wire things which are duplicated, triplicated and quadruplicated in small newspapers which also feed the database. However, by any standard, use of it lately has been excessive and/or driven by imitation.

Speaking of bar bands, or pub rock, that live Carla Olson & The Textones album is pretty decent

There are two of these as reissues I've seen and wondered about. One is The Textones Live, without Mick Taylor. The other is a double with Mick Taylor, including a live performance with the tunes Don mentions and another bonus disc, presumably studio.

Gaslight Symphony manage to squeeze every shred of R&B, basic rock 'n' roll and what Jersey bar bands actually sounded like up close and sweaty in the Eighties. I'm sure they don't hear it that way. But they were probably collectively about five when this stuff was stock.

Mostly, it must be romantic love for the genre that results in the hosannas to Bruce-lite lyrics. There's also the hand-wringing sincerity shtick, as substitute for sonically putting the hammer down. 'Cuz I never hear any Michael Stanley -- who could be pretty soppy -- or Southside Johnny, or even the Brit iterations, like Graham Parker.

Gorge, Saturday, 20 December 2008 21:56 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, the one I was talking about is credited to Carla Olson & The Textones, title is Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased. The one I haven't listened to yet is Carla Olson & Mick Taylor, Too Hot For Snakes Plus,a two-CD set including their 1990 live set, which also sported Ian McLagan, Barry Goldberg and ("blues harp maestro")John Juke Logan. Second disc is selected from three Carla solo albums, all featuring Mick.

dow, Sunday, 21 December 2008 02:07 (sixteen years ago)

I listened to some songs from The Gaslight Anthem The '59 Sound online and don't get the appeal at all. Gorge's description is on the mark

curmudgeon, Sunday, 21 December 2008 15:58 (sixteen years ago)

LOL at both xhuxk AND Christgau STILL mixing up Cooley and Hood of DBT.

Jamey Johnson album is much better than it oughta be (dude wrote "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" for criminy) but methinks he's playing up the 'outlaw' thing a bit too much

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Sunday, 21 December 2008 18:40 (sixteen years ago)

9. Ashton Shepherd, "Sounds So Good" (MCA Nashville). There are debut albums, and then there are debut albums that serve notice that the landscape has changed.
--Ken Tucker, 2008 Billboard Critics Choice Top 10s

I have no clue why he would think this. Any idea?

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 21 December 2008 20:05 (sixteen years ago)

Christgau's number one album was by Franco, and his number one single was on the soundtrack to a movie featuring James Franco.

Frank Kogan, Sunday, 21 December 2008 20:34 (sixteen years ago)

methinks he's playing up the 'outlaw' thing a bit too much

Where does he do this, though? Well, I guess there's the song where he misses Waylon's kind of music, and there's the one where he files Johnson between Jennings and Jones (both of which seem kind of minor), but where else? I know other writers have called the record "outlaw country," but it's not a connection I would have made (or did make) myself while listening to the record -- not like I would have with, say, Shooter Jennings or Hank III even Kid Rock (all of whom do play it up more). Outside of Waylon similarities in his voice, I don't even think Jamey Johnson sounds especially outlaw country. It almost seems like it's a title that's been pinned on him, rather than one he begged for. (But then, I think people tend to overstate his traditionalism too, as I say at the link below -- where I wish Idolator wouldn't have used a couple- year old photo, and would instead have used one I refer to, the more demonic looking one from this year where he looks like he should be in Neurosis):

http://idolator.com/5111892/no-48-jamey-johnson-that-lonesome-song

xhuxk, Sunday, 21 December 2008 20:49 (sixteen years ago)

Some other year-end Idolator writeups I did, fwiw:

Ross Johnson:

http://idolator.com/5106137/no-68-make-it-stop-the-most-of-ross-johnson

Daveigh Chase, "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA":

http://idolator.com/5111902/no-47-daveigh-chase-sings-the-happiest-girl-in-the-whole-usa-on-hbos-big-love

Miley Cyrus, "See You Again":

http://idolator.com/5112996/no-41-miley-cyrus-see-you-again

xhuxk, Sunday, 21 December 2008 20:54 (sixteen years ago)

Hmmm, does anyone who reads Idolator buy records? Do they buy anything, other than consumables? Rhetorical.

I often think the same thing when I read the Calender section in the LA Times. Whenever one of the staff reporters gets enthusiastic about the world of freetardism I wonder why they're cheering for their own layoff.

One thinks maybe Wal-mart should start a music magazine because the company's proven their customers will still buy CDs.

Gorge, Sunday, 21 December 2008 21:35 (sixteen years ago)

Have to check those, and see the whole Tucker comment to make(or not make) sense of such a line. Meanwhile, I did listen to the Carla Olson & Mick Taylor twofer, Too Hot For Snakes Plus. She says in the notes she discovered Taylor from Mayall's albums, not the Stones, and that figures, in her taste for and skilled mining of the Albert Collins/Freddie King/Albert King/Buddy Guy-schooled blues-for-rockers-and-r&b-heads that Mayall and well-chosen employees like Taylor specialized in, in the early and mid-60s. ("For" rockers in that they allowed various Kings etc, and their sharper students to compete with and then enter the growing market of rock and r & b). It's flashy,but with attention to dynamics--one's own, and everybody else's--which goes with the rueful, restless, sometimes eloquent inventory of social tides: romance, friendship, crowds. Country compatible that way, especially since contemporary country draws so much on previous (but already ageing)decades of rock. And I could see Loretta Lynn and Jack White doing right by "You Can't Move In," for isntance. But it's more about the way the good and the bad are so connected: that's the blues of it, the country of it too, and Mick Taylor (and other well-chosen employees/comrades) coming up from under, against the tide/wind etc.(Could see 'em opening for Seger etc) "Tryin' To Hold On" builds creatively on a "Slip Away"-type framework (Carla's Detroit crew does a good cover of the actual "Slip Away"); "Rubies and Diamonds" does the same with the riffage and vibe of "It Takes A Lot To Laugh"(and/or Dylan's own sources for that). Other good co-writes, and covers of "Sway," "Silver Train," and Disc 2 starts with a an extended but thoughtful take on "Winter," yet (eventually)gets bogged down in what sounds like a too-solo-y edition of the Pretenders. But performed differently (anybody looking for covers?) most of these could work, and some of 'em work anyway, like "Reap The Whirlwind." No prob with "Friends In Baltimore," who ask willfully obtuse questions of a roving muso, until they finally don't even care enough for rhetorical queries (guitar twinges of the phantom connection: they're assholes, maybe they always were, but...)Also, on "Justice," she uses the words of Sterling A. Brown, who I gotta check more of, judging by this verse: "He spoke up at the commissary, and they gave him a date to be out of the county/He didn't go, so/They came for him/And he stayed in the county."

dow, Sunday, 21 December 2008 21:48 (sixteen years ago)

Fox and Bill O'Reilly try to foment culture war between "country" and "pop" music. Why are John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen such public pinko America-hating liberals, yet the country people don't preach to their audiences? Trace Adkins mostly refuses to bite, gets new album plugged.

Hmmm....wondering whether Adkins also managed to promote his book, which I'm now guessing might be why O'Reilly invited him, but which I never realized existed until somebody just wrote into my Rhapsody blog and claimed it's "right up there with Ted Nugent's new fascist piece of crap, advocating bombing the entire middle east, killing the illegal aliens, etc." Anyway, here's a link about said tome:

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345499332.html

xhuxk, Monday, 22 December 2008 00:09 (sixteen years ago)

x-post re: outlaw

I see that Chris Richards (once in Dischord band Q and Not U and more recently a contributor to the Washington Post and Fader magazine) is a Jamey Johnson fan as well. From his blog:

But not all misanthropic, bearded jerkstains are bad news. For instance, Jamey Johnson, whose crushing post-outlaw opus "That Lonesome Song" might end up being my favorite album of 2008. And check out that mane, mayne! It looks like it's been nervously stroked, puked on, scorched with the bong-lighting flames...

Does this make me more sympathetic to the bearded? For sure. And if J.J. somehow manages to get the accolades he so deeply deserves, will he spend his royalty check on a Schick Quattro? I hope not.

http://summerbleeding.blogspot.com/

curmudgeon, Monday, 22 December 2008 00:13 (sixteen years ago)

so glad I don't read "country blogs"

dow, Monday, 22 December 2008 02:51 (sixteen years ago)

not meaning xxhuxx's, which isn't like this guy's, or not too much.

dow, Monday, 22 December 2008 02:55 (sixteen years ago)

methinks he's playing up the 'outlaw' thing a bit too much

Where does he do this, though?

Hmm, I don't know, maybe I got this impression from the intro to his album fer chrissakes, a "skit" involving him being released from prison, followed by several songs about sins and temptation. That, and some recent video sleuthing on CMY shows a disturbing progression from clean-cut Blake Shelton esque cutie pie to rhinestone / cocaine cowboy

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Monday, 22 December 2008 03:44 (sixteen years ago)

Well okay, I give. Thing is, though, sin and redemption in country music are hardly the sole province of outlaws. But yeah, those jail guitar doors at the start can be a pretty blatant signifier, I guess, if you want them to be; I'd for some reason always just heard them as "a really cool way to open the album." And cocaine (not to mention whores) (which, to be fair, only show up in one song, right?) have definite connections to "outlaw country" per se.' And then there's that beard (well-described on that Chris Richards blog, I thought!), which I assume can also be read of part of the conversion Assholes refers to; I should check out those videos, maybe. So yeah, maybe it's weird that none of this added up to "self-conscious outlaw move" to me; probably has to do with the sonic perimeters I put around said country subgenre. (A couple months ago, I did an eight-album "Outlaw Country Essentials" column for Spin, and included Shooter's debut but not Jamey's album from this year, even though I like the latter way more.) Interesting, if as much malice aforethought was put into the change as Assholes implied, that Johnson would think this a viable commercial move (especially with Blake Shelton, say, going in precisely the opposite direction, though he was never as scraggly as Johnson is, and Johnson was never as clean cut as Blake's become, as far as I can tell.) But, from my listening to his last two albums, the move still makes Jamey better, which is what counts. Though I'd be interested in hearing arguments from anyone who actually believes 2006's The Dollar is a better album. (My fellow DBTs confuser Xgau, who I'm pretty sure choice-cutted that album's kinda-sappy-to-my-ears title track, might well fit in that category, come to think of it. I've never even seen a copy of 2002's suppposedly self-released They Call Me Country.) Anyway, I hereby concede that That Lonesome Song is an "art" move in some ways. And such moves frequently if not usually tend to make artists more boring to me. This time, that didn't happen; you could even say I subconsciously bought the dumb old alt-country-type platitude that Johnson was loosening the reins that evil Nashville suits clearly must have had him tied up in, and letting his true self come out. Which, right, is probably utter bullshit. Still a great album, though.

xhuxk, Monday, 22 December 2008 12:41 (sixteen years ago)

(Also, I'm now wondering if it was a viable commercial move. The Dollar peaked at #20 country in Billbaord; That Lonesome Song went to #6, and "In Color" was a slightly bigger single hit -- #10 to #14 -- compared to "The Dollar." Don't seen comparative SoundScan totals handy, though I'm going to guess that all this end-of-year critics' top-10 attention will sell at least a couple copies to curious readers who don't generally pay attention to country radio. Probably even to an alt-country fan or two. Though even then, as I'm sure George would quicky point out, the sales differential will probably prove rather neglible in the long run.)

xhuxk, Monday, 22 December 2008 12:47 (sixteen years ago)

Outlaw became another angle to be worked by dissident pros; Jamey shows still some fresh meat on them bones, if you're smart enough to handle cliches jest rat (Waylon Fovever, finally finished by growed-up Shooter & band, ditto!)

dow, Monday, 22 December 2008 15:43 (sixteen years ago)

xpost

No, Adkins didn't pump his book on O'Reilly. He was there to promote his album and wouldn't be drawn into a political discussion except to say he didn't really care for entertainment industry liberals preaching from the stage. Or any politicking from the stage. Just from this, I'd have to say he's probably more reserved/diplomatic than the Nuge.

Everything Ted writes is aimed at setting up his career on the far right. Haven't caught up with his stuff posted this week, but there are generally two a week: One for the Waco paper and one for Human Events.

A summary of the most recent ridiculous material. Ted calls himself the Motor City Madman, but, of course, he detests the UAW.

The Nugent laundry list

Gorge, Monday, 22 December 2008 17:21 (sixteen years ago)

Don't hear much of an outlaw ethos in Jamey myself, even if he does name-drop Jennings. The jail stint doesn't make him outlaw any more than Merle's jail stint makes him outlaw. The jail stuff is about fucking up, pure and simple, without the Shooter gags about talking your way out of a speed bust etc. I'd put Toby closer to outlaw, in his basic stand-by-your-carousing attitude. This doesn't mean that outlaw isn't part of the stream of influences running into Jamey, but then it's part of the stream of influence running into a lot of current country. The term "outlaw" seems to be part of an old map.

(Then again, the term "country" seems part of an old map.)

Frank Kogan, Monday, 22 December 2008 17:38 (sixteen years ago)

Got this email this morning from Geoff:

I'm accepting comments on the 2008 Country Music Critics Poll through December 29. I'd like your comments on anything, but I'm especially interested in comments on the perennial question of "What Is Country Music?" and on this year's biggest vote-getters: Jamey Johnson, Hayes Carll, Lee Ann Womack, Patty Loveless, Ashton Shepherd, Sugarland, Robert Plant and Hank Williams.

Haven't heard the Womack (I like the single a lot), the Loveless, the Plant (wasn't he 2007? or did he get in one of the non-record categories?), or the Williams (didn't he die several decades ago? or is this Williams III?).

Don, the quote from Tucker on Shepherd is complete as I printed it. (Also saw someone recently call Shepherd "neo-Trad." Was it Xgau? In any event, she's neo-Trad and she's changing the landscape. I guess she's trad in comparison to, I don't know, Jessica Simpson and Taylor Swift. I think "trad" is running pretty close to meaningless at this point.)

Frank Kogan, Monday, 22 December 2008 17:46 (sixteen years ago)

re: Hank Williams

There was a big Unreleased Recordings box that within the last month or so--I assume it's cleaning up in the re-issues category.

re: Ashton Sheppard neo-Trad

There was a lot of pre-release hype about her being the return of Trad Country has been waiting for--based mostly on her debut at the GO Opry where some old timer was quoted saying "This girl has never heard a pop song in her life" (Yeah right.)

President Keyes, Monday, 22 December 2008 18:04 (sixteen years ago)

that (came out) within the last month or so

President Keyes, Monday, 22 December 2008 18:04 (sixteen years ago)

xp Yeah, I was thinking the same thing -- "neo-trad" seems like an early '80s genre in the way "outlaw" is a mid '70s genre. I'm even less clear on what the former would mean now than the latter (maybe Ashton is neo-neo-trad, who knows.) (Then again, as the guy who's made a career out of stretching genre boundaries, not limiting them, I'm the last guy who should be limiting these ones.) And I have no idea why Billboard's Ken Tucker (not to be confused with NPR's Ken Tucker, incidentally) thinks Ashton is changing country's landscape. Jody Rosen, though, thinks Shepard is the "anti-Taylor Swift" (who I bet has more potential to change country's landscape than Shepard does.) Rosen also defends Jamey Johnson after Christgau's criticism, and talks a lot more about 2008 country (and lots of other things), here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2206848/entry/2207289/

Hadn't seen Jody's Jamey Johnson piece before now:

http://www.slate.com/id/2199634/

xhuxk, Monday, 22 December 2008 18:11 (sixteen years ago)

"This girl has never heard a pop song in her life"

Except "Sweet Child O' Mine," maybe?

xhuxk, Monday, 22 December 2008 18:13 (sixteen years ago)

Plant (wasn't he 2007? or did he get in one of the non-record categories?)

Or maybe the single category? (Though that would still have to be with Krauss, right?) (It'd be kind of funny if Robert Plant won Best Male Vocalist in a country poll, though.)

xhuxk, Monday, 22 December 2008 18:21 (sixteen years ago)

(And even funnier if he won Best Female Vocalist -- as in old early '70s Metal Mike Saunders Bobby Crisco Heavy Metal Consumer Guide parody -- Phonograph Record Magazine or some fanzine, I think -- where he called Led Zep's singer "Roberta Plant.")

xhuxk, Monday, 22 December 2008 18:41 (sixteen years ago)

Billboard's Ken Tucker (not to be confused with NPR's Ken Tucker, incidentally)

I had confused them. The latter is an Aly & AJ fan.

Which one of them is the Entertainment Weekly and (a long time ago) rock-critic-occasionally-in-the-Village-Voice* Ken Tucker? Or is that yet a third Ken Tucker? (Or fourth? I'd always assumed the EW TV guy and the rock-critic guy were the same, but that was back when I naively believed that there was only one Ken Tucker. I have since become a polytheist.)

*Iirc wrote a piece about the L.A. scene at the time of Decline Of Western Civ.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 13:20 (sixteen years ago)

Rosen about Shepherd:

at 22, she is the anti-Taylor Swift, singing wised-up songs about beer guzzling and bad marriages. She's already an assured country classicist, and I expect she'll only get better when she swaps some of the easy genre moves for something more peculiar and personal.

Whereas Taylor Swift is singing what? Songs that are about bad relationships and are way way way way more nuanced and wise than Shepherd's genre exercises. (This is not a criticism of Shepherd by the way, but of Rosen.) Taylor doesn't sing that much about beer, however. She has, however, covered Rehab. If Shepherd swaps the easy genre moves for something more peculiar and personal, this won't necessarily make her better, but it will likely make her more like Taylor Swift.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 13:34 (sixteen years ago)

Which one of them is the Entertainment Weekly and (a long time ago) rock-critic-occasionally-in-the-Village-Voice* Ken Tucker?

That'd be the NPR one. Further confusing matters (since the other Ken Tucker is now Billboard's Nashville correspondent), the NPR Ken Tucker was also actually one of the first nationally published rock critics I know of to have taken modern Nashville commerical country music seriously -- around 1991, he even published a one-time-only country Consumer Guide in the Voice, which I think included Brooks & Dunn's debut album (making him also the first notable nationally published rock critic to write smart things about Brooks & Dunn.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 14:51 (sixteen years ago)

("Modern" meaning, uh, "90s and '00s," which admittedly would by definition have been difficult to do before 1991. But still, the NPR/EW/VV Ken was definitely one of the main guys who convinced me that I should be paying attention to commerical country music. Davitt Sigerson and James Hunter and Christgau and others -- even disco critic Michael Freedberg, a big Confederate Railroad fan as I recall -- also figured in there, even in the '80s.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 15:01 (sixteen years ago)

Too many howevers in my previous post.

xpost

I suppose some people are taking Shepherd to be the anti-Taylor (obviously at least one person is). It simply never occurred to me. The Shepherd album sounds like straight-up-the-middle contemporary pop country. It starts with three guitar rockers, has only one two-step ("The Bigger The Heart"), and only one other old-style number ("I Ain't Dead Yet"). That's about par for the country course these days. It's also got a couple of ballads which'd not be out of place on a Faith Hill album (though Ashton doesn't go all Whitney on 'em the way Faith could). Ashton eschews the soul and the funk that some other country stars don't eschew, but not the pop and the AOR. I'm not saying the distinction isn't real (though I still don't get Ashton as particularly trad), but I simply wonder how much the distinction matters. To some people a lot, I guess. But it's one I'm not bothering to hear until someone points it out to me. I remember that when I listened to the Jamie O'Neal and Lee Ann Womack albums at more or less the same time in 2005 I was taking them to be two fairly similar albums, and the latter's less orchestral arrangements didn't register on me until I read people talking about the alb as Womack's traditionalist move. My failure to register the distinction was due to my inattentiveness and ignorance, but it was also due to my not attending to what didn't seem a big deal to me. I remember hearing the Womack and that year's Gauthier album and thinking that as an experiment the two singers should trade songs and arrangements, to see if Gauthier's songs and trappings might unleash Womack from what was making her too-subdued on There's More Where That Came From and to see if Womack's more plain-speaking and disciplined songs might get Gauthier to stop treating every syllable as an opportunity for the rasp of existential death. I was thinking of what the material could do for their voices and vice versa, not that one should move more "alt" and the other should move more "trad."

It isn't that I think critics should ignore the subtleties and gradations of trad and alt and pop, since I'm perfectly happy to look at the possible subgenre maneuvering among Danish indie dance pop and Swedish quasi-boho-but-not-so-indie dance pop etc. etc. etc.; this sociomusical maneuvering is part of the story and part of what matters to people. It just seems to have gotten way way boring as the first and sometimes only point that critics will make about a country performer or album, that the alb is marginally more or less trad than this or that other alb.

Just looked at the vid for Ashton's "Sounds So Good" that Jody linked as an example of her being an "assured country classicist," and I notice that the beat is rock, the melody is more Dixie Chicks than Hank, and the vehicles and the outdoor decor are very similar to that of the video to the first Taylor Swift single. Of course, the Ashton track is basically ad copy for whatever said decor is supposed to represent, while for Taylor the decor is backdrop for a lie that's both pleasing and irretrievable and sad.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 15:04 (sixteen years ago)

I think there was a fair amount of disappointment with how modern & pop country-ish the Ashton Sheppard debut sounded--and a lot of the hype surrounding her is still based on her live performances where she supposedly sings songs from the 40s-70s Country canon like an alcoholic veteran.

Some of the anti-Taylor Swift sentiment also seems based on her live performances, with her Grammy rendering of "I'm Sorry" often used as evidence of how she sucks at singing classic country or whatever.

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President Keyes, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 15:43 (sixteen years ago)

Btw, I doubt that I ever did or ever will be able to hear when someone uses Autotune except when that person wants me to hear it (i.e., uses it not just for pitch correction but to blatantly fuck with the timbre à la Cher or T-Pain). But as for its use eliminating vocal idiosyncrasy, well, either it's not actually getting used much or it doesn't eliminate vocal idiosyncrasy. I mean, I'm not having trouble telling the stars apart.

x-post: P&J ballot due in a day, so I have to go figure out if the Scooter alb belongs in my top five, but a final thought about Taylor live: general YouTube evidence shows her in tune some of the time but not all of the time. (Not getting through to your Grammy links, however, and "Should Have Said No" at the AMC (?) was definitely not in tune.) My guess is that in the studio she resings rather than using pitch correction, though I'm not basing this on an intent examination of her output but on the way she goes a bit flat and ragged on parts of "You're Not Sorry" - this seems like a deliberate decision to make you feel the song, make it sound extra ripe. The result is gorgeous but almost too rich.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 15:59 (sixteen years ago)

OK, got to "I'm Sorry," and indeed Taylor sounds irrevocably like Taylor Swift rather than like an early '60s torch singer. She's not as versatile as Brenda Lee, who was as much pop and r&b and jazz as she was country, but I like it. When Brenda Lee sang "She Loves You" she didn't sound like the Beatles. I'd say Taylor is more immediately recognizable stylistically than Brenda Lee is, though that my be owing to Taylor's lack of versatility. Or it may be Taylor's choice, to always sound like Taylor.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 16:13 (sixteen years ago)

Guys, send these last-minute blasts to Himes! Apparently a lack of comments this year, I don't remember him ever sending out a post-deadline solicitation before (maybe it's a lack of comments on big or plasible names, since mine for inst tended to go elsewhere)

dow, Tuesday, 23 December 2008 18:01 (sixteen years ago)

A disconnect re Ashton Shepherd comes from her image on the album and the video(s) from the same record. For the CD booklet, they've given her a makeover, airbrush, aspect elongation (or something) and put her in the poolroom as a vamp. In the videos, she's dumpy and sitting in the picking shed with her buddies and the lighting/framing are bad. Seems like two different people, although the songs are the same.

Gorge, Wednesday, 24 December 2008 17:46 (sixteen years ago)

Shoulda been the other way around.

dow, Wednesday, 24 December 2008 23:12 (sixteen years ago)

belated thoughts on the road hammers (many of which I've mulled over here before):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/the-road-hammers-keep-on-truckin.html

xhuxk, Friday, 26 December 2008 23:28 (sixteen years ago)

Country songs in Jane Dark's Top 10 singles of the year (several others are in his Top 11- 40.)(And I am glad to learn I am not the only person to like "Rocks in Your Shoes"):

8) “Sounds So Good,” Ashton Shepherd. She keeps getting called a “classicist,” which is almost always a curious category, indicating an appeal to some canonical-but-lost value. But which one? The sound is scarcely a throwback to Lynn or Cline, Parton or Judd, or even Reba, for that matter. It’s probably closer to the truth to say that Shepherd is Gretchen Wilson if Gretchen Wilson could sing and wasn’t so proud of herself for her faux-militance and camouflage bikinis. It’s still hard to believe we had to take that humorlessly ludicrous shit seriously, but if Ashton Shepherd is the recompense, maybe it was worth it.
7) “That Song In My Head,” Julianne Hough. Apparently she is a very good dancer. She is not a remarkable singer, but this song is so well-written that even a mediocre dancer could have charted with it; Hough goes after it with her best Deana Carter circa “We Danced Anyway,” and it’s plenty good enough.
3) “Rocks In Your Shoes,” Emily West. Boy howdy did this song go nowhere. Thumbnail theory: it’s too well-written.
2) “Untouchable,” Taylor Swift. The original, by Luna Halo, is the kind of machinically angular mess that has one foot in jackass Red Hot Chili Peppers and another in the neo-new-wave dance rock that fell like a pestilence on the land shortly after the millennium. In short, "Untouchable" is in the first instance perhaps the most awful song one could imagine on short notice. This cover, conversely, is patient, delicate, and implacably beautiful, which gives one pause about what musical genius might be.

http://sugarhigh.abstractdynamics.org/

xhuxk, Saturday, 27 December 2008 14:21 (sixteen years ago)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/26/AR2008122600358_pf.html

The Washington Post's reviewer selects Ashton Shepherd as his #1 cd,James McMurtry as his 2nd favorite, and Jamey Johnson 4th.

curmudgeon, Sunday, 28 December 2008 18:12 (sixteen years ago)

Yet another guy calling Ashton Shepherd a "traditionalist" (but not explaining what her tradition is).

xhuxk, Sunday, 28 December 2008 19:11 (sixteen years ago)

...unless he's saying (as he seems to be) that she's in the tradition of Miranda Lambert (which is an even more recent tradition than the tradition of Gretchen Wilson.)

xhuxk, Sunday, 28 December 2008 19:25 (sixteen years ago)

Not into this Zac Brown Band album at ALL.

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Sunday, 28 December 2008 20:00 (sixteen years ago)

I kinda like it, in a super-stodgy sub-Charlie Daniels fast-talk choogle cum knit-cap-wearing Deadhead sub-running-on-empty '70s soft-rock choogle (complete with lame-assed fake reggae) kinda way. TWO songs about chickens; how often does that happen? Plus a divorced-dad song, and one by Ray Lamontagne that rhymes cocaine with Spokane. Free klezmer lunch at the tail end of the album is neat, too. Totally understand why somebody would gag at it, though. Anyway, named it my 139th favorite album of the year. Could've done worse:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/best-albums-of-the-year-countdown-part-1-s-101-150.html

xhuxk, Sunday, 28 December 2008 20:10 (sixteen years ago)

I think I was just disappointed after liking "Chicken Fried" so much - wasn't prepared for this bogus island rhythm Kenny Chesney shit. Even the sub-Charlie Daniels stuff is pretty stock. I do like that "Jolene" song though (and thank God it's not ANOTHER cover of the Dolly song)

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Sunday, 28 December 2008 20:32 (sixteen years ago)

Guess I thought "Chicken Fried" was pretty stock in the first place. (Chicken stock, to be exact. Still probably the album's best cut, but not by a mile or anything.) What I wrote about their "It's Not OK" a few weeks ago (though I left out the part about them still being asswipes for complaining about a poor guy who needs money):

http://new.ca.music.yahoo.com/blogs/rs_sotd/1052/song-of-the-day-zac-brown-band-its-not-ok/

xhuxk, Sunday, 28 December 2008 20:42 (sixteen years ago)

Ashton Sheperd=Bon Iver on this year's lists (both in the tradition of: "THIS guy likes THIS shit THIS much?!")

dow, Monday, 29 December 2008 04:29 (sixteen years ago)

ps: Chicken stock is good for what ails you, especially in this weather. Also, does Jane ever write about music professionally anymore?

dow, Monday, 29 December 2008 04:49 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, definitely something comfort-foody about that Zac Brown album (probably part of why I basically like the thing, despite my major misgivings.)

Haven't knowingly heard a note of Bon Iver's music; assume I'd want to strangle the guy if I did. But from what little I've read, much as I hate to admit it, I've been wondering if Jamey Johnson = Bon Iver makes more sense, at least backstory-myth-wise (i.e., super introspective Xgau-dud albums recorded in increasingly bearded seclusion after a life-changing breakup, right?)

And as far as I know, Jane/Joshua is not rock-criticking for $ these days, but I could be wrong.

xhuxk, Monday, 29 December 2008 15:41 (sixteen years ago)

"increadingly bearded" indeed, which is no prob in itself--increasingly bearded c'est moi--but Bon Iver's the slo-mo farmhand, loft in teh stars with frost-flowers in his whisker-curtains, which part only to emit vapors

dow, Monday, 29 December 2008 17:03 (sixteen years ago)

Just when you think the GOP can't possibly get more neo-Nazi, white identity and "Turner Diaries-esque," reality surprises. In the Christmas season.

Make "Puff the Magic Dragon" into something Prussian Blue will wind up singing, "Barack the Magic Negro." What a brilliant idea! Such genius! Since it aired on Limbaugh, listenership must make it one of the top songs in the country.

In the Tennesseean

In an Iowa newspaper

Gorge, Monday, 29 December 2008 18:12 (sixteen years ago)

It's kind of weird that everyone is mad about that song now, since it barely made a dent a year and a half ago when Limbaugh played it. Of course back then there was the context of it being a response song to an LA Times Op-Ed piece called "Obama the Magic Negro" that went into the Legend of Bagger Vance type relationship America seemed to be having with O. I never understood why it's supposed to be Al Sharpton singing though.

President Keyes, Monday, 29 December 2008 20:11 (sixteen years ago)

A candidate for Chairman of the Republican National Comittee sent it to his friends as a Christmas present.Alibi: an alleged parody of Al Sharpton allegedy saying Obama wasn't "black enough." Chairman of Virginia Republican Party was just now on MSNBC, criticizing candidate for sending out song, but also making a point of quote "defending Rush Limbaugh for playing it" unquote, as she summarized her own position.

dow, Monday, 29 December 2008 20:38 (sixteen years ago)

The song is retarded, but it's amazing how many refractions are involved in the controversy--

1. The media (and Peter, Paul & Mary) are mad at
2. a GOP chairman candidate
3. for sending around a song parody by some doofus named Paul Shanklin
4. which was first played on the Rush Limbaugh show 21 months ago
5. the song is supposedly sung by Al Sharpton
6. Commenting on an LA Times op-ed by David Ehrenstein (this is pretty explicit in one of the verses, lyrics follow)
7. That comments on how the media presents
8. Barack Obama
8. as the sort of Black character that makes white people feel good about themselves
9. A character often played by Morgan Freeman
10. And who is contrasted in the song with Snoop Dogg and Louis Farrakhan.

"Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.

The L.A. Times, they called him that

'Cause he's not authentic like me.

Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper

Said he makes guilty whites feel good

They'll vote for him, and not for me"

President Keyes, Monday, 29 December 2008 21:06 (sixteen years ago)

And the current coverage seems to miss that the song is an attack on Sharpton, not Obama.

President Keyes, Monday, 29 December 2008 21:07 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, I'm sure Rush meant it that way and that way only, just like his defensers and the RNC candidate.

dow, Monday, 29 December 2008 21:50 (sixteen years ago)

Hence my fascination with the refractions--as we're all becoming expert readers of the nodding and the winking.

President Keyes, Monday, 29 December 2008 22:48 (sixteen years ago)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm finding President Keyes's logic a bit disingenuous here, or maybe just gullible -- If you can't even figure out why the song is in Sharpton's voice, how effective a Sharpton parody can it be? (And even if it is in part a Sharpton parody, which I don't doubt, who says it can't walk and chew Obama at the same time?)

In other news, my 51st to 100th favorite albums of 2008 (many of them country, natch):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/51-eddy-current-suppression-ring-primary-colours-goner--52-dolly-parton-backwoods-barbie-dolly--53-black.html

xhuxk, Monday, 29 December 2008 23:24 (sixteen years ago)

Of course back then there was the context of it being a response song to an LA Times Op-Ed piece called "Obama the Magic Negro" that went into the Legend of Bagger Vance type relationship America seemed to be having with O.

Yeah, context is everything. My initial readings of the story didn't register on how far back Limbaugh had played the think.

I don't even recall the LA Times Op-Ed piece. However, since then we've had the campaign and every newspaper in the US interviewing white male heevahavas saying they wouldn't vote for the Islamic n-----. 60 Minutes even dredged through their tapes last night to find some old footage of a crank going on about Obama being a muslim and not knowing the words to our patriotic song.

That and being passed around by the head of the Tennessee GOP makes a firm addition to the majority impression it's the party of mad as hell white racist cranks. Good found humor, every day.

This is another good example from soCal from the campaign timeline

This is unintentionally funny, in a Ted Nugent way, from something called the Dakota Voice

Excerpt from the Atlanta newspaper here.

It brings to mind the local Republican official here in Georgia who sent out an email to her fellow Republicans not so long ago with a doctored photo of Obama as a black lawn jockey, among others. She wasn’t a racist, she insisted, and neither were the 20 or so Georgia conservatives who had sent the photo to her.

One of the more curious responses came from Erick Erickson over at redstate.com. “”In any event, that Chip Saltsman did this shows poor judgment on his part,” Erickson writes. “He should have known this would happen. This is a distraction from the RNC Chairman’s race coming on the heels of revelations that South Carolina GOP Chairman, and fellow contender, Katon Dawson belonged to an all white country club shortly before he decided to run for RNC Chairman.”

Gorge, Monday, 29 December 2008 23:26 (sixteen years ago)

In similarly amusing political matters.

Ted Nugent: I'm the Motor City Madman, but 'Fuck you, Detroit!

Oh, that wacky dude from near Waco

Gorge, Monday, 29 December 2008 23:33 (sixteen years ago)

x-post The seeming disingenuousness of my logic might be because at first I was commenting on what I'd heard about the song, and later commenting after I'd read the lyrics--which cleared up for me why it was Sharpton singing. I haven't actually heard the song yet though.

President Keyes, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 00:16 (sixteen years ago)

Get all of this out of your systems or take it to ILE, because it'd be a shame if this off topic shit carried over to Rolling Country 2009...

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 01:54 (sixteen years ago)

It's more or less to the tune of "Puff The Magic Dragon." Not to change the subject or anything, but Nick Spitzer's radio show, "American Routes," if that's how he spells it, recently spent two hours on original and cover versions of Hank Williams songs. Amazing how flexible they can be, without losing any identity. Tuscaloosa's own Dinah Washington extended "Your Cheating Heart" through the backwoods to the nighttime skyline of post-WWII jazz, with proto-rhythm & blues rumbling through the implications; Bob Dylan & his road band of a few years ago chopped "I Can't Get You Off of My Mind" through some kind of riverboat rock without leaving the dock (chopping, rolling in place, cos he can't get you etc) None of it upstaged Hank of course. I liked what the host observed about Hank with his Drifting Cowboys, the mixture of austerity and swing--what Dylan still goes for sometimes, like he did on John Wesley Harding. Willie and Merle get it too. It's not for everybody (no dis on Bob Wills, cos he had something else).

dow, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 02:02 (sixteen years ago)

Mike Barthel (from a rough draft he posted on livejournal of his P&J comments):

I love the Taylor Swift album because it sounded like my high school girlfriend: pumped full of hormones (so many walks taken, so many tension-filled car rides!), overqualified for its small hometown but immersed fully in its stunted possibilities for romance and sex, visibly smart but not as smart as it thinks it is.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 07:28 (sixteen years ago)

("Barack the Magic Negro" is getting press now only because other candidates for RNC chair are attacking candidate Chip Saltsman for having distributed it on his Xmas CD.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 07:36 (sixteen years ago)

Obv my cultural sense of what sounds respectable and not respectable is getting ever worse. I mean, as a proud Ashton Shepherd voter I think she has about as much subtlety, integrity, and depth as Girlicious, and I assumed that critics would consider her too trashy to vote for. (I mean, the song about the terminally ill girl in the hospital, the one who wants to know if she's too small to fit into angel wings, is utter craven swill. And the lyrics to "Sound So Good" are ad copy.)(Which doesn't mean they can't be good, mind you, though I'm not impressed with those two.)

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 08:33 (sixteen years ago)

Oh, I'm repeating myself, called "Sounds So Good" ad copy in two separate posts and used "I mean" twice in one post.

So I must be a classicist myself.

Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 08:46 (sixteen years ago)

Chuck, so your Rhapsody list means you like Jamey Johnson's new one and Rick Springfield's new one better than the Toby Keith greatest hits comp you listed (and better than the Kid Creole comp and numerous others farther down in your list)? Interesting.

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 17:50 (sixteen years ago)

Shepherd might become the honky tonk Cher, a paradigm for the Queen of the Silver Dollar costume contest/way of life, if she isn't already (what are you doing, this Neww Year's, Eeevvve?)

dow, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 18:37 (sixteen years ago)

Chuck, so your Rhapsody list means you like Jamey Johnson's new one and Rick Springfield's new one better than the Toby Keith greatest hits comp you listed (and better than the Kid Creole comp and numerous others farther down in your list)?

Yeah, basically. Thing is, with best-ofs, you gotta take usefulness into account -- I already have all of Toby's '00s albums, and a few of his '90s ones, so the redundancy factor obviously figures in. (Same with August Darnell, in his own special way.) Plus there's the fact that I didn't want to put a Toby Keith best-of in my top 10. That'd be totally lame, right? So he gets the same coveted #11 spot that I'm pretty sure a Bob Wills box set occupied a few years ago. That make sense? (Most other box sets on this planet, which I have basically no use for at all, wouldn't even come close to making my top 150.) (And less redundant best-ofs further down the list were rated pretty much one-on-one with new albums, though. And you'll note that one sort-of-best-of -- by Ross Johnson -- did make my top 10. I'd never heard his stuff before, so that one just felt like a regular album to me.)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 21:14 (sixteen years ago)

(Curmudgeon was referring to my top 50, which was not linked on this thread til now, and starts with...George Jones! Sort of):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/george-jones-once-called-1970-a-good-year-for-the-roses-and-though-the-fellow-who-made-my-very-favorite-album-this-year-ac.html

xhuxk, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 21:58 (sixteen years ago)

(Or, another way to put my Toby explanation: "Telling me stuff I didn't already know" seems like at least one valid criterion for judging how good records are. And "having 35 tracks, which is way too many by definition, most of which were on my shelf already" seems like one valid negative criterion. When you think about the fact that it had that black mark against it going in, Toby's best-of actually did pretty well!)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 22:08 (sixteen years ago)

(Yet more valid album criterions, if these help: "How much did I wind up playing it?" "How much pleasure did I get out of it in 2008"? Etc. Obviously, right?)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 22:29 (sixteen years ago)

(There's the predictive factor, too: "How much do I expect to play it in the future, and how much will it hold my attention/entertain me/keep telling me new things/not make me want to do other things instead/etc. when I do"?)

Speaking of the future, not to jump the gun or anything, these are my favorite country albums of 2009 so far:

Megan Munroe – One More Broken String (Diamond)
Chuck Mead – Journeyman’s Wager [label tk]
Dierks Bentley – Feel The Fire (Capitol)

xhuxk, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 22:47 (sixteen years ago)

And speaking of the past, a couple questions I've always wondered about that came to mind again this morning while listening to The Stars Are Out In Texas. an eight-song 1986 vinyl compilation LP that I found free on the sidewalk in Manhattan while Christmas shopping last month:

1. In "If You're Gonna Play In Texas (You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band)" by Alabama, why do they say "That lead guitar is hot, but not for a Looziana man?" I thought they said we were in Texas! Or is the unstated assumption that, if you're in (presumably east) Texas, Looziana men will definitely be in the audience?

2. In "Luckenbach, Texas (Back To The Basics Of Love)," why does Waylon first say "Newbury's train songs," and then Willie sneakily changes it in his verse to "Jerry Jeff's train songs"? Did Willie not like Newbury? Also, whose train songs are better? I've never much listened to either contestant's train songs, though every time I hear this song, it reminds me that I probably should.

xhuxk, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 23:03 (sixteen years ago)

How much do I expect to play it in the future

Actually, truth is, given this criterion alone, maybe the Toby Best-Of should have finished higher on my list -- Hell, maybe it should have even placed #1. Which is to say, 10 or 20 years from now, when I want to hear my favorite singer of the '00s, assuming I'm still listening to CDs at that point (a possibility I definitely don't discount), which Toby CD will I pull off the shelf? Wouldn't totally surprise me if it was disc 2 of 35 Biggest Hits (which, after all, is the album I've repeatedly told people who don't own any Toby albums to start with.) Heck, maybe a year from now it will even seem like one of the best albums of the decade. But it still would have seemed really weird to list in my Top 10 this year (judging from how much play I gave it, and the redundancy stuff above.)

Also, I just noticed that Frank and Lex and some other people say some interesting things about album-ranking criteria in the comments here, if anybody's interested:

http://alexmacpherson.livejournal.com/215057.html

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 01:22 (sixteen years ago)

According to his daughter Susie or Suzie Nelson's Dad-bio/memoir, think it's titled Stardust Memories, Willie belatedly discovered that his offspring was about to elope with Mr. Newbury (forget how old he was, but way older than her). So, it was Willie who approached the waiting sports car that fateful morn, Willie and his .357, bringing enlightment (it worked, as least as far as Willie's kids were concerned). The Toby set is no doubt the right intro, but it's at least his third such, and includes many if not all tracks from the first two. Also, what's with his label? Why isn't that Carter's Chord album getting the big push? Not like girls aren't big in country now. Maybe they're gonna do the geological timespan thing, releases singles off it for several years, gradually bring the Chord to the forefront after infilterating fairgrounds and parking lots for a while, but I'm not seeing them on CMT, not hearing 'em on local metro country stations, etc. Haven't heard the whole Trailer Choir album, so don't know if it's equally worthy, but seems like they're worth more hype. The only noteworthy thing he's done lately was on Steven Colbert's Christmas Special: "The War On Christmas," which is actually a steady-rockin' parody of the postition you might expect him to take--and then some: "Ah pledge alleeegence, to th' Bay-bee, Jeeezuz." For instance.Guess he's willing to work diff angles, so we don't take him for granted (like Willie doing peace songs and "Beer For My Horses")

dow, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 02:34 (sixteen years ago)

Also proves he's still got *some* initiative about marketing, but if you're gonna have a label that's more than a vanity, work it, dang it.

dow, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 02:35 (sixteen years ago)

Here the 9513's Top Ten list:

http://www.the9513.com/top-10-country-albums-of-2008/

1. Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson- Rattlin' Bones
2. Joey + Rory- The Life of a Song
3. Hayes Carrl- Trouble in Mind
4. Justin Townes Earle- The Good Life
5. Lee Ann Womack- Call Me Crazy
6. Patty Loveless- Sleepless Nights
7. Kathy Mattea- Coal
8. Randy Travis- Around the Bend
9. Reckless Kelly- Bulletproof
10. Ralph Stanley II- This One is Two

Jamey Johnson's album was disqualified because the indie version appeared on their 07 list.

and their Most Disappointing Albums:

http://www.the9513.com/ten-most-disappointing-albums-of-2008/

1. Pop Crossovers (Jessica Simpson, Darrius Rucker, Jewel)
2. Wilie Nelson- Moment of Forever
3. Alan Jackson- Good Time
4. Allison Moorer- Mockingbird
5. Randy Houser- Anything Goes
6. Kellie Pickler- ST
7. Keith Anderson- C'mon
8. Dolly Parton- Backwoods Barbie
9. Josh Gracin- We Weren't Crazy
10. Heidi Newfield- What Am I Waiting For

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:02 (sixteen years ago)

And the top 10 from Country Universe

http://www.countryuniverse.net/2008/12/22/top-ten-albums-of-2008/

1. Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson- Rattlin' Bones
2. Kathy Mattea- Coal
3. Jamey Johnson- That Lonesome Song
4. Patty Loveless- Sleepless Nights
5. Justin Townes Earle- The Good Life
6. Emmylou Harris- All I Intended to Be
7. Lee Ann Womack- Call Me Crazy
8. Peter Cooper- Mission Door
9. Sugarland- Love on the Inside
10. Jim Lauderdale- Honey Songs

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:09 (sixteen years ago)

Roughstock's list

http://www.roughstock.com/blog/the-best-of-2008-in-country-music-the-top-25-albums-of-the-year

1. Joey + Rory- The Life of a Song
2. Patty Loveless- Sleepless Nights
3. Hayes Carrl- Trouble in Mind
4. Jamey Johnson- That Lonesome Song
5. Sugarland- Love on the Inside
6. Lee Ann Womack- Call Me Crazy
7. Zac Brown Band- The Foundation
8. Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson- Rattlin' Bones
9. Randy Travis- Around the Bend
10. Jim Lauderdale- Honey Songs

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:15 (sixteen years ago)

I didn't make it through that Chambers/Nicholson album; seemed even duller than Joey _ Roy to me. So did the Justin Townes Earle (who seemed even duller than his dad has lately, which is saying a lot). Never heard Mattea or Loveless or Lauderdale, any of which I may have liked, but none of those artists has really ever seemed much better than pleasant to me. (Coal is a good album title, though!) Two of the albums in 9513's Top 10 made my Top 150 (Restless Kelly, who I am actually glad somebody other than me noticed, and the inevitable Hayes Carrl), but four of their "disappointing" albums did (Newfield in my Top 50, Parton just missing it, and Alan Jackson and Keith Anderson, though I can at least see how those last two were disappointing in a way.) Bizarrely, I didn't realize until right this second there was a new Kellie Pickler album this year. (I thought her debut was good.) Never even heard of Peter Cooper before -- who he? (Not sure I've ever actually heard Josh Gracin, either, though his name is at least familiar. I think I thought he was an adult-contemporary guy or something, which probably means I confused him with somebody.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:25 (sixteen years ago)

Joey + Roy I mean, obv.

So is there any overlap among the writers of those blogs? Interesting how much overlap there is on those lists, either way -- mainly albums that barely if ever came up on this thread, strangely enough. Though it's interesting that only Roughneck (which I'd never heard of) and Country Universe went for Sugarland (who I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume that the seemingly stick-up-their-ass purists at 9513 probably hate, right?)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:29 (sixteen years ago)

(Joey + RORY. Aaarggh. I will never get that right, I don't think.)

(Or if not writer-overlap, then maybe at least voter-overlap?)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:31 (sixteen years ago)

And it's RoughSTOCK, I guess, not Roughneck. Their 11-to-25 albums, fwiw: Emmylou (snore), Grascals, Little Big Town (in 2008? weird. expanded major-label reissue seemed pretty pointless to me), Becky Schlegel (never heard of her), Jason Boland & the Stragglers (ditto), Rodney Crowell, James Otto (had no idea anybody liked that so much), Lady Antebellum, Trace Adkins, Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton (which probably would have made my "disappointment" list if I'd made one), Wade Bowen (another guy I never heard of), Ashton Shepherd, Randy Houser (which I still need to hear and making the 9513 disapppointment list makes me want to hear him more), Hal Ketchum (who I didn't realize was still around).

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:39 (sixteen years ago)

It surprises me that Ashton Sheppard didn't make any of the top ten lists.

re: Sugarland & the 9513-- I looked at the voters (9 of them) individual lists and two of them had Sugarland. That site has a forum too--the readers seem a lot more interested in mainstream country than the editors are.

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:42 (sixteen years ago)

You may have been confusing Adult Contemporary's Josh Grobin with Josh Gracin, xhuxk. Gracin is like, older brother, back from Iraq but don't be skurred, let's have some fun and talk about our lives as they continue, thank goodness. Sort of a younger Chris LeDoux, or para-Darryl Worley/Phil Vassar, from what I've heard, though haven't heard a whole album.

dow, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 17:25 (sixteen years ago)

Like it nor not like it, but how could anybody be Disappointed by solo debut of somebody from Trick Pony? What were they expecting?

dow, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 17:27 (sixteen years ago)

Good point. If Trick Pony had a following among country critics, I never noticed.

Roughstocks's Top 10 singles of the year (supposedly Top 40, actually, but I'm having a hard time finding the other ones on their site. Top Singles lists on 9513 and Country ?Universe seem even less User-Friendly, but somebody should post links if they exist):

http://www.roughstock.com/tag/top-40-country-singles-of-2008

Also, me on John Rich's 2008 jerkitude:

http://idolator.com/5121129/heartbreak-no-8-john-rich-shills-for-the-republican-party

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 17:30 (sixteen years ago)

Here's the Country Universe Top Ten Singles

http://www.countryuniverse.net/2008/12/19/top-40-singles-of-2008-part-4-10-1/

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 18:29 (sixteen years ago)

DC9 At Night Top Ten

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/2008/12/top_10_country_albums_of_2008.php

Hayes Carll
Lee Ann Womack
Jamey Johnson
The Steeldrivers
JT Earle
Patty Loveless
Bruce Robison- The New World
The Wrights EP
Kathy Mattea
Randy Travis

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 18:37 (sixteen years ago)

From 9513:

9. Bulletproof, Reckless Kelly

Call it country or call it rock–Bulletproof is just outstandingly smart, hooky, hard-charging music that kicks off in high gear and doesn’t let up. Braun and the boys have never sounded more confident. — CM Wilcox.

Actually, I mostly call it "powerpop." But it's still a real good record. (I also call the band "Restless Kelly" a lot -- including a few posts up -- but I swear that's just me paying tribute to the Bryan Adams LP with "Run To You" and "Summer of '69" on it, which I mistakingly called Restless on and off for going on a quarter century now.)

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 19:05 (sixteen years ago)

I'll have to check that; likewise Patty Loveless (haven't heard her ina while, but a fairly pungent voice, I recall). And Bruce Robison, based on songs like "Travelin' Soldier." His original got played a lot down here after the Chicks were banished. Justin Townes Earle, according an NPR interview with father and son the other morning, is quite content to write like his father, but his voice seems to be in better shape, so I guess that's handy. Haven't heard the album. Mattea's album is good as far as it goes, but emotional range seems narrow, not just re variety's sake, but emotional resources of people in coal country. Steeldrivers' s/t made my own Top Ten (comments on them upthread)

dow, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 20:30 (sixteen years ago)

The Patty Loveless CD is all covers of classic country songs--a popular move these days. It's good as far as that goes, but I've liked some of her other albums much more.

x-post Did Josh Gracin ever go to Iraq? I remember his unit was called up while he was on American Idol and they decided to let him stay in the US for the Marine PR.

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 22:05 (sixteen years ago)

Never even heard of Peter Cooper before -- who he?

Looks like he's a music writer turned musician.

From his bio:

Peter Cooper’s Mission Door is an engaging first-time collection from a songwriter who has spent the better part of his adult life writing about his musical heroes as a journalist (The Tennessean, No Depression, Esquire) and is now creating music revealing the lessons he learned from the masters. John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, Todd Snider.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/cooperpeter

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 22:18 (sixteen years ago)

Some other CDs I'm seeing in multiple individual lists:

Rodney Hayden- 12 Ounce World
Amber Digby- Passion, Pride & What Might Have Been
Eleven Hundred Springs- Country Jam

President Keyes, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 22:25 (sixteen years ago)

Pierce Greenberg, one of the 9513 voters, voted for two more albums I listened to this year but I don't think I even mentioned on this thread -- Aaron Watson's Angels & Outlaws, which struck me as a completely run-of-the-mill honky-tonk album with no songs that jumped out at me at all, and the Randy Rogers Band's self-titled red dirt country-rock album, which I actually kind of liked when I heard it (especially the circus song), though ultimately , as competently Southern-rocking as they are, they're just not that memorable a band; I kind of liked their two previous albums when they came out, too, but I can't tell you a damn thing about them. They're missing something major; I'm just not sure what. The fact that they couldn't even bother to come up with a title for their new album was probably a bad omen, when you get down to it. Workmanlike is only good up to a certain point, after which it turns into kind of a drag. Bet people claim they're great live, though -- They seem like that kind of band.

xhuxk, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 22:37 (sixteen years ago)

All right--I'm going to go ahead and start a 2009 thread.

President Keyes, Thursday, 1 January 2009 02:57 (sixteen years ago)

Link:

Rolling Country 2009 Thread

xhuxk, Thursday, 1 January 2009 15:21 (sixteen years ago)


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