Rolling Country 2006 Thread

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.

xpost

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?

So that would be the single and "Lubbock or Leave It", right? Or am I missing one?

Is "I Like It" maybe the other rocker? "Lubbock" is really the only one with a faster tempo so I'm not sure (thrilled that it mentions Athens, GA even if it's indirectly dismissive).

I hear a good bit of alt-country throughout, "Not Ready" and "Everybody Knows" both remind me at times of the Jayhawks, not surprising when Louris co-wrote the latter. "I Hope" sounds like something from one of Shelby Lynne's last couple of records, so I imagine Chuck hates it (fwiw, I don't care for it too much either though).

haven't heard the watson yet, though.

So okay, Dixie Chicks. Good album, it turns out. Almost every song (give or take the two dogs to my ears, "Lullaby" and "Easy Silence") kicks in within a couple listens; not very many albums this year (in any genre) you can say that about. My favorites are "The Long Way Around" (not about high school, but life *after* high school) and "I Like It" (Motowny pop-r&b about getting so high ON LIFE you don't ever wanna come down, take that, Axl; also the closest thing to a funky song on the album), followed I guess (though not necessarily in this order) by "Not Ready to Make Nice" (not all THAT angry or THAT much a rocker), "Lubbock or Leav It" (ditto, and inasmuch as it's a rocker it's a genre-piece rocker in the tradition of plenty of lady-sung country rock hits of recent years, with fiddles, and yeah I guess the layered vocals are kinda Fleetwood Mac), "Voice Inside My Head" (aka "The Sheryl Crow Song"), "Baby Hold On" (starts kinda so-what -- and more Shelby-like than the gospel song at the end, I'd say -- but I love the buildup to the climactic complex mesh of vocals). Beyond that (kinda like the latest Pink album, come to think of it; the best songs on that one by the way are easily "Leave Me Alone [I'm Lonely]" and "U + Ur Hand", the latter of which has Pink's most rock *and* most rap vocal; most country song on Pink's album is her sorta Janis-voiced "The One That Got Away," which is nice but'd be better if it had a hook or two), lots of completely pleasant though somewhat forgettable and often wishy-washy midtempo power ballads: "Everybody Knows" has an extremely catchy chorus, it turns out, but fairly boring verses; "Bitter End" should be called "Farewell to Old Friends" and it's just okay; "Silent House" I'm stumped by since Frank seemed intrigued by it above -- more bluegrassy, gets powerchordy, fine, but so?; "Favorite Year," not bad but so?; "So Hard," nice power-ballad buildup I guess; "I Hope," not great but also not horrible as gospel-pop goes, I honestly don't hate it as much as Josh Love predicted I would above, basically it hits me as corny and unconvincing but still lively enough, not just going through the tasteful motions of blowing smoke in the air in a cocktail bar like most recent Shelby does, but again so what? Still, a really listenable album. And mostly not a fuck you to anything.