Rolling Country 2006 Thread

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0335,christgau,46533,22.html

Me, I just played Hank III's cover (on a 2000-copy limited edition picture disc split 45 on oi!-friendly TKO Records) of Antiseen's catchiest song ever "Ruby Get Back to the Hills," and Hank performs the seemingly impossible task of TAKING ALL OF THE TUNE OUT OF AN ANTISEEN TUNE via his usual dried-out riverbank country nostalgia shtick turning into hack dime-a-dozen mosh noise bullshit halfway through, quite an accomplishment (being less melodic than Antiseen, I mean, since Antiseen generally make Motorhead seem like Abba in comparison), but I damned if I'll listen to it again (since he also extracts all the power and humor from the song.) I swear, III annoys me more and more as time goes on. (By the way, are his digs at Kid Rock because Hank Jr has called Kid his "son" or whatever once? That occured to me, and obviously it'd make sense.) Oddly, I actually enjoy the flipside, Antiseen doing "F.T.K." (= "Fuck the Kids," gratitously homophobic but at least thankfully not gratutiously pedophilic, and mostly just gratuitously get-offa-my-lawn-you-idiot-punk-rock-whippersnappers-before-I-get-my-shotgun curmudgeonhood, which I relate too); was that a Hank III song once? (Best new TKO 45 though, is "Broken Bottles" by a band named Broken Bottles, a droney slimey nasal tuneful punk clodhop about getting thrown out of a club that plays '80s dance music, then drinking in the street. That's the B-side; A-side "Suburban Dream" is more cliched but has an actual song to it, too--neighborhood watch amid picket fences; chorus for some reason saying "you and me, we could be the best of friends".)

Now a question I've asked myself and that I don't have an answer for is: Why do I feel that this type of blues-soul is living within unnecessary constraints, snug in its form (especially since, for sure, there's a lot of variety, southern rock to slow blues to jazzy cloudbursts)? Anyhow, that's how I do feel, feel the same thing about the Jessi Colter (which I like quite a lot), that they're too far within a form, and I'm therefore feeling at a distance.

But I don't think that (for instance) Lindsay Lohan is unnecessarily constrained for not loading up her songs with blues licks and not stepping out of her forms.

"you've surely complained about current country being constrained in ways that current teen-pop {and current hip-hop} AREN'T"

Speaking of Garth, I've been trying to wade through his damn 17-song outtakes thingamajig from early this year, and I never get very far into it before I give up. Not sure why -- maybe just because it's so fucking long (like all the hip-hop albums I haven't been able to get through this year.) So far, I definitely like the song where he's leaving a bar but he doesn't know where so he asks the operator to trace his cellphone call to determine his global position, and I'm less sure about the one where God reincarnates him as a cowgirl's saddle so he'll be close to his two favorite things in life, a cowgirl and a horse. (The conceit of which reminds me somehow of "I Want to Sniff Sheila Young's Bicycle Seat After a 15-Mile Ride" by my old high school pals Luke Mucus and the Phlegm, though I doubt that's intentional.) Beyond that, Garth, I have no frigging idea yet.

whos watching the acm 2006 awards show tonite?

Anthony I ought one of the Jason McCoy records you recommended and it's great! It doesn't sound quite right to me (in a good way) and I'll try to work out why at some point when I'm less busy.

I bought my first Toby CD the other day, too: Honkytonk U (I'd managed to pick up the impression that he was going to be just too rock-ish for my namby tastes, I've no idea how...). I adore that, too.

Strange thing, not being a downloader, and not having a serviceable c&w radio station I can find here, the records I buy are the records I know. That means I am largely buying on the recommendations of you lot (filtered through what I understand of each of your respective tastes). I suspect this is giving me an idiosyncratic understanding of modern country music.

(All best wishes Edd, by the way.)

Thanks too to Don for the recommendation, I'll be listening to that as soon as it chugs its way across the sea from Florida or wherever.

I'm off to see Neko Case tonight. I warmed to her last LP a bit over time, I think it has four or five tremendously good songs on it (It took me a good 25 listens over the course of a month to come to that conclusion, which makes me think I kind of forced myself into liking it but that's fine really, it's the liking thing that's important and I must have been hearing something worthwhile to give it that many goes, I suppose.)

how so, anthony? i only caught the song's tail end; noticed they had a bunch of old VFW vets (WWII age, maybe? But it's a Vietnam song, right?) up there in purple uniforms. also noticed that, despite the seeming seriousness of the occasion (acknowledged by Sugarland when they next accepted their award -- by the way, did they thank their dykey departed member? If not, they can go fuck themselves), Big still had on his crazy top-hat thing. Song's hard to get through on the album; I assume it would've been even more so on TV, so I'm not bummed that I missed it. Didn't watch much of the rest of the show -- "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" with Vegas dancers was embarrasing (and Reba's butt puns introducing it were even more embarrassing); "Jesus Take the Wheel" seemed really dull, and I basically like both songs so maybe I was just in a crabby mood. Billy Ray Cyrus's daughter seemed smart as a whip and a real charmer (and smarter than her dad, who she had to remind to say one of his lines) when she presented an award, though. Did anybody manage to mention the Dixie Chicks?

maybe reifensthal is the wrong touchstone, but with the milatirized spectacle, it was the first thing that came to my head (i may be crabby too, because i used the phrase kinder kirche kuche to describe gretchen wilson, and the towering trace adkins, with the rockettes show girls was an all american Cabaret--it was a really strange show, really sort of unapolgetically neo-con, and stage managed, in a way that the grammies never were.

which is why the thompson qoute was so brilliant

Best song on the (so-so) new Drive-By Truckers is "Easy On Yourself" - it's dragged down by Isbell's nondescript vocals, and it's got pseudo-wise lyrics that amount to fuckall, but it has a good tune that sounds surprisingly like DioGuardi-Shanks in emotional Lohan-support mode. Also has good Truckers rattle-clatter guitar - conveying tunefulness via rattle-clatter has always been a Trucker strength.

Of course, 'twould probably be way better if Shanks & DioGuardi had written it, and way more evocative, emotional, ALIVE with Lindsay's pipes.

Two:
Starting with a 20 foot projection of himself, ending with formation dancing vegas show girls, worshipping trace adkins, Honky Tonk Badonkadonk continues to triumph

Three:
Jesus Take the Wheel, Carrie Underwood's new single, is intensely, powerfully, religious, desperate in its faith, and one of the best written songs this year. Her performance is overwhelming in its power. She cries at the end of the performance, and later, when winning, remembers to thank Simon Callow and 19 Records (cf Clarkson at the Grammies)

Four
Gretchen Wilson Politically Uncorrect, the second single to use the phrase low man on the totem pole (the other one is by Toby Keith), the most politically expolisive thing about the entire fucking song is the acknowledgement that america might actually have a working poor and talking about being for the working man, something that neither kerry nor bush were for the last election, its become somewhat of an anthem (THIS TIME WITH MERLE) who sings really well with Wilson, sort of a whiskey/honey kind of arrangement (the conflation of working class values with religion and the miltary has a kind of kinder kircher kuche vibe on the edges, esp. with the waving american flag motiff

Five
This is the first performance that convinced me that the pretty blonde from sugar land was as a good singer as the scary dyke--the dyke (who may be fired now, cause i didnt see her playing this time) is still one of the best guitar players ive heard on recent radio, this ones a rocker (and quite a good time)

Six
Jo Dee Messina looks like somewhere b/w one of Prince's back up dancers, and Raquel Welch in 1 000 000 years BC

Seven
Montgomery Gentry, continues to combine small town nostaliga, with a myriad of daddy issues. There is a different between the anger of working class rebellion in Gretchen Wilson, no matter how stage managed it is, and Gentry's who seems to think that if you are working at all, just shut up and quit yr bitching, for someone so loud they sure seem to like ideological compliance.

Eight
Vince Gill one of the genuinely kind men in the industry, gives his humanitarian award to a small child with cancer, and yeah its mawkish and kind of sentimental, but unscripted and i find myself welling up.

Nine
Little Big Town's Boondooks, useless for the first three minutes, the harmonic convergance of the last few lines, quick and free, are effortless, and so well constructed. It starts with this almost hip hop scat singing, and then goes into this round, almost a hipper barber shop, one of the best musical moments of the night.

Ten
we rock to live, we live to rock--rascall flatts (they dont)
b)
Kelly Clarkson doing Rascall Flatts ballads shows the strength of Clarksons' voice and the weakness of the the Flatts writings

Eleven
The Wright Brothers qoute the infamous Hunter Thompson line about the music industry being a plastic trench (they are doing it from memory, off teleprompter, because they paraphrase, the full qoute is: ""The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Quite bitter for a self conglaturatory wank fast.

Twelve:
I love Sara Evans, but she hasnt been with in a thousand miles of anything resembling a coal mine.

Thirteen:
Ever time I hear Brooks and Dunn, i hate them more and more, i am almost now becoming almost ill hearing them again, and i dont know why---i could use words like artifical nostaliga, or toxic sentiment but I like those things in other artists, and it could be the politics of the domestic, but thats one of the reasons why I listen to country. Its not even the music, church choirs withstanding, they are decent song writers and good instrumentalists...but i hate them, and this performance well constructed towards audience. IT confuses me.

Fourteen
Martina tries to do honky tonk or texas swing or something that requires singer less rigid and less safe. Shes horribly boring.

Fifteen
Dwight Yoakham, ZZ Tops Bill Gibbons, The Byrds Chris Hillman, Blink 182's Travis Barker (!?), Brad Paisley, and members of the original Buck Band, and it doesnt sound bad, but then as long as you keep the energy up, its impossible to make Buck sound bad, and they keep the energy up. (Paisleys realtionship to traditonal country is really interesting, and it contiunes to be here, he seems a natural for the mateiral, but isnt as comfortable as even Barker) Its also Ballad heavy, aside from Act Naturally, which was kind od disappointing...has someone ever written on outlaw country and married pairs, because Bonnie Owens (an amazing singer and song writer on her own right) is getting the same kind of attention as Buck) Also The Streets of Bakersfield is really fucking political in its use of geography/place, sort of the anti Okie from Muskokie

Sixteen
Kenny Chesney again.

Roffling

http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists, where you can get an idiosyncratic understanding of everything (cf. Lex on the six Britney singles and six Britney album tracks that he thinks are better than "...Baby One More Time," "Oops," and "Toxic."

(One could call Shooter Jennings "blues-soul-country," but he's obviously in a different world from everyone else we've just mentioned. "Rock.")

Parnell's is a good album, but the voice doesn't seem up to the arrangements. And maybe the songwriting isn't, either. But I'd actually like to hear Toby Keith doing more of that kind of material. My favorite song of Toby's is "That's Not the Way It Is," which I called "Quiet Storm" when I reviewed it.

Robert Cray seems relevant here.

blues/soul/country: Tony Joe White, Eddie Hinton, Donnie Fritts (Fritts ain't no singer, though; I just heard this Jon Tiven-produced Oh Boy record of Fritts', on which DF and Lucinda Williams desecrate the Fritts-written "Breakfast in Bed" that Dusty did so seductively on "In Memphis."

I had been warming a bit to B&D, but they really seemed like "douches" last night.

Paisley has really succeeded in provoking my interest. Now I might actually get his record. Do I really have to eat my Blaine Larsen vegetables first?

B&R will be at the memorial day National Symphony concert this weekend.

Hells no! And as George says, they're not really boogieing better than your average bar band even with Coe fronting them. George hates the record; I guess I don't mind them being an average bar band; they're funky enough, and Coe manages to be Coe-worthy on top. Sure beats the rigid-assed thrash tedium they've always settled for.

I have no memory of the Driveby Truckers' "Easy On Yourself"; don't seem to've mentioned it up above, when I discussed the album, which I apparently liked less than Frank does. Song must've slipped right by me. And the album's no longer in my vicinity, so I can't check it.

Dimebag or no, or Coe, they're never going to be more than a lousy to fair boogie band, regardless of who plays guitar. You don't deliver pepperoni pizza in cement mixer, so to speak. And that's why I didn't like the record. "Penitentiary Blues" has more groove and good I-IV-V from the studio hacks hired by Toilet Roll Teddie.

Anyway, out of sympathy, I'll probably give it another listen. But...