Rolling country 2007 thread

From metal thread, though I'm not sure why:

New Ian Hunter CD on Yep Roc appears to be about 95 percent hookless ballads. This is no doubt an optical illusion, but I still doubt I like it much.
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Actually, the jazzy country backing on track #10 of the Hunter CD has some life to it, at least until he starts singing about not being who he was when he was young, as if we couldn't tell. And a couple songs start out ripping off mid '60s Dylan okay. And it's not like he didn't have an aptitude for great ballads once upon a time. And Brain Capers was a zillion years ago; I really don't expect any metal out of the guy. But he just sounds tired on this thing, like just another singer-songwriter. So yeah, I see why it's on Yep Roc.

(Actually there is some life to Ian's vocal delivery in the Ain't What I Used To Be When I Was Young song; having a rhythm behind him lets him ride it. He was always a pretty good rapper. But not even that song sticks.)

(Said "mid '60s Dylan" stuff, incidentally = harmonicas, pretty much) (or okay, his band pretending like they're going to start playing "Like A Rolling Stone" once or twice. And one time they pretend like they're going to start playing "Walk on the Wild Side," sort of. But then Ian lets everybody down.)

Three way-below-the-radar country bands whose CDs arrived this weekend, all worth a mention though sadly none are even coming close to killing me:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=45647687

The Linemen -- Pals of Roy Kasten (who they thank in the liner notes) from St. Louis; sad serious super-purist Americana guys, probably too purist and Americana for my tastes -- with most of the songs, I've been thinking major-label Nashville production would give the music more life. Not sure if I'm convinced yet that the singer sounds like a "less uptight George Strait," either; George is pretty uptight, yeah, but this music usually feels uptighter (and Kevin Butterfield's voice is sounding thinner, less rich) to me, at least so far. But when the band gets some space to jazz up the rhythm a little bit and Butterfield goes into less-uptight Dwight Yoakam mode (i.e., "This Time Tomorrow," "Wasting Time"), things manage to pick up some. Even with those songs, though, something's missing: Melodies, words? I'm not sure yet.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=134646173

Antsy McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadors -- Pals of Lindsey Buckingham (who plays on three tracks) and Tommy Smothers (who sings on one) and Bonnie Bramlett (who also sings on one) from Kentucky. I'm not sure I'm getting the concept, but given the song titles ("Prozac Made Me Stay," "Cubic Zirconium in the Rough," "I Married Up," "Ron Howard's Brother," "I Was Just Flipped Off By A Silver Haired Old Lady With a 'Honk If You Love Jesus' Sticker On the Bumper of Her Car") and the fact that Antsy looks like if Huey Lewis was a polyester-suit wearing insurance salesman from the Iowa suburbs (not that any Iowa insurance salesmen ever really wear suits like that -- except, you know, on TV maybe), I get the idea it's meant to be funny. There's a certain sub-Rockpile/NRBQ bounce to the sound, and apparently the band's fans are called Flamingoheads. Problem is, none of it is making me laugh. But Antsy's not an awful singer or anything.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johndeer

John Deer - Apparently they won some award as the best country band in Austria, though the cdbaby page one of the singers (not Dietmar Baumgartner, I assume, but who knows) comes from Australia instead, so I naturally had high hopes for this. So far what's standing in its way is that at least seven out of ten songs are covers, and at least three out of ten are Alan Jackson songs. Two of the covers are of rock songs (one Georgia Satellites --- which country acts like John Anderson have covered before--, one AC/DC -- "Highway to Hell," wonder if Big N Rich have heard it?), which is nice. But I was kinda hoping they'd turn them into Eurodance cheese a la Rednex. Or rock them harder. As is, they seem to do them fairly straight -- with exuberance and energy, but nothing yet that's luring me back for more.

Actually, that was Antsy's folkie myspace page; this page should give you more of an idea of what his "musical comedy act" (so-called) is like:

http://www.unhitched.com/home.html

(And by "not an awful singer", I think I mean "better than Rick Moranis.")

I was kinda hoping they'd turn them into Eurodance cheese...Or rock them harder. As is, they seem to do them fairly straight

"Them" = the country songs they cover. (They turn the rock songs into country.)

I think "Brown Liquor" is the only great cut on the new B&R-produced John Anderson. Too many half-assed medium-tempo numbers.

last night (this morning) caught Mel Tillis and the Statesiders at the Midnite Jamboree at Opryland. Mel in fairly good voice--did "Detroit City" and let his kick-ass band do a souped-up "Orange Blossom Special." He has a pedal steel man who's been with him 39 years, his piano player about that long, and his guitar player was merely excellent. Good show--lots of tourists taking pix. The 50-something fiddle player was stationed next to Jennifer Herron, who does the voice-overs for the radio show on the stage, and he seemed mighty enamored of her, and with good reason: she's even more beautiful than her voice. I plan to see Dale Watson there on May 12...

(There's a difference. They say people call Columbus a Cowtown, but they neglect to mention that it's also a College Town.)

Well, Storrs, Connecticut, is a college town, but the college (University of Connecticut) had been Storrs Agricultural School back in the old days, which means it was a cow college, hence Storrs is a college town and a cow town. The university still has cows and barns and its own dairy.

A friend of mine saw the Strait-Swift-Milsap show recently; loved it; hadn't thought she'd heard much Milsap before but kept recognizing songs as he was playing them. Hadn't realized he was blind. Also was surprised by how tall Taylor was. Said that Taylor was out in the lobby before the show, talking to people and signing autographs.

Got Dylan's Modern Times from the library; first impression is that Loud Fast Rules, while Moody Lethargy Deadens. Which means that his raspy old coot of a voice fits well with drivin' gnarled blues numbers while it makes the slow drifting lounge tracks even more stuporific. There is some value in the latter nonetheless, and one of them - an endless bit of eeriness called "Ain't Talkin'" - kind of works anyway, has a feel that reminds me of old spirituals or laments but I can imagine it also being done for strangeness by modern-day Detroit no wave experimentalists such as Child Bite and done for passion by Ashlee-type pop confessional women and done for ghostliness by Ciara/Cassie r&b spectres. Best track by far is "Rollin' and Tumblin'," played in Howlin' Wolf style; an album full of such stuff would probably have outranked Toby and Alan last year. But unfortunately Modern Times is an album full of the slow stuff instead, even more than Love And Theft was, and it's not at all exhilarating to listen to, nor gorgeously elegiac. "Someday Baby" is as good as I remember, "The Levee's Gonna Break" is serviceable ('cept Plant and Page own this song, so why bother?), the rest I'll get back to but I'm expecting that even with great instrumental moodiness I'm not going to enjoy the relistens.

Interesting, but I find "Rollin and Tumblin" one of the weakest tracks--precisely because it tries for gnarled drive but never gets out of second gear--at least when compared to the faster numbers on Love & Theft--and so actually <i>feels</i> more sluggish to me than the numbers with slower meters.

I've been neglecting this thread--not out of disinterest, just out of lack of hours in the day. Tomorrow I'm heading to SXSW, about which I'll be blargghing for the Amazon Earworm blog; will send link when it's up. Have a great week, all.

Reading bottom to top:

I've been thinking major-label Nashville production would give the music more life

I kinda agree, xhuxk. The Linemen's CD began as demos to get gigs; I'm not sure they fully got beyond that starting point. It was recorded in the steel player's basement, not that that should matter too much. I think they have countrypolitan potential, mostly because I think Butterfield's songs are good, have hooks and melodies, but the production doesn't get them all the away across. But purist? I don't hear that at all.

Ha, although I should add that (cf way up-thread) neither xhuxk nor I seem to know what "major label Nashville production" is!

Good point!

These vinyl records cost me $7 total in Greenpoint this afternoon:

Hoagy Carmichael A Legenday Peformer & Composer (RCA, 1979 -- most of the tracks are actually sung by other people; nice die-cut or whatever it's called cover with a big round hole in the middle)

Ray Charles Wish You Were Here Tonight (Columbia, 1983 -- pop-country album; I remember liking it when it came out)

Juice Newton & Silver Spur Juice Newton & Silver Spur (RCA, 1975, sealed! Record collectors please advise: Do I open it or not? And does the fact that the top of the sleeve is rather scuffed up negate the sealedeness?)

Entire $43 (mostly non-country) haul can be found here:

http://www.ilxor.com:8080/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=56394

Meanwhile, this morning, before I went shopping, I was trying to catch up on some vinyl that I bought last month at Princeton and last year somewhere:

Bobby Bare The Very Best Of -- He covers four songs by Kris Kristofferrson, one by John Denver, one by Shel Silverstein ("Sylvia's Mother" -- Bon Jovi have a version on youtube, I just noticed!), on by Joe South, etc etc, and two by Tom T Hall. It mostly sounds real good, and the selection obviously says a lot about the ominvorousness of his taste, but I have to say of the two Tom T Hall songs, I like "She Gave Her Heart to Jethro" about ten times as much as "That's How I Got To Memphis." Which is no big deal, except: (1) "She Gave Her Heart to Jethro" is not even close to my favorirte Tom T Hall song, and (2) There was another thread on ILM recently specifically devoted to "That's How I Got To Memphis," calling it one of the greatest songs ever, when there's a good chance I wouldn't even put it in Tom T's Top 40, much less everybody else's. Nothing against the song, which is fine. But I'm confused: Why do people think it's so great?

Crash Craddock Greatest Hits This came out on Capitol in 1983, and for some reason it doesn't call him Billy anwhere on the cover, and I have no idea if these really are his greatest hits (just like I kinda doubt the previous LP discussed was actually Bare's very best), but even still, I'm kind of develping a Craddock theory: So, apparently he had been a rockabilly teen idol in the '50s, right? Or tried to be one? On the first side of this album (unlike the second side, which is more ballad heavy), he sounds like both an Elvis imitator and the blueprint for Billy Ray Cyrus, especially in "Hubba Hubba." He's a lot schmaltzier than I expected, but I don't know what led me to expect otherwise. The version of "Sea Cruise" is servicable, I guess.

Ronnie Milsap, One More Try For Love The synthified 1984 pop production works well with his voice, and though I'm not sure if there are any great songs on here, the open spaces in "Suburbia" are quite apt; you could segue it into the Pet Shop Boys's song of the same name, if you want, or "Subdivisions" by Rush maybe. I also like "Prisoner of the Highway".

Now playing another vinyl find, Release by Henry Gross from 1976, which features his biggest hit "Shannon," about one Shannon (who I always assumed was a dog, for some reason, though the lyrics never explicitly say that) drifting out to sea. I wouldn't have thought of him as country (more like Elton John circa "Country Comfort," maybe? -- though basically he just looks like a mellow '70s singer-songwriter with facial hair), but both the original red version of the Rolling Stone Record Guide (which doesn't like him, and which also says he attempts "Stones-type rockers, Beatlesque ballads, and Lou Reed-styled documentaries) and Christgau's '70s guide (which does like him, to my surprise*) insist country's part of the mix. Anyway, he sounds better than I'd expected! Nice falsetto, which I'd say owes as much to r&b as to c&w. But I haven't paid attention to the words yet. (Judging from the lethargic first three songs on the much rarer Andy Zwerlig album from 1970 I bought, which is playing now, I definitely prefer Gross to Zwerling so far even if Zwerling's got Lenny Kaye playing guitar.)


* -- oops, well, at least he liked one LP by him anyway, and liked it less later apparently (original grade: B+; he doesn't grade the one I bought)

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=henry+gross

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)


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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?

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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:

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(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.