DRIVE BY TRUCKERS fans, UNITE!!!

Those shows are pretty futhermucking loud, though. On night two I occasionally popped in earplugs, which I never do. Do I smell a thread? "Earplugs at Shows?"

She had three televisions just like Elvis, the King, used to have...

1. The Company I Keep
2. Love Like This
3. Whiskey Without Women
4. Sink Hole
5. Wife Beater
6. Dead Drunk & Naked
7. Nine Bullets
8. Guitar Man Upstairs
9. Margo & Harold
10.Marry Me

>Playing the new Drive By Truckers album *Dirty South* now. It sounds even more tired than their last one; they've totally given up on trying to be Skynyrd, which sucks. Not horrible, though. Better than Patterson Hood's solo CD, I guess. So I bet it gets very good reviews.<

I'm now convinced, by the way, that *Dirty South* is their worst album ever, by far. The first song rocks okay, but just about everything else drags drags drags, almost 100 percent ballads, damn near no fucking memorable melodies, no fucking energy, nothing. Track #4 is okay, probably some others here and there, I forget which ones. Sometimes the high singing is kinda pretty, and the thing definitely is better to play at work than in a car, since the record does not move AT ALL. "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" strikes me as pandering bullshit. Track #9, "Cottonseed," is one of the most tedious, interminable songs I've heard all year. If somebody really believes I'm missing something, I wish they would explain what it is. Their three EARLY albums (as in pre Southern Rock Opera) blow this one out of the water, if anybody's curious.

Chuck's description doesn't worry me one bit if he really thinks "Cassie's Brother" is better than Decoration Day.

And yes, JMod, I agree - one of the loudest (and best) live shows i've ever seen.

Now, I haven't heard the Dirty South yet so I guess I can't sufficiently respond, but what I'd heard live sounded terrific.

Mr. Deeds 100% OTM about "Daddy's Cup" - blew me away live, and honestly unless they TOTALLY changed the demo version on the website and the way they play it live for the record, I'm really surprised Chuck wouldn't like "Carl Perkins" 'cause it's got such a GREAT poppy riff on it, one of the catchiest I've heard all year.

"Where the Devil Don't Stay" was a great rocker live as well, and "Danko/Manuel" was a terrific ballad to these ears. I will admit that Patterson's songs did sound kind of weak in comparison to Cooley and Isbell, and of course again I haven't actually heard the album so I might be totally off base altogether.

I will say however that I agree with Chuck about missing the humor and playfulness of the first three rekkids, the Truckers definitely do take themselves a little too seriously from time to time nowadays and I'd sure love it if they'd inject a little bit of that Panties in Your Purse/Steve McQueen/Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus) spirit into their newer stuff.

the key line

I'll agree with this. Ah well, can't really argue with Chuck on this until I gets me a copy of Dirty South myself.

And I really like Isbell BTW, I thought his two contributions to Decoration Day were among the best on the album, and at least when I saw it performed live, I thought "Danko/Manuel" was absolutely haunting.

I can see Chuck's point about pandering as far the Dixie Chicks are concerned b/c that song did seem specifically geared to orient themselves in the "don't make 'em like they usedta" camp, but I don't see it with "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" - I mean, that's what the song's about, y'know? It doesn't seem to me to be contrived in the least, certainly it is a "history lesson" and maybe that's a bore for some, but I don't see it as pandering at all.

Funny you mentioned "Long Time Gone" Chuck b/c I referenced that song in my Stylus review of Gretchen Wilson today, how she's big-upping Bocephus while the Chicks prefer Hank Sr.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=2093

I might not think the history lesson was such a bore if it was, say, "Michael Murphey's Cadillac, actually -- which would be way more clever, too, given Geronimo's and all. (Plus, the Kentucky Headhunters did a better song about Carl Perkins on a way better Southern Rock/country album LAST year. And it was easily one of the lesser songs on *that* album.)

I honestly can't remember the last time I was actually excited to meet a band - comes with the territory of being a rock journo I guess

Anyway, I wholeheartedly disagree with chuck upthread - and if you miss the lighthearted stuff, well, there's two songs about Walking Tall, fer chrissakes!! What do you want?? What's more lighthearted than Walking goddamm Tall? :)

They were on Conan last night and they did an Isbell song I think. How old is that kid? His lyrics are just too much. So well written and so fucking defiant. He was all dressed up and looked like an American Idol contestant singing about his sort of fucked up/backwoods life and how he doesn't (or can't, I guess) give a shit. It was pretty perfect.

He knows his southern writers I guess.

god, i love them truckers.

(judging from the song samples I heard on Northern State's site he's dead on about that album though)

you are PSYCHED my friend.

I wish I was seeing them tonight, but I hafta wait until the 9th

Southern Rock Opera rocks beautifully, which is hard to find sometimes. Some of Hood's stuff on that is incredible. The thing I like most about it, though, is that it really captures the Skynyrd soul AND mythology .. the whole "heroes that nobody gathered were heroes that die in a fiery crash ... only to be seen as heroes posthumously" narrative. The music even reflects that, and the whole thing turns weirdly meditative. Boom.

With Decoration Day, I was expecting more of said channeling, which made that record shocking when I first heard it. As Matos points out, the weariness drips all through it but so does this call for transcendence -- "Rock and well means well but it can't help telling young boys lies ... don;t call what your wearing an outfit." Isbell's songs sum up the whole record's theme, love your neighbor even if your neighbor is fucked up. It's one of the smartest rock records in ages. Hmmm, y'all.

The intelligence with DBT is scary. So point is, I bet I'll dig the new one when I catch up ...

Caveat: Do not listen to the Buford Pusser trilogy ever again. They think the answer to Walking Tall is to try and glorify the other side of the coin, when really they should be talking about how BOTH sides are fucked up. Plus "Cottonseed" is indeed terminable and worthless. The whole thing fucks with the real point of this album, which is to express their politics the same way Decoration Day expressed their personal relationships and Southern Rock Opera expressed their sense of identity. And their politics are far too nice guy (liberals who believe in learning from your elders - it's kinda Field Of Dreams, kinda hey hey Neil Young and the Coog) for them to convincingly come off as southern mafiosos. Tracks 8-10 simply do not exist. Kogan does that shit all the time, right?

They're definitely becoming more comfortable with their verbosity, which is making their songwriting less anthemic than it was back in the day. I think they're making up for this with SOUND. Cut out the Pusser trilogy and I think this album actually has more swing than Decoration Day, but again, in a Crazy Horse kinda way. I was scared by Chuck's initial review, but Isbell's songs are much less staid here. I don't think he's the second coming and he is way too alt-country for the flashtastic, but they do shuffle now. Cooley's pretty cornpone too (while your at it never listen to "Daddy's Cup" again either, it's right after the trilogy) but when the band's behind him he's certainly got more sense than the Coog did back on "Justice & Independence '85."

Oh and it took me a while to figure out why I loved "Tornadoes" so much and the answer is that it sounds a hell of a lot like Big Star's "Kanga Roo."

If this album was just tracks 1-7 and 12-14 I think this would be my favorite DBT album. But hey, I have almost every Crazy Horse album and only a cheap Lynyrd comp.

They're supposedly sending a video for "Don't Ever Change" to CMT, and Isbell is now "the face" of the band they're gonna try to push on country markets. You wouldn't have guessed that back on Day.

Oh and just in case SOMEBODY wants to quibble, what isn't Kenny Aaronoff about Brad Morgan is Ralph Molina.

Jason's solo album will be out in the Spring - psyched!

Johnny, can you still get me some Adam's House Cat stuff?

New Drive By Truckers album, due April 25, sounds...dreary. Surprise, surprise. Only 11 songs, which I commend, but it still kinda drags on and on. I do find myself not reacting negatively to the sort of songs where the guitars and the high-voiced guy (which one is that? I can never keep them straight) goosh out a nice steady stream of Neil Young and Crazy Horse beauty; there are at least two and a half of those (I think, though don't quote me on this, "Goodbye," "Blessing and a Curse," and about half of "A World of Hurt," the other half of which is a sort of monolouge worthy of, I dunno, early Nada Surf or middle King Missile or some other mid '90s alt novelty rock artistes I've forgotten who used to recite deadpan prose over their singing.) The one track I actually actively LIKE is "Aftermath USA", a blatant Stones rip about (hi Shooter) waking up after a chemically fucked-up night to a trashed apartment with crystal meth in the tub and the kids haven't been to school for weeks. Which makes me not feel so bad about my own kid missing school Friday 'cause he said he had a cold.
-- xhuxk (xedd...), January 17th, 2006.

>worthy of, I dunno, early Nada Surf or middle King Missile<
Both of whom, at least when they recited prose about popular kids and detachable penises, were probably funnier. So no, really probably NOT worthy. (Not that funniness is all I care about. And it does occur to me that titles like "Aftermath USA" and "A World Of Hurt" might mean this CD's supposed to be about current events or something, somehow.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), January 17th, 2006.

So the high-voiced Drive By Trucker is Patterson Hood, right? At least that's what Xgau tells me. Only place on the new one where his Neil Young and Crazy Horse beauty really hits a dust-storm of paydirt, to my ears, is "A Blessing and A Curse." I've decided not to vouch for "Goodbye," which he might not even sing, or "A World Of Hurt." "Daylight" seems to be an awful attempt at Radiohead (via My Morning Jacket?) style nothingness; "Wednesday" is rote bland alt-country; "Space City" another bore. "Gravity's Gone" is a passable second Stones rip (also mentions coke I think -- actually, seems to be about some sort of high-fallutin schmooze party), but not nearly up to the level of "Aftermath USA," probably the only great cut on here (though I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this).
-- xhuxk (xedd...), January 17th, 2006.

This may very well still be true. Though upon review I seem to have left it off my POX, which perplexes me.

Cooley remains my go-to guy, though they all have their moments.

"Don't know why I put up with his shit
When you don't put out
And Zip City's so far away...

I got 350 heads on a 305 engin
I get ten miles to the gallon
I ain't got no good intentions."

Hood remains the heart and soul and all, but it's mostly Cooley and Isbell who get me right here...*

*("Angels and Fuselage" excepted)

SO psyched for the new one!

Of the three I've heard, Cooley's is the best. Gravity's Gone, I think it's called. I'd put it in the alltime COoley hall of fame alongside Uncle Frank, Panties in Your Purse and Zip City.

hey xhuxk, saw the Drive-By Truckers last night here in Athens, first show of a three-night homestand - you're the only person I know who's heard the new one (how DO you get 'em so fast? I remember bugging their publicist for two months after you first mentioned Dirty South on here before they finally sent me a copy) - anyway, can you help me fill in a couple of these song titles for the new cuts for a show review I'm writing up for the paper here?
1 - "hold my breath until next Wednesday" - I assume this one's "Wednesday" agreed that it's rote alt-country but not entirely unpleasant
2 - refrain is "don't be so easy on yourself" (Isbell sings this one, I liked it)
3 - "Blessing and a Curse" - not very memorable
4 - Gravity's Gone - Cooley sings it, lyrics about handjobs I think and waking sunny-side-up, this one's good
5 - "left w/o saying goodbye" - assume this one's "Goodbye" lyrics sound pretty treacly but I liked the bass on this one, hope it sounds as good on record
6 - "Daylight" (I think Isbell did this one, oh wait yeah this is the one where he's all full-throated screamy, I guess that's where you're getting the Radiohead/MMJ comparison from)
7 - "Feb 14" - slight but decent
8 - something like "wonder why it's taking me so long" also think I heard something about getting dirt off your good name, Cooley sang it and I'm fairly certain it wasn't an old song and hopefully not a cover b/c I really liked it, acoustic and very evocative
9 - "World of Hurt"

xpost, exactly.

that being said, live- they're almost w/o equal. saw this past summer and even the "short set" (meaning under 2.5-3+ hours) was a blast.
i've turned more people onto this band than any other, i think.
and it's worth it...

VDO my friend cobbled together. People with DBT are mildly interested in working a video for one of the new songs, so if we get enough views for this, he and I might be doing another for realsz.

'The Living Bubba' - the live version off of Alabama thunderpussy ,or whatever it's called - one of the best grieving songs ever. It just lolls on and on. Fuck off death. You will never beat me. I've got another show to do

Bob ain't light in the loafers
He might kneel, but he never bends over

o_0

'A World of Hurt'

*Ducks rocks*

Brighter Than Creation's Dark is uneven like their others, but higher highs than the last one (lots of discussion on Rolling Country)

My soon to be former roommate just gave me 7 of their CDs to rip. Oh boy oh boy.

I saw them at First Ave in Mpls just a little while back and they were incredible. I must have been one of like three people dancing the entire time.

God I hate when people brag about dancing at shows.

one of the statues huh

God bless the man that dances at a DBT show.

You should have been at Nottingham last night.

DBT do attract White Trash. God bless em.

Do DBT attract Trailer Park in the USA?

Brighter Than Creation's Dark is uneven like their others

They've been getting more-and-more uneven over the course of their last few albums. Before that, the three-disc run of Southern Rock Opera -- The Dirty South was pretty special.

I wish more bands were this uneven.

New one is great. The only dip in their stunning consistency was Blessing and a Curse.

blessing and a curse...

imho ,the opener and closer are splendid

Brighter is better! Some good tracks on Blessing, but too many slammed doors, shit happening offstage, before and after. I wanna see!

You should have been at Nottingham last night.

Actually, I was...

lol britishes.

Hey Mike t diva.
I wasn't one of those favoured ponces stood on the balcony either. I was mixing it in the pit with the chavs...
Nice summary btw.
I was under the impression that they would be loud?

One of the quietest bands ever esp. considering the 'three pronged guitar attack'

The initial sharing of the bottle was so fucking phoney too.
Did anybody have a slice beyond that?

Jimmy - what am i not getting fella me lad?

Fer Ark: I missed the bottle sharing, as the nutters down the front on the right were blocking my sight-line (and did you clock the twerp who kept offering Popeye-style bicep-clenches to Shonna?!), but my mate told me that the old JD was getting a hammering...

So I'm a big classic/hard rock fan, everything from Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac to Neil to Allmans. About 10 minutes ago I finally GOT the Drive-By Truckers. I've tried before but it never worked. Anyway, the third song on Southern Rock Opera, "72," made it all clear, especially the gnarled groove ''n'riff interplay. Just awesome.

Just curious, do these guys stretch out any songs when they play live?

Not really. Only the set closers, like their cover of "People Who Died" or "Buttholeville/State Trooper." Not a jam band (thank god).

Thanks for the info. Just because you stretch out a bit doesn't mean you're a jam band though. Look at Crazy Horse, CCR and even Skynyrd at times. That's all I was wondering.

Mike T ^ those annoying cuntocks down the front were about to get twatted.

It was like a care in the community bus trip. The idiot that tried crowd surfing looked like he'd come straight from a Limp Bizkit gig in the mid 90s.

I never realised that DBT were a teen band

I don't think of them as a teen band, but god help me there was a group standing near me at the Sacramento show, 4 girls and 2 guys, all dancing in a little circle and not even really watching the band...talked the whole way through the gig. firmly established my position as an old grump.

QuantumNoise, track down a copy of their legit live album, Alabama Asswhuppin'. Not terribly stretchy, but "gnarled groove 'n' riff" yes. Also prob some good live boots, but I haven't heard 'em, things posted here and there no doubt (did see some goodies on YouTube a while back).

Anybody seen any of the shows with Hold Steady yet? Have they started yet?

OK so Brighter Than Creation's Dark is a good drinkin album but it wasn't really blowing me away, I wanted more rock in my country. So I picked up Southern Rock Opera. Holy Hell if "Let There Be Rock" isn't my favorite shit I've heard in forever.

I like Decoration Day even better, especially Sinkhole, Marry Me, and My Sweet Annette. But I think all DBT discs are uneven. And I think losing Isbell was a big blow to the band.

I'm crazy, but I love BTCD more than any of the other albums, even with what's-her-name's boring tunes.

Yeah I mean I got drunk to BTCD the other day and really enjoyed it! The varying styles really helped even out the mood of the record I think.

Actually I think their best individual songs are on The Dirty South, and they're all by Isbell: Danko/Manuel and Goddamn Lonely Love. But it's one of my least favorite DBT discs, overall.

BON SCOTT SINGIN
LET THERE BE ROCK TOUR

BON SCOTT SINGIN
LET THERE BE ROCK TOUR

BON SCOTT SINGIN
LET THERE BE ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK

~~~~SOLO~~~~

i agree with Daniel, Esq. Isbell became a force, not just a piece of the puzzle. He owns Decoration Day which is my favorite album & song.

Though "Sinkhole" is a close second.

new album, Go-Go Boots, out Feb 15

Pre-order here: http://www.drivebytruckers.com/

I sprung for the deluxe version with the DVD.

Judging by the live versions of songs from this new one, it's gonna be a lot better than The Big To Do, which I thought was sort of a stinker.

Not quite a stinker, but I've found the last couple to be varying levels of disappointing. I was actually kinda hoping they'd slow down with the next one and wait til they get an album full of awesome tunes instead of cranking one out with like 5 great tunes and a bunch of filler. Granted, their filler is still pretty good, but I think it is pretty obvious that their quality control has dipped of late and not just because Isbell left. Remember when they used to release one front-to-back classic after another? I miss those days.

Miss Isbell but his solo record was meh

His first one was decent, but I really liked the second one.

yeah, the last couple albums have been disappointing. Not BAD, but very forgettable.

I like The Big To-Do a lot. While it didn't have as many peaks as Brighter did, there were fewer valleys than that record has, so it's an overall more enjoyable listen front to back.

And yeah, Isbell's first one was very good, but he's gotten a little too MOR for my liking.

The Big To-Do is probably their worst album. What a letdown after Brighter Than Creation's Dark.

As for Isbell, his biggest problem is that his songs sound a heck of a lot better with the Drive-By Truckers playing them, instead of the 400 Unit.

As for Isbell, his biggest problem is that his songs sound a heck of a lot better with the Drive-By Truckers playing them, instead of the 400 Unit.

^^^^ this. Sorta hate his band.

Upcoming Truckers album is kind of mellow, but in a good way. Half the songs slow and soulful, other half the usual stories of working class folks getting shot/killing others. Two Eddie Hinton covers on the disc.

That's.....sort of encouraging.

The best thing I've ever heard Isbell do is a solo acoustic show that's floating around the web, from before either of his albums came out. Originally, the song Dress Blues was called Mickey Rooney.

Isbell's Twitter feed is more interesting than his solo albums. I really like him, I just hope he puts out a really solid album. I don't know anything about his split from the Truckers (other than the fact that he divorced the bassist), but it seems like he got a rough deal. He was great for that band and vice versa.

It's kind of sad. For awhile I thought he coulda been a contendah. His contributions to Decoration Day and Dirty South set the bar so high.

I think the reason for the split is generally thought to be some combo of the following:

1) Divorce from Shonna (duh)
2) Their fighting was distracting
3) Isbell and Cooley would fight, which was leading Cooley to drink more
4) Isbell was writing more music than there was room for
5) He was much younger than the other dudes, and pretty much the only dude without a family

Just general conflicts all around, I guess. I agree he was really good for the band, but then, the last couple times I saw the DBTs they were as awesome as I've ever seen them.

http://www.hearya.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/dbt.jpg

Ugly Buildings, Whores, and Politicians: Greatest Hits 1998-2009 is a compilation album released by New West Records of songs coming from the first seven albums of the Drive-By Truckers discography. It was produced by David Barbie, and "leads fans on an abbreviated journey of what the band has accomplished in their first 11 years."

1 The Living Bubba
2 Bulldozers and Dirt
3 Ronnie and Neil
4 Zip City
5 Let There Be Rock
6 Marry Me
7 Sink Hole
8 Carl Perkins' Cadillac
9 Outfit
10 The Righteous Path
11 Gravity's Gone (Remix)
12 Never Gonna Change
13 3 Dimes Down
14 Lookout Mountain
15 Uncle Frank (Alternate Version)
16 A World of Hurt

Very cool of them to include two Isbell songs even though he's no longer in the band.

Of course everybody's going to have a few favorites not included--Puttin' People On The Moon and That Man I Shot are mine--but overall, it's a pretty strong representation of their career.

This band, man... When they nail it, I really feel it. I never heard this story about "The Living Bubba" before: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2003/06/the-living-bubba.html

Two brief observations:

-How great is that cover of "Hey Ya" with Booker T?
-Their cover of Rebels is pretty earnest and awesome. (And it was used in an episode of King of the Hill because of course.)

new Patterson solo album next month!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/998685_10151650349149854_785727654_n.jpg

love that photo so much

http://bittersoutherner.com/patterson-hood-the-newer-south#.UhS5E2TEq_J

Mike Cooley livestreaming here fyi

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tds-streams

I've got the new album. Gotta say, after a couple of listens, I'm glad to have them back, but this is not the album I wanted from the band right now.

Drive-By Truckers - English Oceans

Emerging from my longest break from listening to the band in a while. Digging into "The Big To-Do," which sounds great. Still love this band, wish they weren't so popular that they could return to playing Chicago three times a year, let alone lil' clubs again.

Patterson Hood has a must-read article in the New York Times on the Confederate flag.

Really great piece

Wonder why Pitchfork reviewed the live set two weeks early? Unless I missed something.

Looking forward to catching them here a couple of nights in November (Thalia Hall). Sounds like the band is in a sweet spot again.

A statement from Drive-By Truckers Patterson Hood:

We are beyond thrilled to announce the release date of our new album American Band. We are launching the pre-order and our friends at NPR are posting a first taste so you can get a little sample of what we've been up to.

"Surrender Under Protest" is a Mike Cooley composition that is unlike any DBT song we've ever recorded, yet somehow sounds unmistakably like us. In a way, that's pretty indicative of the album as a whole.

These are crazy times and we have made a record steeped in this moment of history that we're all trying to live through. We've always considered ourselves a political band, even when that aspect seemed to be concealed by some type of narrative device i.e. dealing with issues of race by telling a story set in the time of George Wallace or class struggles by setting "Putting People of the Moon" in the age of Reagan.

This time out, there are no such diversions as these songs are mostly set front and center in the current political arena with songs dealing with our racial and cultural divisions, gun violence, mass shootings and political assholery. Once again, there is a nearly even split between the songs of Cooley and myself, with both of us bringing in songs that seem to almost imply a conversation between us about our current place in time.

"American Band" is a rock and roll call to arms as well as a musical reset button for our band and the country we live in. Most of all, we look at it as the beginnings of some conversations that we, as a people very much need to begin having if we ever hope to break through the divisions that are threatening to tear us apart.

Drive-By Truckers are celebrating our twentieth anniversary as a band in an election year where some people are trying to define what it is to be American. Definitions based on some outdated ideology of prejudice and fear. We are loudly proclaiming that those people don't speak for us. America is and always has been a land of immigrants and ideals. Ideals that we have often fallen short of achieving, but it's the striving that has given us whatever claims to greatness we have had. That's what America means to us and "We're an American Band".

American Band - the eleventh studio album by Drive-By Truckers. Coming September 30th, 2016 from ATO Records.

And don't miss the Darkened Flags 2016 Tour, beginning in August.

See you at The Rock Show,
Patterson Hood
Drive-By Truckers

http://www.npr.org/2016/06/21/482780892/songs-we-love-drive-by-truckers-surrender-under-protest

Oh man that is excellent.

Long press release:

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS – AMERICAN BAND

Drive-By Truckers have always been outspoken, telling a distinctly American story via craft, character, and concept, all backed by sonic ambition and social conscience. Founded in 1996 by singer/songwriter/guitarists Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, the band have long held a progressive fire in their belly but with AMERICAN BAND, they have made the most explicitly political album in their extraordinary canon. A powerful and legitimately provocative work, hard edged and finely honed, the album is the sound of a truly American Band – a Southern American band – speaking on matters that matter. DBT made the choice to direct the Way We Live Now head on, employing realism rather than subtext or symbolism to purge its makers’ own anger, discontent, and frustration with societal disintegration and the urban/rural divide that has partitioned the country for close to a half-century. Master songwriters both, Hood and Cooley wisely avoid overt polemics to explore such pressing issues as race, income inequality, the NRA, deregulation, police brutality, Islamophobia, and the plague of suicides and opioid abuse. As a result, songs like “What It Means” and the tub-thumping “Kinky Hypocrites” are intensely human music from a rock ‘n’ roll band yearning for community and collective action. Fueled by a just spirit of moral indignation and righteous rage, AMERICAN BAND is protest music fit for the stadiums, designed to raise issues and ire as the nation careens towards its most momentous election in a generation.

“I don’t want there to be any doubt as to which side of this discussion we fall on,” Hood says. “I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding of where we stand. If you don’t like it, you can leave. It’s okay. We’re not trying to be everybody’s favorite band, we’re going to be who we are and do what we do and anyone who’s with us, we’d love to have them join in.”

Mike Cooley is somewhat more direct. “I wanted this to be a no bones about it, in your face political album,” he says. “I wanted to piss off the assholes.”

AMERICAN BAND’s considerable force can in part be credited to the sheer musical strength of the current Drive-By Truckers line-up, with Hood and Cooley joined by bassist Matt Patton, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, and drummer Brad Morgan – together, the longest-lasting iteration in the band’s two-decade history. AMERICAN BAND follows ENGLISH OCEANS and 2015’s IT’S GREAT TO BE ALIVE!, marking the first time DBT have made three consecutive LPs with the same hard-traveling crew.

“This is the longest period of stability in our band’s history,” says Hood. “I think we finally hit the magic formula. It’s made everything more fun than it’s ever been, making records and playing shows.”

Drive-By Truckers might have maintained constancy but Hood embraced change by moving his family to Portland, OR in July 2015, a physical shift which he says “opened the floodgates” to a batch of deeply felt, strikingly emotional new songs. Having recorded the bulk of their canon in Athens, GA, the band was also eager to reinvent their own surroundings. Memphis was considered but when DBT’s November 2015 tour wrapped in Nashville, the band decided to spend a few days at the legendary Sound Emporium getting a head start on the new record.

Never ones to dick around in the studio, DBT cranked out nine new songs in just three 14-hour shifts, as ever with producer/engineer David Barbe at the helm. Coming in directly from the road put a head of steam behind the band, allowing them to lay it all out live on the floor, tracking songs like “Imagine” in little more than a single take.

“We realized we had most of the record,” Hood says, “so we went back after the holidays for four more days, but ended up finishing it in three. We tend to usually take about two weeks to make a record so this was really quick.”

“That was a lot of fun,” the Alabama-based Cooley says, “and a shorter drive for me.”

Speed was of the essence, as DBT was determined to get their record out at the height of the 2016 election season. By their very nature, Drive-By Truckers has always been an inherently political act, “but this is the first time it’s been out there on the surface,” Cooley says, “No bones about it.”

“I’ve always considered our band to be political,” Hood says. “I’ve studied and followed politics since I was a small kid. I got in trouble in third grade for a paper I wrote about Watergate – the teacher sent a note home to my parents saying I was voicing opinions about our president that she didn’t appreciate. That’s the one time I got in trouble at school where my parents sided with me.”

“SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA was a pretty political record,” Cooley says. “But we hadn’t had our first black president yet. We hadn’t sat in the bleachers and watched the backlash, which, as acquainted as we are with racism, went beyond what anyone imagined it would be.”

Political matters reared their head on 2014’s ENGLISH OCEANS, most explicitly on Cooley’s “Made Up English Oceans,” detailing the life and crimes of late Republican black ops master Lee Atwater. Hood further sharpened his own skills by penning an op-ed for the New York Times condemning the Confederate Flag and its vile role in Southern culture.

“That was a major learning experience,” he says. “Working with an editor, how to streamline what I’m trying to say, how to find the most powerful part and get rid of some of the excess. It was really grueling but I was eager to take it on and learn as much as I could from it.”

Hood delivered a finished draft to the Old Gray Lady and within moments, wrote the ferocious “Darkened Flags On The Cusp Of Dawn” on a borrowed guitar – his own gear in a moving van on its way to his family’s new home in Portland. The song, like so much of the album, is a direct response to 2014’s police shootings of unarmed African-Americans, a moment both Hood and Cooley see as the catalyst for their blunt new approach. Long haunted by the police shooting of a mentally ill neighbor in his former hometown of Athens, GA, Hood wrote “What It Means” in the heat of Ferguson, Staten Island, and the subsequent emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“It was all in my head and just kind of bubbling at the surface,” Hood says. “I think we knew early on that was the direction this record was going to go in.”

Hood’s friend and collaborator for more than half their lives, Cooley was a on similar trip, reading, writing, and pondering the very same issues that rend the country in two.

“We have conversations about all this stuff,” he says, “but not necessarily in terms of planning an album or anything. Then we go home, he writes a song, I write a song, and they’re both basically about the same thing.”

“We tend to come to the same conclusions separately but together,” Hood says. “We don’t really discuss it until we have a bunch of songs. We’ve always been astounded at how much common ground our songs have, record after record. SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA is the only time we discussed a game plan for what we were going to write, the only time. It’s kind of uncanny. Truly a beautiful thing.”

Further creative inspiration came from a pair of American milestone pieces of art, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ National Book Award-winning Between The World and Me and Kendrick Lamar’s TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY, “in my opinion, the greatest musical work of our current time,” says Hood.

“It’s an inspiring album and one that made me question myself,” he says. “I’m a white guy from the South, do I have the right to be singing about this stuff? What can I do? The only conclusion I could come up with was maybe white guys, with Southern accents, who look like rednecks, need to say Black Lives Matter too. It’s a start, a tiny start, but a step in the right direction is better than no step at all.”

“I couldn’t not do it,” says Cooley. “I’ve got to speak about this stuff, somehow or another. And I’m going to speak about it from a middle aged Southern white working class evangelical background male point of view.”

Much like Lamar’s GRAMMY® Award-winning song cycle, AMERICAN BAND serves as a stark, tightly focused snapshot of today’s America, an exemplary illustration of rock ‘n’ roll as a vehicle for social commentary and clear-eyed reportage. “Guns of Umpqua” captures Hood’s reaction to the 2015 shooting at Roseburg, OR’s Umpqua Community College while Cooley’s breakneck “Ramon Casiano” is a topical folk rocker telling the little known tale of former National Rife Association leader Harlon Carter and the murder of 15-year-old Ramon Casiano. Known as “Mr. NRA,” Carter transformed the organization from its original role as a sportsmen and conservationist group into what Cooley correctly declares “a right wing, white supremacist gun cult.” A Southern-rooted band opening their album with such a song makes for a singularly powerful statement, the NRA’s monolithic control of the debate demanding opposing artists to be as overt and vocal on the issue as possible.

“The NRA needs to be turned into a political turd in a swimming pool,” Cooley says, “so all these fuckers will start paddling away.

“What I’m trying to do is point straight to the white supremacist core of gun culture,” Cooley concludes. “That’s what it is and that’s where its roots are. When gun culture thinks about all the threats they need to be armed against, what color are they?”

Of course the personal can also be politic, represented here by Hood’s deeply felt “Baggage.” Penned the night of Robin Williams’ death, the song sees Hood examining his own demons and long bout with depression, “the worst I’ve had as an older adult,” he says. “I was kind of blindsided by it. There had always been a tangible thing that I could point to as to what was wrong, but this time I was grasping for something and not quite finding it.”

AMERICAN BAND is surprisingly optimistic thanks to Hood’s “absolutely” improved mental health as well as Drive-By Truckers’ passion for the issues behind the material. The band intend to hit the road harder than ever in support of AMERICAN BAND, bringing their songs to the people as they have always done, only this time with the country’s very future at stake. Fortunately for America, Drive-By Truckers are, as a Great Man once said, fired up, ready to go.

“I feel like Cooley and I both nailed what were going for on every song on this record,” Hood says. “I don’t think there’s a wasted line or word on this record. There’s nothing I would change, that’s for sure. I think we got this one right.”

“I’m sure there will be people saying ‘I wish they’d keep the politics out of it,’” Cooley says, “but one of the characteristics among the people and institutions we are taking to task in these songs is their self-appointed status as the exclusive authority on what American is. What is American enough and who the real Americans are. Putting AMERICAN BAND right out front is our way of reclaiming the right to define our American identity on our own terms, and show that it's out of love of country that we draw our inspiration.”

eh

I'm listening to it now, will take a few listens. One of the few bands where the lyrics are more important than the music, though the music helps.

Well, it didn't used to be that way; with their recent albums it's like reading alert pulp.

Recent stuff is definitely more self-aware/on the nose. Less angry, more sad.

Hood's described them as "lyrics-driven," but starting with The Big To Do and English Oceans (not counting Go-Go Boots, cos outtakes from TBTD sessions, though some are fine), I got into the sounds right away, and more than the lyrics, in some cases.

patterson & cooley are now trying harder to sing now which i understand ie wanting to be better technically etc but it was part of the charm for me, i kinda liked the sing-talk delivery of the older stuff

I can't wait to hear it. How many bands are still making vital music on the 11th studio album? This is one of the alltime great bands.

xpost I never thought of the old stuff as sing-talk, so much as good old fashioned shouting! They're also getting older. Patterson is 52, Cooley is 50. Both are definitely trying harder to sing, because I don't think they could perform as much if they kept blowing out their voices on a regular basis. They drink (at least) less, too. Anyway, I listen to them now as mostly great singer-songwriters and try not to compare them to their past high water marks. They're different people, and a different band.

Wow, "Surrender Under Protest" is great, Cooley has a tremendous way of simplifying complicated issues into great songs.

Cooley has become the more reliable songwriter, I think. Before English Oceans Cooley would generally only contribute three or four songs per album, but the 50/50 split behooves them. Really liking my advance of the new album, actually, especially for Cooley's songs, but a couple of surefire hreatbreaking Hood tracks like "Guns of Umpqua" help, and his "When the Sun Don't Shine" doesn't sound like anything else he's written.

And this one is a keeper:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU-j3Vmspxc

Have loved to Truckers for, wow, maybe 15 years now? More? 16? Anyway, I need to give the new one some more time.

Time is passing. Their records do hold up to continued listening. I always thought the multiple singers and songwriters made many bands records more interesting.

I got one sad funny story about the last time I saw The Drive By Truckers live a few years back. I was taking the lady I was dating for a couple months to the show and she had me get a ticket for a friend of her's to go and she would pay me back later. That's cool I figured...we went to the gig had a grand time and then pretty much afterwards I got the ole' never returning your call ever again treatment. For some reason it oddly seemed appropriate, except if it was a DBT song the band in question would have been Blackfoot.

The new one is exceptionally good.

def their best in a long time, p much no filler

oh my god you guys -- this album is a stone fucking bore. Not a single interesting rhythm: two songwriters strumming to the same backbeat. By the time I got to "What It Means" I couldn't be bothered with listening to the hot takes on racism and America Today.

Their last record I cared about was released in 2008.

*jordan shrug* idk man

and I like songs on every record since 2010 (I like the opener on this one) but it's all ehhhh

Well, that's what makes horse racing.

xp i will say that its def kinda monochromatic, sonically, more so than some of their other records. i just think they happened to pick a sound they do really, really well. an album like Go-Go Boots is way more adventurous musically but there are huge duds on it (fireplace poker, anybody?) same thing's true of english oceans, which starts p good and just kinda peters out, or the big to-do, which has by far one of their best songs ever ("birthday boy") and also real weak tracks like "flying wallendas" and "eyes like glue" (the v rare cooley misfire)

none of these is ever gonna be Dirty South-level again. granted, thats a p high bar.

I do think the arrangements are dull, but especially Cooley's lyrics are better than ever. I think I'd be into it more if I approached it as more of a loud folk record.

Their last record I cared about was released in 2008.

I agree with this, and if anything BTCD is underrated

Their best, which means, yes, better than The Dirty South, Decoration Day, and the Shonda tunes on BTCD.

BTCD is their peak, I think. Ever since then it's been just a little too much yet not quite enough. Still love 'em, still great live, etc.

OK, listening again, and there are some great, great songs (esp. Cooley's) and performances. But I think the problem may be as simple as sequencing. "Darkened Flags" is just not a terribly good song, and it sort of kills the momentum before it even begins, especially between "Ramon Casiano" and "Surrender Under Protest."

Watching them kill it right now. Right band for the right time.

just covered The KKK Took My Baby Away!

Best tracks of their last LP: "Ramon Casiano" (another biting Cooley song), "Surrender Under Protest", "Guns Of Umpqua" and "Ever South".

Wow, just heard that awesome brand new song they snuck out. Called The Perilous Night, and it is without question the most political thing they've written to date. Calls out Trump by name, and so on. Hood on point.

Incidentally heard it in tandem with a new Neil Young protest song, Already Great, which sounded pretty awesome too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luoe-6ok_TE

Not into the political stuff. Not why I listen to DBT.

Weird. They've always been pretty political!

Dad drunk and Amex

It's okay. And every song by every act is political. Breathing clean air is a political act.

Women Without ILX

Angels and SNA

Wow, the enthusiasm is overwhelming.

Seriously, if this is not why you listen to the Drive-By Truckers, then I guess I don't know why any of you listen to the Drive-By Truckers.

And every song by every act is political.

Oh, come on.

I think they've always been political, but in the new song they name names.

I love the DBTs even though their work is very disciplined and rarely exciting. I'm seeing them live in Feb and also seeing Cooley and Hood's local solo shows.

If you're gay, every love song is political.

This song is topical.

I thought the political songs on the last album were great but this one’s pretty awful. Boring music, super on the nose lyrics.

This is fucking awful. I can just sense that my opinion is in some way regressive or rockist or whatever, but so be it. I wouldn't run screaming from a room where this was being played, but who could actually get into this

God knows we need something from music right now, but it's not a cringey, ham fisted explication of a sensible if obvious POV, set to pubrock

truly sorry for the triple dip, but I do want to say I love the exultant defiant The High Road by Isbell, which deals just as directly with this administration. I guess it's because the message is, transcend it instead of griping about it or wallowing in it. TPN's message is more suited to an op-ed or blog post imo

Into the Perilous Night: An Essay by Patterson Hood

I mostly like the riff and the faster than usual tempo. I also like Hood in righteous mode.

xpost that's a great essay, I love his honesty.

He's a fantastic writer.

Something about the wrinkle in your forehead
Tells me there’s a fit about to be thrown
If we get the van out of the ditch before the morning
Ain’t nobody gotta know about what I’ve done

As good as I have ever seen them tonight, and I've seen them a lot!

They just released an album by Hood/ Cooley’s 80s band Adam’s House Cat, with re-recorded vocals. It is excellent as usual. If you haven’t heard it yet, definitely check it out.

Saw them again last night, playing a truncated set at a beer fest. Great as usual, if shorter than usual. Hold Steady opened!

I was so worried the Adam's House Cat album would sound like some alt-era reject, but it actually sounds like a lost '80s Amerindie classic.

Let's rank these awesome Patterson Hood songs.

C’mon no Heathens?!?!

No Living Bubba?!

no!

NO EIGHTEEN WHEELS OF LOVE!?!??

Alfred why do u hate irl trucking

I like this imo

https://img.discogs.com/uB_x_iunwCVuF90mHIwUyi9X33Y=/fit-in/600x602/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3419423-1519135654-3674.jpeg.jpg

well that gives me some hope

His songs have gotten slower

aaaaaand here are Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell's songs.

Interesting. I think "Ghost To Most" and "Gravity" Gone" both deserve a nod. Plus a bunch of Cooley, really (there's not much Jason to choose from). I mean, this is chorus!

"So I'll meet you at the bottom if there really is one
They always told me when you hit it you'll know it
But I've been falling so long it's like gravity's gone and I'm just floating"

Space City is my favorite Cooley

"Goddamn Lonely Love" is one of my favorite songs of all time, full stop.

I mean...

If I could have one wish right now
I'd be about as half as tough as I pretend I am
Then I wouldn't care how empty this old house feels
I could take her things and take them far away from here
I could make sure no dirt ever got on her name
Cause looking at that stone wouldn't bring me so much pain
I could go into town wearing my finest clothes
I could turn these tears into blood and make it run ice cold
Space City's one hour up the road from me
One hour away from as close to the moon as anybody down here is ever gonna be
And somewhere beyond that big white light is where my heart is gone
And somewhere she's wondering what's taking me so long
My hands are as good to me as they've ever been
And I ain't ashamed of anything my hands ever did
But sometimes the words I used were as hard as my fist
She had the strength of a man and the heart of a child I guess
Space City's one hour up the road from me
One hour away from as close to the moon as anybody down here is ever gonna be
And somewhere beyond that big white light is where my heart is gone
And somewhere she's wondering what's taking me so long

"Goddamn Lonely Love" is one of my favorite songs of all time, full stop.

― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, January 13, 2019

Same! I didn't think so in 2004. Now I understand the desperation.

I need to make a concerted effort with Drive-By Truckers as I've only really dabbled here and there. The thought that there might be three songs better than Outfit staggers me.

"Goddamn Lonely Love" is one of my favorite songs of all time, full stop.

― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, January 13, 2019 10:15 PM

It only started cutting into me last year.

The thought that there might be three songs better than Outfit staggers me.

The fact that this band has remained so prolific yet turned out so many amazing songs is itself pretty staggering.

Uncle Frank is my favorite DBT song, and probably my single favorite song of the century.

I even like "The President's Penis is Missing."

women w/o whiskey

still trying to wrap my head around the absence of Gravity's Gone

"Goddamn Lonely Love" is one of my favorite songs of all time, full stop.

― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, January 13, 2019

OTM

women without whiskey is so good

whiskey's hard to beat

They've got such a catalog of great albums that it's hard to keep them all in rotation, but I put on "Go-Go Boots" for the first time in ages and it ruled. Still love "Used to be a Cop" (which could be a movie easier than most Hood songs he wrote with movies in mind), but "The Thanksgiving Filter" really got to me tonight. One of the few Thanksgiving songs! Just put on "English Oceans" now, and it's already ruling, too.

almost time for Mrs Claus’ Kimono...

I was curious, so I did some googling, and saw this tidbit:

For ideological opponents who think that the current state of affairs has beaten the Truckers into silence, however, Hood has a message: Hold onto your hats. There’s a new record coming in time for 2020. And there may be another out by the end of the next year.

“It’ll be out in time for the next election cycle, and it is a political record. I would say it’s as political as (“American Band”), but it’s more personal,” Hood told The Daily Times recently. “It’s a little less broad based, a little less ‘Surrender Under Protest’ (the Truckers’ excoriation of Confederate flag culture) type of stuff and a little more inward, I guess. I’m really, really proud of it.”

With more than three years between it and “American Band,” it’ll be the longest gap between Truckers’ records ever, but for album No. 12, the guys wanted to get it right, Hood added.

“It was hard, writing a new record right now,” he said. “I’ve never really been given to having writer’s block. Cooley has, but we both struggled this time out, just trying to find a way to articulate how we feel at a time like this. What we ended up doing was basically record about an album and a half. So we’re putting out an album in January, and then we’ll be kind of finishing up the next record over the next year or so.

“The follow-up is not political. It’s a very personal record, maybe the most we’ve ever done. I’m excited about it all. I’m ready to go out as the primary season starts kicking up, to raise hell and be all in for any good we can do — we’re even thinking about trying to do voter registration drives and, as it gets closer to next fall, some other creative things in some swing states. We want to be all in. But my hope is, shortly after the election, we’ll release the other record and go out and do something different.

So it's a little confusing, but that implies a new album in January 2020, and then maybe another one at the end of '20?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REHXeCDc-C8&feature=emb_logo

New/imminent album hitting the spot. Vox kind of buried, but it makes me lean in and pay closer attention.

https://732204.smushcdn.com/1222810/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DBT_TheUnraveling_cover-1-296x300.jpg?size=300x300&lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1

ooh nice cover

it's a very dark record.

These are dark times, I expect it will echo how many of us feel.

https://732204.smushcdn.com/1222810/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DBTwithMick.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1

Drive-by Trucker, lost yer way...

Cooley / Jagger

star trucker

this is fkn adorable tbh

So does Patterson always stand in the back In these photos ?

fantastic pic!!!

It was in No Depression:

“I think we clocked in 85 hours in the studio that week making the record,” says Patterson Hood, reflecting on the recording of Drive-By Truckers’ latest LP, The Unraveling, the bulk of which took place at the Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis. The album is a nine-track treatise on the state of the country following the 2016 presidential election, which means it’s heavy, poignant, and rarely lighthearted.

The recording process, though, featured a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will forever be etched into the making of The Unraveling.

“It’s a small studio, it isn’t a big, sprawling building or anything like that,” Truckers co-founder Mike Cooley says. “I was in the reception area just hanging out, looking out the front window, and I saw maybe four black vehicles — it looked like a small motorcade pulling up.”

Tourists stop by the famed studio all the time hoping to get a tour, but since it’s an active recording business, the best they can do is get a photo outside and maybe poke their head in the lobby to say hello.

“I figured this was some type of VIP situation,” Cooley says of the SUVs and sedans he saw pull up to the studio. “It could be anybody, so I just walked back into the control room. A few seconds later, Patterson walks in and says, ‘Mick Jagger is in the hallway.’”

There’s a sense of excitement in Cooley’s voice as he tells this story, but he admits he didn’t believe Hood at first: “I told him to fuck off.”

Mick Jagger and Leonardo DiCaprio own the movie rights to the Peter Guralnick book Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll. The Rolling Stones frontman was in town with the author, along with their screenwriter and production designer, and wanted to get a peek inside the studio.

“They had spent the earlier part of the day at Sun Studios,” Hood explains. “We had heard Peter was coming over, but that’s it. He walks in and he introduces himself, we all sit down, and then Mick Jagger walks in. Holy shit!”

Hood adds, “He was very much the old-school British gentleman. Super polite.”

“Oh yeah, he was pretty cool,” Cooley agrees, with a chuckle in his voice. “I’m glad he was nice, because it was our session that he interrupted.”

Aside from his English manners, Cooley remembers Jagger walking around with his signature onstage swagger. “Even in that setting,” he says, “he moved around with that energetic sense of movement. He’s always been over the top with his movements, constantly in motion, real physical. He seems to always move around with that same sense of purpose, even at 76 years old. He’s a ball of energy. It’s pretty amazing.”

The thing that stood out to Hood was not just how Jagger acted, but how his Truckers brothers reacted.

“I got to see my bandmates shaking in their boots like they were teenagers or something,” he says. “That was awesome. I tend to be that way naturally, and I don’t necessarily see that side of Cooley or Matt Patton that often. They both keep a surly and cool demeanor. It was cool to see them as excited as I was.”

Hood takes a break from the story to have a laugh about Cooley and Patton meeting Jagger.

“It was a fun day. And then when they left, we got back to work. That was probably the biggest break we took in seven days.”

lol!

This is beautiful:

A few seconds later, Patterson walks in and says, ‘Mick Jagger is in the hallway.’”

There’s a sense of excitement in Cooley’s voice as he tells this story, but he admits he didn’t believe Hood at first: “I told him to fuck off.”

I got pushed some Paste "Top 15 Drive-By Truckers" feature, and I think it's a testament to the band that while they picked some winners/ringers, so many of my favorites or songs I consider their best are not on there, and so many songs I don't think about at all are:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2020/01/best-drive-by-truckers-songs.html

My PO8:

Let there be rock
Angels and fuselage
Dead drunk and naked
My sweet Annette
Heathens
Outfit
Women without whiskey
Three dimes down

New album could use more rock, but still sounded alright on first listen. The lyrics are perhaps even more on the nose re: their subject matter than usual (song titles include "Thoughts and Prayers" and "Babies in Cages") but I get that America in 2020 might not be the time and place for subtlety.

They always write good songs but they're so boring when DBT play them these days.

I've missed out on their last couple of records but I'm trying to start rectifying that now, starting with this new one. Agreed about the relative lack of rock (I do like the riff to Armaggedon's Back in Town), would add that the rekkid needs more Cooley too. Lyrically though it's definitely hitting me right in the gut this morning, in concert with the impeachment cover-up plus my viewing last night of the American Factory documentary.

I've only listened to the closer once so far but it seemed pretty fluid musically.

Cooley was apparently struggling with writer's block so severe he thought he was done for good.

I've been listening to the last two recently. At the time they kind of underwhelmed me but when I listen to them now, with fresh ears, I feel bad for ever doubting them. I suppose it's easy enough to describe the albums as musically boring, but I feel they've always been lyrically driven, with hooks and riffs nice bonuses.

A good example of what bores me about them since 2010: "21st Century USA." Every detail so creative-writing-seminar perfect, and the arrangement so enervated that all I feel is trapped by bric-à-brac.

Musically I can't figure out what's changed, exactly. I've seen them live a million times, and new songs and old songs alike kick ass. My only theory is that they are an awesome rock band approaching the studio like session musicians might, except they are not awesome session musicians.

I think it's the same thing that has hurt a lot of recent Springsteen records, but these guys have better songs.

"Armageddon's Back in Town" is definitely the album highlight for me.

Second close listen of "The Unravelling" reveals more of the depth of this record, the lyrics are killer and both of Cooley's songs are strong, though "Grievance Merchants" is the better of them. "Babies In Cages" is surprisingly catchy for what it's about. A more consistent record than their last one though the highs are not quite as high ("Surrender Under Protest" is monumental).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIN-CUBhhHc

"I never saw Lynryd Skynyrd, and I never saw the Clash. But I ran monitors for fuckin' Fugazi, motherfuckers!"

Fumes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQelOp8oEJU

They need more guitar players

Impressive album imo: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/ranking-drive-by-truckers-brighter-than-creations-dark/

If Karen was music, it would be Jason Isbell

Given most of Isbell's views on societal issues and politics, I'm not sure how that take could be more wrong.

I mean, he's often heavy handed with some of his messages but, uh, really struggling to understand the leap to being a Karen.

If We Were Karens

Everything I have read about or from Isbell has made me like him more and more, no matter how I feel about his music.

I didn't say he was a Karen. I said he makes Karen music.

I wished I liked him more cuz he seems like a cool guy!

the song Ronnie and Neil is like someone reading a Wikipedia page over a bar band

Karen as a concept is at the point where it's losing any meaning

otm

plz elaborate on what him “being a Karen” actually means in this context

or “making Karen music”

I'm p sure a "Karen" would be the type telling Isbell to "shut up and sing" when he talks or tweets about politics, which he very specifically addresses on the new one.

I view Karen Music as any bland, toothless NPR bullshit that makes John Mellencamp sound edgy. Alt country pumpkin spiced latte music.

oh man you played the pumpkin spice card

actual Karens listen to dude modern country singers who I've never heard of but they sellout hockey arenas

I was reading some past interviews with him, and there are a few where he confesses his only real indulgence since hitting it big was buying Ed King's' famed '59 Les Paul "Red Eye." I don't remember if King's wife offered to sell it to him, or just care for it first, but apparently at some point it went up for sale and he called his accountant and asked if he could afford it and his accountant said "absolutely not." So he called his manager and explained the situation to her and then asked her to book him as many weirdo private parties as she possibly could to pay it off. I know the original asking price was $650k ...

the song Ronnie and Neil is like someone reading a Wikipedia page over a bar band

I was confused for a second - that's not an Isbell song, I think that's Hood.

Isbell has a few anthemic political songs that get heavy handed but mostly he just writes great short narratives IMO. I don't think Karens are lining up to hear songs about a guy's friend who's dying of cancer?

huh, i really dig isbell doing stretched out marvin gaye jams

every thread gets the troll it deserves

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/879393187/now-about-the-bad-name-i-gave-my-band

AFAICT there is not a single mention of the band's name, positive or negative, in the 16-year span of this thread

Drive By Wokesters

dont really want to read that whole thing whats the gist if you dont mind?

It's actually a decent read, but pretty well summed up by the last paragraph:

Our name was a drunken joke that was never intended to be in rotation and reckoned with two-and-a-half decades later, and I sincerely apologize for its stupidity and any negative stereotypes it has propagated. I'm not sure changing it now serves any higher purpose, but I'm certainly open to suggestions. In the meantime, you're welcome to just call us Lady DBT.

After all that I don't even understand what he's apologizing for. Or if it was worth taking up so many words if he's not changing it.

Pat's been in Portland too long

yeah, it's a stupid name, but most band names are pretty stupid. I'm not sure what there is to apologize for.

sorry for having such a bad name for such a cool band?

"I'm woke too!"

very weird

xpost Eh, this band has been in the woke zone for some time now. That Black Lives Matter sign has been a stage fixture for at least 4 years.

No one was asking them.

Maybe NPR asked them?

Sorry, these guys have always seemed like try-hards to me.

I like this band, but their stupid—stupid like “Goo Goo Dolls” is stupid, not stupid because I assumed anything malicious on their part—name kept me from paying any attention to them for years.

The more I think about this the funnier it seens

I had always been under the impression (held by probably only me) that their name held a double-meaning: Firstly as Hood explains it in the piece, and secondly as a reference to some obscure trucking industry slang ("Oh, that guy's just a drive-by trucker..." or something).

next: David Byrne regrets abelist bandname

'Gangstabilly' is far more regrettable than the band name.

I had the same thought! I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned.

BTW, I'm not too up on slang, but what's a "try-hard?" Does that mean they ... try too hard? I don't know, if that's the accusation, I'd rather they try too hard than do what 99.9% of acts do, which is to say, next to nothing. Buncha white Alabama rock guys in their '50s trying hard to be allies and supporters to progressive people and causes? That's OK by me.

I uh, don't get what is 'offensive' about the name. Is it just using the term 'drive by'? who gives a fuck?

Never in a million years would it have occurred to me that "drive-by shooting" was the intended reference. Maybe it would have been more salient in 1996? Idk. Agree that the essay feels try-hardy, but also that try-hard is preferable to do-nothing.

I know I've read the name origin name a million times but I still always assumed a "drive-by trucker" was sort of a part-timer. Like, nota poseur or not the real deal.

Woowww... privileged much?? /s

try-hard is preferable to do-nothing

normally I agree with this sentiment but this one is pretty ridiculous. I guess it must be nice to be able to call up NPR and publish the fart of your choice

I definitely assumed it was about drive-by shootings by truckers - a juxtaposition reinforced by debut album Gangstabilly.

^^ same, peace.

What we should definitely be doing is shaming people for trying, even if it comes off a little misguided. Absolutely, that's the best course of action.

He'll be fine.

I never thought of a different connotation for drive-by... but I also just thought it was a nonsense combo of words because '90s band name

Barenaked Truckers.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51WIPXrqcML._SY445_.jpg

I don't know Jerry Joseph, but apparently the band backed him up on his new album? And Isbell adds slide to a track?

Jerry Joseph is ... like, look up 'earnest grizzled veteran journeyman bar-rocker dude' in the dictionary and there'll be a picture of Jerry.

i think he's an OK songwriter who occasionally cranks out a pretty great song, but he has been such a sort of regional lifer in Portland for so long, i always dismissed him. that said, he is well-connected *and* he has been grinding it out long enough that i think i have no choice to come around to respecting him.

nice enough guy, though. takes his art real serious like. And I think he kicked a serious addiction somewhere along the way, too.

(short version: it's a coup for him to have DBTs and especially Isbell on his record)

New album (already) out in December, called "The New OK." Curious, because of course that will be post-election, which could provide two very different contexts to the songs. Maybe they will be more thematically general this time?

There's a short piece on them on Rolling Stone. Apparently most of the songs were leftover from the last sessions, though some of the leftovers from the last sessions are being saved for their *next* album already. This one apparently has a Ramones cover, which I presume to be "The KKK Took My Baby Away," and a Cooley song about how Sarah Palin essentially did Trump before Trump. He jokes in the piece that the GOP can't even give a woman credit for *that.*

Wait, the new album is out Friday!?

Yeah, out digitally this Friday and physically in mid-December.

Weird, listened to the title track just now and towards the end I picked up that it's built from the DNA of Soul Asylum's "Cartoon," which could be a coincidence, but I can almost certainly guarantee those dudes are familiar with that song.

I was underwhelmed by the album from earlier this year.

a Cooley song about how Sarah Palin essentially did Trump before Trump

man these guys have fallen very far indeed

Nah they're still good, it's everything else that's fallen.

I liked The Unraveling, heard the highly-acclaimed American Band as clumsy with the political comments---trouble getting to fresh expression, esp in songshapes that lure---go back to Woody G, DBT: he always found a good tune somewhere, still got that P Domain for public discourse---anybody listened to all/any of these live sets? They've been pretty good live in my experience, even w material I didn't care for as studio tracks, but where should I start w all this?
https://drivebytruckers.bandcamp.com/music

Alabama Ass Whuppin' is a real good sweatbox set of prime early material, from when they still had a sense of humor.
This the official reissue of the bands long 'out of print' live album from 2000, ALABAMA ASS WHUPPIN'. Recorded in various Georgia clubs during the Pizza Deliverance Tour of 1999, it is probably the most punk rock thing they have ever done. ATO Records & Drive-By Truckers have restored the original 1/2' analogue mixes of the album which have been re-mastered with some beautiful new art work

I do agree that The Unraveling did a better job of being topical and political than the overt American Band did. That said, I don't think the band has lost their sense of humor so much as not having a whole lot to be happy about at the moment.

xp that was a fun time to be in athens. their shows felt like big parties with patterson hood hosting and making sure you had a good time and got shitfaced. elephant six had such a different thing going on but it all lingered together so well

That's what came across on the album! And their humor didn't depend on happy stuff: This food tastes the way Ah feel...She's the best-dressed gurl in Butt-holevilllle. Ditto on Southern Rock Opera and Pizza Deliverance (still need to check Gangstabilly. "Go-Go Boots" is a good later example, with that creepy Sardonicus groove.

Based on a true/testified to story, let the record show.

Okay, three songs in and this is the most I've liked one of their records since Brighter than Creations Dark, so I'm hopeful.

Still good! Strong melodies, great (and successful!) use of southern soul tropes.

Ramones cover is just eh, haven’t listened to rest yet

"The New OK" has bee DBT's modus operandi since 2010.

it's better than ok.

""The KKK Took My Baby" away is good jolty closer, turning up the volume after sleepless swirl of "Watching The Orange Clouds," and I like the processing of Cooley's voice here and elsewhere, although his trademark corrugating crooning fills in pretty well for Shonna Tucker's touching tones, which I immediately started jonesing when the Spoonereque piano intro of "Sarah's Flame" commenced. Also like the way all his words roll with the keys, and baritone voice that occasionally shows up after he mentions "Barry's baritone."

That one a and the near beach music of "Sea Island Lonely," with soul horns grooving by sometimes, and "The Distance"---tracks 5., 6., 7.---will or would def. make it to my personal mixtape of DBT through the years. Also liking several more, although the big shoe stomp can still plod at times (drummer's doing what they want, or he'd probably be gone, like several longtime companions over the years).
https://drivebytruckers.bandcamp.com/album/the-new-ok

Also "Tough To Let Go" : "Know that the weight of your expectations won't fit in the door."

There are a couple clear REM inspired moments (specifically nods to Automatic for the People), too.

Good interview w Hood, posted Oct. 23:
https://www.al.com/life/2020/10/patterson-hood-talks-new-drive-by-truckers-album-eddie-van-halen-jason-isbell.html Also: writing projects to keep from going crayzee, Petty as punk etc.

@ShonnaTucker
Shout out to the elderly lady up the road today wearin
a sleeveless pearl snap collared shirt workin a leaf blower
with one hand and a Coors light in the other. I 100% get it.

<3

P. Hood, "I Know A Place---Growing Up Muscle Shoals":
https://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1987-i-know-a-place

And his accompanying playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5AzVQ0Be9NoAaM3xXPQF9O?si=CBstknviRDaelqqKclAJkg

I thought this was fun:

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/drive-by-truckers-patterson-hood-nine-favourite-songs

Yeah. Good check-in w Cooley too:
His relationship advice involves Foghat.
And his wit’s dry enough you can’t always exactly tell if he’s messing with you or not.
He's doing a few more acoustic solo shows---says full-band shows could get out of hand these days, re social distancing etc.---before the venues he's playing shut down again (as the owners have told him) ,'til the vaccine gets around (a very slooow process in Alabama), and conditions improve----anyway! https://www.al.com/life/2021/01/mike-cooley-talks-drive-by-truckers-tour-riders-sarah-palin-pandemic-shows.html
Oh yeah, and he mentions this benefit acoustic show w Isbell, now posted on Truckers' bandcamp:
https://www.al.com/life/2020/11/jason-isbell-2-drive-by-truckers-reunite-for-live-lp.html

This is actually kinda cool:

DBT Lyrics Raffle
Drive-By Truckers founders, Patterson Hood & Mike Cooley, have generously agreed to offer handwritten lyrics to one of each of their songs in their continuing support of Nuci's Space!

There will be 2 winning numbers drawn for the raffle.

The raffle winners will choose 1 song from the artists songwriting catalog.

The first winning entry will win handwritten lyrics for any Patterson Hood song from his catalog.

The second winning entry will win handwritten lyrics for any Mike Cooley song from his catalog.

$5 = 1 entry for the raffle

Any amount above $50 doubles your entries!

For example: $50 = 20 entries $100 = 40 entries, etc.

https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/reUk0HSRN78oBdgmaaBpSg

they're supporting a good cause: https://www.nuci.org/

Mountain Stage recently re-broadcasted 2012 set of Patterson Hood & Friends (incl. Mike Mills)--podcast here, thugh you'll have to scroll down a little ways (has a bit more music than time edit of broadcast)
https://mountainstage.org/podcasts/ Others in this show: Van Dyke Parks, Randall Bramblett (really good singer/ongwriter/multi-instrumentalist, was in best line-up of Cowboy etc.), Teitur, Caroline Aiken
Hood Set list: Pride of the Yankees
Leaving Time
Disappear
Pollyanna
After It’s Gone

Nice reminiscence here:

https://www.drivebytruckers.com/sro-anniversary

I was at the Hideout show Hood calls a turning point. I had actually taken my sister in law to see Bob Dylan at the United Center, and she was a little perplexed why I wanted to leave early to see this *other* show, but I'll never forget it and that lineup, even though as Hood emphasizes (and he's right) both the band and the music got better.

I saw a tweet (in response to Isbell's celebration of SRO I think) about someone seeing DBT open for Slobberbone after the album came out. I saw Slobberbone a lot in that era (and they were good!) but with the institution that DBT has become it's weird to think about them as the opener.

It makes me really happy to see Isbell and the Truckers guys getting on well and still supporting each other.

You're reminding me---this is him, not them, but since it's for charity, I'll bend the thread police rule (and I'm sure DBT approve): https://pitchfork.com/news/jason-isbell-and-the-400-unit-detail-new-covers-album-for-charity/ He vowed he'd do it if Georgia went blue in '20, and so he has, by cracky.

07 Sometimes Salvation [ft. Steve Gorman]

lmao that's a solid troll

Slobberbone runs circles around the DBTs

xp - that is a killer troll, A++++++

Would love to see the Robinson brothers reaction.

Slobberbone runs circles around the DBTs

Cool, take it to the Slobberbone thread. Oh wait...there isn't one.

how dare you

Good damn question, and not just for musicians:

Shonna Tucker
@ShonnaTucker
Is there a dating app for people who take covid seriously & live in a rural place that has lowest vaccine percentage so never leave the house but still want to find a soulmate knowing there’s like zero chance of that where they are but not ready to move because ‘musician’ or no?

Just started Deusner's Truckers book, and so far it's absolutely great. He wrote a nice piece about the band int he WaPo, too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/26/key-longevity-drive-by-truckers/

I'd like to read that just to read about Athens in the late 90s early 00s. A great time musically - E6, the glands, DBT.... the dave matthews tribute band

Felt great to see them last night after so long, not least because this was the rescheduled date from ... Friday, March 13, 2020. An actual email I sent March 12, 2020: "Ugh, I hate to do this but out of an abundance of caution I think I'm going to stay home tomorrow, which sucks, because they are one of my favorite bands. I'm fine, it's everyone else I'm worried about! ;)"

A book about the Truckers was published in September---is it good?
https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/deusner-where-the-devil-dont-stay

It's great, Stephen did a good job.

Thanks, Josh, and now I see I missed your original post about it.
Finally back to Twitter, and just saw this, retweeted by Shonna:
@matthewbwake
There's a new and well-crafted biography on
@drivebytruckers
out. Talked with author
@stephenmdeusner
about it. For the book, he interviewed Patterson, Cooley, Shonna, Isbell and other key figures in this beloved Southern rock band's history.
Here's Wake's feature:
https://www.al.com/life/2021/11/acclaimed-southern-rock-bands-complete-saga-told-for-first-time.html

November 15, 2021—The Orion Amphitheater, Huntsville’s newest live entertainment destination, will celebrate its opening weekend May 13-15, 2022, with The First Waltz—a landmark event featuring many of music’s most beloved artists, all of whom have deep ties to the North Alabama region. Across the momentous three-day event, there will be performances from Brittany Howard, Drive-By Truckers, Emmylou Harris, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, John Paul White, Mavis Staples, St. Paul & The Broken Bones and Waxahatchee with more guests to be announced. The weekend will wrap on Sunday with special performances from Huntsville’s own vibrant musical community including The Aeolians of Oakwood University, Kelvin Wooten & Deqn Sue, Translee and Huntsville Community Drumline.
Tickets will go on sale this Friday, November 19 at 10:00am CT via theorionhuntsville.com. Multi-night packages will be available.
The First Waltz is just the first of many iconic events that will take place at the amphitheater next year. Further details are to be announced soon.
“I can't believe it’s finally happening,” Ben Lovett, Venue Group CEO said. “So many hours of work by so many people to get to this point and we're just now announcing our first event! This venue will be a significant new addition for the people in and around Huntsville as it serves as a beacon of the community, it will also stand tall amongst the live performance community as one of the best venues in the world. There are artists performing at The First Waltz who have never played in Huntsville before alongside others who have lived and breathed this special region of Northern Alabama their whole lives. I couldn’t be more excited and grateful to both the artists and the City of Huntsville and the people of Huntsville for their sustained commitment and belief in doing something magical here.”
“The Orion Amphitheater will be an impressive quality-of-life addition to complement our thriving arts and entertainment community,” Tommy Battle, Huntsville Mayor said. “We anticipate this amazing venue will help attract and recruit new people and ideas to our community from across the Southeast.”
Located adjacent to the emerging MidCity District and designed by a team led by Ben Lovett, Mike Luba and David M. Schwarz Architects, Inc., The Orion Amphitheater reinvents the concept of a major event space. By expanding usage beyond hosting live music, The Orion Amphitheater will provide year-round community programming with seasonal markets, food and film festivals, regional theater productions, environmental symposiums, and family friendly events.
“The Orion Amphitheater is an architectural landmark different from others in the city, and together with the elevated hospitality, we are re-setting the tone for Huntsville’s cultural future,” said Ryan Murphy, The Orion Amphitheater General Manager.
The Orion Amphitheater is firmly committed to becoming a leader in sustainability for North Alabama with plans to roll out its comprehensive sustainability platform early next year.
More info:
https://www.theorionhuntsville.com/
National Press:
carla at sacksco.com
Regional:
Jdyhood at aol.com

Dear Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers et al., I know you love your roots, but please stop hosting awesome looking festivals where it's really hard for me to get to. Thanks!

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

Drive-By Truckers have announced the release of their 14th studio album, Welcome 2 Club XIII, due via ATO Records on Friday, June 3. Pre-orders are available now. Welcome 2 Club XIII is heralded by today’s premiere of its swinging title track, “Welcome 2 Club XIII,” available for streaming and download; the track – which pays homage to the Muscle Shoals honky-tonk where founding members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley got their start – is joined by an official music video streaming now via YouTube.

“There were no cool bars in town and Club XIII was the best we had,” says Hood, referring to the two vocalist/guitarists’ former band, Adam’s House Cat, “but it wasn’t all that good, and our band wasn’t particularly liked there. From time to time the owner would throw us a Wednesday night or let us open for a hair-metal band we were a terrible fit for, and everyone would hang out outside until we were done playing. It wasn’t very funny at the time, but it’s funny to us now.”

Arriving as Drive-By Truckers enters its 26th year, Welcome 2 Club XIII marks a sharp departure from the trenchant commentary of The Unraveling and The New OK (both released in 2020). Produced by longtime Drive-By Truckers collaborator David Barbe and mainly recorded at his studio in Athens, GA, Welcome 2 Club XIII took shape over the course of three frenetic days in summer 2021 – a doubly extraordinary feat considering that the band had no prior intentions of making a new album. Featuring background vocals from the likes of Margo Price, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, and Mississippi-bred singer/songwriter Schaefer Llana, Welcome 2 Club XIII was recorded live with most songs cut in one or two takes, fully harnessing Drive-By Truckers’ freewheeling energy. Songs like epic, darkly thrilling “The Driver” and the spirited, horn-blasted “Every Single Storied Flameout” see the band – whose lineup also includes keyboardist/guitarist Jay Gonzalez, bassist Matt Patton, and drummer Brad Morgan – looking back on their formative years with both deadpan pragmatism and profound tenderness, instilling each song with the kind of lived-in detail that invites bittersweet reminiscence of your own misspent youth.

“Cooley and I have been playing together for 37 years now,” Hood says. “That first band might have failed miserably on a commercial level, but I’m really proud of what we did back then. It had a lot to do with who we ended up becoming.”

Drive-By Truckers – who just wrapped their annual four-day “Heathen Homecoming” event at Athens, GA’s famed 40 Watt – are currently celebrating Welcome 2 Club XIII with a marathon live schedule, including top-billed festival dates, and North American, European, and UK headline tours. For complete details and ticket information, please visit www.drivebytruckers.com/shows.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS LIVE 2022

APRIL
12 - Ponte Vedra, FL - Ponte Vedra Concert Hall *
14 - Augusta, GA - Imperial Theatre *
15 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl Nashville *
16 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl Nashville *
18 - Lexington, KY - The Burl (Outdoors) *
20 - Ashland, KY - Paramount Arts Center *
21 - Harrisburg, PA - Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center *
22 - Syracuse, NY - Westcott Theater *
23 - Ottawa, ON - Bronson Centre *
24 - Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall *
26 - Burlington, VT - Higher Ground *
28 - Boston, MA Royale *
29 - Asbury Park, NJ - Stone Pony *
30 - Philadelphia, PA - Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia *

MAY
1 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle *
12 - Memphis, TN - Soundstage at Graceland
13 - Natchez, MS - Mudbug Music Festival
14 - Huntsville, AL - Orion Amphitheatre
24 - Helsinki, Finland - Tavastia Club †
26 - Stockholm, Sweden - Berns †
27 - Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller †
28 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Amager Bio †
29 - Aarhus, Denmark - Train †
31 - Hamburg, Germany - Markthalle †

JUNE
1 - Berlin, Germany - Kesselhaus †
2 - Koln, Germany - Kantine †
3 - Antwerp, Belgium - De Roma †
5 - Raalte, Netherlands - Ribs and Blues †
6 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso †
7 - Brighton, UK - Chalk †
8 - London, UK - O2 Forum †
9 - Leeds, UK - Leeds University Stylus †
11 - Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street †
12 - Glasgow, UK - SWG3 TV Studio †
14 - Tilburg, Netherlands - 013 (Jupiler Zaal) †
15 - Paris, France - La Maroquinerie †
17 - Mendizabala, Vitoria-Gasteiz - Azkena Rock Festival
19 - Eridge Park, UK - Black Deer Festival

JULY
14 - Breckenridge, CO - Riverwalk Center
15 - Denver, CO - Levitt Pavilion
16 - Kansas City, MO - Knuckleheads
19 - Omaha, NE - Falconwood Park
20 - Minneapolis, MN - Utepils Brewing
22 - Des Moines, IA - Hoyt Sherman Place
23 - Dayton, OH - Dayton Masonic Center
24 - Kalamazoo, MI - Bell’s Beer Garden
27 - Fort Wayne, IN - The Clyde Theatre
29 - St. Louis, MO - Open Highway Music Festival
30 - Maryville, TN - The Shed
31 - Wilmington, NC - Greenfield Lake Amphitheater

AUGUST
2 - Virginia Beach, VA - Elevation 27
4 - Deerfield, MA - Tree House Brewing Company
5 - Buffalo, NY - Town Ballroom
8 - Patchogue, NY - Patchogue Theatre
10 - Isle of Palms, SC - The Windjammer
11 - Isle of Palms, SC - The Windjammer
12 - Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre
13 - Pelham, TN - The Caverns

SEPTEMBER
16 - Louisville, KY - Bourbon & Beyond

* w/Special Guest Lydia Loveless
† w/Special Guest Jerry Joseph

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
WELCOME 2 CLUB XIII
(ATO RECORDS)
Release Date: June 3, 2022

TRACKLIST:
The Driver
Maria’s Awful Disclosures
Shake and Pine
We will never wake you up in the morning
Welcome 2 Club XIII
Forged In Hell and Heaven Sent
Every Single Storied Flameout
Billy Ringo In The Dark
Wilder Days

I don't love "Welcome 2 Club XIII" as a song all that much, but as someone who lived in Muscle Shoals in the 90s I'm intimately familiar with Club XIII and I love the hell out of them for memorializing it.

Lol at them playing Long Island (patchogue?) and buffalo NY but skipping NYC. They’re even playing the “Brooklyn bowl Philadephia” whatever

Out today, sounds like ... the Drive-By Truckers.

otm

Oops, behind on my Twitter feed:

Happy birthday to Spooner!
🥳♥️🍦♥️🎉♥️🍿 pic.twitter.com/EvYKCE43fs

— Shonna Tucker (@ShonnaTucker) June 14, 2022

Feel bad because they are playing tonight at the Taste of Chicago but I really don't feel like dealing with Taste of Chicago to see them.

Ha.

New album is just ok (as noted above )

I like the album more than anything since 2007, but, damn, it's as if they want you to concentrate on the lyrics instead of their bulldozer of an attack 15 years ago (yeah, they've aged, I know).

Pushing 60!

I'm glad I didn't go, because I guess half the show got rained out.

There are some rumors that Cooley may be off the wagon ...

I've only seen them once, back in the summer of 2007. At the time I felt a little bad for seeing them "too late" because Jason Isbell had already left, but I guess I still caught them at an ideal time?

(I did enjoy the show, which was great - they even covered Springsteen's "State Trooper.")

First time I saw them was ... 2001? Maybe the year before? Whenever it was, it was pre-Isbell. They're a good enough band that they were great before Isbell and have been great after, and always good live.

Among albums since 2007, I found The Big To-Do musically refreshed, also liked The Unraveling, which seemed a better balance of topical lyrics and music than American Band, and especially liked The New OK (English Oceans was alright too). Haven't listened to new one yet, but if you do want the uncut club rowdiness they're apparently nostalgic for, by all means check out Alabama Asswhuppin'.

I'm pretty sure that's the first one I heard. I want to say the first time I'd even *heard* of the band was when their van was robbed and they lost all the music they'd been listening to, so solicited mixtapes from fans.

Where are the rumors Re: Cooley and the wagon? When did he get on it? I saw him in 2014 and he definitely wasn’t on it then.

Been a hardcore DBT fan since I was in high school back in 2002/2003 — Brighter Than Creation’s Dark was the last time they were a great band in the studio in my opinion, though. I liked English Oceans and the Unraveling, I can tolerate portions of Big to Do/Go Go Boots and American Band, I thought the New OK was godawful, and the new one is alright at times but I won’t ever be reaching for it.

I think I had seen something on one of the fan boards, people claiming to have witnessed Cooley being kind of sloppy and forgetting lyrics and stuff. But there were also people who countered that, basically saying, he's almost 60, there are a million songs and no setlist, so mistakes will be made. Anyway, just gossip, I've never seen it myself.

I thought I heard Cooley got on the wagon ... maybe around Brighter? Maybe when he had a kid (which I think was before that)? I can't remember, but it was somewhere around the end of Isbell. Of course, Isbell's relationship with drinking, etc., was more extreme, but I think the stress of the band was leading Cooley to drink a lot more. They used to pass around a bottle of Jack on stage, can't remember the last time I saw that. (Though I did see them do that once in Los Angeles, where they passed a bottle to Luther Dickinson, who himself was then, iirc, formally on the wagon himself.)

Just finding out that playing the bass 2+hrs a night and riding in a van/bus 6-12 hrs a day for 20 years can give you spinal lumbar spondylosis. Dr asked me if I was a gymnast :)

— Shonna Tucker (@ShonnaTucker) July 11, 2022

follow-up: no more touring for a while.

However, there are consolations at home:

View from the toilet ♥️ pic.twitter.com/xXD78oVWib

— Shonna Tucker (@ShonnaTucker) July 24, 2022

Sometimes a band is more than just the people who make the music. @drivebytruckers and other artists’ glorious visuals were made by artist Wes Freed, who died today. pic.twitter.com/J35OoIiA4L

— Record Store Day (@recordstoreday) September 5, 2022

Damn. Salut, Freedbird, heading toward Autumn, dispensing Southern Gothic trick-or-treats along thee way.

RIP

we still have a faded peeling Cooleybird decal on the rear window of our car at the moment, we were planning to scrape it off & replace it w something else but I guess it’s staying a while longer now <3

He was their Neon Park or Pedro Bell. RIP

Interview w Wes, mentioning his book, new to me---here's cover:

https://www.al.com/resizer/UnRQAhqg9wOhy-Bn-l6lPuVhx4o=/800x0/smart/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-advancelocal.s3.amazonaws.com/public/DEI42TIMDRFCVC5CSESRBRU4BQ.jpg

if that goes away, it's also displayed in interview:
https://www.al.com/life/2019/12/the-secrets-of-drive-by-truckers-trippy-album-covers.html

holy shit, I only saw the most recent post and was going to say something about the book, then googled to look something up and saw that he had died. I am literally wearing a Wes Freed Truckers shirt right now.

https://i.imgur.com/7BqmrwO.jpg

bands more closely connected to a particular visual artist than DBTs / Freed ... what's the list? can't be too many.

Pedro Bell, Pettibon, Saville ...

RIP Wes Freed, always one of my favorite things about DBTs

XP Neon Park & Little Feat, maybe Stanley Mouse & the Dead.

I've got a copy of Brighter than Creations Dark that lives in my car for those times I don't feel like listening to the radio. I put it on this morning for the first time in a while and damn if some songs still don't give me the chills. If Soringsteen in his formative years captured something about the death of the American dream, this band, better than most, possibly better than any, really captures the stench of its decaying corpse. And does so through humor, through character studies, through daydreams and nightmares put to song.

Cool shirt!

Wes Freed’s artwork, including the “Cooley Bird,” was synonymous with the Drive-By Truckers https://t.co/9wyDwWst9P

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) September 5, 2022

Tweeted by Stephen Deusner, author of xpost Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers:

Incredibly sad news today. Wes Freed, the artist who has been painting album covers for the
Drive-By Truckers and who donated the cover image for my book (wouldn't take payment
either, just gave it to us), passed away. | don't even know where to begin, but he was one of my
favorite visual artists, with a distinctive style that was surprisingly complex the more you
looked at and thought about his images.

Like the Truckers and like me he had a conflicted love for the South and his work embraced
the beauty of the place and rejected the ugliness and especially the hate. He used his powers
for good. And he populated his fantastical landscapes with Southern artists -- not just the
Truckers, but Hank Williams, the Allmans, Skynyrd, Gram Parsons, and so many anonymous
troubadours who strummed guitars for the same reasons he wielded a brush.

To have his image on my book, binding my words, is an honor | can't quite find any words to
express. The writing process was filled with so many doubts, so many uncertainties and a
whole lot of wondering whether or not | was capable of doing justice to my subject. But he was
so generous when we talked on the phone, and when I finally saw the image he donated, it
made me feel legit. It was overwhelming. It made me feel like a real writer. I never got to tell
him how much that image and all of his work meant to me, precisely because | always thought I
would have the time. His art has meant the world to me as much as the Truckers' music has
meant to me, and it will continue to inspire me and I'm sure many others even now that he's gone.

Dunno what changed, but they were as good if not better than ever last night. That is, they're always good, but last night was them at their best. Tonight I get to see them again at a club smaller than anything they've played in maybe a decade.

This band is so goddamn good. Can I just say, there is literally nothing better than seeing one of your favorite bands play at a tiny club down the street, with an open bar, all you can eat pulled pork, standing next to the president of the Illinois State Senate and rocking out to Buttholeville, All in service of raising enough money to provide 500,000 meals to the hungry.

i havent seen them live in almost 10 years, i definitely need to correct that

https://i.imgur.com/NBy5HNl.jpg

who are the dudes on the left?

Jay Gonzales on the far left has been their keyboard player/second guitarist/backing vocalist since ... 2008 (lol Veggie). The guy with the beard/awesome hair is their roadie, who got to come out and play for "Buttholeville/State Trooper" and "People Who Died."

Gonzalez (sorry Jay Gonzalez)

oh cool! i didn’t recognize Jay with bigger hair i guesz

Wow, this changes everything for me:

Separate phrases. At that point I didn’t have the skill to make it obvious I was 21 https://t.co/OGPaNa0zWP

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 27, 2023

I *always* thought this was one phrase, not two, as in, the dad knows he's bigger than Jesus but is telling him to let people figure that out on their own.

The Drive-By Truckers will release The Complete Dirty South on June 16, 2023, via New West Records. Originally released in 2004 to wide acclaim, The Dirty South explores the mean highways and dark hollers of what the band called the “Mythological South,” a tornado-ravaged landscape populated by bootleggers and small-time criminals, everyday folks just scraping to get by and looming icons like Sam Phillips, John Henry, and Sheriff Buford Pusser. The album is a reckoning with the place they call home. Pitchfork sang its praises: “The Drive-By Truckers’ Southern rock always sounds homemade, and like liquor from a still, it’s extremely potent… (They) find the connections between these larger-than-life figures and the life-size experiences that shaped them. For them, the South is a stretch of highway where many have died, an ordinary place made extraordinary by human tragedies. The Dirty South is their homemade roadside memorial.”

The ground-breaking album has been re-sequenced and expanded to the band’s initially proposed 17-song track listing. It includes 3 bonus tracks that were left off the original album, 4 remixed songs, and 2 featuring newly updated vocals. Also included is a 32-page book featuring original and new liner notes written by the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, track-by-track descriptions written by Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell, never-before-seen photos, and updated artwork by the late Wes Freed. The Complete Dirty South was remastered by the legendary Greg Calbi. This definitive version of the album will finally be available as the band intended.

Today, the Drive-By Truckers shared the remixed & remastered “Puttin’ People on the Moon,” which features new vocals. Patterson Hood says, “I wrote ‘Puttin’ People on the Moon’ in the passenger seat of our van driving through western Tennessee and northern Georgia in late 2003. At the time I was angry about the recently started war in Iraq and the polarization President Bush and his cronies were unleashing on our country, but also drawing a parallel to the policies of President Reagan, who at the time many still viewed as a grandfatherly presence despite his enacting so many policies that had major negative ramifications on our future, a future we’re still living through now. The song was probably the best political song I had ever written at that time and unfortunately is more timely today than it was in 2003.” Hood adds, “We recorded it in Muscle Shoals (in one take) in January 2004, but by the time the record came out, I had already begun to regret the vocal take, which attempted some things I hadn’t yet really learned how to do at that time. As the years have passed, it is one of two on that album that has always really bothered me when I hear it played, while live it has morphed into a truly powerful song for me to sing. When we were given the opportunity to do a ‘Directors Cut’ version of what many consider to be our masterpiece, I wanted to take another stab at that vocal and nailed what I believe to be a definitive version of it in one take. One that truly captures the inherent anger and despair of the song as written and played by the band. The scream at the end might be the most primal recording of my voice anywhere in our catalog and I’m very proud to have this version out there after all these years. The Complete Dirty South might indeed be DBT’s masterpiece.”

In the newly penned liner notes Patterson Hood writes, “The period from 2002, a few months after we self-released our breakthrough album Southern Rock Opera, through the end of 2005, when we wrapped up The Dirty South Tour, is widely considered to be our band’s glory days. It was certainly exciting… In January of 2004, the label realized that we had a new completed album and were hoping to release it that summer. Not only that, it was to be another double album. They weren’t too happy about any of this. We took their unhappiness as an insult and so it went. In the end, a sort of compromise was reached and New West agreed to release the album and we agreed to shorten it to fit on one CD. The Dirty South came out in August of 2004 to wide acclaim and went on to be the best selling of our albums at the time.”

Hood adds, “A lot has happened in the nearly twenty years since The Dirty South was released. All of these years later, it is still considered one of our best albums… Shortly after we left (New West), they restructured the label and the source of our turmoil moved on to other things. We are on excellent terms with the powers that be now and we were happy when they reached out to us about the idea of reissuing The Dirty South, enabling us to put out the album the way we had originally intended it to be. We have reconstructed the original sequence and concept as it was conceived. Where possible we preserved the original John Agnello mixes but remixed the bonus tracks and also fixed a couple of vocal issues that I have always regretted about the original version (for purists, those versions still exist out there, but this gave us a chance to present it the way I’ve always wished it could be)… This version finally allows it to be heard and seen the way we had always hoped and intended.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiDs_Rr6YDk

This song gives me the chills.

This is a touchy subject for me because this band meant more than any other to me from roughly the very long years of 2002 to 2010 but the new vocal sounds horrible in comparison, sounds like they re-recorded it recently rather than using an alternate track from the era.

one of my favorite songs off the album & from their catalog

i dunno if i am ready to hear the reworked vocal. will have to work up to it maybe.
the imperfections is part of what i love about the original.

Yeah, I haven't been a place where I can listen to that, but I was really excited about the reworking - until I got to the part about redone vocals.

It sounds fine. Changes a couple of words here and there. Loses the falsetto bits, which I guess Hood didn't like but which I never minded. And minus a full re-recording it still (imo) fails to nail the way the song sounds live.

Horrible might have been too strong but the beginning is out of sync and there are plenty of places in the second half where he’s just overdoing it a bit. Sounds like someone swiped the vocal track from one of their live performances and pasted it on the original. Just have a hard time imagining this as the ‘definitive’ version and will sound a bit out of place in the middle of the other original studio tracks. Of course I’ve heard the original a thousand times and anything different probably wouldn’t have sounded right to me.

Yeah, that's fair. If you're going to re-do it, re-do it. Swapping in a new version of a song for the old, for mostly cosmetic reasons is, as the kids say, sus.

if Pat’s happier doing it this way i’m happy for him, and on its own merits he does a good job of recreating the anger

but i don’t need it to be at a 10 the whole way through. it needs the quieter bits to make the yelling parts pay off

imo

also lol @ jason

No not at all- Hood sent me mixes as soon as it was done and it’s fantastic. Which record did Ozzy cut me out of though that sucks https://t.co/PuODlIqSio

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) April 11, 2023

lol call him Pat at your own risk ...

Jason just consistently proves himself to be one of the best dudes - funny, great songwriter, standing up for the right things and completely unafraid to push back against trolls and actively piss off "fans" by telling him he doesn't want their hateful views around.

From blog notes soon after first release:

...14 songs, 8 damn good, 2 pretty good, 4 too tawky, and the tawk aint that stimulatin'...Patterson's the culprit, as always, but more so here. Ideas, or at least topics, or at least *words,* don't lead the music, or follow it either. And that tight dry little cigarette voice, which can/could be effective, kind of in there between mosquito zingers of Eddie Hinton and 5 0'clock-shadow-tonsils of Steve Earle, but here it's closer to not-so-Mighty Mouse (and a cracker-barrel-retiree-Steve E.). Still and yet and yet and still more than compensated for/effectively contrasted by the sinuous writ x performance of Jason and Cooley. Brad's big bass drum, Shonna's bass guitar (and her voice, back there in the mix, but adding good thin sharp edge thereby, *when* audible: I keep listening for it, never taking for granted), also mucho gracias.
...Supposedly (according to some sources), DECORATION DAY was a "follow-up" to PIZZA DELIVERANCE, this 'un a f.-u.to SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA. And, before I heard about those alleged relationships, was already thinking how several songs from DS would go good on a really deluxe personal burn of SRO. But *way too many* good'uns to fit that, strictly squinting.
...(later) I was (somewhat) too hard on Patterson. "Tornadoes" is as eerie as Jason's songs, and it's not like PH hasn't done eerie before.And part of that's his voice, which is *not* shot, as I seemed to imply, without meaning to. It will be shot, or shite, if he keeps squinching it as much as he does on some other tracks. Guess I'm mainly frustrated/spoiled cos of their usual standard, but they're always a bit uneven (as I should've said in the Voice re SRO), so should've been ready to listen around the lesser without shortchanging *some* of the gooder. Frustrated here by the expectation-whettin' way PH presents a triptych of songs re the late hickory-stick totin' Sheriff Buford Pusser, of WALKING TALL mythology. WT was based on BP's *account* of his great deeds, otherwise largely unverified by others, or so I remember reading in the 70s, not too long after film came out. Most impressive aspects: a)Manager of one of the theatres showing it in B'ham taped unique-for-him radio endorsement,"and let me reassure all parents that the 'R' rating is for Violence, not Sex." Also (b) the ending, when Buford has finally been brought low(est).(He started seeming kinda sadie-maso, like Evel Kneivel or latterday Mel G.)Courtesy his old main squeezers the State Line Gang, and congregation runs out of church, to destroy the Gang's main den of iniquity. Somehow seemed prophetic to see them in their Sunday best, ripping that place to shreds, and, though I forgot about it, remembered when Moral Majority first burst through my haze, to hold rally on steps of our nation's Capitol. Well! Patterson, who is younger than me, but writes that he saw the movie back then, and who says he likes to do research, and also make up good stuff, really doesn't follow through. Good spoken intro, good snarly vignette, then Cooley's effective "Cottonseed," then whole subset *ends* with the PH tawky-boring bit of the kind I complained about below.However: one of Cooley's is boring me too (although his have grown on me before, so won't name it yet.) And! PH's "Lookout Mountain" does hold its own with Cooley's and Jason's, in the kill-No-Dozin finale totalizm. But "Lookout" is a pre-DBT, and the latter have recorded it before, haven't they. Still!

what many consider to be our masterpiece,

I would have guessed Southern Rock Opera was the consensus masterpiece

I would go for either SRO or Brighter Than Creation's Dark

Yeah, I woulda thought SRO, though still wanting to add for inst "Danko and Manuel" for the roots rocker doom theme, and end it all with "Never Gonna Change," which always seemed Lynyrdly as hell, too bad Jason wasn't in the band yet.
Let's see what did I say about Brighter:

The Truckers' latest roadkill is uneven as ever, but the best songs are good and numerous enough to put it in my Nash Scene Top Ten…Brighter Than Creation's Dark is not full of sweetness and light, and it is a little too long, like most of their albums, but does seem reinvigorated, after getting past whatever tensions re resulted in the slammed doors and illin' irresolution of A Blessing And A Curse. Also, we got the unexpected emergence of bassist Shonna as songwriter and lead singer on some tracks, a welcome respite from the broody testosterone, and even a few songs, especially the one set in the Grand Canyon, where the drivers-by get out of their truck for a while, and actually seem to enjoy doing so.

"Three Dimes Down" is the most fun DBT song ever, "Bob" is the worst, in summary Cooley's songwriting is a land of contrasts

Clearly "Let There Be Rock" is probably the most fun (ingeniously downer subtext aside).

Not even the most fun song on SRO! (Or in the top half of that album IMO)

shut up and get on the plane!

Weird, I think of "Let There Be Rock" as a linchpin of that record, and long one of their surefire live songs. As is "Shut Up," though that one, as it is on the album, feels even more like a victory lap designed for the encore.

i do truly love let there be rock though

one of the first songs that hooked me when i first saw them -i had never heard of them & saw them open for black crowes in 06, no one in the amphitheater but their diehard fans in the first couple of rows
saw the devotion of the fans & was intrigued

let there be rock was def THE song that hooked me. reminded me of the way my husband and i & our friends talk about music, ie experiences tied to live gigs, tagging a good show story with a related story about a similar band/show

i was like “oh yeah, these are my people”

Listening to the Complete Dirty South and I was almost totally overwhelmed by the flood of memories of all the dozens of times I've seen this band and they were exactly what I needed. Or I guess more specifically the first time I ever heard songs like "The Day John Henry Died," "Where the Devil Don't Stay" or "Puttin' People on the Moon." Or the rest it, really. The most remarkable thing to consider is how different Isbell sounds here when he sings lead, like he's already older than his, what, 22 years? 23? What a band.

Oh, and I do like the new remastering/mixing/re-recording/tracklist of "Dirty South," too. It's still too long, but this band (especially this era of the band) does shaggy and shambling almost as well as Crazy Horse.

Yeah it’s pretty great

I’ve come around on the re-do of Sands of Iwo Jima … him dropping the falsetto does make the heartfelt lyrics go over a little better. Maybe he just felt it was weird to sing about his grandad in a high pitched voice lol

I saw Hood a couple of times last weekend (Cooley was actually playing the same night across town one of the nights, but I opted for double Hood). Good mix of old and new, a nice refresher that early tracks like "The Company I Keep" and (always) "The Living Bubba" show how good he was out of the gate. Best of all I brought three people with me, my pal who is a fan, his sister (who had never heard of Hood) and my friend's 70-year old dad, who came away converted. It's always great to go to shows with blank-slates, people not hindered by baggage or snobbery. They loved it.

A case of sterling bigmouth

i sneaked up them stairs

and puked in the toilet

lol

“Don’t call what you’re wearing a sterling bigmouth”

BUT I SURE SAW OZZY OSBOURNE
WITH RANDY RHOADS IN 82
RIGHT BEFORE THAT PLANE CRASH

I like how he's occasionally changed the bands over the years. I've heard him talking about seeing the Clash, and seeing the Replacements, and seeing Springsteen, etc.

it’s one of the first songs i remember from the first time i ever saw them live back in 2006 i think

part of what grabbed me was how this song so perfectly reflected that universal language (well within my friendship circle) the way my friends & i talked to each other, and mr veg and i - the stories that go with those great concerts you saw, or the ones you never get to

I was drinking with my ex and the “scared shitless of what’s coming next” came on and she

*driving
And she cracked up

hood turned 60 today : /

They are touring Southern Rock Opera this fall.

yes! we put in ticket requests for one of the SF Fillmore shows :D

can’t wait

ticket prices seem ... weird.

$40 each for standing room at the Fillmore felt kinda normal or at least less upsetting than Pearl Jam

Bought my tix. They were $45 plus $20 of extra BS for House of (fuckin) Blues. Early all ages show, which is odd. Seeing the second night, because Adrian Belew et al. are the night before, and I am the weirdo that is seeing King Crimson and DBT on back to back nights.

nice!