Rolling country 2007 thread

I dunno, maybe Zwerling would appeal to Nick Drake fans or Tim Buckley fans or somebody? Neither of which categories includes me. I'm hating this.

"That's How I Got To Memphis": Again, like I said, a pretty good song. He follows her there, trying to figure out why she ran. Apparently she's in some kind of trouble. But that's all we learn; it's got the beginnings of a good story, but coming from Tom T. Hall, who is one of the best storytelling songwriters ever, it leaves me wanting me: More specifics, more humor, more ironies, more hooks. Plus, it sounds kind of dreary. But yeah, it's okay.

(But maybe people think of it as a lonely Lee Hazlewood-type song? If so, I can kind of hear that. For all, I know, he may have even done a version.) (Assuming he ever did songs other people wrote. Which he maybe didn't.)

Posted my conflicted thoughts regarding Tim McGraw's "Last Dollar" over on Jukebox.

Xhuxk, I think you'll like that song "Bodies" by Little Birdy that I talked about upthread, but here's the correct link.

I will check it out, Frank, I promise! But tonight I am too busy listening to my Ducks Deluxe LP. ([i]Don't Mind Rockin' Tonite/i]. Which is great. They may not rock as hard as Count Bishops, but they definitely rock harder than Nick Lowe or Dave Edmunds. And as hard as Eddie and the Hot Rods, at least.) (American equivalent of pub rock would be...Brownsville Station?)

Henry Gross? Chuck, I'd a figured you woulda known about him long ago. Def. country in there...his big hit: "Southern Band," simulated southern band dynamix, "plug me into somethin'" was a catchphrase when I was in highschool down here in Tenn. and then he did a swell one called "Overton Square" after the square in Memphis (where that Eggleston back-cover shot on Radio City was done, with the 3 Big Stars enjoying a gin-and-tonic). pretty prime '70s pop, and "Shannon" was the other massive hit. I always liked him.

Mavis Staples' new Ry Cooder production We'll Never Turn Back has plenty of bite, she sings mainly about the Bad Old Place, Mississippi, and some cool snaky grooves. A return to the sound of the old Staples hits pre-Stax like "The Last Time," and man I have always loved Mavis' voice, and I sure loved Pop's guitar. As Xgau described it, and well, "laggard lick."

And as far as "I Got to Memphis" and Tom T. Hall. I agree w/ Chuck, the song sounds made up. Memphis being the place where Nashvillians go to Get Away and Get Real and dive into the demimonde as it were, like John Prine slurring his way down there to Sam Phillips and Pink Cadillac.

American equivalent of pub rock would be...

Or maybe the Flamin' Groovies? (Incidentally, Leanne Kingwell tells me that Angel City//Rose Tattoo//AC/DC are still called "pub rock" in Australia, which is interesting.) (And obviously the Brit mid '70s pubnesss did have a c&w element, especially with bands like Brinsley Schwarz, which is why it makes sense on this thread, that and Elizabeth McQueen doing her tribute album in '05. On their album Ducks Deluxe cover "It's All Over Now," which has definitely also inspired country covers by John Anderson etc., plus "I Fought the Law" and Van M's "Here Comes The Night," which should have whether they did or didn't. The Rolling Stone "red" guide also says Ducks do a song called "West Texas Trucking Board," but it's not on my copy. There's definitely a hard rockabilly tinge to some stuff though.)

Now On: Jean Knight's My Toot Toot album on Mirage, 1985. I was under the impression that Christgau gave it a better grade than the B- he gave Rockin' Sidney's EP of the same year and the same name (which I also found a $1 copy of last year, and which it is indeed better than, though Rockin Sidney deserves a B at least; heck, it's an EP with a fun and totally left-field indie label regional-turned-national hit novelty zydeco single -- that deserves a B alone!), but there's no Knight review in his '80s book or on his website. Anyway, I'm liking the all-covers first half of Knight's album ("My Toot Toot," "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show," "Mr. Big Stuff," "Let The Good Times Roll") more, but the second side where she attempts '80s r&b production (in tracks like "Magic") might ultimately be more interesting.

(Oops, just checked; Xgau graded Rockin Sidney's minor-label LP, not his major-label EP. I've never seen the former. The latter is all the Sidney I need.)

American pub rock? Well, for the combination of return to rockingrollingness and oddball inventiveness, how about The Wild, The Innocent, And The E Street Shuffle? Or the original Modern Lovers? Or Mink Deville (whom I've barely ever heard, but somehow think might fit). J. Geils? Big Star, even?

Pretty Cowboy
Jason Meadows
100 % Cowboy
http://www.myspace.com/jasonmeadows100cowboy

Meadows is interesting, just the facts before we move onto the single. He grew up in a small town, on a farm, worked with bulls, rode rodeo for a while, and listened to country that was more chart then traditional. (George Strait came immediately to mind.) It's the story, with aw shucks phrasing, and a respect for his roots, that got him on Nashville Star, and every time that he won, every time he was chosen in front of someone else it was because of the traditional phrasing, the polite quietness, and the music that didn't much offend. It didn't hurt that he was tall, with a nice ass, and great eyes. Beefcake that you could take home to Mama. I watched the second season of Nashville star, with mild interest, mostly that it went worked hard at providing a full range of what was considered country, from girl singers to rockabilly to cowboy music to something resembling rock and roll.

Jason Meadows, two seasons after being the runner up, is now releasing an album. The single is out, and the video is available on his myspace page. They are selling him as a someone to ####, there was a pinup published in the Valentine issue of Country Weekly, with him hanging from a barn lintel, eyes low, gazing at the viewer, wearing nothing but a singlet. The photo of him on the CD single focuses on his arms, in a plaid shirt with the arms ripped off. He sings about not wanting to be a pretty boy or a movie cowboy, and he is pushing away from looking good on television. The video is similar,. just another working class man, cowboy being metonymy for cops and farmers and firemen and everyone else who does the scutwork that no one else is willing or able to do.

But he's a rodeo cowboy, so he never really did scutwork, he did hard work, I don't think that rodeoing is easy and he is too self consciously pretty, too careful about his appearance, and too derisive for this to be valid. I expect people who record to be playing with archetypes, to lie to me about where they come from, and in terms of country music, pretend to have a lot less money then they do. But the song you can t ell, comes directly from the rock hard is the new authentic, the genre that gave us Shooter Jennings, who had his daddy working for him, or Jason Aldean, who's signifiers of class and pyschogeographic space seem to be less jarring,. Or Gretchen Wilson, whose story had enough history close enough to the other women, that there is nothing out of place. The single is a failure (the publicity photos will end up under the mattress), but I am really curious to see how he constructs these personae over an entire album, esp. with titles like: Where Did My Dirt Road Go, Farm Girl, and Dirt Clod.



(also, im incredibly fond, intesnely fond, of the new tim mcgraw, because it has a great pop hook, and its simple, hopeful, showcases his voice well, and the childrens choir hasd a kind of bubbly lo fi pentecostal energy, but i dont know what you think of it)

American pub rock? The Wild, The Innocent, And The E Street Shuffle? Or the original Modern Lovers? Or Mink Deville (whom I've barely ever heard, but somehow think might fit). J. Geils? Big Star, even?

Mink Deville definitely; J Geils maybe (too hard rock? but then so were the Bishops. But if them, why not ZZ Top?) Springsteen: Maybe too much an auteur, even early on? Modern Lovers, I dunno. Big Star, I'll always be skeptical. If them, why not the Raspberries? Um....Earthquake. Greg Kihn. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. (Can somebody make a case for them already? Were they ever actually any good? Every $1 LP I've ever bought by them in my life, my high hopes wound up being dashed.) Er... Johnny Cougar. Bobby Seger. Tommy Petty for sure. The whole Robert Gordon to Blasters to who-knows-who rockabilly revival. Lotsa folks, duh.

(By "too hard rock" for Geils and ZZ, I maybe mean "too arena rock. Arenas being somewhat bigger than pubs, last time I checked. Though I'm guessing Geils [who I love by the way], at least, may have begun in the latter.)

(And by "too much an auteur" I mean that one requirement for pub rock seems to be that it partake in a certain "I'd just as well be playing softball [or, um, cricket maybe?] right now" demeanor. [So: George Thorogood and the Destroyers, obviously! Who even wore baseball jerseys!] Which is why Springsteen's first album seems less pub rock to me than the way more hacklike Greg Kihn covering songs off of Springsteen's first album, and why Graham Parker and the Rumour seem less pub rock to me than the Rumour sans Graham Parker. And maybe what makes Dire Straits [who came from the right place at the right time, right?] seem less pub rock than the Sultans of Swing they sang about.) (Also: Were Boomtown Rats the first punk-to-pub move, when they turned kinda Springsteeny with "Rat Trap" and "Joey's On The Street Again"? Could be. Definitely a subject for future research.)

dunno, my take on pub rockery is that it's Brits imitating supposed naturalness of Americans. by the time Brinsley Schwarz made "What's So Funny 'Bout" they sounded like Pablo Cruise with a better sense of humor--white-soul-lite. the father of American pub rock has to be Doug Sahm, with Mendocino (one of my top dozen favorite records of all time, all soulful and rickety and half-assed recorded, and just great) being the ur-document. the Flamin' Groovies on their first two records; after that, I like them but regard it as somewhat unnecessary powerpop. Henry Gross would be close, seems to me.
Gave the new Greencards another listen. Boy, that's one fine record, so well made. They cut it almost entirely live--added the strings and some vocal overdubs later. You wouldn't believe that voice would come out of the petite Carol Young. If I've ever met nicer music-biz folks anywhere, I don't know about it. Their first two records are good, too--neither of them plays up Young's voice enough, though, and the pickin' seems less focused than on Viridian. Only complaint I have is that the record is just too fucking compressed like most Nashville stuff. No air in the mix. Let 'em breathe!

I highly recommend Anthony Easton analyzing I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground.

Anthony, my and several other people's reactions to the McGraw are up on Jukebox.

I mainly know pub rock by what the pub rockers went on to do; pub rock generated quite a few oddballs - Dury, Lowe, Costello*, Parker, Strummer - which is why the early Springsteen might fit (Patti Smith too, for that matter; the 101ers covered her version of "Gloria")

*don't think Costello was along yet at the pub rock time, but he certainly worked with 'em once he showed up

Billy Swan might've invented pub rock, come to think of it.

Dog-watching for my wife's parents this week, with access to cable TV, saw that Pat Green's "Dixie Lullaby" is #2 on Great American Country's Top 12 "Pure" something or other countdown.
Great song.

Green's "Cannonball" was probably my favorite country album last year--Chuck gave it a few semi-positive mentions on the '06 thread but no discussion otherwise. I'm curious about what you guys think of him (Pat not Chuck.) From some Googling I've learned that he was once some sort of Robert Earl Keen- Texas singer-songwriter, but that his old fans think he's sold out to Nashville.

This may be the only case (that I can think of) of an alt-country artist (if he was ever considered that) going mainstream pop-country (if what he's doing now can be considered that--each of the few times in the past months I've turned on the local country station they played "Wave on Wave" so he must be kind of popular) rather than the other way around.

This may be the only case (that I can think of) of an alt-country artist (if he was ever considered that) going mainstream pop-country

The Warren Brothers with their third album, maybe? (Though it's not like tht one got much mainstream radio play, plus it was sorta more country rock, so they probably don't count.) Um...the Dixie Chicks? Big Kenny? If either of them were ever "alt" in the first place or ever "mainsteam" in the second place. Anyway, good question. I need to ponder this issue more.

I liked Pat Green's previous album to the current one (see my comments below from the 2004 [!] rolling county thread); thought the current one was way spottier but still okay when it came out last year, but maybe I should go back and listen to it again. I've never heard his older allegedly alt-ish stuff, though. But Lucky Ones was #8 on my NashScene ballot in '04.

Here's wot I wrote (preceded by what Matt Cibula wrote, though I still know nothing about Green's Xtn side, assuming Matt's not just making it up):

what about pat green,
is he all crazy-christian
on the new record?
i like the single
but i gave up on him for
scoffing at darwin

Haibun (Begs2Differ) on Tuesday, 21 December 2004 19:16 (2 years ago)


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

I had no idea that Pat Green was ever a dumbass creationist (as a matter of fact, I never even heard of him prior to his new album, to tell you the truth, so I came in with no prejudices positive or negative.) I put his new album on my country list because it expertly pulls off the sound of prime era John Cougar, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Kenny Chesney in "Summer of '69"/"Margarittaville" mode (e.g.: the one where he's nostalgic for college), Counting Crows in Van the Man mode (e.g.: the opening track), and, um, whatever '70s soul guys Brooks and Dunn sound like.

chuck on Tuesday, 21 December 2004 19:41 (2 years ago)

Last year (I didn't say much!):

pat green album starts out good, gets dull in the second half, still a keeper.
xhuxk (xheddy) on Monday, 4 September 2006 22:05 (6 months ago)

Listening to the new Pat Green & all his Springsteen references (the lovers listening to "Born to Run" on "Feels Just Like It Should" and Pat singing about a 'brilliant disguise' on another track) got me thinking about how the Boss has shown up repeaedly over the last few years in country songs (off the top of my head MontGen's "Hell Yeah", Brooks & Dunn-"She was Born to Run.") .
ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez) on Friday, 29 September 2006 11:49 (5 months ago)

thanks for the love, frank, and if you have dylans version, i wouldnt mind hearing it.

about the mcgraw, the more i keep listening to it--i know its insipid, and stupid, and the lyrics are offensive to the working poor (and at least the video in stealing kisses implicitly talked about wealth, the video was really about estrangement/class in a way the overly arty foto of last dollar isnt), and all of it, at the end of it is indefensible.

but it makes me happy. (i really think that the artlessness of it is what does it--which is absurd, things that pay so much attention to being artless are the height of borgie indulgence, like 10 dollar marmalade or the bottles or organic guava juice or coffee at starbucks, but goddammit, those taste good)

someone else has my tracey lawerence, but i will review it after the move this week.

& it passes the car test, its really easy to sing loud, with company, blasting on the radio, ive dont it a few times.

tis also not about the freedom of being poor, its about chucking everything, to be free--and thats kind of a radical message in capitalism, one of volantary simplicity, well not radical, hes not saying if yr poor, then yr free, hes saying fuck the mcmansions and the bordeuxs and the stetsons, and the escalades, you dont need anything but yr women, and even thats to be negoitated.

I still haven't heard the McGraw song! Maybe I'll poke around for it on line this weekend (and get to that Little Birdy song too, Frank, I promise.)

Meanwhile, Edd: I'll take your pub rock Billy Swan and raise you one Dwight Twilley. (Actually, neither of them ever made more than a single I've connected with, though people rave about the album with "I Can Help" on it. I owned it once, I'm pretty sure.) (Or maybe Creedence invented pub rock?) (As for pub rockers turning into eccentrics, as Frank says, that's a good point. And Ian Dury may be the weirdest of all those guys, but I've never heard his pub rock band Kilburn and the High Roads; how weird were they?)

In re pop-to-alt country moves: Interesting to think of Shelby, Lyle, k.d., folks like that moving in the alt direction for business reasons, since all of them (I assume) wound up shifting more units once they'd stopped aiming for country radio, right? At least long-tail-wise, it would seem to me.

So. Does Rich Boy's album (which I'm increasingly loving a lot of) count as country if he comes from Mobile, Alabama, and raps with an audible drawl? Probably not; I'm not hearing anything countrified on a Sparxxx/Banner/ Field Mob level in the instrumentation anywhwere. But I'm still pretty sure I like "Role Models" and "On The Regular" (and maybe "Lost Girls" and "Ghetto Rich") (and obviously "Get To Poppin,'," duh) at least as much if not more than "Thow Some D's," which is a pretty darn good hit single.

And does Cruachan's Morrigan's Call album count as country if it's the most Irish-jiggy extreme metal album ever made (not to mention the best metal album I've heard this year)? With good songs called "The Brown Bull of Cooley" and "The Old Woman In The Woods," not to mention yet another cover (after Tyr, I think, and the Dropkick Murphys featuring Shane McGowan, right?) of "The Very Wild Rover" (the "very" of which previous coverers have left out) just in time for this snowy St. Patrick's Day, no less?

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=47556196

And does Mojo Stooges Jukebox (compiled by Iggy, whose new album with his band I still haven't heard and am not particularly looking forward to enduring, though I've noticed Anthony's a fan) count as the best country reissue of the year if it's got Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran (whose "Cotton Picker" is pretty irritating, though no doubt that's what Iggy likes about it), Link Wray, Howlin' Wolf, Junior Kimbrough, John Lee Hooker, and Bo Diddley squeezed betweens its Trahsmen and Last Poets and Cannibals and Headhunters and Mothers of Invention? I would think so.

I'm also liking what I've heard so far (at least the Sheryl Crow, Deana Carter, Bryan Adams imitating Rod Stewart, Laura Harding whoever she is, and Rolling Stones tracks, none of which I love as much as "Cool Night" by Paul Davis which is also on here but what the heck) on the reissue of the soundtrack to Hope Floats, an apparent old movie from the early '90s or thereabouts I otherwise know nothing about. Still haven't listened to the Mavericks, Lila McCann, Trisha Yearwood, Lyle Lovett, Gillian Welch, or Bob Seger with Martina McBride tracks, but I will eventually, I'm sure.

Another good Southern rock band are these guys; the fact that "A Little Time" takes its music and "Let Your Love Light Shine" take its words from "Shine" by Collective Soul (which, let's face it, was really not that bad anyway in retrospect) are at least made up by the fact that "Nascar Superstar" takes its groove from "Walking The Dog" by Rufus Thomas. Otherwise, I can surely see why ZZ Top picked them as an opening band, though they're more Skynyrd if anything. They are Laidlaw from Houston:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=5893080

(And uh, more Black Crowes than Skynyrd, I guess, but what the hey.)

best metal album I've heard this year

Not counting metal albums that magazines like Decibel might not consider metal that is (i.e, I like Trigger Renegade and some others more)

I like the Mavericks track on Hope Floats! And the Gillian Welch one does not make me sick. And David Grusin's instrumental closer "Justin & Birdie" has a melody similar to "Flamingo Road" by David Johansen. And the Deanna Carter track "What Makes You Stay" (which isn't on any of the three albums I own by her -- was it on her second one, which I don't?) has a melody similar to "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt.

Collective Soul influence on Laidlaw mainly rests in the harmonies, I guess.

Rich Boy's "Touch That A**" would be more fun with less retarded words.

I would say Rodney Crowell's whole career has been going back and forth between "alt" and "mainstream" country. Gary Stewart, who would be alt- if anything if he were alive and speeding and drinking today, covered Crowell's definitively proto-alt "Ain't Living Long Like This" in 1977. I don't think Crowell really brought all that much to Elizabeth Cook's new one, which I've heard touted around here as "the record that alt-lovers and mainstream country fans could unite over, if only country radio, those bastards, would play "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman." So I dunno, the basic question of who crosses over is a good one; Lyle Lovett and even Yoakam always had feet in both worlds. So did Dwight sell more records once he quit aiming at country radio so much? It's an interesting question to me because I love all those old guys like Moe Bandy and Mel Tillis, and wonder where it is they had to fall back on? Branson.

Anyway, looking at Christgau on Billy Swan, he agrees with me pretty much, the first 3 Monument LPs are strong. But "I Can Help" is '74, by which time pub rock was already almost finished. Or whatever you want to call it. And Chuck, yeah Dwight Twilley, and haven't you expressed yr. love for Moon Martin as well? Andrew Gold? Nilsson? Any number of roots-savvy schmeagles and putzes trying to get around good old macho? In England (he cut some of his stuff in Nashville with Buddy Spicher and Charlie McCoy), Andy Fairweather Low, who would be alt-country today if he'd gone that way for cash, instead of being the secret blues guitar hero and tasty r&b-based sideman he'd always wanted to be. So the blues was his fail-safe crossover place.

Oops, it wasn't Anthony who loves the new Stooges album; it's Tim Ellison!

"Boy Looka Here" (cool marching band beat) also fun on the Rich Boy album. And "Hustla Balla Gangsta Mack" has New Orleans (more era than one probably -- the Meters one and the Cash Money one) in its rhythm and some lively gurl responses from Divinity, and "Let's Get This Paper" does ominousness pretty well. But "Role Models," featuring David Banner and Attitude, totally kicks like party-in-the-background frat rock as far as I'm concerned. Least enertaining tracks: "Madness" (which does ominousness shittily), "Touch That A**" (though its spare sound is okay), "What It Do".

Okay, enough hip-hop. Yes I do like Moon Martin. Quite a bit, in fact.

Lyle Lovett track on Hope Floats, a cover of "Smile" (you know, the "Smile" that goes "smile, 'cause your heart is etc etc") is ridiculous, and ridiculously bad--an entirely inept stab at sounding sophisticated, I gather. Sorry, but it is still way beyond me how anyone can take that dork seriously.

Turns out whose "Walking the Dog" "Nascar Superstar" by Laidlaw sounds like is Aerosmith's, whose sound is also fairly hearable in their "Austin City Wendy." "Swan Song (Tribute to Led Zeppelin)," on the other hand, sounds like guess who. In fact I was thinking of them before I even checked its title.

Pat Green Cannonball has been in my CD changer all day, and I have no more to say about it than I did last year. Mulla, what do you like about it so much? Which are your favorite tracks? It sounds okay, but beyond that...?

I am envious of his shirt on the CD cover, though! He sorta dresses like me.

"Way Back Texas" seems the closest thing to a great song on it, which was I thought last year, too. It wouldn't have been one of the best tracks on the vastly superior Lucky Ones though, I don't think. "Feels Like It Should," where he drives around to "Born To Run," is nice. I can take or leave "Dixie Lullaby" -- just one more fair album track selected as a single.

So has anybody heard Merle Haggard's Hillary-for-President song yet? Saw a blurb about it in the Times a couple weeks back; supposedly he's been doing it live. But as usual I've been too lazy to hunt the Internets for it.

(Basically, I guess you could say Pat Green improves whenever he veers toward '80s Cougar mode; the more country he is, the more a blank he feels. "Way Back Texas" is as rock as Cannonball gets, and therefore as good as it gets. But Lucky Ones was that rock way more often.)

More Hope Floats: Gillian Welch's "Paper Wings" turns out to be a bore as long as she's singing. When she stops, and the guitars come in, it comes to life.

chuck, do we have anything in common, cause i love that lyle singing slow and low, smile, so tired and so beaituful.

Okay, Anthony will be perhaps be happy to hear that I just re-listened to that Lyle track and decided it's maybe not all that horrible. I actually kind of like the jazz backing him up. And his voice is not intolerable in it. There's just something pomopus and too obvious to me about he slows the song toward lethargy, seemingly trying to make it intense or whatever -- Just strikes me as one of the biggest cliches on earth, and I don't buy it for a second. I get the idea he's trying really hard to impress me with his classiness for picking such an old standard to sing, yet he's too detached from the song -- too above it, in some kind of camp way maybe, but who knows -- to actually connect with its emotion. And I know, I know...I'm reading way too many intentions I couldn't possibly know into this, and not only that, I'm assigning what are probably contadictory intentions to it: he wants to make it intense and stay above its emotion; is that even possible? I don't know. All I know is that the performance feels really labored to me, with none of the ease that Alan Jackson or Toby Keith applied to music of a similar ilk (albeit not standards that have already been done to death, which may be part of the problem) last year. Gotta say, though, if that's the "Large Band" on there (that's what they were called, right?), Alan or Toby might consider giving them a call. With a more likeable singer, it's possible they'd rock my world.

Um...okay, maybe that won't make Anthony happy after all. But I'll say this about Lyle: At least he doesn't sing as bland as the guy from Whiskeytown, who also do a song on Hope Floats -- "Wither, I'm a Flower," jeez, though just like Gillian's track it improves when the guitars kick in. In general, though, I've decided that the album has too many tracks I dislike, too many that seem merely okay, and only one (Paul Davis's oldie "Cool Night," which I must own somewhere else, on a K-Tel album or a Rhino CD or a 45, right?) I truly love. Plus, the Seger/McBride "Chances Are" song is not a Johnny Mathis cover. So nope, not worth keeping. Does seem to have been a passingly brave early experiment in linking Nashville to alt-country, though.

(Looking over my Pat Green comments yesterday, they look way more incoherent than I intented. A couple of them, I can barely parse myself.)

...POMPOUS and too obvious to me about HOW he slows the song ...

(among other typos, no doubt.)

Wait, is the Whiskeytown guy Ryan Adams? (I'm too lazy to check, but he was in that band, right? I never spent much time listening to them myself.)

And if so, does that make Hope Floats the only album ever to feature both Ryan and Bryan??

Speaking of the land of a thousand dances (see comments referencing Cannibal and the Headhunters and party-in-the-background frat-rock yesterday), Kelefah says this is the craze right about now in Lafeyette, LA. Sure sounds like '60s soul-turning-into-funk (ready to be covered by rockers in a suburban garage) to me; am I nuts? (I have no idea if these links will work; if not, just go to youtube and search "Cupid Shuffle" yourownself)?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ExC1oGN5J28

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-GxidrT5GyU

And Frank: Yes, I do indeed like "Bodies" by Little Birdy.

i think that lyle gets this ironic tag more often then he deserves it, or this camp tag, and there are times when camp can come into an arrangement of a classic tune, or camp can be the after effect when a country tune turns into a show tune (im thinking about kd ca smoke, still one of my favourite albums, and thats b/c camp is only one effect and anyway she can sing in a way that lyle never managed, kd around torch and twang had too much consort in her), but i dont think that lovett at all is camp (even his genuine and rather tender cover of stand by yr man)

i bought smile:songs from the movies, and its not all good, sometimes his voice doesnt work, and sometimes his jazz band is a little too eager, and sometime i wish that he bothered a little more to swing or to work the melody or to do anything that a more traditional either country or jazz, but there are moments that might make it my country reissue of the year. among these moments that feature lyle (for example the brushed drumso n gee baby, aint i good to you arent his fault, but they are amazing) , are mostly jazz stanrds, esp. mack the knife or summer wind. his cover of I'm A Soilder in the Army of the Lord doesnt mock god, it even takes the awesomeness and the reverence of the divine into account, and ive always liked You've Got A Friend in Me, its that sentimental slush that manages to be carved into something genuine, because i know that both singer and songwriter can be right bastards when they need to be...

all of that said, the highlight for me, is smile. it reminds me of judy garland singing when yr smiling, because judy was insane, she was depressed, and any attempt for her to smile was a cracked out attempt at trying to convince the world that optisim will fix anything at all, and obv. its bullshit, but for 3 minutes or so, the sheer effort that she puts thru the delusion is convining. now lyle is way too laconic to work that hard at working thru an obvious delusion, but it makes it more beleivable. Someone so wry, so often depressed, and even sometimes ironic, who sings this, realises the disney/norman vincet peale shit wont work in the real world, a little delusion goes along way (other people who covered it who might know this: brian wilson, nat king cole, eddy arnold; other people who covered it who obv. had no fucking idea what was going on: michael jackson)

which disney movie does it come from?

lyle says that it was written by charlie chaplin, that cant be right?

so its not disney, it was used in modern times, which kind of i dont know, add a whole new level of pathos to the whole fucking thing

Btw, speaking of k.d., I got a CD by a group called Lesbians on Ecstasy (which looked like it'd be awful, and which I have no intention to listen to) in the mail yesterday, and their press release called "Constant Craving" (which I have no use for myself) "the lesbian 'I Will Always Love You.'" I had no idea that it had wound up on such a pedestal. What I mainly remember about it is jokes about "Constant Carving With A Butcher Knife" back in Radio On when it came out. Then again, I'm not exactly in the demographic.

i once went to a news year concert with lesbians on xtc, which featured in no paticular order

1) tequilla shots
2) gin
3) dancing with my shirt off
4) being on the stage and deep frenching a v. straight looking guy
5) fondling the breasts of a fat dyke in a diaper
6) watching my friend rachel and her bf have a reationship breakdown because she made out with a v. attractive scenester
7) inapporiately hitting on a famous toronto gallerist.
8) finishing off a magnum of champagne.

the band was amazing, just loud and fast and raw and v. fun, but not nearly as much fun as the night

Re: Cannonball

Must be my personal taste--I like the slower & mid-tempo stuff (Missing Me, Lost Without You) nearly as much as the rockier tracks that front-load the album. "Wayback, Texas" is the stand out, but the title track rocks too. I've not listened to his earlier albums much (though I own a few now) so maybe this one is a let-down, but I really like his voice on here--Country Soul Man in a less show-offy (less Country? less Soulful?) way than, say, Ronnie Dunn. I dunno--there's something joyful about the whole affair.

Mild criticism--in "Love Like That" the line "See those kids over there in the parking lot/ They're probably drinking beer & smoking a lot" annoys me, a not-so-clever self-edit.

Interesting how, with Southern rock bands, it always takes me a few listens to figure out whether they belong more on this thread or on the rolling metal thread. Renegade Rail and Glenn Stewart belonged more here, probably. Laidlaw belong more there, it turns out, but I'll repeart this here anyway:

Speaking of funky hard rock protest songs (and come to think of it, the funk is one thing that REO's "Golden Country" had in ways that Journey could never manage, which is part of why they rocked harder, my nervous system says), Laidlaw have a couple of their own -- "Revolution Is Coming" (top song on their myspace page) and "War Machine," both in the great incoherent-but-that's-part-of-the-fun hippie tradition of "Golden Country" and Grand Funk's "People Let's Stop The War." Along with the comparably boogiefied "Austin City Wendy" and "Nascar Superstar," these are two of my favorite Laidlaw tracks, I think. Which is to say I not surprisingly prefer them in '70s rock (plenty of Bad Company in there too) mode to Collective Soul/Black Crowes mode, though I don't mind the latter. (As for their Zep mode, the lyrics of "Swan Song" turn out to be made up entirely of titles of Zep songs, which is uninentionally very dorky, but sort of endearing too.)

Pulled that new Greencards CD back out today to, inspired by Edd's raves about it. Figured I'd kept it just 'cause it was "pretty good for a bluegrass record" (faint praise in my book), and assumed Edd was overstating his case, but turns out the CD is way better than I'd remembered, so maybe he's right after all. It's not a totally consistent record -- the songs Carol Young sings have a definite end over the songs sung by whichever guy it is that sings -- but high points like "All The Way From Italy" and "Travel On" (one of two Kim Richey songwriting credits, which helps a lot) are so catchy and beautiful that they carry the weaker cuts. Plus, the opener "Waiting On the Night" is almost pop, and the second song "Here You Are" is almost prog in its fiddle etc orchestrations. And "Mucky the Duck" is a real good closer.

Actually, the Greencards' guy singer (which one is he?) sounds kind of like Ricky Skaggs come to think of it. Sounds fine in "Lonesome Side of Town."

"..have a definite EDGE over..." (not end)