Rolling Country 2008 Thread

Btw, have there been recent (or even not-so-recent) instances of pop songs crossing over to country radio rather than (as with "Because Of You") getting there on a cover version? What I mean here isn't something like the Bon Jovi/Jennifer Nettles duet, or material we think of as being pop, but of a track that hit first in pop and then went country? My feeling is that country radio isn't too strict about the sound of something but is very strict about the performer being a country performer - or accompanied by a country performer, or doing a country album. Which is to say I'm not at all shocked that country stations aren't playing "See You Again."

(Elvis may have had songs that went pop then country, or went both simultaneously. And maybe Bobby Bare had a few things that were released pop even before they were released country. I don't know.)

Los Lonely Boys' "Heaven" crossed over to #46 on the country charts, after going pop, a couple years ago. (I know it because I just researched it over the weekend for a long article I've been working on.) But #46 isn't all that high, obviously. And off hand I don't know if Mellencamp has gone higher than that. (Does the Waite/Krauss "Missing You" count? But that was never actually a pop hit, was it?)

Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk/Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt/Because of you I try my hardest just to forget everything/Because of you I don't know how to let anyone else in/Because of you I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty/Because of you I am afraid."

Actually, I suppose this could be sung about a fucked-up romantic relationship as much as a fucked-up parent-and-child relationship, come to think of it. And one could easily be "so young" in either.

I have no idea if Tom T Hall's "Pay No Attention to Alice" is fundamentally pathological enough for Frank or not, but I'll quote its lyrics here anyway:

Pay no attention to Alice, she's drunk all the time,hooked on that wine,bunches of it, And it ruined her mind.
Pay no attention to Alice, they say she's a sot, sane she is not, but she loves it, And it's all she's got.

She made that apple pie from a memory, Made them biscuits from a recollection that she had.
She cooked that chicken too long but she don't know that, Oh what the hell, it ain't too bad.

(CHORUS)

Don't talk about the war, I was a coward,
Talk about fishing and all the good times raisin' hell.
Empty that one down, we'll get another one,
It's getting late, you might as well.

Though we ram your car into a ditch, man don't sweat it,
I know Ben down at the shell station and he'll get it out.
Alice, put your ashes in that ashtray, I swear woman,
you're gonna burn down the house.

Re up thread, in the last week of the year I finally caught up with the Gore Gore Girls and thought it was a good to great album. Way too late to even consider doing anything with though. Garage band that comes down on the good side of execution and production. Most of that genre wears me out after two listens. It has traces of revved up honky tonk in it.

Concerning glam, the mold was set in large part by production and arrangement choices. Mike Leander for Gary Glitter, Chapman and Chinn for Sweet, and Chas Chandler with Slade. Those choices emphasized the pop song, the block chording, the rhythmic puncuation -- handclaps and so on. Dynamics where the band doubles its energy in various parts of the song to give you that surge of excitement even in a bold delivery.

Sweet didn't like it, wanted to write more and more of their own material and show they were musicians. Except when they were musicians they were less captivating. Didn't help that the singer got in a fight in which someone punched his throat, ruining some of his ability for the rest of their duration. So while I like their hard rock/metal album -- the one with the big tonearm on the cover, it's not the same ...

With Slade, even when Chas Chandler wasn't producing, they didn't get away from the idea that their tunes ought to explode, as opposed to telegraphing how clever and sophisticated musicians they were. Which they were, or at least Jimmy Lea on bass was, and that's pretty much proved on In Flame, the soundtrack album to their movie. Nobody's Fools, their last in American on their first run, also spans a gamut of Americana that most American bands of the time chose not to play. (Brit music hall, too.) On In Flame they also showed quite an ability to get at some of the essence of late period Beatles. Plus they were able to turn the Hokey Pokey -- a wedding staple that triggers the gag reflex -- into a real good short rock tune. The Sirens ought to cover it some day.

And I didn't have any trouble with the execution and performances on the Sirens' More is More. The record's an improvement from their first, which wasn't bad either.

Pathology and morbidity have always been a big part of country music, in a lotta ways (also forensic examinations of relationships etc. As far back as what Rodney Crowell calls the "dead baby and bad tooth" ballads of his Appalachia-to-Arkansas-to-Port-Huston heritage Poverty (what was that book, One Third Of A Nation), and when there are more jobs, the travelling, work-drink cycle, and maybe you get past that a bit, but still both those phases have some lasting, passed-along effect (and not like they don't co-exist, like title-pawn and other "money stores" around here, among the trasnplanted auto industry-related offshoots) So concerns with normalcy can get a bit obsessive, even in Burbtown, vs. the hungry hordes (anxiety over/dependence on los illegales just a recent part of that)(not too mention sweatshops just over the border and further afield, and those who know how much we depend on Chinese buying US Gov debt, just another part of the debt market, economy of debt on every level, speaking of effects passed along, whatever the awareness/acknoledgement of morphology). Braddock's "He Stopped Loving Her Today" described by Music Row mainstay Alice Randall as exemplary "dramatic stasis"(and everyday Southern Gothic, pathological yeah)Sorry of all this is too obvious; I'll read the prev posts more carefully when I have more time. Some interesting folkie stuff on PTW today, incl me on The Battle of Land and Sea, incl discussion of their take on "Harden My Heart," although that's not the featured/download/stream here:
http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=1294

Just heard Jewel's country track "Stronger Woman," and it's terribly boring. The voice - weak and girly, sort of - could be a bubblecountry good thing if she had the verve of Alecia Elliott, which she most certainly doesn't on this track. The words are platitudes about her being her own best friend, believing in herself. An OK line about wanting to be the woman she'd want her daughter to be, but in general the lyrics are crap and the music is mediocre.

Don, I think that Battle Of Land And Sea woman could be OK if the music didn't add all that "weird" insecure indie echo mysteriousness and she didn't sing with that Feist passive-aggressive delicacy. At first, hearing the tune, I was wondering why you rated it so low (7); then I wondered why you were rating it so high, so 7 is probably right.

No, just listened to that Battle Of Land And Sea track again, and 7 is too high, as by the end of the song I wanted to strangle the woman to put her out of her misery and to end my own.

So, here's my column on "Because Of You" (a lot of which was cut and pasted from this thread):

The Rules Of The Game #26: Because Of You I Am Afraid

Weird thing is that if you see the video of the Reba and Kelly version you can't really make sense of what's happening if you don't know the backstory provided by the original Kelly video; so you have to figure out that in the Reba version Kelly is playing Reba's mother, whom the grown-up Reba is going into the past to observe in her travails. (And in the Reba video there's no domestic violence for a child to observe.)

I also realized that two of the albums I voted for in Pazz & Jop and Idolator in 2007 -- the ones by Gore Gore Girls and Sirens, both of which bands Frank has a fondness for, at least -- use a retro schtick that helps their rock'n'roll more than it hurts.

I've never even heard the latest Gore Gore Girls. They've made my Pazz & Jop twice in the past. I thought the original lineup* was the one to put the most motion into the music. And actually the retroness may put a limitation on them, which is that there's something safely in the past and nonvirulent in the whole horror movie/old rock 'n' roll "wildness." Not that I can even imagine a way for rock to be anything but nonvirulent at this point (maybe some L.A.-style sleazesters can pull it off), and since I basically like the Gore Gore Girls, I wouldn't know if an alternative approach would work - something that drew as much on the girl groups and the Stooges but with less, I don't know, reliance on the old signifiers, maybe? I would have liked to hear "All Grown Up," an old Greenwich-Barry number that's one of my favorite tracks on a previous Gore-Gore EP (and I gather it's on the latest album too), with updated words that a modern teenager could sing, rather than a past's portrayal of a past teen life; of course, updated lyrics might make 'em seem emo.

*The lineup on their first album Strange Girls, anyway.

Battle of Land and Sea is all about battles, seeds of self-destruction and over-taxed will, the baad gene of endurance (and yeah art-damage) like I said about Bettye's character--maybe this wasn't the best track to pick, out of context(which in terms of recombinant identites, insomniac imagizm, in conflict, reminds me of Lynch's Mulholland Drive), but like I say in the review, I get the power vs. authority hidden battle in there--the song knows more than the voice does--but you don't like that kind of vocal approach anyway

Although not *all* about liking, o course: I don't like Flannery O'Connor worth a shit, because she seems to like to stick pins in her characters, in the name of Jesus of course, but I know she's first-rate and I'll read her complete works if she doesn't stick too many pins in me first. And I might get sick of The Battle of Land and Sea a lot sooner, but not so far (though I keep my distance from the persona, she's trouble)

I would have liked to hear "All Grown Up"...with updated words that a modern teenager could sing

Well, seeing as how who the Gore Gore Girls' great version mainly made me think of was my daughter, who is 18 this year rather than 40 or 50 years ago (and who likes the Gore Gore Girls, though not as much as she likes, say, the Shangri-Las or Chuck Berry last time I checked, but definitely more than she likes Hannah Montana), I have no idea why Frank thinks the song couldn't be sung by a "modern teenager." I'm not saying that said teenager would necessarily be Aly or AJ or Miley or Skye or Taylor, but they're hardly the only teenagers out there. And actually, I can imagine Skye or Miley or Taylor singing the song, with conviction -- and with humor, which is part of what the song's ponytails and high hair and high heels give you. And I'm not sure whether, with teen-pop artists in general, they wouldn't necessarily improve if they sang it. They'd certainly rock harder, and quite possibly catchier than they do now, though maybe there are teen-pop bands who rock as hard as the Gore Gores do. If so, I want to hear them! (That said, I ranked Taylor's and Aly & AJ's and Miranda Lambert's albums higher than the Gore Gores in my top ten -- not saying the latter are perfect, either; I agree, their earlier lineup had more swing, and their '07 album could possibly have had even more kick if they'd had the budget for more professional production, which I'm not so sure Amy Surdu would opt for even if some major label gave the chance to do so, so, right, the Gore Gores' aesthetic can be limiting -- and I'm not saying the Gore Gores couldn't necessarily "update" the song somehow. Just not sure really sure what they'd gain from it.)

Speaking of Detroit, I respect the 3-song EP by this dude Billybob (who compares himself to Hank Jr and Eric Church on his cdbaby page), though I like the fact that he calls himself "heavy metal country" more than I like his music, which I wish had more heavy metal in it. But it does have good keyboard parts in it -- best in the third song, where the piano has more Jerry Lee boogie woogie, and which features an unfriendly woman like all his songs seem to. And I wish his Kentucky woman song was as good as Neil Diamond's, though I do like the (maybe unintentional!) pun in the line (which I may not quote exactly right) "Kentucky woman makes whiskey in the hills/Kentucky woman I'm jealous of her still." Has anybody ever written a song about being jealous of a whiskey still before? Also, when he sings about going slow through the snow, I think of Gordon Lightfoot for some reason. (Gordon makes me think of "snow", though I'm not sure whether he ever actually sang about it, despite November's bitter winds on Lake Gitche Gumee). The third song, which involves entering a bar and ordering a gin and soda and being jumped, which results in a shooting of some sort, is his still best though. And still not that good -- the singing is just way too rigid; the production nonexistent. So, a demo, but an okay one.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/billybob

Er...actually, wait, I meant "Hollywood" is the best song: Listed first on the myspace page, though it's third on the actual CD; "Wichita Snow" leads off the CD. Not as good as Jack White's Wichita song, much less Glen Campbell's. And "Hollywood" (listening to it now) still sounds kind of clunky and cardboard, somehow. Though I bet Eric Church could pull it off.

Also, Billybob is not from Detroit, duh. Not sure what gave me the idea he was -- Probably I got him confused with some other recent cdbaby country guy.

Meanwhile. Most country songs on Dust-to-Digital Records's Black Mirror: Reflections In Global Musics (1918-1955) compilation: Pipe Major Forsyth's "Mallorca" (from Northumbria-England -- East Northumbria High, maybe??) and Patrick J. Touhey's "Drowsy Maggie" (from Ireland), both of which are excellent. Other, less country, favorites of mine include Thewaprasit Ensemble's "Phleeng Khuk Phaat, Part 2" (from Thailand, just a weird repetitive Gamelan-like drone); Gong Belaaloewana Bali's "Kebyar Ding, I" (from Bali, very minimalist, and probably even more Gamelan-like, being from Bali and all); Paul Penjda Ensemble's "Ngo Mebou Melane" (from Cameroun, and super catchy); Hutzl Ukrananian Ensemble's "Welsini Meloydi" (from Hutsul-Ukraine, which may or may not be where Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz's ancestors came from, but this one partakes in an eerie use of space nonetheless); M. Nguyen Van Minh-Con's "Nam Nhi-tu" (from Vietnam with cool plinking sounds); Edwin Fisher's "Handel's Chaconne, Teil I" (from Switzerland/Germany, and all the Handel I need to own probably or maybe not); Sathoukhru Lukkhamkeow's "Nakhone Prayer" (from Laos, great vocal drone); and Sinkou & Kouran Kin's "Songs in Grief" (from Japan, and highly reminscent of "Don't Kyoko Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand in the Snow" by Yoko Ono, I swear to God.)

I probably spelled lots of those words wrong.

Most country song on Chingo Bling's 2007 They Can't Deport Us All is "Do the Lasso" (rhymes with El Paso, don't be an asshole, let your ass show, do it like the winner of my last show), which is not as good as his previous hillbilly music parody "Pop Tailgate...Wooooooooo!" But my favorite track on his current CD is "They Can't Deport Us All" itself, "Werk That (Funky Manosa)" (for the Manu Dibango influence), probably followed in some order by the partly screw-chopped "Still Goin Down" featuring Fat Pat, "In Case They Forget" featuring Latasha, "Lil' Marvin", the Cheech Y Chong worthy skitlet "Ese Lil Choco Strikes Again," and "Tirra Te Patrazz" featuring Ice. At least according to my notes. On the cover Chingo is wearing a cowboy hat, and jumping over a concertina fence with his pet chicken. An immigration officer is on his trail.

(I meant my favorite tracks are the title cut and the Dibango rhythmed one, if that wasn't clear.)

(Also, in my Gore Gore post a couple posts up, delete both times I say "necessarily" in your head, since the word confuses what I was trying to say):

I'm not sure whether, with teen-pop artists in general, they wouldn't improve if they sang it.

and

I'm not saying the Gore Gores couldn't "update" the song somehow.

>>and I'm not saying the Gore Gores couldn't necessarily "update" the >>song somehow

Production choices, guitar amps, guest stars-of-the-moment brought in for the sake of the name, auto-tune on the vocal, producer, use of ringers to play parts not deemed executed radio/TV friendly pro enough. Way more 21st century compression until it blares out of the player at you, everything as loud as everything else. It's mostly a money and influence thing, what you would get if your Top Tenners chose to cover the tunes.

Because of this, it's one of the reasons I can only listen to modern country records for so long, even the ones I like, before I have to take a time-out with something 70's-80's or poverty case lo-fi.

I suspect one of the reasons the Gore Gore Girls are liked here, perhaps subconsciously, is precisely because their latest record -does not- have all that aural super-folderol on it while still managing to get a bit beyond the usual poverty-case garage rock delivery.

Yeah, I'm probably somewhere between where George and Frank stand on the big-budget production issue (and less articulate than either of them about the specifics of it). I mean, I can think of many instances (especially in country's case) where a studio budget seems to give the music more energy; and I do think there was something muffled about last year's Gore Gore Girls album, as much as I liked it -- even compared to their first two albums. But I do agree with George that, if major label sparkle is all I got, that wouldn't be nearly enough. (Just played the Clorox Girls album from last year, and have the Times New Viking album on now, and I can't honestly say that either would be improved if they were "cleaned up". Auto-tune wouldn't make them more tuneful, either.)

I also want to mention to Frank that, right, "go on a date" (one of the quaint old-style lines in "All Grown Up") is probablyu not how most teenagers today talk. At least not in every day conversation, with no irony meant in the phrase. But since when did (1) teeangers talk with no irony and (2) music have to mirror every day conversation? The Gore Gore Girls are playing dress up, sure. So do lots of teens! And that's a song about dressing up in the first place! It's part of rock'n'roll, or whatever you want to call it. There's a lot more than "direct emotion" at stake here; reducing it to that would bore me stiff.

"go on a date"...is probably not how most teenagers today talk

Unless they do talk that way (and I bet plenty do, whether they see humor in the phrase or not.)

Actually, I have a fantasy where I'm the impresario of a club show where Amy Surdu (Gore Gores) and James Williamson (best version of the Stooges) are the guitar players in the house band that accompanies all the performers in a Pop Revue that features Blog 27, Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, and Britney Spears in a one-off gig. (Part of the fantasy is that I get Britney and Lindsay to do a duet on "Stars Vomit Coffee Shop." They are the only two singers in the world I would want to do it.) Wouldn't mind hearing those singers accompanied by guitars that are clawing their way through several walls of concrete.

Or if Amy is unavailable, I could get J.C. Martin of Black Angel.

TMI Frank

How so?

I have no idea what "TMI" even stands for.

Robbie Fulks tries to rap, about people who died in 2007; not as funky or funny as Jim Carrol or Adam Sandler -- what does Xgau see in this guy again?

http://cdbaby.com/cd/fulksrobbie

PAUL THORN - Not hating this guy; may even catch him live when he plays in New York this week. But his kinda deep white soul strain (aiming for Van Morrison via John Hiatt maybe? Unless I'm missing somebody obvious en route) (er... late Springsteen?) is stodgy by definition. The words about Holiday Inns and flat tires (outside of Tupelo, but just his luck, at the first door he knocks for help there's a pretty and willing young lady there) are no special surprise, at least inasmuch as they draw me in; maybe there's more interesting stuff I'm not picking up on. Sometimes the groove recalls Jackson Browne circa Running on Empty (without melodies or singing to match unfortunately), and "A Long Way To Tupelo" actually builds to some healthy guitars (though Hiatt at his new-wave-era best had more boogie in his sound, as I recall, and Thorn rarely heats up so much). Anyway, the guy has potential, I guess, and if somebody claims I'm missing something, I'll go back and listen more to see what, exactly:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=34636681

Thorn's 2006 album was okay, nothing to write home about.

Frank I'm just kiddin' ya.

Oh wait...Too Much Information, duh! (I still don't get it.)

My Amanda Shaw review from Billboard, fwiw:

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/content_display/reviews/albums/e3i5d4ee6c1f9636327b152d68a94061ee1

Brandi Shearer covers this old Jeannie C. Reilly song, "Oh, Singer" and it's good. "I want to know how people lived before the big corporations," she sings to a perfectly not-really-country but country backing. Close to Dark is probably as good as the retro-jazz-loungeapolitan genre has ever gotten, beating the hell outta k.d. lang or any of those Madeleine Pie-rouge kind of things. Larry Klein produced this and it's got plenty of fuzzed-out and just-arcane-enough guitar for that fusiod sheen on stuff like "Swampland," which also beats Tom Waits or, Amy LaVere. In fact in retrospect this is the kind of record Amy LaVere would make if she sang like Shearer, who is impressively floating-contralto and superbly full-bodied yet ironic, sorta like Sarah Vaughan meets k.d. lang in Norah Jones' liquor cabinet with a picture of Bobbie Gentry on the wall in there somewhere. "Congratulations" is all about a phone call Brandi makes to someone in the small town she has left, and compared to most retro-Americana-diva-country it's miles ahead. The arrangements are really varied and the songs, mostly by BS, are really about how Brandi is a "city girl now" and cannot go home. She's got a big voice that built-in martini-noir ache and she knows how to use it, which one can't blame her for, but the overall vibe is one of forebearance, thoughtfulness, sexy asceticism. The people who made this record really knew what they were doing and Brandi fits in with no sweat.

Don forwarded me this yesterday -- Interesting; guess I need to check out that Josh Turner song:

(Nashville, Tenn. - January 14th, 2008) For the fourth consecutive year, Marco Promotions' Club Connection surveyed over 200 country nightclubs and dance instructors nationwide to determine the most played and most requested club and dance titles of the past 12 months.

The fight for the number-one spot on Club Connection's 2007 Top Club and Dance Songs chart was a close battle between two songs that ran away from the rest of the pack. In the end, Josh Turner's "Firecracker" narrowly beat LeAnn Rimes' "Nothin' Better To Do," finishing the year first and second respectively. Both songs are current singles.

Three songs that were seemingly made for the club scene claim the third, fourth and fifth places on Club Connection's chart. In third place, Blake Shelton is raising glasses with "The More I Drink." Trace Adkins is giving club-goers confidence in their pick-up lines and dating techniques with "I Got My Game On," ranking fourth. Rounding out the top five is Cowboy Troy in his effort to get all the ladies on the dance floor, "Hick Chicks."

Current CMA Male Vocalist of the Year Brad Paisley landed at Club Connection's number six with his number-one hit "Ticks." In spite of doing repair jobs and selling turnips off the back of a truck for a living, relationship-challenged guys head to the club to find hope and reassurance in the seventh and eighth spots on the Club Connection chart. Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" charts at number seven, and Billy Currington's number-one song "Good Directions" lands at number eight.

Country newcomers round out Club Connection's top ten for 2007. Luke Bryan's debut single "All My Friends Say" from his album "I'll Stay Me" takes the number nine position. Finishing up the top ten is Rissi Palmer's "Country Girl," which entered the club scene late in the year, but still managed a top-ten spot on the club chart.

Steve Holy's "Brand New Girlfriend," the number one club song for 2006, continued its popularity in 2007 to take the number one re-current position. Rodney Atkins's 2006 number one song "If You're Going Through Hell" earned the second highest re-current rotation for 2007.

Club Connection's Top Ten Club And Dance Hits Of 2007 are:

1. Josh Turner, "Firecracker"
2. LeAnn Rimes, "Nothin' Better To Do"
3. Blake Shelton, "The More I Drink"
4. Trace Adkins, "I Got My Game On"
5. Cowboy Troy, "Hick Chicks"
6. Brad Paisley, "Ticks"
7. Toby Keith, "High Maintenance Woman"
8. Billy Currington, "Good Directions"
9. Luke Bryan, "All My Friends Say"
10. Rissi Palmer, "Country Girl"

I really like Rissi.

Bob Frank's Red Neck, Blue Collar's backing doesn't do a lot for me, altho it features some great Memphis musicians. But he's a good storyteller and "Judas Iscariot" is a pretty cool talking blues featuring Jesus, who tells Judas to "pass that pipe, I've had too much wine," and the song turns out Jesus got crucified just because Judas I. made a bet with the Romans. So Jesus gets back to his party before it's too late, and then the song has a trick ending. Some of this is sort of Red Sovine for potheads, but I like Frank's voice. And Jim Dickinson's liner notes are typically funny: "Bob went to Vietnam and Nashville. I don't know which was worse." Real working-class music, as on the excellent "Monroe, Louisiana Pipeliner's Brawl" on which he travels around and can't take his wife with him.

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment,would you capture it or just let it slip?

It touched my heart so much. It's such a relatable song that a lot of people can relate to. I just started cryin', and she looked at me - oh! - and she had to come over and hug my neck 'cause I was cryin'. ("Because Of You" on Oprah.)

who is ashton shepherd? just heard her not-bad late-'07 kiss-off single "takin' off this pain," and noticed she has a debut album coming out in march, but mostly couldn't get over the incredible resemblance between the chorus melody of the single and the verse melody of "sweet child o' mine."

Those Taylor Swift doing Eminem clips are a trip and a half.

Shelby Lynne doing Dusty Springfield, however, is a snoozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzze and a half. ("Anyone Who Had a Heart" was not awful, though, admittedly; doubt I'll get all the way through the rest.)

New Chris Cagle album (the real one, out next month, as distinguised from the press-only promo sampler that came out late last year or didn't come out as the case may be) starts strong (first three songs) then has trouble keeping up, but that's better than if it was the other way around, I guess.

Canadian band the Road Hammers have their first U.S. fit, finally -- sort of, since "I Don't Know When To Quit" (which I haven't heard) is at #60 on the Country singles chart in Billboard this week.

Danielle Peck (whose album from last year I finally heard) sounds way too genteel and prissy, way too much like early '90s Lorrie Morgan than a pretty young country girl should in 2008. And she doesn't have a "Something In Red," I don't think. The not-so-prissily titled "Sucks To Be You" and "Kiss You On The Mouth" (as opposed to, um, where??) are probably better (and less Lorrie Morgan like) than some of the rest, though; I need to listen more.

And I sadly have no idea who Ashton Shepherd is.

Guess I need to check out that Josh Turner song

Uh, it's nothing all that interesting--even for Josh Turner. Certainly nowhere near as good as the Leann Rimes single it beat.

Okay, so Shelby is okay, I guess, on "Look of Love" and maybe "Breakfast in Bed"; just wish she hadn't drunk all that codiene cough syrup before hitting the recording studio. ("I Only Want To Be With You," an apparent attempt to get "jazzy," has been done better by at least 300 different people, I predict.)

Speaking of snoozzzz, I also want to register the fact here that I attempted to listen to this new Philly (I think) phreak pholk album by Ex Reverie, who are as sleepy as Shelby but without the tunes that Shelby set out so ably do de-energize, even. Though I guess "Days Away" might have a certain Kate Bush over marching drums appeal, big frigging whoop.

And okay okay, Shelby's "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" sounds quite ominous -- could wind up being my favorite cut, and the fact that I don't think I've ever heard the original probably doesn't hurt. Album may even be a keeper, despite my misgivings, hmmmm.

Nah, never mind, on third thought -- Defintely not a keeper. Just way too reverent and de-energized and who-cares. Only has 10 songs (a good number), but the tempos are so sluggish it still lasts way longer than it should. An okay use of space from Phil Ramone, but nothing transcendant. She does better with the two Bacharach/David songs (especially "Anyone Who Had a Heart," not like the world especially needs another version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart") than most of the rest; "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" (apparently a Tony Joe White song), on subsequent listens, sounds like a way-too-drowsy version of what's probably been a real good song in others' hands, even if I've not heard it. The old fallacy: Make the music "intense" by draining it of life. A shame -- Shelby's a good singer. Always has been. Just not sure she's ever made a good album.

PAUL THORN - Not hating this guy; may even catch him live when he plays in New York

I did, and he's actually a surprisingly funny fella, talking between songs (about, like, his boxing match with Roberto Duran in the late '80s where Duran kicked his butt but they wound up in the same amb-yoo-lants, and how many people can say that?); too bad the humor isn't really dedectible on his album (at least the new one). Also wasn't aware that he had written "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" (which he closed the show with a fairly rousing version of) that Sawyer Brown had a hit with; also, Tony Keith covered Thorn's "Double Wide Paradise" on Dream Walkin' 11 years ago. Anyway, an entertaining show, though I doubt I'll investigate his CDs more.

Another sort of stodgy alt-countryish singer-songwriter type guy who showed some promise in his heavy folk gun waltzes and jiggy train songs, might ultimately didn't cut it for me: Randy Thompson.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=130484228

"...BUT ultimately didn't..."

Shelby's a good singer. Always has been. Just not sure she's ever made a good album.

My friend Mark Fenster once told me that the best Shelby albums are the first ones, before she broke free of "country."

Listening on her MySpace, I had the same reaction that you did to her new Dusty stuff. I'm not sure the problem is reverence though. I don't know what the problem is, actually; I don't think the lifeless-behind-glass-feel is deliberate. But somehow her voice isn't creating enough flow of emphases and de-emphases for me to really get any kind of engagement with a voice trying to say something. Something's putting me at a distance, anyway. I don't think the distance is deliberate. Maybe she chokes a lot.

Why does Taylor Swift always wear dresses? I think she looks great in them - really fetching, and the way she moves within the dresses, with her tall thinness, gives her a sense of rippling motion. But she might well look just as great in jeans and cowgirl blouses. So what do you think she's going for by wearing dresses? How's she trying to look? What's she trying to symbolize?

And how would you characterize the dresses? Here she's glitzed up but in a way that's not upscale "elegance," but not inelegant, either.

While here she's in a summer dress, 'cause it is summer (or late spring So Cal), but I think she tends to go for a "summer dress" look in general, wherever and whenever, her movements making her dresses move as if in a breeze.

Here's a sample of a bunch of her looks.

(Actually, I just google mapped Turlock, and it's not in Southern California but due east of San Jose in the Central Valley, between Stockton and Fresno. Gets real hot there in the summer, but this is still spring, obviously a shirt-sleeve day.)

let me look at Taylor's fashion statement in a minute, Frank. in the meantime, I got a few tracks into Alan Jackson's new Good Time and I dunno...who is this guy? He wrote all 17 songs on this one himself and you get the idea he just hummed them into his digital recorder on the way to the session after listening to some Chuck Berry remakes by Chuck Berry himself, I had one of those records once where Chuck cut some stuff he cut earlier, these were new recut versions that artists sometimes do for the oldies market only Chuck probably wasn't that old when he did 'em for the money. Title track is pretty much like a syllabically jammed Berry tune and pretty rockin', actually, and I had hopes for one called "1976" but it's pretty boring, about how life was simpler then and Alan had to get out of town to be a success, just like Jimmy Carter. It's like he's there but not there--he definitely can sing and he's a real country singer, and I suppose he's a lot smarter and more energetic than he's letting on. And I mean the single, "Small Town Southern Man," is all right. So maybe this is his or his label's version of a no-sweat followup to a record that was a stretch, conceptually Like Red on a Rose, which I think really went somewhere and really gave his lack of affect a context (of nostalgia, dolefulness, something) that this music simply lacks, for all its skill.

Ross Johnson's new comp on Goner, Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson, collects Memphis singles the former Panther Burns drummer cut down there starting in the late '70s and on into today, basically. A Brother Dave Gardner for an era already over (indie Southern shit in the Clinton go-go years) in which he bemoans middle age and fights it on spoken-word-with-rockabilly-mutant-free-jazzoid-Sonny Sharrock-shred-Brit Invasion-fife-and-drum-drum-parade-drumming, and that's not the half of it. Some of the mutant jazzoid whatevers like "Wet Bar" with a big slobbering overstated 6/8 bronto-billy riff and a tale of divorce because of alcohol abuse and leading to same, and "Nudist Camp" which beats R. L. Burnside, Jon Spencer, Jad Fair or any of them in pure unfettered skronk (with accordion), are choice, and he's funny on marriage ("What about starting a second family while you're still hitched?" he asks on the last song, which is about being a drunk and 50 and with kids that you're afraid you get too drunk to father, so it's real comedy--serious shit played for laffs. "It Never Happened" lays those big parade drums under some equally crazed shit--rockabilly for real, all agitated and macho and insane--about how Elvis didn't actually die and how Elvis' eyes were like "two pissholes in the snow," while the other great cut, "Nudist Camp," details a visit by the 11-year-old Ross to two sexually precocious twins, Donna and Dora. "Twelve years old, and she was a woman. Do you take my meaning? Do you take my meaning," he asks. On "Mr. Blue (Cut Your Head on X-mas)," Ross visits a pet cemetary and runs into a guy drinking out of a broken Olde English quart bottle, mourning the death of his poodle, and they reminisce about beloved dogs and racism, stuff like that. Comedy record of the year.

So the one halfway memorable song from Danielle Peck's debut last year, only one that really ever jumps out at me, is "I Don't," the chorus of which notably goes "Jesus loves you, I don't." Beyond that, meh: I get the idea she's got a big, deep, sturdy, steadfast very Lorrie Mogan-like singing voice (not what you'd expect to look at her), but needs better songwriting, production, whatever.

New Chris Cagle album, as I said, starts out strong: rocker parsing the many shades of the adjective "gone" (his current hit); partially talked rocker about a guy Chris meets at the bar who wants to hear any kinds of songs (from Chris or anybody else) except love songs; funky country rocker with words working as rhythm (as the sort of do in "No Love Songs" too actually), sounding like it could be from Big N Rich's second album: "Guess who's back in town/Back in my old stomping ground." Most of the rest is okay -- a bunch of power ballads, "I Don't Live" and "My Heart Move On" (hey, isn't that almost a Celine Dion song title) somewhat rousing in their buildups. In "Keep Me From Loving You," Chris gets C's and D's in school and connects with a girl who gets A's and B's. Catchiest song outside of the first three is "Little Sundress, where Chris gets excited about some girl's skirt (see also: "Outfit" by Starz, which I was listening to last week) and her "golden Tropicana tan," which makes it sound like she looks like an orange juice can (doesn't sound like all that natural a tan to me), but hey, whatever suits his fancy. Also, he likes how she dances to reggae. Songs I like least are the final two -- "My Life is a Country Song" (title cut), where he does the usual pandering schtick of dropping names of Older Country Songs You Will Know, none remotely surprising, and "Change Me," sensitive male new-age mush for the laydeez, yucko. Decent album, though -- maybe better than his sampler CD.

(The one song should be "I Don't Wanna Live," actually. And "My Heart Move On" is weird syntax, but that's what it's called on my advance CD -- could be a mistake. And one thing I didn't mention is that "No Love Songs" is actually pretty funnny.) (Also "Keep Me From Loving You" is nowhere near as good as song about school grades as Soulja Boy's new single, or the end of its video anyway, where he gets all F's on his report card then tells the teacher to "throw some D's on that bitch," then ends the video with a disclaimer telling the kids in the audience he really gets all A's, so stay in school.)

Mando Saenz's Bucket is hi-definition rockin' country. "Pocket of Red" proves my long-held point that the Gin Blossoms are a huge and under-reported influence on modern country. Big almost glammy Bowie drag drums, various percussions and those big epic chord changes. Kind of like Freedy Johnston or something--who put out one recently that was all covers and was somewhat under-produced. I hear it as good commercial alt-country, Western Mythos Division. Actually, of course, cut in Nashville with R.S. Field, who also did Justin Earle's new one--which I have yet to hear, he's called Justin Townes Earle now. Anyway, Saenz is really fucking produced, like alt-program music, and tastee indeed. Not sure yet if he's just another sensitive dude mildy rocking into endless space, sounds pretty drugstore cowboy to me.
"I left New England and a sundress was talking begging me for more" he sings in "PIttsburgh," which just sounds like the fucking House of David to me (studio where he made this sappy shit). So I dunno, the songs really are pretty nondescript to my ears--schmaltz-country.

Great cut: Karen Dalton's "It Hurts Me Too" on Cotton Eyed Joe: The Loop Tapes--Live in Boulder 1962.

So the one halfway memorable song from Danielle Peck's debut last year, only one that really ever jumps out at me, is "I Don't," the chorus of which notably goes "Jesus loves you, I don't."

i like danielle's debut a lot more than xhuxk does, despite the fact that she broke my man josh beckett's heart. i really dig her voice. but what was most notable to me about "i don't" was its similarity to lyle lovett's much better "god will," which notably went "god does but i don't / and god will but i won't / and that's the difference between god and me." also notably, it came out around the same time as eric church's great "before she does," which addressed the same relationship from the other side: "i believe the bible is cold hard fact / and i believe jesus is coming back / before she does."