The Cowboy Junkies - Classic or Junk?

Yesterday, I finally realized where the title The Caution Horses came from. I was on the highway, driving behind a horse trailer, and painted on it were the words:
CAUTION
HORSES

(Sorry if this was painfully obvious, but I'm a little slow sometimes...)

Mike Timmins IS the most underrated guitarist out there, bar none.

CLASSIC.

Oh yeah, Matt Maxwell to thread!

Their debut, White Off Earth Now is a great collection of 90% blues covers and also alot of beautiful moments. Cover of Decoration Day stands out. Later stuff has its moments, Margos voice gets better nd better. But its not country.

Trinity Sessions is very classic. I can't think of a more beautifully haunting start to a record than "Mining for Gold".

"Sun comes up it's Tuesday morning" is one of the finest songs ever written. Even though it's got a couple of clunky lines. It still makes me want to cry every time I hear it.

Great fucking record tho

Also great - the Bruce Springsteen cover from the Canadian teenage-lesbian movie.

'Pale Sun Crescent Moon'(1993) and 'Open'(2001) are their least yawny outings. They're good places to start; the former is raw and very immediate, and the latter is full of guitar drone and noise.

Revive!

For no other reason than what follows below. Which is a perfectly good reason, in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ6EGsZdxpE

i found a trinity sessions era t shirt at the salvation army thrift. it has the band name in that typeface and color scheme that's off that album (similar to zen arcade) but individual pics of the band members instead of the album cover photo. the shirt tag is from that time frame so it's original and not a repro. it's nice; i really like it. i wore it out last night to a benefit show for a friend; it was all newgrass and jamband stuff. not even a glimmer of recognition on anyone's face, young or old. an 80's skater dude/ hardcore scene / metalhead friend liked it but he knows all kinds of music. i once gave him a specials shirt i found that's from 80 or 81-ish and it didn't fit him but he didn't give it back. his five year old kid now has an awesome shirt that he has no idea about but that kid can ride the half-pipe better than most of the teenagers at the skate park so he deserves it.

anyway is it just because hippies only care about their insular world or does the general populace not know about cowboy junkies anymore? feel like suzanne vega or tracy chapman had a similar reach and i assumed people still know who they are but i dunno now. what's the fall-off period for that medium level and sorta short-lived period of success as far as continuing recognition goes? i thought "sweet jane" was one of those songs wherein the cover version was as popular or more so than the original, or even that people didn't know was a cover.

i figured this was part of the monoculture, even if at a lower level, and everyone remembered it even if they didn't like it and not a niche thing that only some people knew about.

It's odd, I've been seeing their albums turn up like mad in Amoeba used bins -- and we're talking dollar bins -- so I went to town and I have something like 11 now. It is really weird that they seem to have no 'place' as such but I remember when Low first came around that I thought (reductively) that they were kind of a combination of the Junkies and Galaxie 500, for instance. They seem to have strange afterechoes, and they're still going along.

this is just the interzone again? i forgot there's that period of modern/ college rock that was just popular enough that i think everyone who was around then should remember but they don't and young people skip right over when investigating the past.

Sweet Jane got MTV play and everything. IIRC it was on more their regular programming not just 120 Minutes. That being said, Tracy Chapman & Suzanne Vega still get radio play. They had bona fide pop hits. Can't say I've heard Cowboy Junkies on radio since the 80s.

In terms of afterechoes, probably not an original thought, but I can see the connection to Mazzy Star: subtract the country vibe and add some psychedelia. Well, at least I've made several mixes with both groups.

there's that period of modern/college rock that was just popular enough that i think everyone who was around then should remember but they don't and young people skip right over when investigating the past.

― slugbuggy, Monday, July 7, 2014

a lot of people, like me, who grew-up then remember -- and love -- the trinity sessions. we knew it was a big deal.

it has the band name in that typeface and color scheme that's off that album (similar to zen arcade) but individual pics of the band members instead of the album cover photo. the shirt tag is from that time frame so it's original and not a repro

Sounds like
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ofn54RmaL.jpg

I always associated the name Cowboy Junkies with a description of Nick Cave. Doesn't Honeymoon in Red have him pseudonymed as some variation of it since he didn't want to be credited.
As for the Timmins band, loved Trinity Sessions, some tracks on Caution Horses, various live sets from the late 80s. Need to relisten to WOEN but think it'd be something I'd love. Not paid attention to later stuff, I think Caution Horses was beginning to get glossy and it wasn't a direction I wanted.
I've wondered on Mike Timmins pre band history, had him mentally associated with a Canadian band I used to go and see in London in the mid 80s, was it Gas Rattle? A pretty noisy experimental crew, probably not him but always linked them.

Of the later albums, can certainly recommend Open - the closest the Junkies ever get to sounding like Mazzy Star.

All the later ones have their moments but Lay It Down is the one I return to most often.

I haven't pulled out Trinity Sessions in a long time, but man that used to really be a go-to CD for me, perfect for first thing in the morning, late at night, and any other time I didn't want anything loud and fast. It's like the Kind Of Blue of alt-folk-rock.

I was just listening to Trinity Sessions the other day, just came in here to say To Love Is To Bury is a great song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4hKmQpcT1k

pretty sure it's trinity session era. the color has faded from the logotype but there's traces of the reds and blues.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa295/slugbert/P7080025640x414_zps1b8caa41.jpg

I have that shirt, too! Loved The Trinity Session, and saw them in the summer of '89 on a bill with Elvis Costello, Violent Femmes (last-minute replacement for Lou Reed), and Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. Junkies actually went over surprisingly well in a 40,000-seat outdoor shed.

Didn't realize the Sharon Temple Sessions -- set as the follow-up to The Trinity Sessions and then never released -- ever surfaced. Looking for more, but here's one song from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBWEPdLpvKQ

Too mainstream for the alt crowd, too alt for the mainstream

Actually was listening to the first Mojave 3 album on recommendation from elsewhere on ilx and damn if the first song doesn't sound just like /200 more miles/

Too mainstream for the alt crowd, too alt for the mainstream

Not off the mark. New single's good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=232&v=bLUVYVkAyOE

The new album is terrific. Her voice is as smooth as ever and the songwriting is top-notch.

It’s the kind of night that’s so cold when you spit
It freezes before it hits the ground

Drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes

Livestream their Lincoln Center concert tonight, 8:30 EST (couple vids also in this mail):
https://mailchi.mp/latentrecordings/stream-cowboy-junkies-live-in-concert-this-friday?e=1eed3906a5

This was last Friday.

Sorry! Just got the memo today.

Got around to listening to their new covers album Songs Of The Recollection and it's definitely one of the better albums of this type. Stay at least for "Five Years," "No Expectations" & "Don’t Let It Bring You Down." Apparently they have been performing "Seventeen Seconds" for awhile now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGyhw4tD_iE

Really digging Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning. Popped up in my youtube feed. Hadn't heard it in years.

Their covers have always been great, will def listen

Oh wow, The Sharon Sessions — one of those mythical lost albums, their scrapped follow-up to The Trinity Session — is suddenly out today.

Strange, I could have sworn I’ve heard those versions before. Couldn’t tell you how though