Rolling Country 2006 Thread

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Most recent Chesney I've liked: "Who'd You Be Today" and "Anything But Mine" (pretty much the same musically, but each set of lyrics establishes its own turf, and Kenny obliges). Country-blues-soul does get played, but I hear it more often on NPR, on shows like "Beale Street Caravan" and "American Routes," "World Cafe" (though the latter also features stuff far from country-blues-soul),and sometimes "Woodsongs" will have like Cowboy Jack Clements or Jim Dickinson or The Gourds, all of whom are more idiosyncratic than ones so far cited, but not very constrained, unless you thank they should be more mainstream-accesible(they do make a living, as is). But mostly "Woodsongs" has somebody more acoustic, like xpost Peasall Sisters. "Beale Street Caravan" and "Woodsongs" are live sets, though ("AM Routes" more studio). "World Cafe" is both; a lot (though not all)of the album tracks they play are bad-to-neglgible American and UK NPR stereptypes (Feist). But the live-in-the-studio sets, which I've mentioned before on these Rolling threads (Rosanne's, for inst) are what I listen for, and they're posted here and there, as well as where they "should" be posted---but my point is that a lot of these artists find exposure either through non-commercial radio formats, or through live sets ("Beale St" tapes stuff in clubs and at festivals all over the country), and/or through newer commercial media, like satellite radio and Webcasts. Also, some networking and performance exposure through other ventures, like I've seen several artists emtnion they got some deal together via Delbert McClinton's Blues Cruise (.And his recent Cost Of Living is mostly pretty droll, xxhuxx, though whether it would be a keeper, I dunno: I think I'm gonna send mine to Luc, but not cos it's bad, it's just established all the room in my headbox it's ever gonna demand.) Haven't listened to Delaney and Bonnie in a while, but when I heard the reissue of their Live, no longer grabbed me like it did on LP, except for one track that made me pogo, most unusually. I suspect they're more significant re networking also: Clapton joined up after Rolling Stone called him the master of blues cliche and he broke up Cream (although I'd say such mastery is good basis for arena thud-rock, but he meant it to be more) and there he pretty much put together Derek And The Dominos, but also with horns and better vocal harmonies than D and the Ds did on their own. And other careers were advanced from D and B enterprises, and seemed like they helped establish the country-blues-soul Southern Rock thing as viable (Lucrative on the road and FM and album sales, rather than *solely* road-piggybacking basically limited-lifespan Top Forty success, like with Box Tops etc). Roy: thanks for Rough Shop. I like most of the playing, several of the tunes, some of the whole songs, and occasionally the vocals.(Words and vocals tend to vague out on each other.) But can imagine somebody else doing good versions (maybe hits, or at least Featured Tracks that actually get played on the radio) of "I'm Your Man" and "Town's For Sale." And maybe "Final Wild Sons" and some others.

― don, Tuesday, 23 May 2006 16:03 (twenty years ago)

(x-post) :( rubbish British telly.

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.)

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 16:11 (twenty years ago)

Tim, try Toby's Pull My Chain.(of course the thing about xpost Peasall Sisters is not just that they are acoustic, but more mountainy than what we're talking about here)(xpost Jon Nicholson sounds fairly country to me, though like I said in Voice, he's a denizen of El Lay to NashVegas urban country, like Rodney, and Rosanne before she got so settled into NYC, and most Country artists on whutever media, basically, though early tracks on his album are too Chris Robinson for my taste, but still basically the same approach as country-blues-soul-rockish)speaking of Webcasts (with and without commercials), and text, like interviews, reviews, forums news (of non-Celebrities, like teacher taking her geetar into the classroom), a good source I've just come across is http://www.realcountrymusic.org

― don, Tuesday, 23 May 2006 16:18 (twenty years ago)

which jason mccoy album, tim?

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 18:59 (twenty years ago)

can we talk about the big and rich which rhymes nineteen/green/sixteen/ and i think marine, on the CMA, it was rather awful in a cloying sentimental and awfully refienthalish

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 23 May 2006 23:54 (twenty years ago)

"thingies, wotsits and lies", or whatever it's called. (And A, I enjoyed reading your write-up of the awards show this morning, thanks!)

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.)

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 09:47 (twenty years ago)

thnx tim!
i still dont like the neko, i know what she was going for, and it was ambitious, but ill put it into the failed experiment camp.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 09:49 (twenty years ago)

>rather awful in a cloying sentimental and awfully refienthalish <

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?

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 24 May 2006 11:42 (twenty years ago)

The miltary guys, the american flags, the giant screens with footage of soilders, the noise (visual and auditory) in contrast with the quietness, and how it seemed coded--it really did seem like a hawk song that didnt have the courage of its conventions...

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

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 11:50 (twenty years ago)

huh, what thompson quote? can you link to your write-up, anthony?

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 24 May 2006 12:04 (twenty years ago)

Don: Gracias for giving that Rough Shop CD a spin (and to clarify, it's not my day gig--they're just friends I've known for a long time and I'm trying to help them get their CD out to the world).

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Just posted this on the teenpop thread:

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.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 17:52 (twenty years ago)

One:
The new big and rich single rhymes nineteen/green/m16 and they had all of these old marines, and images of battle on 20 foot screens behind them, it was this strange, amazing conflation of public spectacle and historical revisonism, almost but not quite about iraq

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.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:07 (twenty years ago)

I suspect this is giving me an idiosyncratic understanding of modern country music.

Roffling

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:13 (twenty years ago)

xhuxk, before Anthony posted I was going to send you here:

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."

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:18 (twenty years ago)

delet period, close paren, add period

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:19 (twenty years ago)

delet = delete (Jeez, I'm getting senile; yesterday over on the teenpop thread I called Rachel Stevens "Rachel Sweet")

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:20 (twenty years ago)

The blues-soul-country guy who seems totally nonconstrained is T. Graham Brown, and he doesn't sound like he's in search of anything. And I wouldn't say his music is particularly varied, at least not more than anyone else we're mentioning. So I obviously haven't figured out what I mean by constrained. He just seems comfortable where he is with no need to go elsewhere. This is what my earbrain is telling me. But I don't feel that I can explain or justify this. But in general (putting Brown aside), I feel that there's an area of blues-soul-country that does seem fenced-in, and I'd put Nicholson and Moorer there as well. Or maybe those are neighboring areas.

(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.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:36 (twenty years ago)

thanks, everyone. I had an interesting experience yesterday,interviewed Blaine Larsen as he walked around a Vegas casino. smart, canny guy, and altho he didn't tell me anything too earth-shattering, he did tell me one thing I didn't know about his first record (which I think is better than the second, altho now I finally got to buckle down and listen to it in more detail, this weekend): those songs were demos, all of them. which I guess isn't so strange to contemplate, given that songwriter/label demos done before a recording session here are almost always basically finished products, and as releasable as anything that comes out of the studios.

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."

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:42 (twenty years ago)

I heard the tail end of ACM from the other room and heard the host (who was Reba? (who, btw, made me feel... funny)) make some Dixie Chicks reference that got a big, sustained roar out of the crowd. I think it was anti-, but not sure.

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.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:45 (twenty years ago)

xposts: 1) Tim,Anthony I haven't been that crazy about Neko's new tracks either. Though I haven't heard the whole thing, just h several on the radio--she did do a couple of them really fetchingly on a live TV show, though, and delivered a full set of earlier, better-seeming songs on Austin City Limits last year, with Kelly Hogan and her usual crew. (Even a relatively disappointing hout of Austin City Limits is better than most weeks of CMT, speaking of country-blues-rock etc) Hopefully Hogan will still be there, but I know troublechilde genius Catherine Irwin is on the European tour, so by all means go. (Didn't hear Blacklist or the live album, but The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby rule, though channeling Nico and Patsy Cline and Scott Walker and gospel through your coded diary might be too much for rich for some; spare production, though)2)a: Rachel Sweet would be a good subject for Rolling Teenpop; b: ZZ etc, but nothing that Lohan's pipes couldn't improve, eh? Whut a surprise. c: everybody's "constrained" to some fucking extent, and your Teenpop goddesses are constrained by their relatively(age-related) limited experience, in music and other.That doesn't mean they're bad, but the sometimes limits show. Some of the country-blues-soul guys might be constrained by absolutely (age-related) weighty experience in music and other. T. Graham was last heard (by me) droning an albumsworth of rehab bromides (if that's not a contradiction in terms). Gentry's more interesting with that mindset: they mutter and spout and seem like they're (dreaming of) jumping their tattooed needlescarred asses rat off the halfway house steps and onto a passing National Guard truck, boucning off it and onto the stage again(entertaining the troops one way or another).3) Eddie Hinton makes good use of his constraint and blues-soul-country compulsions (and their cost), rehabbing just long enough to play up to all the instruments, and write most of the songs and arrangements, and wind and sometimes shred his husky-cute to wirrrred mod-poboy voice, on the first two volumes of The Songwriter Sessions, which are mostly great demos, but the current Vol 3 is mostly just demos. 4) The closest I've seen to an extended piece on Outlaw marriage is Guralnick on Charlie and Margaret Ann Rich (who wrote some of his best songs). Charlie was too musically and emotionally hyphenated to fit anywhere really comfortably, and certainly something of a lower-case outlaw/contrarian. (Though the most public moment of that was prob when he was supposed to announce John Denver as the winner in that TV awards ceremony, and somehow the envelope caught fire.)5) Holy crap, xxhuxx was right about Rebel Meets Rebel! Metal thud meets boogie bounce, wonder if Charlie Daniels has heard this? So, were Pantera any good on their own?

― don, Wednesday, 24 May 2006 20:08 (twenty years ago)

xposts: 1) Tim,Anthony I haven't been that crazy about Neko's new tracks either. Though I haven't heard the whole thing, just h several on the radio--she did do a couple of them really fetchingly on a live TV show, though, and delivered a full set of earlier, better-seeming songs on Austin City Limits last year, with Kelly Hogan and her usual crew. (Even a relatively disappointing hout of Austin City Limits is better than most weeks of CMT, speaking of country-blues-rock etc) Hopefully Hogan will still be there, but I know troublechilde genius Catherine Irwin is on the European tour, so by all means go. (Didn't hear Blacklist or the live album, but The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby rule, though channeling Nico and Patsy Cline and Scott Walker and gospel through your coded diary might be too much for rich for some; spare production, though.)2)a: Rachel Sweet would be a good subject for Rolling Teenpop; b: ZZ etc, but nothing that Lohan's pipes couldn't improve, eh? Whut a surprise. c: everybody's "constrained" to some fucking extent, and your Teenpop goddesses are constrained by their relatively(age-related) limited experience, in music and other.That doesn't mean they're bad, but the sometimes limits show. Some of the country-blues-soul guys might be constrained by absolutely (age-related) weighty experience in music and other. T. Graham was last heard (by me) droning an albumsworth of rehab bromides (if that's not a contradiction in terms). Gentry's more interesting with that mindset: they mutter and spout and seem like they're (dreaming of) jumping their tattooed needlescarred asses rat off the halfway house steps and onto a passing National Guard truck, boucning off it and onto the stage again(entertaining the troops one way or another).3) Eddie Hinton makes good use of his constraint and blues-soul-country compulsions (and their cost), rehabbing just long enough to play up to all the instruments, and write most of the songs and arrangements, and wind and sometimes shred his husky-cute to wirrrred mod-poboy voice, on the first two volumes of The Songwriter Sessions, which are mostly great demos, but the current Vol 3 is mostly just demos. 4) The closest I've seen to an extended piece on Outlaw marriage is Guralnick on Charlie and Margaret Ann Rich (who wrote some of his best songs). Charlie was too musically and emotionally hyphenated to fit anywhere really comfortably, and certainly something of a lower-case outlaw/contrarian. (Though the most public moment of that was prob when he was supposed to announce John Denver as the winner in that TV awards ceremony, and somehow the envelope caught fire.)5) Holy crap, xxhuxx was right about Rebel Meets Rebel! Metal thud meets boogie bounce, wonder if Charlie Daniels has heard this? So, were Pantera any good on their own?

― don, Wednesday, 24 May 2006 20:10 (twenty years ago)

>So, were Pantera any good on their own? <

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.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 24 May 2006 21:03 (twenty years ago)

I feel a bit sorry for them after seeing the Pantera special on VH1 twice. They really did wind up as an unintentionally macabre tale of white trash woe. But Pantera was a band that live and died by its tightness and precision power thrash, a fact every surviving member and hagiographer are quick to remind you all the time on the documentary. They elevated the image of masonry nail-eating, whisky-chugging hirsute fighting men to nauseau-and-headache inspiring levels. What would be rebellious would be if they stopped calling themselves rebels and joined the army, already.

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...

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Wednesday, 24 May 2006 21:45 (twenty years ago)

Well I had a disastrously bad day at work yesterday in a poxy satellite town near London, which involved me, at the end of the day, having to take a couple of the poor unfortunates who work with me to the pub and buy them some drinks, to calm them (and me down).

All of which meant that I arrived about a quarter of the way into Neko's show, soaked with rain and somewhat out of temper.

And she was pretty good considering, once or twice she even kinda sorta made me forget about other stuff. I ended up thinking that about 30% of her songs are fantastic and the rest end up being weaker re-treads of the good ones. Her voice is amazing and carries some of the material, I think. Her songwriting tuill reminds me of early Paddy McAloon.

I wouldn't want to live without "The Needle Has Landed", now.

All this talk of blues-soul-country puts me in mind of a couple of old Don Nix solo LPs on Stax-Enterprise which I have hanging around, bought years ago and put aside because (as I recall) they were a bit bluesy for me at the time. I should give them another whirl.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 25 May 2006 06:50 (twenty years ago)

i dont know paddy mcaloon, but i think that she sounds like kitty wells, if kitty wells drank and fucked. in fact perhaps shes trying to hard to sound like kitty wells, im not so sure that her voice suits country (rock and roll maybe, blues maybe, rockabilly damn yeah, but not the country shes playing with)

who suppourted tim, and was kelly hogan involved? (god kelly hogan is an amazing singer, she redeems fox confessor brings the flood, and shes sexier too)

― anthony easton, Thursday, 25 May 2006 08:00 (twenty years ago)

Paddy McAloon = Prefab Sprout bloke.

I dunno who supported, I arrived late and grumpy. I have half a feeling KH may have been supporting, but I am not sure.

The harmony singer was called Rachel something and was tremendous.

I tend to agree that her voice isn't a country voice, but then the music isn't straightforward country music. Ultimately I think this stuff works when the songs are strong enough. I suppose that's blindingly obvious but that's never stopped me saying something before.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 25 May 2006 08:11 (twenty years ago)

country-soul mystery: for something I had to do, I ended up talking to the songwriter P.F. Sloan, who did a record in Memphis? Muscle Shoals? in '68, called "Measure for Pleasure." you can't find it, he sent it to me. it's actually quite good, sort of Tony Joe White meets, I dunno, Tim Hardin? some really funky grooves. Sloan doesn't remember who played on it, and no one seems to know. god, this new interview-driven shtick has its drawbacks, but I did also get to talk to David Hood down in Muscle Shoals, he played bass on Aretha, Staple Singers, tons of others, and of course he's Patterson Hood's dad in Drive-by Truckers. anyway, I'm gonna send him a copy of this Sloan thing and see if he can figure out who's on it; apparently, and I find this real interesting as a fan of that Muscle Shoals soul, Hood has kept daybooks on all his studio/live dates since he started in 1966.

OK, back to Blaine which I gotta get done, and then onto Chip Taylor's new one, which I haven't cracked open yet but which seems to have a song about Townes Van Zandt on it, I wonder if Townes woulda done it thata way.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 25 May 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

Well, Rebel Meets Rebel has been growing on me quite a bit; lots of none-dare-call-it CUTE, POP GOES THE COUNTRETAL deetail, incl beats, tiny fiddle, keyb tinkle, Coe cool, "Arizona Highways" tequila lovesick-in-the-headlights, esp on headphones and exercycle. Bar band, yeah, but efficiently entertaining, thoug without Dime, might be better not to encore. But maybe DAC will get, say, his old acolyte Warren Haynes,later of Allmans, G. Mule, etc., to sit in; that could work. Oh yeah, *some* of the studio guys on P.Blues were (according to session notes from Shelby Singleton's sons; oops I gotta put that remix of the CharLoaf Coefile onto thefreelancementalists) were actually Dylan's Southern regulars, rehabilated by Coevict from the earcrime of Self-Portrait. Tim, do try to find online tracks from The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby, think you might like some of those. Catherine Irwin of Freakwater was supposed to be supporting on at least some legs of the Euro tour (most of her solo album, Cut Yourself A Switch, is really good, and,as with her Freakwater songs, kind of a better approach to what Neko does, via the early Dylan times Harry Smith Smithsonian Anthology approach to imagery)Yeah, Edd, think that's the P.F. Sloan album I saw in Creem long ago, but don't remember much about personnel. The review quoted a song, "P.F. Sloan," by Jimmy Webb! Apparently Webb's point was that Sloan kept writing seriously, even after his "Eve Of Destruction" and protest songs in general were left behind by trendwagons of the Sick Sixties. (P.F. didn't cover it, but what the hell why not!) Oh speaking of Delaney and Bonnie, I just remembered she was on Nicky Siano's comp, and in the review, I said that her " 'Crazy Bout My Baby' is crazy like a tambourine and a fox, just shaking in wait for that slowhand dobro." (That was def a lowercase slowhand; dunno if it was actually Eric Derek Slowhand God, but deft). Now I'm wondering if she ever tried to get into the dance club circuit, though perhaps considered her new Southern Rock employers might frown on Disco-necktions.But there might've been a few years or months to do it, when such thangs were still considered more funk-dance than Disco in the Yankee-urban-to-plastic-suburban sense.Anybody heard any more groovy dance tracks of hers?

― don, Thursday, 25 May 2006 21:10 (twenty years ago)

You're right, PF Sloan should have covered "PF Sloan", that would have been a marvel. Like when Millie Jackson covered "Anyone That Don't Like Hank Williams" as "Anyone That Don't Like Millie Jackson", well done Millie.

I never quite understand why PFS is so wildly valued by some people, by the way. I like him but some people seem to think his work is head & shoulders above his contemporaries, I can't hear it.

One of the DBTs is David Hood's son?! Fantastic. I am also reeling from the idea of going and talking to the likes of D Hood, as if they're regular human beings. These are semi-mythic figures as far as I'm concerned.

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 26 May 2006 08:41 (twenty years ago)

The harmony singer was called Rachel something and was tremendous.

That's Rachel Flotard, who does the spectacular harmonies on "The Needle Has Landed." My pick for Single That Isn't a Single (And Never Will Be) of 2006.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Friday, 26 May 2006 13:09 (twenty years ago)

So I finally got around this week to totally delving into the new Bottle Rockets album, *Zoysia,* and I just gotta say -- the more I listen, the more I'm convinced of how completely laughable it is that this is apparently the alt-country/*No Depression* crowd's idea of a "rocking band." Because I swear, this album is one pathetic excuse for rock. I don't hate all of it: the first and last cuts, for instance, "Better Than Broken" (the song I compared to Soul Asylum up above) and "Zoysia" do an okay slow-buildup-of-guitars into the folk jangle thing; the latter has some Neil Young and Crazy Horse in it. That one's about living in a small town out in the exurbs, how there are Democrat and Republican campaign signs battling each other on the lawns, not bad, or at least better than the similar left vs. right/crips vs. bloods theme of "Align Yourself" earlier, which has a spoken rap-inspired rhyme scheme significantly less convincingly funky than, I dunno, "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. Only competition "Zoysia" has for best-track-on-album honors is probably "Mountain to Climb", which swipes its riff and semblance of a groove lock-stock-and-barrel from "My Sweet Lord" (which I guess George Harrison stole too.) But even that song seems lackadaisically and rotely written, and stuff like "Blind" and "Happy Anniversary" and "I Quit" (one of the most sober-sounding songs about being a drunkard I've ever heard) sounds even more blase', even more low-exertion, as if any more energy would be a sign of moral compromise. And they're one of the best their sub-genre has to offer, right? Their singer can halfway sing, I guess, and they've managed occasional OK songs before. Astounding.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 27 May 2006 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Also irritating: How, as far as I can tell, in both "Zoysia" and "Align Yourself," they mention everybody picking sides yet make a point of not picking a side themselves. Get it? They're middle-of-the-road and noncommital, just like their music -- too polite to actually engage in petty arguments of life like the angry masses do.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 27 May 2006 22:40 (twenty years ago)

"Happy Anniversary" builds up guitar-wise, too, I think. I just checked what Roy Kasten wrote about the album way upthread, and he obviously likes it way more than I do, calls it their best in years in fact (when their last one, with the song about how waiting in airports is so less fun after 9-11, definitely struck me as more personable and no *less* tough) but he also makes the Neil Young comparison. Thing is, Bottle Rockets seem either afraid or incapable of even hinting at Neil's sense of prettiness, especially in Brian Henneman's singing, which I generally find so self-serious as to be insufferable, even when the band's trying to be clever (which they're just not, not very much). Also, one song ("I Quit," maybe? Which Roy calls a sobriety song, which might explain why it sounds so sober, not that that makes it any better) has a gospel chorus ending that I find truly gratuitous and heavy-handed. Okay, I'll shut up. Really didn't expect to be so down on these guys. I guess they always just always get my hopes up, for some reason -- unlike even wimpier types like the Jayhawks and Son Volt etc., who never do.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 28 May 2006 12:44 (twenty years ago)

And I dunno, does "Their singer can halfway sing" contradict "Brian Henneman's singing, which I generally find so self-serious as to be insufferable"? I guess I mean his singing has a certain gravity to it, which counts for something, but gravity is all it has. (Maybe.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 28 May 2006 12:56 (twenty years ago)

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/05/rebels-who-share-tour-bus-toilet.html

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Sunday, 28 May 2006 16:25 (twenty years ago)

ok heard 'lubbock or leave it' on ALTROCK radio (to be fair the more aaa leaning atl alt station) - surely not the next single right? or in any case not the crossover shopper like 'landslide'? probably just a southern thing - i can see dixie chix getting a significant chunk of their airplay outside of country radio but i'm thinking more ac than alt. did anyone ever figure out if that's oil or ink on natalie's hands in the vid?

― j blount (papa la bas), Sunday, 28 May 2006 17:00 (twenty years ago)

Kinda hard to reply, xhuxk, with all the qualifications and maybes etc, but: "I Quit" isn't remotely any kind of "drunkard song." It's a sincere (too sincere, in my opinion) song about how great it feels to quit drinking (which Henneman wisely did a couple years ago; he was pretty much killing himself). I like the groove but I think the song is a failure, though I admire the effort. I totally disagree about "Happy Anniversary," which for me captures what it's like to see an Ex happy (and knowing you fucked it all up): the fool in the song hates himself (a real feeling) and hates her for inviting him to her party, but he's a fool, so he went anyway. I"ve been that fool--as have a hundred singers in a hundred country songs. The guitars and drum climax at the end sound somewhat harder and messier than most folk jangle I've heard. I also like "Align Yourself." I don't think the point of the song (or of "Zoysia" for that matter) has anything to do with staying middle of the road or not committing to anything. It's just about self-reliance the Emersonian kind--and how people often choose an ideology in order to avoid the hard and scary work of thinking for themselves. "When you don't know who you are you can remind yourself--if you align yourself." That sounds about right to me. Satirizing the seductions of ideology and an inability to consider the world outside one's own world view (whether it's suburbia or socialism or what have you) seems perceptive enough, if hardly novel (Dylan did it better, but that's no surprise). As a singer, Henneman isn't going to make anyone forget Sam Cooke--but he's got more emotional range than a lot of singers I could name. His unaffected Missouri twang can be angry, ironic, sweet, and, sure, serious, but I don't have a problem with that--and this is, largely, a serious record, I guess, but again, that's not a problem for me. On the Beach and Tonight's the Night, were largely serious, and those are the touchstones here. No the album isn't that good, but the guitar playing often is, and often very pretty in a Neil way--I think the interplay between John Horton and Henneman is frequently beautiful, especially on the climax of "Zoysia," which again, isn't about being non-committal, but about contradiction: the creeping conformity of suburbia (aka zoysia grass), but also how we're all in this mess together, especially in border states like Missouri. Blue state or Red state? Technically the latter, but by a fraction (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/). You can still get along with your neighbor; if you get hurt, that guy who voted for Bush will probably mow your lawn for you.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Sunday, 28 May 2006 18:39 (twenty years ago)

Casey Driessen, 3-D, prog-rock bluegrass but pretty danged good (although he's a Tim O'Brien guy and I find TOB kinda dull)

Grupo Exterminador and Los Tigres del Norte and Banda Pequenos Musical have all released good country albums this year, and Jenni Rivera has released two (that live disc kicks some butt, esp when she shifts into "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights").

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Sunday, 28 May 2006 20:13 (twenty years ago)

I should have called it "prog-grass," that's what I'll be calling it in my review (DIBS)

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Sunday, 28 May 2006 20:14 (twenty years ago)

20 Easy Rules for Writing about Country the Way the Pros Do It!

http://livinginstereo.com/?p=163

I've been guilty of a few of these.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 02:07 (twenty years ago)

She's pretty funny, but it must be exhausting both making up and beating that strawman! She tips her hand by a) excusing all the "good ones" without saying who they are; b) playing the race card way the fuck before she should; c) making sure she is talking about "rock critics" who only like country people who hew to a rock aesthetic, as if country critics don't dismiss all other musics as a reflex action.

That having been said, I want to go to this forum she talks about to get some real examples.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 29 May 2006 02:18 (twenty years ago)

"strawman" matt? - she's talking about at least half the people on this thread!

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 29 May 2006 02:32 (twenty years ago)

as if country critics don't dismiss all other musics as a reflex action

Her strawman vs. your strawman vs. mine.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 03:19 (twenty years ago)

i think the comments about demographics are true

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 29 May 2006 03:28 (twenty years ago)

>Laud the country artists who display character traits most cherished in rock, and whose lyrical concerns hew closest to a rock sensibility.<

I wish I knew what she meant by a "rock sensibility," or why she thinks it's wrong to judge different genres by the one another's yardsticks. (Personally, I wish more people judged country by a disco sensibility, or a Latin sensibility, or a hip-hop sensibility, or a teen-pop sensibility. And visa-versa, for that matter.)

Entertaining list, though. I'm sure most writers are "guilty" of most of those transgressions, now and then, inasmuch as some/most of them actually qualify as transgressions. Maybe even a few writers are guilty of all of them. ("Strawman"-ness would be hard to avoid.)

Matt is right about the Grupo Exterminador CD (which I've mentioned on a couple other threads, somewhere). Haven't heard the live Jenni Rivera, though - Matt, is that on Fonovisa, or what label?

Roy, I should give your Bottle Rockets arguments more thought. They still strike me as a watery soft-rock band with vague melodies, and guitar raveups stucks at the ends of occasional songs to signify a wild-and-wooliness that the rest of the music (from the rhythm on up to the singing) gives no evidence to support. But yeah, I agree, the guitar climax of "Zoysia" has real beauty in it; just wish I didn't have to wait until the tail end of the album to get to it. And Hanneman's vocals never follow suit beauty-wise, and the melodies in general just aren't pretty or *ominous* enough for your *Tonight's The Night* comparison to make any sense to me. And if his writing is as nuanced as you say, his singing clearly doesn't grab me enough for me to pick up on the nuances. But I'm glad you have use for them.

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 11:29 (twenty years ago)

Also, who does this?

>Declare that country music deals in “nostalgia” for a “past that never was.”<

She puts it in quotes, and says it twice, so she must have actually seen instances of it. Off hand, I'm not sure I have. (Though I've probably said myself that, say, certain country music doesn't sound much like earlier forms of country music it seems to be aiming for. Is that the same thing? And if so, how I am wrong? If not, what is she referring to? I'm guessing she means some critics claim country music frequently romanticizes America's past, right? Well, doesn't it? That's something American songs often do: Carry me back to my old Virginny home. But either way, who are these critics who dwell on that issue?) (Okay, maybe she's just saying this is a truism and platitude, taken for granted and better left unsaid. So do you just close your ears when Tim McGraw yearns for those wonderful days back when a coke was a coke and a ho was a ho and the wind was all that blew and when you said I'm down with that it meant you had the flu?)

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 11:48 (twenty years ago)

ive seen it in lots of revivews of alt country, and when ever an old timer comes out of retirement, it was a meme that came together with the american recordings, merles last album and a couple of other things.

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 29 May 2006 13:52 (twenty years ago)

Cline's point isn't that you can never criticize indivdiual instances of bogus nostalgia, but that aligning country music in general with nostalgia for a past that never was is sloppy, glib and wrong. I've seen more than a few rock critics do that.

In another piece on Living In Stereo, "The Children Of Detroit City" (http://livinginstereo.com/?page_id=40), David Cantwell (the site's author and good pal o' mine) writes of the alt-country class of the '90s:

"So it bugs the shit out of me when critics, who apparently don’t know this context, dismiss these bands with glib pronouncements. (Bugged but unsurprised: most critics, truth be told, just don’t much care for anything that sounds remotely like country; it’s not as hip as traditional/alternative guitar rock and it surely isn’t as exotic as R&B and rap.) Critic Will Hermes, excerpted in this year’s Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll, offers an example that could easily stand for the rest: '(This music is) purposefully vague, nostalgic for times that even it realizes probably never were, and tending toward depression.'"

Some of David's points are a little dated--I think rock critics have started to get over their country-phobias--but I still run in to Hermes-esque glibness more than I'd like to.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:23 (twenty years ago)

xp: Ha ha, note the first two results:

Results 1 - 6 of about 7 for "country music" nostalgia "past that never was". (0.16 seconds)

Living In Stereo » Blog Archive » 20 Easy Rules for Writing about ...Declare that country music deals in “nostalgia” for a “past that never was.” Fail to recognize that this “past” not only *was* but *is* for many people. ...
livinginstereo.com/?p=163 - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

The Way the Pros Do It!Declare that country music deals in "nostalgia" for a "past that never was." Fail to recognize that this "past" not only *was* but *is* for many people. ...
www.steamiron.com/twangin/essay-rockcrit.html - 6k - Cached - Similar pages

The Smirking Chimp - AP: Bush Urges Motorists to Conserve GasCyberLemon - Wine Country Music Collector There is no way to Peace. ... Yes, they are but conservatives live in nostalgia for a past that never was, ...
www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic. php?topic=59679&forum=16 - 104k - Cached - Similar pages

FT - Do You See?and the acrobats and the mimes and the country music sequence and the tiger-print ... Stop the planet of the instant nostalgia-obssessed list fetishists, ...
www.freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2004_09_01_dys_archive.html - 175k - Cached - Similar pages

[PDF] IMS Catalog 1File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
... old time music and dancing, and Nashville and country music. ... nostalgia for a past that never was - and the myth of West was born. ...
www.bubblers.k12.pa.us/ faculty%20pages/der/S%20to%20Z.pdf - Similar pages

PREVIEWS VOL. 8 #10 THE PREVIEWS HOME PAGE PREVIEWS PRIMO FLYER ...In this tale of a past that never was, set in the Age of Steam, masked dandies, ... DC COMICS SUPERMAN NOSTALGIC RADIO Before the animated series, ...

― xhuxk, Monday, 29 May 2006 14:26 (twenty years ago)

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