Rolling Country 2006 Thread

I wish the Dixie Chicks had attacked the country audience and the industry more - more vehemently, more specifically, more articulately - and I could list a whole bunch of things I wish they'd said, but big deal, it wouldn't surprise you what I have to say on the subject. But I asked a question upthread that's a lot more interesting to me, because I don't know the answer and some of you might have a better feel for it than I do. The question is this:

Was part of the Chicks' broad appeal from the get-go - I mean, not from the get-go get-go, but from when they sacked Laura in favor of Natalie and went major label - that they didn't quite seem country, that they represented something more edgy and glamorous? And might not a mainstream country fan be excited by this difference and simultaneously wary of their going too far? So what excites the fan is also what primes the fan to turn on the Chicks; the fan is looking for and expecting the Chicks to eventually just be too different, so the fan is waiting for the Chicks to reveal themselves as "not one of us."

Is there anything to this?

The "Not Ready To Make Nice" video owes a lot to the "Losing My Religion" video, I think.

Sure they had an image makeover, but I think the broad appeal from from the Natalie get go is Natalie's voice. She just has an appealing voice. I really don't see any clues from the material of mass success OR future controversy although maybe a Bonnie Raitt cover says something. Bonnie is one of the queens of the nebulous audience they now seem to covet. I think turning on them is entirely from what Natalie said and they continue to say and not from their music. With sexism not helping of course. Martie only wants people who 'get it'. What was there to get? Anyone could get their music and they obviously did. And now no one can get their new video and I bet that makes them happy because they obviously want to be taken seriously. I'm happy to take them seriously as people but if they get too serious in their art that might not be such a good thing.

Not anymore or at least right now. Larry King/The Chicks were mind-numbing. If you were thinking of buying the CD, I certainly didn't have to after sitting through an hour of them. Wrote up what I scribbled on here while watching, added some more jokes and threw it on the blog.

I'm can't take them seriously since they're so obviously executing a script. Everytime I hear their music, the current shtick is superimposed on it.

Has anyone checked sales figures for the new Chix? How much of their audience have they lost, I wonder, and shit, seems like they might've gained some? And yeah, they often sound like they're reading off a script, they all do it here.

So, came away from Blaine Larsen's new "Rockin' You Tonight" feeling some of the fun had been sucked out of the enterprise. Boy, I had forgotten just how spare, humorous and subtly subversive that first record of his was. Because it was a series of demos (one of them is actually Larsen in his barn overdubbing himself), it just sounds fresher than the new one. Which interconnects, thematically, with the first one, in interesting ways. But the opener, the hit "I Don't Know What She Said," is far less interesting than "Off to Join"'s "I've Been in Mexico" (where the point of the song is that he's taken a vacation down there, has come back to work relaxed, and therefore isn't a stressed-out mess like his boss--therefore, this song works into his theme of "becoming a man" while playing off his young-man's slight, slight, sane rebellion).

And the same pretty much goes for the whole thing. "I'm in Love with a Married Woman" and "Spoken Like a Man" work as a pairing on marriage, what it means to be a "real man" and be in a good marriage; but "I'm in Love" is a lame-ass joke. "Spoken" is far better; what Blaine is good at is playing it cool, letting his fucking great voice carry it, as on this tale of a guy who refuses to discuss his fucking with the other guys, admires the good-lookin' Coyote wannabe at the bar but who, like the young Vito Corleone in "Godfather 2," only has eyes for his wife. Very good song.

"Someone Is Me" is one of those let's-pick-up-our-trash and tip-waitresses-well songs that substitue individual action for political action, right? Blaine is looked at funny when he prays at a diner on some mythical Main Street, and sees weeds choking the ol' baseball field. So, someone is me, let's go cut weeds and make the world better. I mean, I pick up trash and I tip good, but you need an army of similar-minded people to turn the world around. This kind of thing wastes his talent.

"Lips of a Bottle" is really good, though, a 6/8 ballad that uses those cool false endings, kinda greasy or at least stained, a classic country song. And a duet with Gretchen, and shit, Blaine should become like one of those eternal duet guys, get some Melba Montgomery-soundalike, or do like George and just marry Gretchen Wilson or something.

"I Don't Wanna Work That Hard" is analagous to the first record's "Yessireebob," about playing it cool and wanting to transcend class by getting a job that doesn't require too much ass-kissing, one that (as in "Yessiree") might involve a little towel-holding for a half-naked girl on the Cozumel beach. These are interesting songs that get at class in real interesting ways. And careerism, and how to become a "man" if you will...in short, this guy, to my ears, really has talent and could be a major figure, because he's got a fantastic voice with real shadings and nuance, but this standard-issue Nashville songwriting only halfway gets him there.

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I'm assuming, too, that Cowboy Troy's co-hosting of the amateur pro country singer talent search didn't help him saleswise. I didn't watch all of it but I never heard them play his music. They did play
Big & Rich's and the commercial featuring "Coming To Your City" ran all the time.

Leanne Kingwell, on the other hand, sent me mail that indicates her ballad "More" was number 7 on the US college chart.

so, in the N-ville Scene this week, letters, jeff pitcher writes that michael mccall shares a sentiment with one of those right-wing am-radio guys who lambasted the chix for their failure to appreciate how hard he was trying to forgive them. pitcher says "I never liked them--I thought they were this decade's Mary Chapin Carpenter (huh? is that a good analogy?). Despite substantial presence, skill and talent, I found them a tokenit, fake-edgy act allowed into the mix to 'prove' that country's power brokers really don't regulate the content's POV as rigidly as they in fact do...'Earl' was a phony-assed piece of cutesy crap that reeked of being written on a computer in Green Hills (upper-middle class mall-land of SW Nashville)....I deeply respect these gals (gals) for publicly refusing to make nice with the troglodytes who crushed their CDs with tractors in a bizarre Dogpatch-Jesus-hadi version of an Islamist bookburning. I don't even care if the record's any good." He then closes by saying that if mccall had had his writings burned as have the chix, mccall'd see why the chix should not back down.

reading mccall's piece again, I see that he's just accusing them of being sick of america's heartland and the people who burn their records, and that seems pretty reasonable to me, since i live amongst many people who would burn a chix record or tell me i need to support the troops and so forth. he says the record's too slow, not rowdy enough. they've written almost all the songs themselves this time, they worked with sheryl crow, gary louris, benmont tench. there's nothing that suggest mccall isn't sympathetic, he basically says the record's a drag that seems stuck in therpeutic-angry mode. "The trio don't seem able to let go of a particular harsh, life-changing episode." the photo caption is kind of simplistic: "they may have gotten a bum rap, but the Dixie Chicks need to get over it." Get over it, Chix. maybe it's just that time of the month...

I dunno, the exchange is so typical, a fan who is too hip to think about the music too much and sees it all as a Screwing the Man anti-Music Row situation, the Chix too dumb to realize they're just being used, such an us-vs.-them situation and then total overreaction to a review that may or may not work but which just basically says, this record's not much fun, it lectures and it's a bad media event, a real let-down. And so, perhaps, it's 'cause no one in Nashville ever has a sense of humor, I mean why couldn't the Chix have made a funny album about the whole thing, just blow it up and revel in it? Obviously, they're right about Bush.

But of course, that's never gonna happen, the Chix are going to do a song about their grandmother who has Alzheimer's. the more I think about all this, the more I realize they're probably walking around scared all the time, worried some nut is going to jump out from around the corner. I would, most likely.

so, in the N-ville Scene this week, letters, jeff pitcher writes that michael mccall shares a sentiment with one of those right-wing am-radio guys who lambasted the chix for their failure to appreciate how hard he was trying to forgive them. pitcher says "I never liked them--I thought they were this decade's Mary Chapin Carpenter (huh? is that a good analogy?). Despite substantial presence, skill and talent, I found them a tokenist, fake-edgy act allowed into the mix to 'prove' that country's power brokers really don't regulate the content's POV as rigidly as they in fact do...'Earl' was a phony-assed piece of cutesy crap that reeked of being written on a computer in Green Hills (upper-middle class mall-land of SW Nashville)....I deeply respect these gals (gals) for publicly refusing to make nice with the troglodytes who crushed their CDs with tractors in a bizarre Dogpatch-Jesus-hadi version of an Islamist bookburning. I don't even care if the record's any good." He then closes by saying that if mccall had had his writings burned as have the chix, mccall'd see why the chix should not back down.

reading mccall's piece again, I see that he's just accusing them of being sick of america's heartland and the people who burn their records, and that seems pretty reasonable to me, since i live amongst many people who would burn a chix record or tell me i need to support the troops and so forth. he says the record's too slow, not rowdy enough. they've written almost all the songs themselves this time, they worked with sheryl crow, gary louris, benmont tench. there's nothing that suggest mccall isn't sympathetic, he basically says the record's a drag that seems stuck in therpeutic-angry mode. "The trio don't seem able to let go of a particular harsh, life-changing episode." the photo caption is kind of simplistic: "they may have gotten a bum rap, but the Dixie Chicks need to get over it." Get over it, Chix. maybe it's just that time of the month...

I dunno, the exchange is so typical, a fan who is too hip to think about the music too much and sees it all as a Screwing the Man anti-Music Row situation, the Chix too dumb to realize they're just being used, such an us-vs.-them situation and then total overreaction to a review that may or may not work but which just basically says, this record's not much fun, it lectures and it's a bad media event, a real let-down. And so, perhaps, it's 'cause no one in Nashville ever has a sense of humor, I mean why couldn't the Chix have made a funny album about the whole thing, just blow it up and revel in it? Obviously, they're right about Bush.

But of course, that's never gonna happen, the Chix are going to do a song about their grandmother who has Alzheimer's. the more I think about all this, the more I realize they're probably walking around scared all the time, worried some nut is going to jump out from around the corner. I would, most likely.

Heck, even when the repairmen or the painters come to the house in Pasadena for the day, you have to keep 'em off of politics and talk about pets. I can't remember when it wasn't this way, if ever.

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But George, it seems like you're blaming the Chicks entirely

Yeah, I've had enough in the short term. It'll wear off not that it matters. And no, I don't think their "incident" was at all a calculation for publicity. -Now- what they're doing is calculation.
It's what the media wants, though, so it's a two-way street.

http://www.takeemastheycome.blogspot.com/

In non-Dixie-Chick country, the best song on this '04 cdbaby CD is a girls night out song called "Girls Night In." The rest of it's OK:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/beckyhobbs3

I've also been listening to and liking the debut by Carter Falco, which has a good sense of rhythm and a good sense of humor and two songs co-starring Shooter Jennings and one song called "Galveston" which isn't the Glen Campbell one and one song called "Union Song" which was written by Tom Morello of all people and sounds like Georgia Satellites crossed with Steve Earle when he didn't suck, and also fortunately sounds nothing like Rage Against the Machine, and has one line apparently shouted by California grocery workers.

I'm disappointed at first listen by the new Chris Knight, I like his attitude and he's still a good songwriter but he's gotten a bit drearier in an attempt to be more "real," shame about that, I liked The Jealous Kind quite a bit, especially the Matraca Berg song "Devil Behind the Wheel".

I bought the Dixie Chicks album but I haven't heard it yet because I got it for my wife and she wants to return it to Target so she can re-buy it thru Amazon so she can save 2 dollars, I swear I will never understand women sometimes. Plus now that I'm not writing for money anymore I can't even say "BUT MY FREELANCE CAREER WAAAAAH".

im beginning to worry because im listening to almost no chart country these days and am listening to a large amount of indie folk, like im regressing into college era meloncholy and wisdom

make it go away

"Tell me how many CDs have to die..."

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/06/gobblers-old-men-young-men-dead-men.html

The only song I've heard by other Wrecker Jessica Harp is "Perfectly," which is likable enough in a sub-Marit, sub-Skye way. She can't be my paper doll, she avers. (Hmmm, I'm listening to it right now and liking it more than I had previously. Does remind me of Larsen but with power chords and without Larsen's impishness and funny cabaret; Harp did the song before Under the Surface, and probably is worth checking out in her own right.)

I won't know for a while what I think of the Dixie Chicks album. My favorites so far are the two angry rockers, but "Silent House" feels more crucial. More typical, at any rate. The Dixies' longplayers have always had stretches of blah, and most of this album is nice enough for blah, soft rock mainly, with interesting arrangements but the melodies aren't kicking in, at least not yet. "Silent House" is an exception: soft beauty that kicks hard with its beauty while staying soft. Maybe I'll figure out why when I get back from breakfast.... EDIT: OK, it's now after breakfast - after lunch even. My wisdom is "has something to do with being in the key of C-sharp but - when the melody shifts - passing through the relative major (E-flat) on the way to the fourth (F)." Like, that explains it. Anyway, sounds good.

(I'm not even tired; don't know why I'm fucking up all my posts.)

I'll have a longish thing on Blaine Larsen's two records up on Nashville Scene this Wednesday.

Anyone heard Ronnie Milsap's Keith Stegall-produced new one, "My Life"?

I am thinking this Dixie Chick album is very very good--despite being too long, with at least three tracks of blatant filler. What Jeff Lynne song or Tom Petty song or Traveling Wilburys song is the rhythm part for Voices In My Head? And I love the sitarified 12 string or whatever it is. A radio edit--half the songs flirt with the 5 minute mark, more FU to country radio--and pre-incident time travel and it would be one of the best things on Clear Channel.

The banjo on "Lubbuck or Leave It" freaks me out--I swear, Rubin went over every arpeggiated note and cut out anything that didn't work in a modal, Celtic way. It end up sounding like tiny ballpeen hammers dancing angrily, but also teasingly.

or just read the paste peice

longer but also more consitent than the becky hobbs CD i linked to up above:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/beckyhobbs4

which is her best-of.
best song on it: "mama was a working man."

also listening to:

lucky 7, *one way track* (parts of which remind of the blasters, joe king carrasco and the crowns, dave edmunds)

marshall tucker band, *we're going to be here for a while!: live on long island, 4-18-80* (shout! factory)

have not been motivated to listen to these much:
new blaine larsen CD
new trent willmon CD

okay, back to hiding in my cave now.

also, i like the bop-bop-bop pop backing voices in "i like it," and "voice inside my head" sugguests sheryl crow plus tom petty's guitar player (rather than the funkiest song the police ever did.)

(i never got a promo, but when i sold my other promos to my promo-buying guy, he traded me a copy. copies of damone and wolfmother too. damone is real good, especially "out here all night" and "outta my way," the latter of which sounds a lot like "nothing but a good time" by poison except maybe better. wolfmother have been annoying the hell out of me. sometimes their riffs are catchy, but the singer sounds even more like jack white with anorexia than i'd remembered.)

also, bob dylan is a lot better than anthony thinks.

Notify the Pulitzer committees.

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You have a fine fellow in that promo-buying guy. At Amoeba, you just get sneered at which makes the stuff like that latest Spencer Dickinson, which I'm assuming it going to be, useless. Actually, everything I get is useless. I think they plan it that way. The only two things that weren't were bought. The Crash Kelly promo was a beaut, too. In a Radio Shack paper sleeve with their name in magic marker on the CD-R.

You have no idea. He makes HOUSE CALLS. And I get FINDER'S FEES. Now if I only I got more than a fraction of the promos that I was getting in the mail two months ago. (Or even if I got as many as I was getting in the mail eight years ago, before I had a job in the first place.) (But for whatever it's worth, my copy of the Crash Kelly CD was a markered CD-R too. Either way, it's a great album.)

> nothing I'd read about Oakley Hall really gave me the impression I got from listening:"country rock,"<

Yeah, Don, I agree. As much country rock as "freak folk". But do you like anything else on the CD as much as the admittedly Fairported "House Carpenter"? I don't think I do. Maybe the "me and my baby in a knock-down drag" one--I guess that would be "Living In Sin in the USA," maybe? Whatever track #4 is called. And a couple other cuts have a bit of stomp and psych to them, but most of them don't leave much of a lasting impression. I definitely prefer when the girl's singing to when the guy is. What am I missing here?