Rolling country 2007 thread

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...or a funny title, anyway. As Tony Soprano could surely tell you, there are not nearly enough songs about panic attacks in the world. And I'm realizing that one thing that sets Little Rachel apart from the Cherry Poppin' Royal Crown Big Daddy Voodoo Nut Zippers (or even from Hot Club Of Cowtown, who I always wanted to like but who let's face it sound way too polite and reserved for their own Western swing good, even when covering Aerosmith's great "Chip Away At the Stone" for crissakes), is that I can actually imagine the Gore Gore Girls or Detroit Cobras or Texas Terri liking and identifying with Little Rachel for her big raunchy voice (which is capable of doing the sweet jazzy numbers justice as well. Sounds like she might appreciate Keely Smith or Anita O'Day as much as Big Mama Thornton.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 13:31 (nineteen years ago)

More flip-flopping on the flat-foot floozy like a floy floy!: Um, not sure what Keely/Anita-style jazz-vocal tracks I was referring to when I made that last post over 12 hours ago (during which time nobody else has posted on this increasingly lonely thread, sigh); going back tonight and listening to Little Rachel's album front to back, closest any cut comes to that is maybe "Talk To Me," and even that one doesn't quite cut it, I don't think. "Broken" and the promsingly titled "I May Be Trouble" sound more like typically who-cares Billie Holiday attempts; "Take This Love and Bury It" more like a typically who-cares finger-snappy torch attempt, though at least that one picks up a little. I don't have any more use for those cuts that I have for Amy Winehouse or k.d. lang, to be honest. And also, to be honest, some of those other retro-swingsters I named had big and maybe even raunchy voices too. Though I don't remember of any of them rocked like "Panic Attack" or "It's Always a Blonde" or the bawdy country boogie of "Bull Ridin' Mama" (or maybe even "Bartender Baby"'s saxes amidst cornball words), which is reason enough for me to keep Rachel's album, if maybe not for you to buy it.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 02:22 (nineteen years ago)

retro-swingsters I named

meaning the Cherry Poppin etc bands, not Little Rachel's other songs

I don't remember of any of them rocked

rocked = rocking

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 02:24 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, where is everyone on rollin' country '07?? frank and chuck esp. might kinda like sunny sweeney's heartbreaker's hall of fame, as her voice cuts right through, and she might be "stuck in these east texas pines" as she sings on the song of the same name, but seems to me she just about splits the diff between a cartoon voice and a real one, and she sounds as though she might actually even have a sense of humor. I like the way she underplays, and the tracks are standard-issue-plus swingin' honkytonk. really a lot better than I woulda thought. (you mention swingin' country, chuck, and seems like for ex. "next big nothing" [which is kind of like an "act naturally" rewrite] just swings so easy. in a way, this has the tone of that great elizabeth mcqueen pub-rock record of a couple years ago.) and as far as k.d. lang and all that--well, she does have one hell of a big voice. nice mood music. I like to call it all "remedial Billie" (as in Holiday, who's still just unbeatable, so sexy and sneaky). anyway, sunny is maybe my second-fave country record of the moment after dale watson's, and somewhat similar. anyway, also super-cool song selection, like keith sykes' "lavender blue" suits her fine, and she does iris dement's "mama's opry."

anyone heard the new johnny bush record, kashmere gardens mud? john morthand gives a good review in no depression.

― whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 19:31 (nineteen years ago)

Edd, didn't you see my comments about Sunny Sweeney's CD only a few posts up? I do like the album -- though not the Jim Lauderdale duet so much (dullest track on the record, I think), and I'm mixed on "Next Big Nothing."

Meanwhile: the new Martina McBride is...interesting. More soon, I bet.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 1 March 2007 01:35 (nineteen years ago)

I've been off thinking about writing "something I've always wanted to write" and pitching it to the Las Vegas Weekly, and I find myself avoiding working on it and doing time-wasting things instead because, er, maybe I'm bored with ideas of mine that I actually thought up 25 or 35 years ago and what I'm thinking about instead is Bald Britney (in regard to ideas I thought up about 25 or 35 years ago except of course not about Britney and baldness back then) and why Taylor Swift is the best singer in the world right now (which doesn't mean that she does the best music, since of course a lot more goes into that than being a great singer), just that the warm ache in her voice box is just about perfect and "Teardrops On My Guitar" may be my favorite song of hers I'm deciding even though it has a fairly normal country-pop in-one-ear-out-the-other it also has her warmest achingest ache in the verse, starts right off with "Drew says..." and a breath of warm air across her sensitive larynx, though the song seems not a hit type, I'm afraid; the natural hit as in Hit You With Impact would be "Should've Said No," but there's no radio format that it matches up with, I don't think.

Listening right now on AOL Listening Party to a stream of the Pagoda album, which is not country at all, just mentioning it so this thread doesn't feel lonesome. Nice background music (that's not its intention at all; 'tis rock; AOL says "The New York City quartet releases its self-titled debut album of grunge rock led by actor Michael Pitt's Cobain-esque vocals," which does not sound promising until one remembers that Cobain was pretty good, even if the Esques generally aren't). Melodies OK. Probably won't do any followup such as listening a second time, though it might be worth attention. Just didn't feel like listening to what Slim Thug is up to now. Good night.

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 1 March 2007 08:04 (nineteen years ago)

That's "Drew looks..." not "Drew says..."

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 1 March 2007 08:11 (nineteen years ago)

Interestingly (or probably not), "Teardrops On My Guitar" (which always just hits me as by-the-book confessional shemo-pop), is easily one of my least favorite tracks on Taylor Swift's CD, an album I otherwise like a lot.

Picked up from the free table at work this sampler from Cleopatra Records that takes six songs each from an upcoming covers album called An All-Star Tribute To Lynyrd Skynyrd and an upcoming double-disc compilation called [/i]Southern Outlaws: The Ultimate Southern Rock Collection[/i] (which will apparently also include Steve Earle, Merle Haggard, Drive By Truckers, Kentunky Headhunters, Wet Willie, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, "and more"). Two best tracks far and away on the tribute half of the sampler are the two heaviest -- Pat Travers doing "Gimme Back My Bullets" and Great White doing "Saturday Night Special," both of which I love. Outlaws and Blackfoot's LS covers are completely fogettable; "Free Bird" has boring singing from Charlie Daniels, whose voice appears to be shot, and competent guitars from Molly Hatchet; Atlanta Rhythm Section show off a suprisingly funky rhythm section on "Call Me the Breeze". On the half of the sampler from the compilation, once you get past the givens of Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and .38 Special's "Hold On Loosely" (which I'm happy to say still totally holds up), the real surprise is the Rossington Collins Band's "Don't Misunderstand Me," with their female singer -- I'd forgotten how great they sound; I've got that album by them on vinyl and should dig it out one of these days. Johnny Van Zant Band and Steve Gaines tracks are okay, I guess; Artimus Pyle track pretty much sucks.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:13 (nineteen years ago)

Still really digging the new Miranda Lambert. The last song is by Guy Clark's better half, Susanna Clark, and Emmylou Harris. Real nice. Yeah, I did see yr. Sunny Sweeney comments, Chuck, but I kinda like "Lavender Blue" with Lauderdale. They shoulda gotten her to harmonize with Charlie Louvin on his new record, she's better than Tift Merritt. Had lunch with Geoff Himes at Swett's Tuesday--old-tyme Nashville African-American meat-n-three I hadn't eaten in years, and the fried cornbread was just as good as it ever was. Anyway, he has done a piece on Louvin for somebody or another and his take was that Charlie just can't sing any more, which I don't totally agree with. He sounds like what he is, an 80-year-old man surrounded by some younger people...and George Jones and Bobby Bare, both of whom I could listen to singing the phone book. I think the Louvin record really works, as a folk record, almost like the kids singing along to "The Great Atomic Power" are just at summer camp with Uncle Charlie.

And what about the new Patty Griffin, which has gotten raves? I haven't gotten a copy; can it be as good as, say, Michael McCall says it is?

― whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 1 March 2007 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

Is Griffin really supposed to be any good? I'm pretty sure I got that, no idea where my copy is. Maybe I'll hunt through the hallway box this weekend.

Initial thoughts on the new McBride CD: After two big Adult Contemporary hits off her last real (i.e.: pre-useless all-covers kiss-up) album ("This One's For the Girls," "In My Daughters's Eyes"), she's clearly and blatantly trying to step beyond a country audience. Or at least that's how it sounds to me so far. First two songs on the new album are among her most "rock" (as in "Sheryl Crow" mainly) cuts ever; "If I Had Your Name" ("...I'd be changing it right now"), especially, packs a tough boogiefied punch, and the more Cali soft-rocked "Cry Cry (Til the Sun Shines)" has a real guitar solo and a lyric that sounds like Art Alexakis could have written it. Most of the rest of what's jumping out of the disc seems less rock but still pretty AC so far: "How I Feel" nicely radio-ready with an '80s-Police-ballad-style bassline and words that rhyme "Christmas Eve" with "standing up for what you believe," yikes; "Love Land" another spare-sounding after school special (Martina is after all the Queen of The Soccer Moms of course) where either a baby or a mom dies (or maybe not) and words that rhyme "Thomas Edison" with "modern medicine"; "House of a Thousand Dreams" probably better than those, kinda gloomy and literally about the house itself (as a metaphor for a broken home how much you wanna bet), and there's cracks in all the windows and flies come in through the screens, but Martina (or the working class mom she's pretending to be here) will find some yard-sale curtains and make some yellow trimming for the seams. All in all, as I said, I'm still trying to figure out if the album's any good. But it's probably the most interesting country album I've heard so far this year, in the sense of giving listeners like me something to sink our minds' teeth into.

― xhuxk, Friday, 2 March 2007 12:26 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, Michael McCall raved about Griffin in the N-ville Scene last week, and the reviews have generally been really favorable. I see what Chuck means about Martina; the modal "rock" twin geetars on the opener is very interesting, and that song is "harder" and more rockin' than I would've expected. I am not sure if she's convincing in this mode, but I shall see.

― whisperineddhurt, Friday, 2 March 2007 15:17 (nineteen years ago)

[linkhttp://cdbaby.com/cd/hollybeth2[/link]

There is nothing audibly country about Holly Beth Vincent's new solo album, but she recorded five tracks of it with musicians in Nashville, and she's not metal, and she hasn't been a teen in years (though, okay, Holly and the Italians were sort of from the Go-Gos/Tony Basil era which might connect them to the current Avril Lavigne single but who cares since everybody always ignores what I write on the teenpop thread anyway), so I guess this is the best place to talk about it. What's standing in my way from liking it more, strangely, is Holly's voice, which seems to have become much smaller and more quiet and held-back over the last quarter-century. The singing doesn't especially bug me, but it never really seems to grab me either, and I wish it was more in the forefront. What keeps me listening anyway is the abundant variety of lively dance-pop backing: dancehall days wang-chunging ("Behind 4 Walls"), straight-up Paula Abdul ("Sparkle," where Holly's voice sort of does an squeaky little A'Me Lorain thing inasmuch as I remember what A'Me Lorain sang like), Hombres letting it all hang out ("Arlington"), Nirvana smelling like teen spirit ("I Hate You"), smooth jazz getting lite-funky ("King of Fat"), Roxette doing whatever Roxette did (other places). It's not bad. Maybe the goal is to appeal to Gwen Stefani or Goldfrapp fans or something? But I keep wishing it was hitting me more.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 04:58 (nineteen years ago)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/hollybeth2

You know, creating links here has become a real pain in the butt.

Been listening to Tim McGraw's All I Want from 1995 tonight, too. Never liked the hit, "I Like It I Love It," very much; just always seemed really stupid or something. And not much of the rest has been hitting me -- seems like, early in Tim's career, part of him was trying to pull off a macho post-Bocephus/proto-Montgomery Gentry country-boy-can-survive thing, and he's totally unconvincing at it in tracks like "That's Just Me." Oddly though, the one song I do like a lot so far is "Renegade," convincingly tough and well-riffed biker rock. I think I prefer it to the Jay-Z/Enimem version.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 05:07 (nineteen years ago)

Okay, here's another good cut: "I Didn't Ask And She Didn't Say," "Fogged in in Dallas on my way to L.A...Does she think about the nights we spent on Crystal Lake...I wonder if she thinks about Jackson Hole..."), with a melody very nicely anticipating Tim's later sensitive suburban side, and a riff coming in from...Jackson Browne? Seger's "Against the Wind"? Something like that.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 05:27 (nineteen years ago)

So seeing how Lantana covers them on their new album I can talk about REO Speedwagon (who always had some country in their flying turkey trottage and Kevin Cronin's southern Illinois drawls, truth be told) here right? New album (REO's not Lantana's) Everyone Loves a Happy Ending has two songs I like: "Dangerous Combination," tuff Babys-style hard pop about drinking too much and thinking too much, and, more notably, the opener "Smilin' In The End," which from the hysterial hyper singing to dance-rock beat to goofy lines about "Leave me alone, I'll recover/say nasty things about my mother" and "You can beat me/mistreat me/but I'll be smiling in the end" sounds so much like the Electric Six I'm halfway convinced it's intentional. The rest isn't awful -- a vaguely pompy ballad, a closer with lyrics about the spirit guiding you that could be either born-again or new-age, and a couple cuts ("Lost On The Road Of Love," "Born To Love You") that half-palatably do a whitewashed '80s sort of Robert Palmer/Peter Gabriel/Stevie Winwood/Phil Collins/Joe Cocker fake funk thang, sometimes with soul sisters backupping. No country though, sigh.

New Jenni Rivera album Mi Vida Loca (see also: Ricky Martin, Pam Tillis), meanwhile, seems as run-of-the-mill border-pop as the new album
by her likewise formerly more hip-hoppy Fonovisa labelmate Yolanda Perez, with just two exceptions: an English language cover of "I Will Survive" more notable for its tuba-disco arrangement than for its Gaynor-clone singing, and the one track I really love, "Yo Era Su Reina/Dama Divina," which has this crazy Xuxa-playing-Dixieland-jazz'n'roll-at-the circus sound. (Maybe only the second half is the actual title; I'm not sure. Jenni has spoken parts before almost every song, which might be entertaining if I spoke Spanish, especially if they're as off-the-rocker as some of her previous CDs' liner notes, but as is there's nothing interesting about her speaking voice I can hear, and it's as irritating as the spoken parts you get on watermarked promo advance CDs.)

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

HOLY FUCK THIS MIRANDA LAMBERT ALBUM IS SO GREAT!!!!!!!

Feels like a hard rock album! "Getting Ready" might even sound more like the Screaming Blue Messiahs than "Kerosene" did (except her voice is reminding me of some old new wave cowpunkgal, I forget who). "Down" rocks even harder maybe. Damn she knows how to ride a big blues riff.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 02:34 (nineteen years ago)

A dance album too! "Dry Town," "Famous In A Small Town," "Guilty in Here"... I'm gonna go out on a limb and make my first album-of-the-year prediction of the year. Maybe not, but way up on my list, easy. I can tell.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 03:07 (nineteen years ago)

Holly Beth Vincent rhymes "Paris" with "bare ass" (unfortunately referring to the city not the reality TV star who made my second-favorite album of 2006), though does it several times too often thereby cutting the impact. Pretty good songwriting, on about half the songs really needs deep Gary Numan synths rather than guitars.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 4 March 2007 04:18 (nineteen years ago)

Last year I heard a few early '00s tracks from Patty Griffin that sounded like adult teenpop, i.e. good; borrowed a more recent album from the library that sounded like adult blahpop and garnered much praise for her being one of the great living songwriters of all time or something. Jessica said in the liner notes to A Public Affair that she and Ashlee spent Xmas 2005 holding each other and crying and listening to Patty Griffin. (Speaking of Jessica, the alb was better than I'd initially thought, though still a very mixed bag in mood, quality, etc. Nothing else as sunny as the title track, but there was a good early '90s-styled r'n'r ballad, a good early '90s-styled dance track, an interesting attempt to be experimental while doing some godawful mugging that I would have taken to be a parody of "sexiness" but is an interesting combo of country and Ohio Players nonetheless (though not nearly as good as her '05 combo of country and clave), some blah MOR, a slamming Scott Storch track that's not up to some of his even more slamming tracks for other people. Etc.)

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 4 March 2007 04:28 (nineteen years ago)

Singles hmmm: Montgomery Gentry's "Lucky Guy" (with unerring taste, Columbia chooses worst song on alb for new single) (though even second-rate MG is good), Little Big Town's "A Little More You" (second worst song on LBT album, which has been around for at least 16 months, seems to me), Eric Church's "Guys Like Me" (middling track from his alb; a honey wi' class falls for a nigga from tha hood, or something), Trace Adkins "Ladies Love Country Boys" (a honey wi' class falls for a nigga from tha hood, or something) (shrug). Miranda Lambert says on her Webpage that her next single's supposed to be "Famous In A Small Town," coming soon but it's not up on her MySpace yet and I haven't heard it, and she says record company weirdness has been making things uncertain. (Album's due May 1.) Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" is a good bit of Southernicated Cougarish pop-rock (lady wi' class falls for nigga w/ ass, or something; melody reminds me of "I Fought The Law" and "Two Pink Lines"), getting mixed comment on this thread but I like it and according to Mediabase it's the song with the biggest country airplay jump over the the last seven days.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 4 March 2007 07:35 (nineteen years ago)

"the alb was better than I'd thought" = The Jessica Simpson alb, not the Patty Griffin alb

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 4 March 2007 07:37 (nineteen years ago)

Chris Young's new single is allegedly "You're Gonna Love Me," which as I recall (though I should go back and spin it when I have a chance) is one of the worst songs on his album, which just took the biggest leap on the country album chart, if I'm remembering this week's Billboard, after a guest spot on his old home Nashville Star. Rodney Atkins's new single is allegedly "These Are My People," which I like despite its stupid cliches about Sutthern people who live off the land or whatever the hell it is they do.

Another new favorite off Miranda's album (I'm up to at least six songs I love out of 11 so far, just from playing it in the background and not really paying attention, which is impossible, since the songs all reach out and grab me by the throat even if I'm not paying attention like no songs by anybody I've heard in months): "Gunpowder & Lead," What little girls are made of.

Worst song on MG's album was not "Lucky Man." It was "If You Wanna Keep an Angel." Now I should hunt for "High Maintenance Woman" again.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

Holly Beth Vincent.... Pretty good songwriting

How can you tell, Frank? Seems to me she barely opens her mouth. I don't think any words grabbed me. Though I wasn't listening with headphones.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

Ha ha, the high maintenance woman don't need no maintenance man, funny song! And rocking, too. Finally an anthem for Schneider on "One Day At A Time" (plus, the best song about being a stalker since, um, the last one.)

And who am I foolin', I like the lyrics to "These Are My People." And I'm not sure why I'm calling them stupid cliches, since I can't remember any songs that mentioned junior college and church league softball before. Plus I love that it names three great Skynyrd songs. And "the kids that thought they'd run this town/ain't a runnin' much of anything" has some sad truth in it.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

so, is Rodney Atkins' "These Are My People" a companion piece to Randy Newman's "My Country" on Bad Love? I think I'm interviewing Atkins next week sometime for a profile I'm doing. I don't recall being impressed either way with his stuff, and I just got the Going Through Hell CD. He's from East Tennessee and I like the way he wears his white t-shirt on the CD cover. Gotta listen to it tomorrow.
Occurs to me that a song like Tim McGraw's "Two Dollars" trivializes poverty even more than does many another country song about being free and footloose and poor. In fact I find it offensive and a really bad song. Or perhaps it is because I saw the video again today while channel-flipping and then directly saw Barbara Ehrenreich (sp?), author of Nickel and Dimed, being quietly eloquent about the plight of working Americans, on C-Span.

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 4 March 2007 23:11 (nineteen years ago)

and, got the Gary Allan best-of. Good selection--"Nothing on but the Radio" is sure a great song. But the new one that's bait and leads it off is pretty terrible, I think, hardly up to Allan's usual high standard.
thought I'd mention, too, that David Cantwell makes an interesting and well-written case for Dwight Yoakam being the artist who really got rock fans and other folks skeptical about country back into the genre, in his essay in the current No Depression. There's also a thing by a guy named Hurt on Bobby Braddock's newly published memoir in the same issue, in case anyone's innerested.

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 4 March 2007 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

Xhuxk, xcept for the Paris-bare-ass thing I didn't pay attention to Holly's words, but thought the melodies weren't bad at all. Don't think any stuck out as great, however.

― Frank Kogan, Monday, 5 March 2007 04:57 (nineteen years ago)

Still really digging the new Miranda Lambert. The last song is by Guy Clark's better half, Susanna Clark, and Emmylou Harris. Real nice.

One of the less lively tracks on the record (which is the liveliest record I've heard in ages, so figure that into the equation), I think -- which is to say one of four ballads: "Love Letters," "Desperation," "More Like Her" (actually, is that one a ballad? I'm not sure how it sounds, come to think of it), "Easy From Now On." The seven rockers kick ass; the slow ones are taking longer to kick in. Though that may have more to do with me than with Miranda.

― xhuxk, Monday, 5 March 2007 12:57 (nineteen years ago)

xhuxk, you convinced me to check Miranda Lambert's myspace, and some of what I heard there (especially "Crazy Ex Girlfriend") has me pretty interested. Great strong singer, and I think I like the lyrics as well. (I don't read this thread, but I skim it.)

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 05:00 (nineteen years ago)

Also, her new dog is really cute.

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 05:04 (nineteen years ago)

Since there's no rolling sexy rock chicks thread, I thought I'd mention Little Birdy here. (http://www.myspace.com/littlebirdy) Lead singer Katy Steele's a deep-voiced hottie much like Christina Amphlett or Leanne Kingwell; on the single "Bodies" the band revs up the guitars, of course, but also sprinkles her with new wavy blips and sine-wavy waves.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 00:42 (nineteen years ago)

Don't like their other three mice pace songs nearly as much, however.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 00:49 (nineteen years ago)

just heard sunny sweeney's album all the way through for the first time today. it sounds soooo 1980s new traditionalist and/but i love it. "next big nothing," which is part buck owens rewrite as edd notes above but also part merle haggard rewrite (chorus melody's pretty close to "okie from muskogee") is pretty much perfect, from the swinging beat to the neat little electric gtr solo to the lyric that's so obvious that someone should have written it 25 years ago except that no one did. i'm fascinated by the line "you won't see my name on mtv," which seems a strange thing for a new-trad honky-tonk singer to be singing. shouldn't it be "you won't see my name on cmt"? or is mtv just a better brand name for general songwriting purposes?

"refresh my memory" has a nice, gentle honky-tonk swing to it too.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 05:43 (nineteen years ago)

Travis Trtt on American Idol last night announcing that Randy Jackson is producing his new album.

― mulla atari, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:10 (nineteen years ago)

Just blindsided by a blindfold test over on Poptimists that included the band Oi Va Voi, a Jewish gypsyish Spanishish klezmerish group from London w/ a familiar-sounding lead singer I couldn't identify: thought it might have been Amy Winehouse, turned out to be KT Tunstall, which means Oi Va Voi are relevant to rolling country, which is the first place I ever heard KT discussed. New alb due in April, sans KT, of course. Way prefer this to her subsequent stuff.

http://www.myspace.com/oivavoi

Recommend you scroll down to "Ladino Song."

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 8 March 2007 19:51 (nineteen years ago)

Don't know what screwed up the Little Birdy link (is there some Mod policy against us linking to MySpace? I haven't been checking the Mod thread)

I'll try again:

http://www.myspace.com/littlebirdy (or you can just paste it into the address box).

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 8 March 2007 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

metal threaded first:

Mississippi Mudsharks: Clutzy stodgy muscleman boogie, aiming for "Train Kept A Rollin" (album is called Train Rolls On!) but never quite getting there, though once in a while the clumsy wrestler voice singer inches toward Jim "Dandy" Mangrum territory, and "30 Weight Shuffle" has a decent blues guitar jam at the end. ("Down the Line," hefty guitar-grime instrumental on now, is not bad either, come to think of it.) Only song I really like a lot so far, though, is the Link Wrayed ghoulabilly of "Devil's Road." But we'll see.

Their myspace page:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=158493480

not metal threaded yet:

Also been trying to listen to Two-Car Garage, whose previous album I started to like at first and then it wound up disappointing me. Roy Kasten is a fan, I think he told me. Anyway, so far my response to their new Three is "sounds like the Drive By Truckers, but not as good as when I used to like that band" ("Arson") or else "sounds like the Bottle Rockets. who were never all that great in the first place" ("The Great Gravitron Massacre"). But I like the Dixielandy boppery if not the Waitsy grunting so much in "Epitaph," and "Come Back To Shelby," I think it is, seems to partake in a certain '80s Whiskey A Go Go hard rock influence. (Paste magazine apparently even heard some Quiet Riot in their music, though I wouldn't go that far, not that I've ever been a huge Quiet Riot fan anyway.) So we'll see again.

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:26 (nineteen years ago)

Oops, Two COW Garage, and Roy actually mentions them above, likening the album to Springsteen, which I'm not hearing yet, and also commending their loud guitars, which don't strike me as all that loud yet. I also don't think they sound especially "garage," though that may well not be the point.

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:32 (nineteen years ago)

Ha ha, I made the same mistake with their name a year and a half ago!

Also finally played Two Car Garage's *The Wall Against Our Back,* which I think has been sitting on a shelf in my office for a year, yesterday, and found out these Columbus, Ohio dudes (three of 'em) sound more like the Drive By Truckers than even the Drive By Truckers do these days. I had no idea. Press sheet says they cover Bad Company and Billy Joe Shaver live, as well. How come I never heard of them?
xhuxk on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 10:16 AM (1 year ago)

Oops, I mean Two COW Garage. (There's a difference. They say people call Columbus a Cowtown, but they neglect to mention that it's also a College Town.) (Though I bet nobody in Ann Arbor would see it as one.)
xhuxk on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 10:18 AM (1 year ago)

Actually, the two really good songs on the Two Cow Garage CD (also the two most Drive By Truckerlike) appear to be "Make It Out Alive" and "Alphabet City." Some of the rest is probably at least worthy of post-*Fervor* Jason and the Scorchers; some of it's alt-country bleh. They end with a Beatles cover just like Kentucky Headhunters did this year, and their "Don't Let Me Down" (oops ***on promo copy only it says here) rocks OK, just not as hard as the Headhunters' "I'm Down."
xhuxk on Thursday, November 3, 2005 12:50 PM (1 year ago)

But I thought you dint like Drive-By Scorchers? My grandfather had a one-cow, one-family-of-packrats garage. Coulda been a two-cow. (It was a generational townbillies thing, and a Depression thing). But where would they have put their *stuff*?
don on Thursday, November 3, 2005 1:16 PM (1 year ago)

> I thought you dint like Drive-By Scorchers?<
I just don't like the NPR-country balladeers they've turned *into,* Don (plus live they're way too much Replacements and not enough Skynyrd); I still love *Southern Rock Opera,* and I like the one after that and the ones before -- only CD I really didn't like was their most recent one. And come to think of it I guess a lot of the less rocking Two Cow Garage tracks may well sound like that one, hmmmm; the two BEST Two Cow cuts are more Southern-Rock-Operatic.
xhuxk on Thursday, November 3, 2005 1:29 PM (1 year ago)

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:38 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, last 2 tracks on new album = Drive-By TRUDGErs. Which is part of the problem. Though the guitars are okay in a Neil Young kind of way.

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:49 (nineteen years ago)

Mississippi Mudsharks' "Throw It In The Hole" = more ZZ Top (hence better).

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:53 (nineteen years ago)

metal threaded again:

Mississippi Musharks, on the other hand, have really grown on me--more for the guitars than for the songs, yet the grumbling does have plenty of haw-haw-haw-haw-haw in it. More Billy Gibbons than Jim Dandy or Tom Waits.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:22 (nineteen years ago)

So basically, what I decided about the new Two Cow Garage is they mostly split the difference between how Driveby Truckers sounded after I stopped caring about Driveby Truckers and how the Replacements sounded after I stopped caring about the Replacements. Too-plain singer; no noticeable rhythm section; too drowsy in general. Okay Crazy Horse guitar endings. There may well be songs in there (some of the titles do show potential), but I'm not otherwise inspired to dig further and find out. "Camaro"'s chorus sounds like Fleetwood Mac's "Second Hand News" with the life taken out.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

Gotta say that Drakkar Sauna have not really lived up to what Don and Frank have said about them, either. After I've spent too much time with all three albums, they still usually hit me as a joke band without the jokes, and the alleged beauty of the harmonies doesn't generally grab me either; really, I guess it's the old folkie problem of I wish there was more music in their music, beyond the harmonies: I keep wishing they sounded more like The Scene Is Now, though I'm not sure I can pinpoint what I mean by that, exactly, though it probably has something to do with needing more rhythm. I've been liking their latest CD Jabraham Lincoln more than the first two because at least now they seem to be stretching out and droning repetitiously more (in "Mongrel of a Halfman Slave Bitch" and "Abandon Love," for instance, and maybe "Teach Me Your Legs" which has a middle-eastern tinge to it that somehow reminds me of '60s folk-psychers Kaleidoscope who I haven't listened to in forever so I'm probably wrong), so hopefully they're improving. And "There's Not Enough Tits On A Wolf" is kind of cute, I suppose. (I wonder if wolf cubs ever agree with them about that.)

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

Big & Rich's "Lost In This Moment" strikes me as a very good single, though it's rather straight-ahead for a Big & Rich single, isn't it. It's basically just a fairly normal country ballad, though I like the melody. But with none of the clever R&B/funk production or phrasing aspects that marked their first album. Is this relatively typical of the material on their second album (which I've still never heard)? Anyways, it's still one of the best new country singles I've heard so far.

Unrelated, "High Maintenance Woman" is no disappointment at all. I think it's one of the best singles Toby's ever put out (hmm, "As Good As I Once Was", "I Love This Bar", et al.) I actually think I like it better than any of the songs on White Trash With Money.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 10 March 2007 19:00 (nineteen years ago)

Also Miranda Lambert (whose album I just pre-ordered) is supporting Toby Keith on a tour later on this fall, which seems like a must see (or at least 3 dates are scheduled already). Toby Keith is enough of a force of nature that he seems like somebody you'd just have to see live at least once, and Miranda of course has so many great songs.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 10 March 2007 19:12 (nineteen years ago)

"Lost In The Moment" (which I still haven't heard) is slated for B&R's third album, not their second (which had the similarly titled "Caught Up In The Moment," as I pointed out up above). Second album was not nearly as free-wheeling as their debut (no rapping, for instance), but was also far from generic pop-country fare. (Go back to the 2005 rolling thread; there's lots about it on there). I've heard some intriguing things about their imminent third (due out June 5), but for work reasons I can't discuss them yet (though the likely "You Shook Me All Night Long" cover is already public knowledge.)

I'd say more or less half of Toby's album last year is better than "High Maintenance Woman," but I like the song too, so I'm not going to quibble.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 19:48 (nineteen years ago)

xhuxk, I apparently feel the same way about White Trash With Money as you feel about Jordan Pruitt's album: I liked, but didn't love, every track on the album.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

From metal thread, though I'm not sure why:

New Ian Hunter CD on Yep Roc appears to be about 95 percent hookless ballads. This is no doubt an optical illusion, but I still doubt I like it much.
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Actually, the jazzy country backing on track #10 of the Hunter CD has some life to it, at least until he starts singing about not being who he was when he was young, as if we couldn't tell. And a couple songs start out ripping off mid '60s Dylan okay. And it's not like he didn't have an aptitude for great ballads once upon a time. And Brain Capers was a zillion years ago; I really don't expect any metal out of the guy. But he just sounds tired on this thing, like just another singer-songwriter. So yeah, I see why it's on Yep Roc.

(Actually there is some life to Ian's vocal delivery in the Ain't What I Used To Be When I Was Young song; having a rhythm behind him lets him ride it. He was always a pretty good rapper. But not even that song sticks.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 00:51 (nineteen years ago)

(Said "mid '60s Dylan" stuff, incidentally = harmonicas, pretty much) (or okay, his band pretending like they're going to start playing "Like A Rolling Stone" once or twice. And one time they pretend like they're going to start playing "Walk on the Wild Side," sort of. But then Ian lets everybody down.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 01:00 (nineteen years ago)

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