No Depression Top 40 of 2005

BUT...as a happy ND contributor i will say that "morons with sticks up their asses" is way unfair. really. the guys who run the magazine are smart and dedicated and they've kept it going for 10 years despite (i'm guessing) not getting fabulously wealthy along the way. they like what they like, but they're hardly small-minded about it. they were more than happy -- solicitous even -- to run a little essay i wrote about bubba sparxxx and country/hip-hop hybrids (and yes it mentioned big'n'rich). and even if you don't dig all the people featured in the magazine -- and i don't either -- so what? there aren't many magazines that give space to so many actual independent musicians (in the sense of being on small labels or no label at all), and it helps people find a potential audience that wouldn't hear of them otherwise. an old-fashioned virtue, maybe, but not a bad one.

and also, like all critics' polls (ahem), by virtue of rewarding consensus this one obscures more than it illuminates about the diversity of tastes and interests among the publication's contributors and readers. e.g. see bill friskics-warren's essay accompanying the poll, which says that his own favorite records of the year were m.i.a. and gogol bordello.

but yeah, ok, it's obviously a niche publication and it serves its niche well. that seems like an ok thing to do.

And yeah, point well taken. But still...how many votes could Tim O'Brien or Eliza Gilkyson or Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion actually have gotten? (Who are they? Any good? Maybe one voter gave each of them #1 votes or something? How many voters were there, anyway?) Seeing no-names like that up there but not even, say, Bobby Pinson (who's as much a folkie a a country popster himself to my ears; dry enough for the *ND* aesthetic, I'd think, but maybe not) or, again Gary Allan (not *that* far from Yoakam) weirds me out.

and it hasn't been a year and a half since the bubba article, i only wrote it in about march...but i know what you mean. i personally like a lot of stuff that counts as alt-country, but "bizarre genteel middlebrow folkie delusions about tastefulness, purity, etc," is a persistent problem -- less, maybe, for the people who write for ND than for the people who read it. (like, i don't think grant or peter are hung up on that stuff at all)

having lived in tennessee i'll also say that when you're actually around all that stuff a lot, writing about mainstream nashville can seem about as appealing as writing about wal-mart or coca-cola. it's in some ways easier to appreciate from a geographic and cultural distance.

i agree with chuck that their failure to see what is excellent in nashville today -- and to eschew that in favor of the uber-boring, stiad, state fair/ coffee house/ garrison fucking keillor pap of tim o'brien (a decent player but his albums suuuuuuuuuck) -- is a huge blind spot.

i wrote for no depression a teensy bit in its first year or so. they even let me write some bullshit in '97 about "recombinant roots" -- weirdos who took folk and stretched it out, made it fucked-up, and yeah i connected harry smith and the holy modal rounders and pre-califone 'supergroup' loftus, if i remember correctly -- but this was before the anthology was reissued and that became the most obvious thing to do.

wait, that sounded like bragging. my point was that i did get to write about something outside their confines a tad. but as with the one 'forementioned hick-hop piece, to my mind it's an exception proving the rule.

grant alden was/ is a talented editor and a very fine dude, but especially now that no one gives a fuck about alt-country i have a hard time believing that anyone reads no depression at all.

ps: when i lived in east tennessee (only for four years but that was long enough) i went to see some big pop country acts just for the hell of it and had a great time there, just for the sheer weirdness of it. but then i never really felt fully like i lived there, i always knew i was visiting. okay i shut up now.

I agree with the assessment that most alt-country these days is just hookless folk music, although to be honest I don't hear any commercial country that sounds any better. That's why I was suprised that the last Dwight Yoakam CD (#38 on the ND Top 40) was so good. I hadn't listened to him in years, then along came this CD...it's nice to hear somebody in country music (alt-, commercial or otherwise) writing SONGS again. With HOOKS. I mean, over in the underground, these singer-songwriters are singing these dreadful coffeehouse ballads and in the overground everybody's trying to make Lindsay Lohan music with a twang. So, even though Yoakam's been around so long it's easy to take him for granted, he waylaid the competition on both sides.

Let's face it - Kasey Chambers is supposed to be the hip underground? Keith Urban represents the commercial world? Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...

xxpst

Rolling 2005 Country Thread

I do not think both editors live in Nashville now. I bought an issue awhile back and recall noticing that(but I do not have the issue near me to say specifically where they live). Plus, contributing writer Geoff Himes lives in Baltimore, and I am sure some of their other writers live around the country as well. I wonder how Grant and Peter would react if their writers pitched pop-country features or reviews?

That's not an indictment, by the way, just a flat-out observation.

#12 Nov-Dec 1997
Ricky Skaggs
#34 July-Aug 2001
Patty Loveless
#40 July-Aug 2002
Kelly Willis
#43 Jan-Feb 2003
Alison Krauss
#59 Sept-Oct 2005
Nickel Creek

Yea, it's a niche magazine, but if they can reach out now and have articles on Lizz Wright and Mavis Staples, why not pop-country? The Beat magazine is a niche reggae, carribbean, and African magazine, and they have a once-a-year dancehall(commercial reggae) issue, and a columnist who covers dancehall, ever if their main focus is on more 'traditional' sounds.

xp well, Huk sort of answered the Ricky Skaggs question. (But the artists he listed are almost all more bluegrass than pop-country.)

They alos review dancehall throughout the year, even if most of the people with lengthy columns tend not to like it. (Incidentally, it's going to start putting out only four issues a year, according to the most recent issue. I suspet it is on its way out altogether.)

JBR OTM.

well that's always been the joke, hence the long-running (but recently if lovingly retired) tagline "whatever that is."

here's the thing: "alt-country" started out as a way to identify -- and pay attention to -- stuff that was not on the pop charts or the commercial radio stations. so the only stuff that was sort of de facto excluded was anything that was available in those places, the assumption being that it was well-attended to elsewhere. it was also -- to a degree probably underappreciated in yr liberal coastal bastions -- a political and cultural stance of sorts against NOT blue-collar culture (as chuck notes) but the sprawling mcMansionated ford explorified ess-you-vee yoo-ess-ay megachurchgoing exurbs that are the real heart'n'soul of CMT and GAC's demographic profile. which does not excuse turning a deaf ear to ace pop wherever it may be found, but at least to some degree explains the sense of purpose. (when politics not infrequently peeks its head out in ND, it's almost universally of the liberal-populist variety.) one of the puzzles of the whole thing, really, is alt-country's joining of traditionalist (not to say reactionary) aesthetics with liberal/progressive politics. but of course that commingling goes back at leasst to the outlaw willie-waylon-kris school, which in turn obv. came as much out of the neofolkie singer-songwriter movement as it did out of nashville. so yeah, it's more properly understood i think as derivative of the folk tradition -- with all of its admitted baggage -- than commercial country, which is why they're more likely to dig it when dolly does her bluegrass thing than when shania does her pop-metal thing.

but so anyway, even tho there's obviously lots of good stuff being done in commercial country, it's just outside the bailiwick of ND for the most part (with notable exceptions like Lee Ann Womack -- at #12 there on the poll -- and the Dixie Chicks, who get lots of ND love). if you define yourself as "roots music that's not on the mainstream charts," which is as close a definition as i can get of ND's range of interest, then...you don't do much coverage of the mainstream charts. when brad paisley stops selling so many records and puts out a gospel bluegrass album on dualtone or something, i'm sure he'll get some ND love. and at that point he'll be glad to have it.

i thought that was the alt-country audience.

>one of the puzzles of the whole thing, really, is alt-country's joining of traditionalist (not to say reactionary) aesthetics with liberal/progressive politics. but of course that commingling goes back at leasst to the outlaw willie-waylon-kris school<

So you're saying that Willie and Waylon (and David Allan Coe etc.) were traditionalist aesthetically why, exactly? Because they were harking back to '60s Dylan or something? Not sure if that's the same as alt-country's allegiance to how country sounded back before most alt-countryphiles were born (even if it doesn't actually *sound* like country did then -- though then again, maybe that just means Wilco are prog how Willie was prog, maybe not really traditionalist after all. Though Wilco are an extreme case in this world, I suppose.) Anyway, my point I guess is that the outlaws didn't tend to sound repressed and reined in like alt-country does; they were wild and wooly, and sonically they often seemed to be doing a pretty good job keeping up with '70s hard rock, even maybe disco in some cases...

i thought that was the alt-country audience.

not hardly. i mean, most alt-country acts come from the south and midwest. one of the unfairest generalizations about alt-country is that it's a buncha carpetbagging slickers dressing up cowboy. i lived in knoxville for a long time and there's a great big alt-country audience there, and people like lucinda, steve earle, lyle lovett, alison krauss, etc. pack the houses. i mean, there's a big commercial country audience too -- kenny chesney's from knoxville, and don't they know it -- but see, again, that helps fuel the alt-country scene. it's harder to get excited about nashville pop when it's presented to you as part of the dominant suburban evangelical gay-bashing bush-voting culture.

I originally thought that alt-country DIDN'T mean:
(1) all the popular MOR stuff in the middle (shania twain)

I've been reading ND off and on since it's inception, and to their credit, they KNOW that "alt-country" can be stretched to mean anything at any time. Do they still have the slogan: "Alt-Country (Whatever That Is)?"

And yes, I agree - if Brad Paisley or even George Strait had rockabilly haircuts, dressed a little funkier (like Joe Ely in his early-80's cowpunk period) and recorded for Yep Roc or some other indie label, the hipster crowd would love them.

yeah, but they certainly seem to know what it isn't.

well, they were explicitly reacting against the commercial country trends of the era -- rawer sound, no string sections, etc. those guys (and their decidedly non-liberal-coastal fans) were bitching about poppified country way before robbie fulks got to it.

definitely true that contemporary alt-country doesn't have a david allan coe to its name, but not all of it sounds repressed either. what it doesn't tend to have is big-bam-boom production, which is a problem depending on how much you like big bam boom, but plenty of it rocks. (steve earle's acoustic album, e.g., is actually his hardest-rocking record, for my money.) try, say, scott miller's "goddamn the sun." or the title track on robbie fulks' "let's kill saturday night." or some of the stuff on neko case's live album (great cover of "train from kansas city").

Do they still have the slogan: "Alt-Country (Whatever That Is)?"

It has recently been changed to "Surveying the past, present and future of American music." Which should maybe say "roots music" to make it more accurate, because i don't see ND doing take-outs on young jeezy anytime soon.

(Also see: Roseanne Cash.)

xp

Except Shania pushes C&W's boundaries way way way more than anybody on that No Depression list (and also rocks harder too).

I think there's something to this, in terms of mainstream country's self-fashioning, but (for me anyways) it's important to remember that it's a constant push-and-pull within country, a push towards sonic and lyrical innovation throughoutit's history (not just in the last 15 or whatever years, please), and a pull back towards tradition and rural roots, which it knows (as much as a genre can know) is both essential to its self-definition and its market. Where I get uncomfortable is when we start equating pushing limits with getting more pop or reaching out to the pop audience. That can be a way of traversing limits, but it's pop-centric in the extreme to think that's the primary or most interesting way, and doesn't do justice to how country negotiates genre limits. That's not intended towards Edd or anybody else, just me, like everybody else, thinking out loud. I'm really looking forward to Edd's long-overdue ND piece.

As for the Beatles, one could also say they were also running variations on older British pop forms (which doesn't meant they weren't running variations on the blues simultaneously, or that one song couldn't be both). Peter van der Merwe in his Origins of the Popular Style traces the I-IV-I-V-I pattern back to a song that was the rage in 17th-century London; and then he cites the opening bars of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" as 20th-century nonblues version of the pattern. (Van der Merwe was tracing the non-African as well as the African sources of the blues, but his bringing in "I Saw Her Standing There" also showed that those British sources had nonblues progeny.)

Where I get uncomfortable is when we start equating pushing limits with getting more pop or reaching out to the pop audience

But no one equates the two, that I know of, except to say that getting more pop can be a way to be innovative (not that it necessarily is and not that it's the only way). But as far as I know - and I could be totally wrong here, as my knowledge of the country and alt-country critics conversation is limited - country that pushes out towards "pop" where "pop" means "mainstream adult contemporary" (rather than for instance towards hip-hop or funk rock, which of course are also popular forms) is rarely called "innovative" even when it is, which is one reason that people like Faith Hill and LeAnn Rimes don't get called innovators outside of ILM threads (I don't think the people posting here are typical of either country or alt-country critics). But also, within mainstream country, the fact that Faith and LeAnn aren't conceived as innovators (even if they're conceived as sellouts) perhaps is one thing that allows them to innovate under the radar, as it were.

I almost x-posted the following, Frank, but I think your basic point is right about the aversion to thinking about "mainstream adult contemporary" as innovative. God knows, I have a hard time thinking of it that way myself! But that other Ray, Ray Price, is really interesting to look at in this regard. Here's a dude who was supposed to be the successor to Hank, the heart and soul of country, and then went bananas pop, even middle-of-the-road borderline muzaky pop, and then, on top of that, he started hanging out with hippies. (By the way, have any of you all seen him in the last few years? If not, do not miss him. He's still got it, and often shows up with a string section.) The back of a bunch of Price's '60s albums bend over backwards to remind the reader of his down-home, Perryville farm roots, but also aggressively sell him on his "innovation," breaking boundaries between country and pop, city and country, creating "a whole new way of listening for all of us." You go, Ray.

(I don't utterly agree with that last sentence; her image is ordinary, but her vocal pyrotechnics at least sometimes symbolize spectacle and display, not normality.)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000282RZ/qid=1137008261/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-0227664-5327031?s=music&v=glance&n=5174

Now if they'd just get around to collecting his post-honky tonk records, most all of which are out of print, and which, with all props to George and Lefty, contain the most thrilling singing in country music.

Excellent.

I need to get off my freakin hobby horse but why, if Reynolds is going to broad-stroke, couldn't the terms soul and country in this sentence be switched and have it be just as accurate or inaccurate?

I once rode on the very same tour bus that Celine Dion used for a Texas tour. I was going to one of Willie's picnics. The fridge was totally stocked. "Tiny Dancer" did not play over the radio though.

this is excellent, and I too am uncomfortable with the notion, which is of course simplistic. I'd like to think that "reaching out to the pop audience" exemplifies a kind of democratic thinking that I wouldn't hesitate to embrace totally, but things just don't work that way.

I wouldn't hesitate to embrace it either. One of the problems with the historical ND and alt-country, as said or implied on this thread, is less a misunderstanding of or fear of pop music, and perhaps more of the pop world or mass culture or whatever.

again, thanks for all your thoughts--Chuck, Frank, Roy, everyone--on what I think is a great thread. helped me immensely in thinking about this. damn, you got me salivating over the Price set. between that one and the two Everlys boxes from Bear Family...now on to thinking about Townes Van Zandt...but for now, I must watch "The Big Heat" on TCM, one must never miss that wonderful chemistry between Lee Marvin and the awesomely sexy Gloria Grahame.

there's an interesting subtext buried in all this about the marketplace. or maybe that's the actual text, whatever, but to some degree the "alt" involves a distrust of the marketplace -- that, on the one hand, people who are primarily motivated by commerce are less likely to produce interesting work; and also that the marketplace itself is suspect, subject to manipulation and artifice, snake oil and chicanery. none of which are unreasonable suspicions, because obviously you can find plenty of examples of those things. but it also of course underestimates the marketplace, because the marketplace gave us louis armstrong and hank williams and elvis and james brown and on and on all the way up to eminem. i think liberals (and i am one) tend to discount how radical the marketplace can be. (not that radicalism is the only or even most useful thing about the marketplace -- a lot of times it's just good for sorting out a good tune)

Don't know if they've been called innovators inside ILM threads, either. I wouldn't be the one to make the case for their innovations (though I'm sure that some exist), just that those two are sometimes great - LeAnn more often than Faith - when they try and cross to pop.

now *that's* a provocative thought! I'm gonna have to think about that, but I think I know where you coming from...still, tell me more, Frank...

In other news, I've decided the repetitive seven-minute talking blues drone of "We Can't Make It Here" off James McMurtry's *Childish Things* (#6 on the ND list above) actually gives it real propulsion, and most of the current event details in the lyrics (wheelchaired Vietnam vets, textile mills closing, poor kids forced into the military, job outsourcing, Singapore sweatshop shirts stocked at Walmart, gang graffiti on freight trains, economic survival of the fittest creepiness) hold my attention pretty well; the song only sinks into corniness a couple times. "See the Elephant" and "Memorial Day" on his album are also tolerable; maybe other cuts too. The guy can write; just wish he could sing. I'm realizing that who he really reminds me of his T-Bone Burnett, who I also found tolerable once. Can't imagine why somebody would think his album ranked among the 10 most exciting of the year, though. Possibly in the Top 500, though.

ALT-COUNTRY SYLVIA: ONE GIRL'S QUEST FOR JEFF TWEEDY-DOM
Sylvia

From an early age, I fell in love with the inexplicable genre known as alt.country. Named for an early nineties internet message board made for fans into (duh) alternative country music, sadly alt.country is now a dying movement. Of my original triumvirate of alt.country poster boys (Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Ryan Adams of Whiskeytown and Rhett Miller of the Old 97’s), one has become obsessed with Sonic Youth and “noise rock” and one has decided that he is in love with New York City (ignoring your roots is so not alt.country). All have decided that what they really want is some mainstream success, which releasing cool, well-written records that include odes to the Southern/Midwestern town you were born in, the poetic deadends of your youth, and the actress/model that you are currently in loooove with do not necessarily bring you. No, now these men need fancy producers and guitar/pop hooks. I don’t mind their new records, but I fear the death of the alt.country art form.

But all is not lost! In a final attempt to save my favorite genre, I am creating a guide to how you can further alt.countrify your own life. You don’t have to be from a dying industrial town or even have traveled south of the Mason-Dixon line to cultivate this attitude. Instead, here are a few recommendations:

1. Get some flannel/ripped jeans.
Okay, I know that you’re laughing, but my obsession with tasteful flannel/plaid is totally appropriate. It gives you the ‘I don’t care what you think, and I’m comfortable in my own skin’ edge. The jeans should not look shitty. They should be tastefully ripped, and possibly spattered with acrylic paints in a nonchalant manner.

2. The bestest hair!
Alt.country girls can:
a. Make like Neko Case (long, dyed, often in braids)
b. Make like Gillian Welch or Caitlin Cary (variations on the ‘this haircut is so not hip that it’s hip again’).

Alt.country boys can:
a. either grow long and unattractive ‘lumberjack’ beards (not my favorite)
b. grow their hair until it’s shaggy and only wash/brush it every three days.

3. An accessory.
I recommend either a stylish belt with a large (slightly ironic) buckle or vintage cowboy boots. But never both at the same time.

4. Cultivate a “record” collection.
Of course, I mean emotional “records,” not the pretentious vinyl kind (though if you’re way into the scene, those are helpful, too.) You cannot be alt.country unless you know the pain of a broken heart, the feeling of being totally screwed over by the world, and a good amount about popular/literary culture.

To experience an evening as an alt.country-er, listen to Wilco’s Being There while reading Don DeLillo or Sylvia Plath. Go out drinking with your friends (preferably in a deserted train station or some otherwise desolate area), until at least one person is totally fucked-up. Envy that person. Smoke a cigarette while walking along a city street, feeling the wind shake your cold frame and thinking about how warm (yet desolate!) it is back in your hometown. Go to your apartment. Lie on your bed. Call your significant other, and hang up after you hear his or her voice. Listen to any Whiskeytown record. Feel shitty about your life. Write a song about it. Fall asleep. Wake up hung over and sad.

and, decided I couldn't get into that Patty Hurst record. just reminds me of the Gin Blossoms or bad dB's. so far, I think that Pinmonkey's new one is better. and since I'm here and not on the country thread, I'll say that I'm currently in love with Stoney Edwards's "Mississippi You're on My Mind," which I just picked up for cheap.

Actually, though, in that song, it's possible the immobile cement-pillar uber-seriousness of his vocal is part of what makes the song so inexorable; i.e., its lack of movement is what helps it keep pushing ahead. Not sure if that makes sense, and not sure if I totally believe it even it does, but it's possible. I mean, it's not like he's really using his voice as a battering ram or anything; he's just refusing to let anything stop him for seven minutes. And I don't see how, if he gave it more swing, if he was Dylan in "Subterranean Homesick Blues" or Charlie Daniels in "Uneasy Rider" or Melle Mel in "The Message" or Beck in "Loser" or whatever, that wouldn't make the song even more powerful and unstoppable than it already is.

Strap them kids in
Give em a lil bit of vodka
in a cherry coke
were goin to oklahoma
to the family reunion
for the first time in years
its up at uncle slatons
cuz hes gettin on in years
no longer travels but hes
still pretty spry
hes not much on talk
and hes too mean to die
and they'll be comin down
from kansas and west arkansas
it'll be one big old party
like you've never saw

uncle slaton's got his texan pride
back in the thickets with his asian bride
hes got an airstream trailer and a holstein cow
still makes whiskey cuz he still knows how
plays that choctaw bingo every friday night
you know he had to leave texas but he won't say why
he owns a quarter section up by lake ufalla
caught a great big ol bluecat on a driftin jugline
sells his hardwood timber to the chippin mill
cooks that crystal meth cuz his shine don't sell
he cooks that crystal meth cuz his shine don't sell
you know he likes that money, he don't mind the smell

my cousin roscoe, slaton's oldest boy
from his second marraige up in illinois
he's raised in east st louis by his
mamma's people where they do things different
thought he'd come on down
hes goin to dallas texas in a semi truck
caught from that big mcdonalds
you know that one thats built up on that
big old bridge across the will rogers turnpike
took the big cabin exit stopped and bought a carton of cigarrets
at that indian smoke shop with the big neon smoke rings
and the cherokee nations hittin the skogee late that night
somebody ran the stoplight at the shawnee bypass
roscoe tried to miss him but he didn't quite

bob and mae come up from
some little town way down by
lake texoma where he coaches football
they were two-A champions for two years running
but he says they wont be this year
no they wont be this year
and he stopped off in tushka at the pop knife and gun place
bought a sks rifle and a couple full cases of that steel core ammo
with the beardam primers from some east bloc nation
that no longer needs em
and a desert eagle thats one great big old pistol
i mean fifty caliber made by bad-ass Hebrews
and some surplus tracers for that old BAR
of slatons as soon as it gets dark
were gonna have us a time
were gonna have us a time

ruth-anne and lynn come from baxter springs
thats one hell-raisin town way down in
southeastern kansas
got a biger bar next to the lingerie store
thats got rollin stones lips up there in
bright pink neon
and they're right downtown where everyone can see em
and they burn all night
you know they burn all night
they burn all night

Ruth Ann an Lynne they wear them
cutoff britches an' their
skinny little halters an' they're
seconds cousins to me
man, I don't care I wanna
get between 'em with a
great big ol' hardon like a
old bulldart fencepost you can
hang a railpipe gate from
do some
Sister Twisters til th'
cows come home an' we'll be
havin' us a time
havin' us a time

Uncle slaton's got his texan pride
back in the thickets with his asian bride
hes got a corner pasture and an acre lots
he sells them owner financed strictly to them
its got no kind of credit
cause he knows they're slackers
and they'll miss that payment
and he'll take it back
plays that choctaw bingo
every friday night
he drinks his johnny walker
at that club 69
were gonna strap those kids in
give em a lil bit of Benadryll
were gonna have us a time
were gonna have us a time

Ok, so it's a little long for karaoke. But the version on the live album from a couple years ago is vicious. He's a real good guitar player too, tunings weird enough to give Sonic Youth fits.

http://www.soulandbluesreport.com/default.asp

Condescend much? Nobody makes Bettye Lavette sing anything. And Dolly Parton and Rosanne Cash and Bobbie Cryner aren't folkies, ok?

I mean any fan of those Burke and Tate and LaVette records ought to check out Malaco stuff, which is usually pretty interesting as both grease and shlock, with synths--commercial, even, and what's wrong with that? or at least commercial to folks living along I-55 from Memphis to New Orleans, like getting some pretty decent ribs from a Tiger Mart in Jackson.

now who's gonna do a record with Laura Lee?

There is a southern soul website that I'm on, where most of the members are total purists who can't stand the Malaco sound, with the synths and the blatant sexual references. (Ever hear "Bone Me Like You Own Me" by Barbara Carr? She records for Ecko, but her records are quite funny, if you liked Millie Jackson!) Personally, I dig the Malaco sound and the Joe Henry sound equally; at least here we have some producers and artists who understand true soul music. What I really hate is when some houserockin' blues company like Alligator finds an artist like Rufus Thomas or Mavis Staples and records them like they were Son Seals or Koko Taylor, with 12-bar blues progressions (in Rufus' case), thumb-popping bass and arena-rock guitars. It's like they're trying hard to cross them over to the same folks who buy Neville Bros. and Keb Mo records, it's so tacky!

It's funny that even a left-field artist like Dogg looks at purist indie labels that same way Rick Nelson viewed playing oldies revues - a polite way of saying you're a has-been.

I think this is my favorite thing ever written on ilm