Rolling Country 2010

And Worley gloms onto at least two big myths in his thing. (1) That Uncle Sam takes half his labor.
And (2), that Obama did the Wall Street bailout when it was a Henry Paulson/GWB thing and so had nothing to do with 'change.' Plus, he throws in the Tea Party thing which has to do with its perception that the president slights those who pledge allegiance and pray. Which is pretty nasty when you get right down to it.

Another thing I remain curious on is the male country-wide breast-beating thing over honoring the troops.

To be honest, Ted Nugent -- in particular, does this big time, too. And it seems to me that if a few of these guys actually felt the way they say they do, the would have thrown down their guitars on 9/11 and marched quickly down to to the local recruiting station, like Pat Tillman. But, of course, we know they all didn't -- despite being as able bodied. In fact, this seems to be a real big component of Tea Party-ism.

So all the play for the troops and advertise it work, which is fine, smacks me as overcompensation and a psychological guilt work-off over not having the stones to actually do what they publicly believed ought to be done.

There's a conspicuous absence of songs about bringing them home now after almost a decade of war,
right?

"Keep the Change" is obviously a swipe at Obama--the guys up on the hill can't see that things are going wrong? Just give me the big money I deserve and need and you guys keep the change. I bet the songwriters were real proud of themselves. As usual, this is just insubstantial to the point of disappearing, as analysis. That bad ol' liberal Paul Krugman wrote recently in the bad ol' Times about the crumbing of our infrastructure, which I myself would be more concerned about that whatever Worley seems to think is wrong. One thing country used to do well was think in practicalities that sure, were all about the individual--politics being in my book a mass phenomenon, a way for people to Pull Together, and so forth, that country has always exploited but never actually taken to heart. Because the classic country artists felt excluded, just like the blues performers.

I do think that it's a biz decision, the fading away of Toby (who left his big label, remember) and the new stuff taking over, which is a bit more apolitical. John Rich supported the nut-job candidate for Tenn. gov., Zach Wamp (who didn't win in the recent primary). I believe Nashville is scared of tapping into the Tea Party rage, all it's gonna do is erode their market share with the people they want to reach--people like me, more or less, Southerners who basically like country music but who are liberals or at least skeptical about the right wing. I know a lot of people like that.

But the big guy with the slide is cool, in the Huckabee clip, and Huck himself acquits himself nicely on bass. I mean could James K. Polk play the banjo?

I tried to like the Jerrod Neimann record, Judge Jerrod & the Hung Jury, and while I kind of noticed the rock-opera aspect of it (note the subtle Pink Floyd Dark Side guitar chord allusion in the first number, I found it kind of ridiculous. That stupid song about going to Mexico and not feeling down. Guess I'll give it another try.

Duds: Clarie Burson's Silver and Ash and Eden Brent's New Orleans piano record. Brent is skillful and there are a few moments of nice rockin' on it. She can play in that Prof. Longhair mode, but her vocals--approaches everything just the same and tries so hard to sound like she's on a riverboat in 1923...annoying.

I bring up Brent just 'cause I know that this appropriation of an idiom--the skill involved in what she does, which is undeniable--may not be preferable to what Taylor Swift does. Just to let you guys know I think about this stuff. When you're calculatin' your aesthetics and all it's very difficult to sort this stuff out. My objection to Swift is that it's not musical, the actual elements of it have nothing much to do with music in its deepest psychological sense. The voice, the stance, the pathos of being young and the lyrics, that may have some merit but I need more, myself. Far be it from me to deny the people their pleasures in this. But one thing an old fart like me, cognizant at least of the niceties of "idiom" and so forth, can say is that country music used to be at least psychologically sound it its simplicity. This is not to decry the modern but merely to make an observation. Now do I prefer Swift to Eden Brent? I dunno--I am skeptical of both roots and rootlessness, as permanent states of being.

Swift Boat: the scuttlebutt here in town for a while, which may not be true, but the people who've said this to me are credible, is that Swift has never written her own stuff without help, or maybe not at all. Has had the guidance of a well-known songwriter whose daughter is a young alt-country nymphet. Probably untrue, but interesting.

The best thing I've heard in the last week is Riley's Grandma's Roadhouse, an early Gary Stewart project done with Owen Bradley in 1970. The local label Demore put it out. This may have been mentioned upthread in the posts I still haven't gotten to. It's what you wish country-rock--Marshall Tucker--would have sounded like, or what the International Submarine Band might've been with more balls, or what Doug Sahm might've done had he come to Nashville. Really great songs about drinking, weed and the pleasures of country life in a tar-paper shack, done with rock dynamics and guitar, but with a very interesting overlay of wistful? glazed? stoned? harmonies a la the Everlys and songforms post-Beatles for sure. Stewart wrote about half the songs and sings them. It's remarkable and as a confirmed Stewart nut I love it, but the whole band is great.

and reading up thar, right, Marcus is full of it re Jesse Winchester and "rockabilly." Last year the Scene asked me to write about Winchester, who was appearing here in town and whom I'd never seen or really listened to very much in years. So I dug out all his stuff I could find and spent a few days with the man.

His first LP is a classic and it's more or less a sui generis singer-songwriter essaying the lyric, as in lyrical, side of basic rock 'n' roll and a little country, a little sentimentality. The insane balls-out of rockabilly isn't there at all. What Marcus was hooking into was the expat aspect of a Memphis/Mississippi artiste feeling lost but still horny and ready in a cold country. Winchester's later stuff is nice with particular props to Nothing but a Breeze. One sly motherfucker indeed. His last album, Love Filling Station, uses newfangled oldfangled acoustic-bluegrass tropes and is very nice too. One great song tucked away in there about how Southern women are disappointed in their men and how the money sustains it all despite said man's fecklessness, daddy got him a job at the bank. A subject I find irresistible, since I know some mighty Steely Magnolias and some mighty feckless men named things like Ferdy...but Winchester I did catch at the Nashville show, just so mellifluous and subtle and sly in the vocal approach, and "Biloxi" and "Mississippi You're on My Mind" (done to a T by Stoney Edwards) are A plus songs, man. But rockabilly... no.

I believe Nashville is scared of tapping into the Tea Party rage, all it's gonna do is erode their market share with the people they want to reach--people like me, more or less, Southerners who basically like country music but who are liberals or at least skeptical about the right wing. I know a lot of people like that.

This is an interesting observation, thanks, ed. I saw this fellow named Mudcat Saunders on the television the other day, MSNBC talking about how Jim Webb won, and he seemed to be in the same vein.

Swift Boat: the scuttlebutt here in town for a while, which may not be true, but the people who've said this to me are credible, is that Swift has never written her own stuff without help, or maybe not at all. Has had the guidance of a well-known songwriter whose daughter is a young alt-country nymphet. Probably untrue, but interesting.

To be honest, I don't give a hoot either way. Nothing is more tedious than the way that writing your own songs in isolation is held up as the mark of a TRUE ARTIST.

Anybody got any Top Ten bait? I don't think I've even heard ten 2010 release country albums (yet)Pretty sure the aforementioned Lydia Loveless and Halestorm gonna be in my TT, but otherwise...

Yeah, the results are what count, talking about Taylor Swift.

So the Jerrod Neimann record should've been called The Eclectic Spanking of Judge Jerrod. When Nashville wants to make a concept record making fun of concept records, they really do it right. This record makes Bobby Bare Jr.'s new one sound positively moribund and ranges over a lot more territory. One tune features Funkadelic guitars circa One Nation Under a Groove and backup singers and occasional wah-wah; there's one about Tiffany a.k.a. Bakersfield from Bakersfield; a Jimmy Buffett imitation with bongos in it; some very odd arrangements including one that alternates strings with some kind of weird keyboard part; a joke-ending of an ending song just like Roger McGuinn used to favor; and the clincher, a song about how he's a throwback to the days of hat acts that alludes to payola, with piano part signifying the glorious past. He sings well enough, overdoes it by my lights but that's part of the concept. Hmm. As I say, the Bare Jr. record sounds anemic by comparison, merely reshuffling some moody alt-country concepts and Bare Jr. sounding dead on his feet throughout most of it.

Wow...Rolling Country is rolling again, I guess. Need to absorb George's and Edd's posts more, but to answer Don's question, my country Top 20 albums for 2010, at this point, would look something like this (with much shuffling likely between now and the end of the year):

1. Jace Everett – Red Revelations (Western Boys/Hump Head)
2. Luther Lackey – Preacher’s Wife (Ecko)*
3. Jamey Johnson – The Guitar Song (Mercury)
4. Flynnville Train – Redemption (Evolution)
5. Laura Bell Bundy – Achin’ & Shakin’ (Mercury)
6. Chely Wright – Lifted Off The Ground (Vanguard)
7. Colt Ford – Chicken And Biscuits (Average Joe’s)
8. Tim Woods – The Blues Sessions (Earwig)*
9. Lee Brice – Love Like Crazy (Curb)
10. Jerrod Niemann – Judge Jerrod And The Hung Jury (Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville)

11. Shinyribs – Well After Awhile (Nine Mile)
12. Merle Haggard - I Am What I Am (Vanguard)
13. Trace Adkins – Cowboy’s Back In Town (Universal)
14. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Wages (SideOneDummy)
15. Elizabeth Cook – Welder (Thirty Tigers)
16. Randy Houser – They Call Me Cadillac (Show Dog)
17. Jason Boland & The Stragglers – High In the Rockies: A Live Album (Apex Nashville/Thirty Tigers)
18. Legendary Shack Shakers – Agridustrial (Colonel Knowledge)
19. Stone River Boys – Love On The Dial (Cow Island)
20. Andy Cohen – Built Right On The Ground (Earwig)*

* -- These ones may well stretch the definition of "country." (Technically more blues or soul.)

And Edd, if you didn't notice, I linked to my own review of that Neimann record upthread, sometime in the past few weeks. Didn't even try the Bare Jr. album; have hated what I've heard before by the guy.

Shack Shakers might stretch the country definition as well, I guess.

And I find Taylor Swift's music pretty darn musical, myself.

Shinyribs and Rev. Peyton borderline too, maybe? I dunno, y'all decide.

Definitely agree with Edd's theory, by the way (and this is what I meant above about Nashville's apparrent slight left turn being possibly a biz decision) that Music City's current target audience seems to be veering more upscale, sophisticated, urbane, maybe even liberal -- mainly, it's who can afford albums and concert tickets. And more extreme forms of tea-party-like rhetoric might well turn lots of such folks off, so maybe the labels and radio figure it's best to be cautious about such stuff.

Krugman wrote recently in the bad ol' Times about the crumbing of our infrastructure

And oh yeah, this was a pretty ominous column, btw, for anybody who missed it. Krugman's really been on a roll the past couple weeks. His column about Paul Ryan reviving Newt Gingrich's fuzzy math, and that being the closest the G.O.P. has to a plan for the future, was pretty horrifying as well. Fwiw:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09krugman.html?ref=paulkrugman

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman

And oh yeah, before that, the one about high, long-term unemployment becoming an accepted part of the future American economic landscape:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/opinion/02krugman.html?ref=paulkrugman

To what extent have country songwriters addressed these issues? Not much, I don't think.

Edd's theory...that Music City's current target audience seems to be veering more upscale, sophisticated, urbane, maybe even liberal

Okay, looking back, this isn't literally what Edd said. But I do think our theories overlap somewhat (which isn't to say that Tea Partiers on average have less disposable income than urbane liberals or moderates -- the opposite may well be true. But I do think class comes into the equation, somehow or other. Maybe it's more that the urbane types are who the country radio's advertisers want to reach.)

And by "urbane" maybe I just mean "college educated"? Or something.

I want to talk to a few people here in town to test this overlap Chuck and I are experiencing. I'd love to get some harder evidence of what's happening with the last, say, 3 or 4 years.

Agree also on Jace, Jamey and Cook in your top ten. Rev. Peyton I'm on the fence about. The Jerrod record, as I say above (and I'll read your review, Chuck, thanks!) is...real interesting and perhaps even symptomatic of what this demographic outreach is all about. Country as production value as opposed to individual song? Dunno. I hated it the first time I played it, wasn't in the mood for its humor, but I've gone back to it several times.

And yeah, Bare Jr. is generally pretty bad. He tries hard. Not a great singer at all.

Will write more about the amazing Riley record I mentioned above. Got to be one of the year's best reissues.

Something I kinda like, speaking of reissues, is this twofer by Texas singer Tony Booth. At 48 minutes and two LPs, it's short...and Booth is a kind of Johnny Bush-style singer who isn't as operatic as Bush. These records were done around 1970 and contained hits, like "The Key's in the Mailbox" which is also the title track of the first record. I quite like "Down at the Corner Bar" which mentions "some old floozy" and swings really nicely. Produced by Buck Owens' guitarist, Don Rich, and with several songs by Buck himself--"Second Fiddle" and the great "Congratulations, You're Absolutely Right." Also some nice material by Justin Tubb and Tony himself. "Somebody Called L.A." is a kind of precursor to Jerrod's song about Tiffany also known as Bakersfield. "It's just a nightmare/Somebody called L.A./From a Georgia farm we came to this town a year ago," also like "Streets of Baltimore." I know that Bush's vocal approach is an acquired taste, but Booth isn't as histrionic and the songs are models of concision. I believe the other hit was "Lonesome 7-7203" which is the title of the second LP collected here. The L.A. song kinda helps explain the difference between old country and new--the city used to be the Great Alien Place, now Jerrod hops from Nashville to San Jose to the Bay Area with no sweat. Times do change.

Also, before I go, want to mention that I saw Georgette Jones, the daughter of George and Tammy Wynette, at the Midnite Jamboree a couple weekends ago. Nondescript but not unattractive woman about 40 and as good a singer as Tammy if not George, and she did a lot of the material associated with both, including a fine "D-I-V-O-R-C-E." Deceptive: she stood up there and sang quite well, but didn't do anything all that impressive. But at the end of almost song she suddenly rared back and hit some amazing high notes perfectly and in flawless emotional logic, so I was pretty damn happy to have seen her.

OK, the reviews I read of Jerrod, at Rhapsody and at Singles JB, make me feel good to have thought that Jerrod did indeed do all them bg vocals himself. That's interesting to me. Yeah, he does wake up with a topless teacher! He's definitely outta diapers!

Tony Booth was actually from Florida and got onto Capitol thru the good word of Buck Owens, and Tony was another Bakersfield guy. But he sang like Johnny Bush, which is why I thought he was a Texan. (The guy who sounds most like Bush today is Justin Trevino, who is big in Texas and unknown just about anywhere else.) His first charted hit seems to have been 1970's "Irma Jackson," which is a Haggard song. He hit in '71 with "Cinderella" and again with "The Key's in the Mailbox" which went to #15 country. And in '72 with "Lonesome 7" which hit #16.

The Jerrod record, as I say above is...real interesting and perhaps even symptomatic of what this demographic outreach is all about. Country as production value as opposed to individual song?

A good chunk of it is also literally about college (or at least skipping classes and getting drunk with frat buddies), which is obviously a theme guys like Kenny Chesney and Pat Green have touched on in recent years, though not as much, I don't think, and with them it tends toward nostaliga whereas I think most of Jerrod's college stuff is in the present tense (just like Lee Brice's getting rowdy wild after the high school football game stuff). Country about college has got to be a recent development, right? Hell, in the '70s, even in rock music, just about the only people who ever sang about college were Steely Dan! And yeah, obviously too, Niemann's album is a kind of concept record, designed to be played start to finish (with all the skits); probably the last couple Paisley albums have hinted at that sort of thing, but I can't think of any previous country albums that have been so over the top about it. Could become a total fucking annoyance (as in other genres), if it caught on, but now it's a neat novelty. And obviously one economic imepetus for designing albums that way these days would be so fans would want the whole thing, rather than downloading just the individual cuts.

Speaking of individual cuts, curious which ones these are, Edd (tho if I invested more time, I might be able to figure it out myself): (1) One tune features Funkadelic guitars circa One Nation Under a Groove and backup singers and occasional wah-wah; (2) one that alternates strings with some kind of weird keyboard part (3) a joke-ending of an ending song just like Roger McGuinn used to favor.

Speaking of individual cuts, curious which ones these are, Edd (tho if I invested more time, I might be able to figure it out myself): (1) One tune features Funkadelic guitars circa One Nation Under a Groove and backup singers and occasional wah-wah; (2) one that alternates strings with some kind of weird keyboard part (3) a joke-ending of an ending song just like Roger McGuinn used to favor.

let's see, I was working off a promo with no song titles...the one that reminded me of George Clinton is "Come Back to Me," track 11. And the really interesting cut with the string arrangement and that nagging little keyboard (elec piano) and synth? part is "I Hope You Get What You Deserve," track 17. And then the jokey one, "For Everclear," where her shirt comes off, track 19. You're right, it is kind of about college, "My Old School" would've been a great cover.

You have to know that the first serious articles on on the crumbling infrastructure showed up in the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times. Krugman, in a well done piece, emphasized it again. More power to him.

Tea Partiers on average have less disposable income than urbane liberals or moderates

Well, they don't. Most of the surveys I've seen show they skew older and more well off. They are not the bottom-out-of-sighters. So Worley is trying to hook into an older audience. And it matches the Fox News demographic which totally fails with the younger. The younger would give him the finger.

It's a gamble on Worley's part. And if the country music industry is looking to a future, it may indeed, be very nervous about doing anything for that demographic. There's money in it, but ... {fill in the blank)

It's also Ted Nugent's problem. His politics and beliefs destroy his audience. So he's stuck with the diminishing marginal returns I've described on my blog, in his summer tour of dumps/casinos.

The audience coming to see his shows is not the same audience that reads his two and three columns per week in the WaTimes, the stuff that totally shits on the middle class.

Getting back to the country breast-beating on the military thing. The US military is far more diverse than
country music. And an entire rainbow of acts play for the US military overseas.

But it's the country acts which go overboard about there devotion to it the most.

For example, Joan Jett -- who is openly gay -- does a lot of this stuff. But it's not in any way a big part of her shtick.

On the other hand, it's a huge part of Worley's shtick, of Keith's thing, of Nugent's, of Montgomery Gentry's, etc.

It continually strikes as this overcompensating fucked-up semi-educated white boy guilt trip. Some fantasy built off a vague idea about duty, WW II and Sgt. Rock comic books. (Which I had.) You can work off your stupid jingoism by doing penance playing free or semi-free gigs in Afghanistan and Iraq (or Kuwait,
Quatar, and the United Arab Emirates.)

They feel subconsciously slimey -- and they should -- for avoiding what they indicate they believe needs to be done. And it's the only demographic that continually shows imagery of people with medals and ribbons all over chests.

And I would be genuinely interested in talking with Worley -- as would any real journalist, not the random sissies that have been assigned to him. He's not Ted Nugent or Hank Williams Jr. Or John Rich.

Why does he want to work at monetizing bigoted rubbish?

New Taylor Swift single, "Mine," leaked eight days ago without anyone telling me. Heard it an hour back and I'm still humming it, but also had the same thoughts running across my mind that I had when I was still underrating Fearless: the sound is too samey and the vignettes are summaries not stories.

When Fearless finally did hit home what had been sameness now felt like a passionate reverie, stillness atop great feeling, and plenty of nuance and shifts of tone within it. But "Mine" rolls along fine; what's too much the same is the ringing, chiming guitar. Think an acoustic version would be better, with Taylor's voice sounding all vulnerable. Of course, the streams I'm getting on the 'Net have poor fidelity, some thin and deliberately sped up. Right now the song's a 7, but we'll see what happens when I hear a good rip.

Will think more about the lyrics in few days when I write the song up for Yet Another Year In America; I like the line "You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter," seems to have a whole story within it, but this song doesn't tell that story.

Was just listening to "Fearless."

This is just weird. From the Irish Times newspaper. I've never even heard of any of these acts besides Nugent.

Conservativism and neo-liberalism simply don’t get a foot in the record company door unless attached to a certain type of country music performer – or Ted Nugent. The latter was last heard of when at a recent show he referred to Hilary Clinton as a “worthless bitch” and Barack Obama as a “piece of shit” before holding up what appeared to be an assault rifle and saying he told Obama “to suck on my machine gun”.

Nugent, though, represents the outlaw right wing in music terms and is very much out there on the margins. What is emerging with a real force in the US, however, is “Tea Party Music” where rock musicians are finally engaging with the right-wing agenda.

They’re tapping up a new and fervent fanbase – usually baby-boomer types long ago alienated by rock’s liberal, bleeding-heart sentiments.

These Tea Party musicians (such as Krista Branch with I Am America, Jeremy Hoop with Rise Up – dedicated to “all American patriots” – and many others) have been galvanised by the emergence of the Tea Party political pressure group. In simplistic terms, the Tea Party are anti-Obama and pro-Palin – they’re a type of Republican Party with attitude.

For a certain generation, these musicians are their Dylan, Joni Mitchell etc. They sing about “reclaiming” the US from the Democratic movement and lyrically get quite specific about Obama administration policies such as the stimulus package and healthcare reform.

And these aren’t banjo-playing rednecks, this is MTV-friendly music – slick, well-produced and eminently chartable. But such is the fear of the music industry’s antipathy to right-wing music that some of the Tea Party musicians remain “closeted”.

Consider the case of Tea Party poster boy Jon David, whose American Heart song is much loved by Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. He always performs wearing a large baseball cap and a dark pair of sunglasses.

Jon David is in fact Jonathan Kahn, a Hollywood scriptwriter, who has only recently “outed” himself. His fear for a long time was that he would lose his career in Hollywood because of his political associations: “Being a conservative is the kiss of death there.”

Now that he’s out and proud, he sings his heart out on anthems about cutting taxes and shrinking government.

David/Kahn is a totemic figure for the Tea Party movement – almost a Harvey Milk type if you like. Conservative websites and bloggers laud him for “throwing off the shades and fighting the good fight” and openly talk about “many other right-of-centre sleeper agents all over Hollywood who should declare themselves and try to reclaim a piece of the Hollywood/ pop-culture pie for pro-American and pro-liberty ideals”.

In many ways this is beyond bizarre. That a group of politically motivated musicians are so frightened by the left-liberal entertainment “elite” that they are now using the international language of struggle and oppression.

A right-wing Stonewall is coming – and a Hard Right is Gonna Fall.

The journalist seems to think there's a shortage of music acts which appeal to baby-boomers, that hippie music is still popular.

You have to just laugh and shake your head at a line like "A right-wing Stonewall is coming ..."

He seems to have missed the obvious, that -- yes -- the Tea Party types do whine about being oppressed, but they do it in terms of being oppressed by the 'tyrant' in the White House, while they insist they are taking inspiration from Martin Luther King, Jr. Not Harvey Milk.

Ray Stevens is another guy who has made pro-Tea Party music. I interviewed him earlier this year and was struck by the vehemence of his opposition to Obama.

The image of a "ring-wing Stonewall" is quite amusing, since I would bet most right-wingers and "rednecks" would have no idea what Stonewall means.

You may find this 2009 Washington Post piece on the country audience and the Internet instructive. Excerpt below:

As traditional retailers continue to disappear and even Wal-Mart, by far the largest seller of country music, devotes less floor space to CDs, Capitol Records Nashville President and CEO Mike Dungan says that what worries him is, "if a sizable portion of our audience has no access online, then we're out of business."

Dungan thinks he has mitigated that risk somewhat by signing such artists as Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley and Eric Church, who appeal to a younger fan base raised on the Internet. Nielsen research shows that the older people are, the less likely they are to be online.

That fact is borne out in online sales as well. For example, 27.3 percent of the revenue from Lady Antebellum's self-titled debut album comes from digital sales, says Dungan, whereas only 10 percent of the revenue from Adkins's "X" comes from online sales. The three members of Lady Antebellum are in their mid-20s; Adkins is 47.

ha, "right-wing" Stonewall, ring-a-ding-a-wing...

The other fly in the ointment is the US descent into third world nation economy. Then country, and eveyr other genre, has to sign artists that appeal to the haves who spend. In terms of the future, that's a
really crimped potential audience left for country. Paradoxically, if the country industry actually catered to the Tea Party crowd and its political beliefs, and everyone in that demographic got what it wanted in terms of a president and congress, then the industry would have its throat slit.

Krugman explained this differently about a year ago, I think. You can have a country that's a plutonomy. It's just a lot less people spending more. And the artist picture becomes completely different, the labels even more shrunken because most of the population can no longer afford standard ticket sales on a regular basis. In terms of non-essentials, one of the things logically axed is entertainment. And there was a piece in the LA Times a few Sundays ago on how ticket sales are off this summer.

Ted Nugent found this out this summer, playing only casinos, really small dumps, and fairs where "600"
is considered a big VIP crowd.

In this, Worley's strategy -- and by extension his label's -- makes some sense. The Tea Party types are older and they have their pile. It's safe for most of them. So they can theoretically spend on him if they choose to. And he can get publicity on Fox, which is where Nugent gets all his, too.

Nugent's pretty savvy about working this. He's in Phoenix this weekend so he had a publicity event
with Arpaio in which he was 'deputized.' Naturally, it got covered. The Phoenix New Times had it with a pic in their blog and the comments, from the younger, are globally condemnatory. But Nugent knows that's not his audience and if it makes local TV news, theoretically he gets some mileage from it.

27.3 percent of the revenue from Lady Antebellum's self-titled debut album comes from digital sales, says Dungan, whereas only 10 percent of the revenue from Adkins's "X" comes from online sales.

Yeah, but what was Arcade Fire's digital percentage last week, for their new album's first week sales -- 62%, I think I read in the Times?? Had to do with being sold at loss-leader $3.99 price on Amazon, apparently, but still -- if you're talking digital sales, country has always been lagging behind (not as much as, say, Regional Mexican, whose fans barely download at all, but still pretty drastically, I think). Though yeah, obviously a younger demographic would at least potentially change that. (At the beginning of the year, iirc, SoundScan was listing Taylor Swift as the top-selling artist for digital tracks in history so far; not sure if that's changed since, or not. If so, with a new album coming out, she'll probably catch back up pretty quick. But I doubt anybody else in country comes close.)

(And percentage of sales is probably not the same as Dungan's "percent of revenue", I guess -- which I assume would also include digital track sales as well as album sales -- but still, he's right: As stores that sell CDs close and reduce floorspace, country is on the losing end of the stick.)

Thing is, in the past decade, maybe counter-intuitively, the industry downturn seemed to hurt country less than any other musical genre, even despite sales within the genre transioniting much slower to digital. And music's biggest new live acts of the '00s -- the only acts in Billboard's list of the Top 20 touring acts whose recording careers hadn’t already peaked before the millennium started – were Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney, and maybe Tim McGraw (whose '90s and '00s seem more or less equal). But that sort of thing can't last forever. And concert ticket sales are hurting this year too, right? (Also maybe makes sense to consider that, like the Republican Party's though I assume not so much {and of course the Republicans seem oblivious to this, except when wanting to gut the 14th Ammendment I guess}, country's fan base is diminishing as a percentage of the overall population. Hence, half-assed reaching out in recent years to black and Latin audiences, to not much avail I bet.)

Oh yeah, just noticed that George had mentioned ticket sales being off this summer, too. Anyway, I've been wondering, given how much concert tickets cost these days -- if Toby and Chesney and McGraw have no problem filling seats (or less problem doing so than most artists of their generation), who exactly is their live audience? They can't be poor. (I guess it's possible they charge less for tickets than comparable rock or rap or pop acts do -- I haven't comparison shopped -- and maybe they just tour more. But that Billboard Top 20 I referred to was based on total gross dollars, not number of tickets.)

Well, as you wipe out the middle class you steadily diminish the audience for popular music, or at least sales of recordings. People will continue to 'watch' the acts on the cheapest network television
stations.

The younger kids, who buy Taylor Swift, are naturally on-line. And they're still greatly shielded from the savage economy by their parents. However, once out of there in a decade, then you see them crash too, with everyone else when they get thrown into it. Or we have a country like Japan, where everyone stays home with their parents and spending tails off.

I think, long term, it's a very grim picture. The plutonomy doesn't need or pay for mass entertainment.
Only things like buying tickets to see U2 at Soldier Field, when you live in the Hamptons, or flying somewhere to see Paul McCartney.

I don't think there's anything good in data that shows Trace Adkins fans buying 17 percent less stock on-line and that therefore Nashville wishes to invest in more teenage acts as an answer. They're overlooking a bigger picture, one that says Brad Paisley's shiny 'future' doesn't include a lot of middle class discretionary spending on entertainments. It's not the middle class that buys the goofy dancing robot in his video. And if you need to replace your chrome spring leg, you'll spend on that before you spend on music if your money's not much and social benefits don't quite cover it.

The point being: When you kill the middle class everything everyone has come to live and know slowly
shrivels up and dies. Except the mansions. And the residences now become flophouses right beside them where the people who are the servant class live. I learned this working the census.

Nugent always makes a big deal out of how he's a responsible steward of the wild. And a tremendous hunter.

If you're read my blog tab on him this summer -- it's amusing but also aggravating and a bit sad -- you've come away with impression that Nugent is not only crazy, but also quite mean, a character trait which he seems to regularly enjoy justifying. Now we have even more proof, this news just in:

Rock star and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent was fined $1,750 today in Yuba County Superior Court
after pleading no contest to baiting deer on his hunting show "Spirit of the Wild."

Yuba City attorney Jack Kopp, representing Theodore Anthony Nugent, 61, entered a no contest plea to
Department of Fish and Game charges of baiting deer and not having a deer tag "countersigned" at the
closest possible location, said Deputy District Attorney John Vacek.

Baiting deer is legal in some states but not in California, said state Fish and Game spokesman
Patrick Foy.

But wait, it gets worse.

Nugent was originally facing a charge of killing a "spike" — an immature buck — on
the program but the charge was dropped during negotiations between his attorney and the
Yuba County District Attorney's Office, said Foy.

A spike is a deer with two antlers that have not yet "forked," Foy said.

A Department of Fish and Game warden saw the show in March and "just about fell out of
his chair" when he saw Nugent with the buck, according to Foy.

A subsequent investigation led to the baiting charge. A search warrant was served in
April at Moore's home in Yuba County, said Foy.

Foy said Nugent was "very cooperative" ...

Killing a spike buck. For his TV show which has a relatively low audience. And then pleading it down to baiting.

yeah, that's about the worst sin you can commit as a hunter--I grew up around all that, altho I bird-hunted myself. (don't any more--the extent of my interest in firearms would be skeet-shooting, which I used to be really good at. We don't have any firearms in our house.)

the picture George paints is grim and depressing but very accurate. the Republicans have succeeded in killing the middle class. the music-making methods that are the cheapest and most homespun will survive; I think this is part of the reason bluegrass and acoustic music in general have thrived, as a throwback to simpler times.

This homemade video of mind sort of came out as the anti-'welcome to the future'. Much shorter, too, honest. I recommend the Quicktime version slightly over the WM file.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/08/04/the-collapse-of-the-economy-for-the-middle-class-explained/

Yall know the principle of programming tolerable hits, that can be lodged on the playlist for an okay while--nothing too good or band, nothing too intense for damn sure, at least in a way that doesn't let you automatically shuffle it into the middle distance, once you've gotten used to its intensity (a nice hot air balloon)? Well, now I'm thinking this used to be harder to do, when stereo LPs were more of an elite audiophile niche etc,(plus, Adult Pop was dominated by moody Sinatra, and cool jazz was a little too intense also, for the affectless effect--even the too-cool/wannabee stuff was like "Hey honey ain't I cooool--now take off my glasses") Most mass-aimed music was via AM radio, 45s, the occasional mono 10 or 12 inch (which I used to buy with my allowance and hoarded school lunch money, cos they were significantly cheaper) A song meant to be or anyway with the potential to be tolerably popular, might sound weird, in a good band or just plain way, or gratingly cheesy--not centrist (see, I can be political too)(also, humanity is an intergalatic virus, so why aren't there more country songs about it, explicitly I mean? Take off the hat and shades!)

"Might sound weird, in a good *bad* or just plain way" was what I meant to say.

What, like stuff on Hee-Haw?

Yeah, when it was meant to sound nicer than that!

of course Hee Haw was Laugh-In x Hillbilly Corn, and HC was big mainstream fad in 40s, hung on after that in some quarters, re the hillbilly jokes on Mad Men. But those are not nice jokes, and Laugh-In with a whiff of the barnyard was not nice enough for some.

Ah, but Gene London of Cartoon Corners General Store and Captain Kangaroo liked to play the spoons. They were the epitome of nice. And, of course, there was Sally Starr.

I never actually thought there wasn't anything cruel about the two guys on Hee-Haw doing the snippet of "Pfft You Were Gone." However, it's possible they were doing it for the hint of derision the weekly skit would bring out in viewers.

I think Taylor Swift is a half-way decent singer and musician, singing more or less who she is (or at least used to be, before the fame) and what she knows. Its just that what she knows/who she is annoys the hell out of me.

You mean she's conceited? She's pretty erratic live, when she tries to do without backup singers.

Even Peter Parker got conceited after that black Spidey suit thing got stuck to him.

Same thing happened to me, I'm a better man for copping to it.

Thanks for the list xhuxx. Anybody heard this?

Caitlin Rose: Own Side Now
(Names)
4 / 5
Maddy Costa
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 August 2010 22.45 BST
Caitlin Rose
Own Side Now
Names Records
2010
Earlier this year, Nashville-based Caitlin Rose released an EP of songs recorded in 2008, which introduced a promisingly wry lyricist unable to decide whether she wanted to sound like Loretta Lynn or Kimya Dawson. On her debut album, the 23-year-old thrillingly finds her own voice. Own Side is sad and strong as she walks away from a careless lover, playful in Spare Me as she dashes off the delicious line: "Love is just one more useless thing you don't need, but you can't throw away." Now pure country, her songwriting has taken a leap, too, delivering a profusion (sometimes an excess) of memorable choruses and arrangements freighted with emotion. Her assurance is most striking in two contrasting songs about self-discovery, New York City and Things Change: the former a ribald picaresque, the latter suffused with regret, set to bruised piano and quivering cymbals.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

conjunto accordionist Esteban Jordan died. I posted an obit here:

Norteño y conjunto: search and destroy.

xpost

I listened to it in a shop last week, and I thought it sounded good - it's a Mark Nevers production, of the light and airy variety, they generally sound good. I wasn't grabbed enough by the songs on first listen to shell out the full price, for whatever that's worth.

So, that toilet that George sang his blues about apparently pushed China over the top -- Don't know if anybody else noticed, but business sections are reporting this morning that, sometime after midnight, China officially passed Japan as the world's second-biggest economy, behind the U.S. Congratulations!

George also sent me this link to a (Vancouver/Regina/Nashville-based) singer/guitarist excellently named Val Halla over the weekend. He calls her ""Kellie Pickler does ZZ Top or maybe the Road Hammers," which means I definitely need to check her out when I don't have so much family visiting.

http://www.valhallaonline.com/music.php

And this morning, Pareles on the new Mellencamp (my review of which goes online tomorrow I believe), and Caramanica on the new Adkins. Re the former: Just goes to show how musically illiterate I am, but I swear in three decades of thinking too much (but not enough?) about this stuff, it never once occurred to me that "refrains" and "choruses" are two different things. And re the latter: Just goes to show how porn-illiterate I am, but can't believe I missed the "Brown Chicken Brown Cow" (in Trace's barn sex song) = "bow chicka wow wow" pun. Have never heard that, uh, chord progression or whatever in an actual porn movie, I'm pretty sure (not that I'm anywhere near to an expert on those in the first place), but have usually gotten the (dumb) joke when Veronica Mars or whoever uses it. I guess Trace, as is his tendency, was just too subtle about the issue. (Also, I definitely like Trace's rockers more than Caramanica does, and he seems to have use for more of the ballads. We both like the funnny songs.)

Anyway, scroll down for both reviews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/arts/music/16choice.html

I can't tell if the Pareles review is a pick or pan.

Thanks for the Everett rec, xhuxk! I've been playing Red Revelations all weekend.