Has any band dared to mix country and noise-rock?

Hi Sheriffs of Blue did it better 20 or 25 years ago. (As did the Meat Puppets, maybe.) (And scores of other bands, most likely.)

And Link Wray.

blood on the saddle
leaving trains (early stuff)
tex & the horseheads (aforementioned)

around the same time, jason & the scorchers mixed country and AOR-rock not the same thing by a long shot. Noise in the annoying sense of the word

speaking of annoying, I've never heard Hasil Adkins but I assume this is what he did too perhaps inadvertently

Whoa. I almost want to hear it, but then again I don't.

"Your Cheating Pulsating Necropolis-Encased DEGENERATING HEARRRRRT."

Oakley Hall? (Whose album I don't like all that much, but still.) Really, there have got to hundreds out there, if you think about it.

Also, Morricone OTM.

See also John Zorn's interpretations of Morricone on "The Big Gundown". Beautiful.

But , so long as we're Gun Clubbing, Gallon Drunk would fit in along with that.

Fred Thomas (of Saturday Looks Good To Me), Kelly Caldwell, Patrick Elkins and Actual Birds all do a country/sadcore/noise/dub thing (when Thomas is on the mixing board), but tend to veer closer to noiserock campfire songs.

Butthole Surfers mixed in some country in their early days... So lon as your definition of "country" is broad.

xpost I always wanted Butthole Surfers to have more, you know, twanged out murder ballads and whatnot

Big Black, Boredoms, Butthole Surfers, Fushitsusha, The Jesus Lizard, Royal Trux, Scratch Acid, Zeni Geva, Cherubs, Chokebore The Cows, Keiji Haino, Live Skull, Pussy Galore, Rapeman, Swans, Unsane, Unwound, Dazzling Killmen, Distorted Pony

Listen to their very first 7-inch EP and their first album (which was basically EP length itself). (Christgau compared the debut album to DNA at the time, which made sense to my ears.)

Once Upon A Time In The West

http://www.myspace.com/odeath

I'm not seeing YHF as being noise-rock. I love it though

o_O_o

YHF is "lo fi" at best; ban geir

I'd actually say O'Death is more like noised up hillbilly minstrelsy than country.

I think my first post ever was on this thread! I stand by it: Uncle Tupelo's "Sauget Wind" is basically what this thread's question is asking about, though I guess it's more folk + noise than country + noise. I would link to a youtube but the only version online is live and it isn't as noisy as the studio version. Also, Neil Young's Eldorado EP (some of which ended up on Freedom) has a similar folk + noise thing going on.

i've heard one o'death song and it sounded like they had just heard tom waits the week before and said "yeah, let's do that."

Hi Sheriffs of Blue did it better 20 or 25 years ago

"War Between The States" on their blue-covered 1982 EP definitely a jig or hoedown. And you know they had the noise part covered, because they came out of the no wave scene, and Elliott Sharp was playing guitar and saxophone. (Also mixed in plenty of blues and dub reggae.)

Also, the Scene Is Now list Hoagy Carmichael and Bob Wills among their primary influences, fwiw. And you can sort of hear it.

i've always thought R.E.M.'s "Country Feedback" was an awesome song title and kinda wished the song sounded more like something that the title (or this thread) describes

ctrl+f califone

oh for fuck's sake ilm

CALIFONE

I'm highly looking forward to this year's Sin Ropas album. I already predict it will be my album of the year (my taste in music doesn't leave many openings for album of the year). But yeah, Sin Ropas is noisy, experimental, and alt-countryish. They usually have slower tempo songs like Califone (noise rock doesn't usually have a slow tempo) but as far as being really experimental and listenable (great vocals for instance) there isn't any other alt-country band that compares

There was some Hi Sheriffs of Blue in a compilation of mostly NDW 7"s I downloaded from Mutant Sounds recently. They stuck out somewhat, obviously. Anyway, I'd never heard of them, but the two tracks were great. Who were they?

Junkpile Jimmy does a great Dock Boggs cover.

No-one mentioned Nine Pound Hammer yet?

Came here to post what Louis posted.

Paid up member of the Califone love-in but I'm not sure they're really Country or Noise.

not noise

Jesus Lizard have been mentioned a couple of times upthread but no ones made the connect- I think Duane Denison's playing has a real country twang, at least on Liar.

Sorry, I mean on Goat rather than Liar, although there is a hint of it in the latter.

lol @ "persona au gratin"

Actually, Mofungo covered "Big Rock Candy Mountain" too (even more country than their Guthrie cover. Also, whichever voice comes in at the end -- future restaurant critic Robert Sietsema maybe? -- sounds exactly like Peter Stampfel.) Thing is, those two cover versions aren't as noisy as most of the other tracks on Messenger Dogs Of The Gods (which came out in 1986), and I get the idea that their earlier music (which I've never even heard very much of) was probably noisier.

And gnarly spectre, Hi Sheriffs Of Blue -- along with Mofungo, The Scene is Now, V-Effect, Frank Kogan's band Red Dark Sweet, and the very early Sonic Youth, among others -- were part of a Lower East Side avant-punk scence that evolved out of No Wave in the early '80s. Definitive document of the era, which I don't have anymore and wish I did, was a compilation called Peripheral Vision, on Zoar Records from 1982.

The best known member of Hi Sheriffs Of Blue was Elliot Sharp (on guitar and sax.) This is from his Wiki entry:

Elliott Sharp (b. Cleveland, Ohio, March 1, 1951) is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer. [1]

A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s[2][3], Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He pioneered the use of a lap top computer in live performance with his Virtual Stance project of the 1980s[4] and more recently has used algorithm and fibonacci numbers in experimental composition.[5] He has cited literature as an inspiration for his music and often favors improvisation.[5] He is an inveterate performer, playing mainly guitar, saxophone and bass clarinet.

"Nicotine Bomb" by Mission of Burma comes kind of close.

i'll second xhuxk's mention of caroliner, even tho i guess it's more bluegrass than country. they're a pretty amazing live spectacle, fwiw

as far as standard indie goes:

The Fall - Flat of Angles
The Breeders - Mad Lucas kinda comes close

Definitive document of the era...was a compilation called Peripheral Vision

never thought this album was very good myself. the bands included were more like a sub-set of the downtown music scene, the academic/lefty wing. I saw Hi Sherrifs of Blue a couple times but it was long ago...more blues than country IIRC.

the scene is now could have been pavement before pavement. same smarty pants genes and love for stuff like wire and the fall and television.

Hi Sherrifs of Blue...more blues than country

Definitely. (Their name comes from a Charley Patton song title after all.) Just saying they also had some country as part of the mix.

And m. coleman was there; I wasn't. So I only know Hi Sheriffs from their two EPs and their Peripheral tracks. (And only have that one EP now.) Curious who m. thinks should've been on that comp instead -- Sonic Youth and Swans, for instance, only put out their debut EPs that same year; not sure whether they would've had tracks ready on time. I liked the comp myself -- though obviously not enough to keep it, back then. Favorite song was "Finding Someone" by The Scene is Now.

What about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPmL-_haRac

xhuxk, I'm not sure anybody else "should have been on" PV, those bands were a little scene unto themselves. Instead I submit these two compilations as definitive documents of early 80s NYC. retrospective, but still...

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/z/zznewyorknoisedancemu_101b.jpg

http://www.plong.com/MusicCatalog%5CV%5CVA%20-%20New%20York%20Noise%20vol.2%20-%20Music%20From%20New%20York%20Underground%201977-84%5CVA%20-%20New%20York%20Noise%20vol.2%20Music%20From%20New%20York%20Underground%201977-84.jpg

Oddly the Mofungo lineup on Vol 2 is Elliot Sharp and some Lasswell cronies - no Sietsema or any of the later members.

no country influences on either set, sorry.

Yeah, I like both of those a lot; this one too:

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Anti-NY/release/76837

They just seem different, that's all. (And they all obviously only ever existed as reissues, in retrospect, which makes me wonder whether there's any way they could have been compiled that way at the time. But they definitely all have lots of acts worth documenting.)

Btw, I have this issue of New York Rocker from June 1982 that has a great alphabetial band-by-band rundown called "Downtown Uproar" --starting with Laurie Anderson and Robert Ashley, but also including a Red Dark Sweet writeup by Howard Wuelfing that's even longer than the Sonic Youth writeup by, uh, Mark Coleman -- and I realized that there are lots of bands that I don't think I've ever heard, and may or may not have ever been compiled, or possibly even recorded at all. Curious about Avant Squares, Dog Eat Dog, EQ'd, Barbara Ess, Friction, I Ride The Bus, Jill Kroesen, La Guapa Papa, Jeffrey Lohn, Mon Ton Son, Offshoots, Social Climbers, T-Venus. But probably that's another thread.

(And right, I doubt many of those had much country in them, either.)

Yet another good retrospective downtown comp from that era (though often more Ze-type dance-rock than no wave):

http://www.amazon.com/Downtown-81-Original-Soundtrack/dp/B00005AQSE

there was a good one that came out at the same time as the first mutant disco comp i remember

http://jacket.subtonic.jp/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/415xm91d3fl_sl500_aa240_.jpg

lots of these have a lot of overlap tho iirc

Really surprised no one brought up this doozy:

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-239989-1223782360.jpeg

Just total awesomeness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0YhBiJpInI

xhuxk, not to derail too much further but Barbara Ess was in Y Pants and Social Climbers were originally from the Indiana Gulcher scene and relocated to Hoboken, had one album.

thanks for the note, xhuxk. had no idea Elliott Sharp was involved. think i've got some orchestral freak out thing by him that I'll have to drag out.

and i sometimes see that Social Climbers LP on ebay. it's available on 3 x 7" format, iirc. pretty cool!

xhuxk, I was just referencing Social Climbers last week in a thread about bands/recordings using chintzy early rhythm box technology. I love their album! You can sample a couple cuts here:

http://waxidermy.com/social-climbers-st/

I Ride The Bus was Janet Wygal's band with her sisters, a side project while The Individuals were extant, but predating The Wygals. Pretty sure they never recorded anything.

There's some country noise stuff in Atlanta and Alabama and probably in Asheville too. It depends on your definition of both. In Atlanta there's this guy that plays as Pony Bones who does 1-chord banjo rants and he stomps on cymbals and uses shitty mics and a blown amp. He has a harmonica too and tends to do 1-song or 2-song sets. Plays alot of noise shows. There's another Atlanta band called The Back Pockets that does 5-minute 2-note songs with banjo as the lead instrument, harmonica, full + extended junk drum kit, bass, misc. Even though I don't think we have accents I bet somewhere up North they would think us country folk. It's really more like psych country though.

Used to be every year a huge house in the woods in Stone Mountain had a noise festival called Freedumb Fest. A weekend long, it probably featured many country noise artists, but it was a really hazy and chaotic atmosphere so I don't remember too many names. Oh, Rua Minx, I think is the name, was this duo of girls from Texas that did songs with autoharp and sewing machines i think. They played once.

Most of those artists are from the cities though. I think true country noise would have to be from rural towns. As for that, I think the most mindblowing noise coming from rural towns is traditional fiddlin' and hollarin' and whatever else they come up with that they've been doing for a while. One time while driving through Tennessee (BEAUTIFUL country btw) we were listening to the local folk music station and it played some of the truly strangest and most beautiful noise I've heard in my life.

on the off-topic discussion...I briefly discussed that downtown scene while blogging about Tape #1 here:

http://acuterecords.com/blog/?p=235

Peripheral Visions had some good stuff on it, especially the first V-Effect song.

Jeffrey Lohn had one solo LP of "serious" music but most of his songs appear on the Theoretical Girls CD (STILL AVAILABLE)

http://acuterecords.com/blog/?page_id=230

i always meant to check out souled american

Those Poor Bastards play "miserable and primitive old-time gothic country music", some of their stuff sounds like country Swans. others are fuzzed-up stompers like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2zTKPeLWeg

http://trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=grandpas_ghost

http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-07-11/music/quark-strangeness-and-country/

Hi - someone from the label we used to be on suggested checking this post out and linking a couple of reviews, etc. We're still existing in a subterranean sort of capacity - but rarely perform these days.

i'd say souled american fits, especially scott tuma's solo stuff. but again it borders with folk/bluegrass, and if we go down that route we may as well include like half of what fusetron/volcanic tonque/aquarius have in stock on any given week

the Tuma records are definitely amazing though

I chanced upon this thread while listening to the new Earth lp for the first time and would think they've fit since the time of Hex.

Saw some mention of Bad Seeds towards the top and would definitely think the way that Blixa was playing guitar in the early days would automatically link noise rock to what was at least partially country influenced music.
Have heard that Blixa has been learning to play pedal steel and is a big country music fan too.

I think there was some country in the heavy folk rock sound that the Swans mutated to in '88. That was the Children Of God band playing material some of which turned up on the White Rabbit era lps played by different musicians. I think '88 is my favourite era of the band, though I do still enjoy the early extremely brutal stuff & the new stuff too.

Would agree with comment on the first couple of Meat Puppet records, In A Car as bluegrass hardcore & the 1st 'lp' as some weird melange of jazz, country, psych, hardcore whatever that was filtered into a big influence on what became grunge.

Plus The Gun Club's early days where to cover Kid Congo's never having played guitar before JLP was citing Ornette Coleman meets Marty Robbins as the big influences. Subsequently a lot less smooth sounding than the not-so-smooth sound they wound up with later. Kid barely controlling his guitar and the rest of the band not being very competent either, rhythm section being Don Snowden bass (who might have been ok, & possibly introduced the blues element to the band when Ranking Jeffrey Lee was more into writing about Reggae. Snowden later co-authored Willi Dixon's auto-bio) & Brad Dunning on drums (he later gave up music for interior design). Apparently the group were pretty primal at the time, becoming more musical when The ex-Bags rhythm section replaced them.

Grateful Dead are also prime crossover between Marty Robbins & Ornette Coleman, improvisation & distortion at least in early 70s mode.

I would say Scenic maybe fit here, thinking mostly of Acquatica but also to some extent Incident at Cima.

Also surprised no-one has mentioned Cowboy Junkies. Some of their mid-period records (Pale Sun Crescent Moon, Miles From Our Home can be pretty noisy at times, and Michael Timmins can throw out a hardcore solo live when they really stretch the songs out.

Just occurred to me that Ned Sublette probably belongs on this thread -- I've never explored his early '80s/post-no-wave stuff much, but he was definitely part of that scene, and he used to wear a cowboy hat sometimes, iirc. Anyway, his track "Radio Rhythm (Dub)," with a band called Clandestine, included on Soul Jazz's New York Noise 2, definitely qualifies to my ears. (Country more for his drawled singing style than anything else.)

Also, what about Wall Of Voodoo (who that Sublette track actually sort of reminds me of)?

This thread put me in the mood for Legendary Stardust Cowboy
If I have time I might make a youtube for my favorite song by them