Rolling Country 2009 Thread

Whisperin' Edd wrote mighty fine liner notes for two worthy, oft remarkable Caroline Peyton reissues (I prefer the earlier one, which even smoothly melds proto-mainstream balladry with even earlier psych pastoral excursions; the second is eminiently qualified resume rock. Chekum both) He reports on a recent show(with Clem Snide!), and links to a concise but more detailed run-down:

...she played Basement last nite and evoked Linda Thompson on Bo
Diddley-modal "White Teeth", Joni on "Gone for a Day" and rocked
"Fishin' Blues." she's still got it.
story:
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=66332

--at least one song from the *high school musical* OST, "breaking free", sounds as much like a pop-country power ballad to me as a teen-pop power ballad (isn't that one of the big download hits? i think so, since it's one of two tracks with a "karaoke instrumental" version at the end of the CD. and come to think of it, the instumental - which i I kind of like; when I first heard it, it was in my random CD changer, and I guessed it was by either tea leaf green or the tossers! -- sounds somewhat rural or pastoral or whatever as well.) the non-karaoke rendition is said to be sung by leading man troy + leading lady gabrielle.
--Xhuxk, February 20, 2006

Birdie Bush seems more interesting to me (than do Pinmonkey). I need to take her home and put her in my CD changer with the new album by Espers, and figure out which (if any) has more Fairport Convention pastoral gorgeousness. (They're both from Philly, right? Where phreak pholk lives, I guess.)
--Xhuxk, February 23, 2006

On Wildflower, her latest album, Sheryl's mostly going for meadows and brooks and Hallmark Cards pastorale, albeit vaguely about relationships and feelings rather than about actual flowers. Occasionally achieves the misty beauty she's trying for, but not often. I miss the great codependent holes she used to dig herself into and then try to blast out of, "The Difficult Kind" and "My Favorite Mistake." I'm right now listening to her new track, "Try Not To Remember," for the first time, and it's one of the better things I've heard from her recently, also the most teenpop (sounds a bit like "Behind These Hazel Eyes" in the chorus, just like Chuck's least favorite song on the Taylor Swift), though it's arrangement is more womby-tweepop like Jewel or McLachlan, and it slowly bleeds to death at the end.
--Frank Kogan, January 22, 2007

(Daniel Lee) Martin's more the rugged outdoorsman, apparently, but I really like the rocker about the girl born into a family whose business is moonshine, and the outdoorsy anthem about why tall buildings in cities are why God made rivers, and the song about it depends which way you look at it with the dark hard opening riff that reminds me that Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" was pretty dark and rocking song, and the pastoral introduction to the John Denver cover which I haven't otherwise listened to yet.

The guy whose imminent album I'm surprised to determine is geared largely to women (though he probably always had a certain beefcake appeal about him, and I can see why he might decide to emphasize that in the Trace Adkins era) is Travis Tritt. Most audacious cut on The Storm (an album which by the way I believe Randy Jackson is said to have played a major role on) is "Rub Off On Me," borderline porn-for-housewives that I swear might as well really be called "Rub One Out On Me," since that's what it seems to me about; that parody boy band from a few years ago 2Gether would be very impressed. It's this sort of slow funk bump-and-grinder (funkier than the also soul-sistered funk-flirting single "You Never Take Me Dancing," to my ears) where Travis tells this woman to get it off her chest, and at the end the music just drops out for a while to a spare beat and r&b singers repeatedly chanting the title over and over again -- takes its time finishing, in other words. The other songs I really like on the album are the Skynyrd/CDB-style swing-funk two-step (which namedrops "Gimme Three Steps") "High Time For Gettin' Down," plus somewhere between two and four slow intense Southern rock bluesers: cheating in the next room song "The Pressure Is On" (which opens with a pastoral Led Zeppelin lick); kicked out of the house song (his clothes are thrown all over the room and his credit cards are gone and so is she and his wallet's in the yard) "Should've Listened" (but instead like he learned from his Daddy everything she said went in one ear and out the other and now he's paying for it), and maybe "The Storm" and "Somehow, Somewhere, Someway." "Something Stronger Than Me" (= Jesus or liquor) is an okay gospely thing; "Doesn't The Good Outweight The Bad" is a boogie kept fairly light with some tra-la-las, and most of the rest (the stuff that doesn't grab me) is sentimental stuff for the ladies. But all in all, better than I expected.
--Xhuxk, July 22, 2007

The Daniel Lee Martin passage was also by Xhuxk, March 31, 2007.

Also spent a lot of time this week listening to the intricate pastoral acoustic Scandinavian Celtic chamber jig prog bluegrass mandolin nyckelharp violin 12-string and so on folk of Mike Marshall & Darol Anger's With Vasen (imagine umlaut over the "a" in Vasen.) From Sweden, I thought from the CD package, but their myspaces place them in California, which I will try not to hold against them even it decreases their mysteriousness factor. I think I tend to like them better in jig mode (i.e., "Yew Piney Mt") than Penguin Cafe Orchestra mode (i.e, "Misch Masch"), but both sound good. "Os Pintinhos" (which appears to have tango parts, or something) is defintely another favorite of mine
--Xhuxk, September 22, 2007

Xhuxx, New Bloods' music instantly took me run skip hop dub through the big bad woods with these somewhat gunpowdery little red riding hoods, but woods, like folk, pastoral tec don't nec.=country, they seem a little too urban, in the sense of "I know trouble when I see it three blocks away, cross the street [or the creek] almost without thinking"--not making as big a deal of it, in bravura and/or brooding a way as country tends too--not that some big ceety types don't make a big deal too, but either way goes with urban (New Bloods do take note of shadows etc but they're used to it, wothout getting that mountain-fatalistic about it, or maybe I'm distracted by the music, but that's part of the non-country feel)(but I'll listen some more)
--Dow, November 13, 2008

New Miley Cyrus single, "The Climb," has a "country mix" that is microscopically different from this one, will be officially released to the country market on March 9. The differences I could hear are a bit of steel guitar and less guitar crunch. Produced by John Shanks, written by Jessi Alexander, Jon Mabe. Miley and the rest of them do a good job, and I don't mind listening to it, though sky-reaching power ballads aren't really my kind of song.

And then there's the "Miley Cyrus Hoedown Throwdown," Miley seeing if she can be Cowboy Troy and also create her own Crank That Soulja Boy type dance, doesn't make it. Where is Ludacris when you really need him?

I'm glad to see how often and well we did use that word, and I still need to check out that Travis Tritt album. Mike Marshall were in the David Grisman Quintet thirty years ago, playing music that changed some of my friends' lives,starting with their careers; later they were bands like Psychograss and the Modern Mandolin Quintet, maybe the Turtle Island String Quartet too, and many things since, playing glorious Americana chamber music with some doors cut into and windows kicked out of the chamber, all going back to what Grisman always called dawg music. Just saw a re-run of the Saturday Night Live with Taylor Swift doing her prince and princess song. The band didn't showboat, but the song,judging by basic practicalities of guitar-friendly framework supporting innocuously hott daydreams of words and tune, seemed most effective insofar as it was designed for the ace musos' pleasantly muscular delivery (incl. their discreet backup vocals). But she's a good hostess, not unlike the singers who basically presented big bands, and it's the total effect that counts.

Mike Marshall and Darryl Anger were in the David Grisman Quintet, I meant (and I might have a very dif opinion of the studio version of Taylor's song, but it doesn't seem like the song itself as much potential, however much the singer may have)

Looks like the No Depression website is ending its editorial functions--which I guess means no more feature articles or reviews. Now it will just house blogs and a message board.

Darol Anger

So what inspired you to search "pastoral", Frank? (Not that there needs to be a particular reason, obviously. But if there was one, I missed it.)

Chart action: "Shuttin' Down Detroit" up 21-->18; "High Cost Of Living" up 46-->43; Randy Houser "Boots On" debuts at 59.

And for what it's worth, I now live in Texas. (Though not actually in Austin until the end of this week, when my boxes arrive, hopefully intact.)

Pardon me for askin', how and why Texas? Although you've picked the only place, Austin, that makes any sense.

Lalena grew up in Houston before spending the past 14 years in NYC, and her parents are still there; we both like Austin, where she did her undergrad. (And the would-be hippies can't be any less tolerable than they were in Ann Arbor, right?) I'm also fond of armadillos, barbecue, and Friday Night Lights (not that I'd have any interest in living the latter). Lower cost of living and warmer weather than NYC help too (plus, not being New Yorkers, we were both way beyond burnt out on being there.) Also doesn't hurt that OK music comes from here sometimes.

Don't think I've listened to either Birdie Bush or
Marshall & Anger since I called them pastoral above.

My football watching friend's a Texan. He lived in Austin for many years, obviously liked it quite a lot. Hook 'em 'Horns every Saturday in the fall.

Holy shit, Caroline Peyton reissues! Edd Hurt liner notes! Something for MX-80 Sound obsessives to lust over...

yeah, Chris Stigliano writes about the MX-80 connection here (scroll down the post):

http://black2com.blogspot.com/2009/02/dont-jump-call-to-mass-suicide-has-been.html

Frank used the word "pastoral" for what feels like the first time on Rolling Country threads, and I shall use it once more, in the following show preview
--Dow, February 24, 2009

Don't know if Don thought it was just my first use or rolling country's first use, but decided to check both.

That makes sense. Anyway, that Miley "Hoedown Throwdown" hick-hop thing is clearly not pastoral. But I also don't see how it sounds remotely like Cowboy Troy, and nor do I get how I Ludacris could have made it better. It reminds me more of some proto-Rednex early '80s British new wave novelty I can't place -- Hasysi Fantayzee or Wide Boy Awake or somebody like that. Maybe Scott Seward could figure it out. And "boom boom clap boom de clap de clap" is a catchy chorus. I kind of like it, maybe needless to say, but it could maybe afford to be longer, more fleshed out with goofy Euro-beats or something. (Not sure if this is the full version, or just a teaser. A minute and a half seems kinda short for a single, especially a line dance aimed at wedding receptions.)

(Also could obviously use at least one fiddle solo.)

And could use some hoe jokes, courtesy Ludacris.

(Cowboy Troy in that it's hick-hop, not that she's going close to his old school mannerisms.)

Do Da Stanky Legg: Not country, but state of the art for silly Internet dances, and like Xhuxk, they're Texan.

yeah, Stigliano gets it about right: Bloomington was "Berkeley west," at least on Peyton's Mock Up (the deleted track, "Lor el iii," is kinda fun but ultimately just another jam). MX-80, well I mean I just listened to one of their live cuts on this obscure Bloomington sampler on Bar-B-Q Records and er, they were Beefheart (therefore, L.A. east) but of course Pere Ubu came along and upped the ante on that.

"Berkeley east" that is.

and obviously, Bloomington was proto-indie scene similar to what was happening around Stax Records in Memphis, with Terry Manning, Chris Bell, Alex Chilton and Jim Dickinson all interacting. with Mark Bingham, who was the guy making a lot of the interesting stuff happen, it was about getting these jazz players from the Indiana U. music school and putting them with folkies, as Mock Up does. I did like MX-80's We're an American Band (is that right?), the song about the French was good.

Missing link between the mid '70s-to-early '80s Southern Indiana indie-rock (Indy rock?) scene and contemporary country would obviously be one Johnny Cougar of Seymour, Indiana (who actually wrote a pretty hilarious early review of MX-80 Sound at the Bloomington Public Library I've got stuck in a file cabinet somewhere; basically, he argued that kind of music didn't work for Beefheart, either.) I have more use for MX-80 more than the Coug and maybe Edd (if not Myonga or Stigliano) do, though -- which is to say, probably more use than I have for Beefheart (who didn't come close to MX-80's sense of metal) if not as much as I have for early Ubu (way way way more than I have for late Ubu, though.) And I'm also a longtime fan of lots of subsequent Bloomington and Indy bands -- Dancing Cigarettes, Gizmos, Panics, Jetsons, Zero Boys (the latter of whom's often very hooky Vicious Circle has just been reissued on Secretly Canadian.) Also, Red Snerts was an excellent early '80s Southern Indiana comp, fwiw. Probably my favorite provincial early '80s/hardcore-era punk scene, give or take the one in Vancouver.

As for the "Stanky Legg" rap song Frank mentioned, it actually grazed the bottom of the r&b/hip-hop chart last fall, at which time I wrote the following writeup for Idolator that never got published, as I recall, because it was when they refigured my "Next Little Things" column before completely shelving it:

G-SPOT BOYZ

This has been an excellent October for north Texas rap groups doing silly dance songs. Two weeks ago I celebrated “Do The Ricky Bobby” by Dallas/Ft. Worth’s B-Hamp, and now Arlington’s G-Spot Boyz have entered the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 95 then jumped up to No. 82 this week with “Stanky Legg,” which involves extending one lower appendage and then the other out as far as possible, thereby accentuating their utter stankiness. Judging from the song’s video, it helps to do said dance while wearing plaid Bermuda shorts, and it’s also possible while ghost-riding the whip. “I don’t chicken noodle soup,” one G-Spot Boy warns at one point; I’m not sure, though, what “Stick your leg out Doug E. Fresh and drop it low” means. Homemade viral videos are of course encouraged. One by a teacher already exists, as does one in which a girl named Kyesha demonstrates the dance to her dad and kid sister.

I'd copy the youtube links, but who knows if they still work. Anyway, seems the song is finally taking off, now under the more radio-friendly group name GS Boyz. Heard it in a rentavan two weeks ago while driving from NY to Bucks County (to pick up aforementioned boxes full of mix cassetes from storage, among other things); I liked it more than "I Love College" by Asher Roth (which may or may not be completely horrible), but not as much as "Day 'N Nite" by Kid Cudi or "Heat Rocks" by Raekwon (probably my favorite rap single of '09 so far - basically, a retooling of Grandmaster Flash's rarely heard "Flash To The Beat.") (None of which has much, if anything, to do with country music, obviously. But hey, Frank brought it up, not me.)

new Bela Fleck semi-successfully unites west African/bluegrass banjo, goes on too long probably. after listening to The Music in My Head, Bela, forgeddabout it.

I do like what MX-80 were getting at, and right, Mark Hood's Echo Park studio is where I guess John Cougar got started up there in Bloomington. The sampler I mentioned is a fairly good representation of the Bloomington scene circa, looks like about 1975--experimental thrash from MX-80, country-soul-folk from Bob Lucas, and a fairly amazing sorta early funk-electro-disco track by Caroline Peyton and Mark Bingham, "Lay in Your Groove," which is a bridge between the midwestern avant-funk that I guess bands like the MC5 paid homage to--hard funk with a nasty edge--and the stuff that was coming up. "Party Line," the club-disco cut on Peyton's '77 Intution, is similar. And Peyton probably could have made some kind of career out of being an avant-jazz screamer, on the evidence of "Lay in Your Groove" she could make some pretty unearthly sounds and that record really takes off in the run-off when it's kinda like Energy Music. But yeah, sometimes Intution strikes me as an Asylum Records thing, right down to the somewhat ropey blues cut "Donkey Blues" and the hair-gelled "Still with You," which is perfectly listenable, even elegantly done, country-rock. I mean it's possible these people could've been as big as Quarterflash had they had a more banal and all-American moneygrubbing collective soul, so it's a record that somehow or another sums up Certain Tendencies in Pop Circa 1977 but doesn't manage to be as compelling as it almost is...

Speaking of Peyton's excursions, I mentioned above the inclusion of Screaming Gypsy Bandits tracks on one of the new reissues; please encourage her to get the whole SGB out, Edd, though I know it's not just her say-so. Also please post a link here to yr Isbell piece, sorry if you already emailed it to me, I've been swamped lately (still gotta check xhuxx's blog post too) Here's my two cents-and it really is two, given the show preview word limit (may try to do more later, there's def more to be done)
The Drive-By Truckers’ Jason Isbell went solo with “Sirens of the Ditch,” where poignant, sometimes tragicomic situations rolled through gravelly grooves. On “Jason Isbell and the 440,” Isbell’s road-tested band drives further into the cloudy electric horizons of “Sirens,” still piloting by the lights of homely detail. Isbell’s restless people are even more stoned on soulful memories (“She’s down deep in me still/Rolled up like a twenty dollar bill”), but the music knows the way. “Maybe I’ll flag down a car/I’m not going too far/And I’ve got cash.” Good plan! Welcome to the South, xhuxx...

Speaking of Bucks County, turns out frat-party-loving Asher Roth is actually from there -- Morrisville, to be precise. Not that that really gives Morrisville anything to brag about. Though then again, I figured Eminem and Beck as corny one-hit novelty wonders when I heard their first radio hits, too. But Roth's hit reminds me niche-wise more of earlier suburban (or at least surburban-like) Philly twerps like Dead Milkmen, Atom & His Package, the Hooters -- except a more "hip hop" version, theoretically. (Though I swear, when I heard "I Love College" on the radio, I couldn't figure out if he was trying to rap, or just talk, or what.)

Favorite song on Jason Aldean's album may well be the Top 20 country hit "She's Country," which unless I've forgotten something obvious has the most AC/DC ('80s-AC/DC, but still) guitar riffs ever in a country hit -- almost as much a "Back In Black" sample as the Beastie Boys' "Rock Hard" 24 years ago. Which is kinda wacky given that the song is about being "country" (not unlike "Country Star," one of the most rock songs on Pat Green's new album.)

Strangely, given what Caramanica wrote about a Jake Owen track last week, I compared the guitar riff in Aldean's "Hicktown" to Black Sabbath on Rolling Country a few years ago. Later retracted that somewhat; decided I'd hyperbolized a little. Still think that Aldean's biggest distinction may be the use of occasional rock riffs that feel more "heavy" than "hard." Though you could now say the same about the guitars in Eric Church's "Smoke A Little Smoke" -- interesting, since Eric Church apparently doesn't like Aldean much. Or at least he pretends not to.

(Actually, Montgomery Gentry got a somewhat blatant AC/DC rip onto country radio a few years ago, come to think of it -- "Hell Yeah," I think it was? But Aldean's, if you hear it, is way more blatant. Which isn't to claim it's as good a song.)

Aldean's rock stuff really seems to come from Bad Company, Shooting Star and the often submediocre rock stuff after that. I can totally hear him doing "Young Blood." It's just slightly below mid-tempo with the thud-whack simpleton thump of Simon Kirke, the Brit drummer most successful at entirely eliminating fun shuffles from BC's version of blooz rock. That sort of style really plays to the jutting man of action thing that Aldean peddles.

xp "She's Country" is also the first country hit I know of ever to quote "She's a Bad Mamma Jamma" by Carl Carlton.

Also blatant so far this year:

Guitars in Pat Green's "Let Me" = "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts
Melody of Dierks Bentley's "Better Believer" = "Photograph" by Ringo Starr

"suburban" was thinking, on my way over here, that all the power pop I like could be considered boondocks: the Shoes (Zion, Illinois); Dwight Twilley (somewhere in Oklahoma); Big Star (Memphis, which was scruffy as hail back then, and they took their name from that of a not-so-super supermarket, at least it wasn't super back then, but right across from the studio parking lot); Tommy Keene (somewhere in Mississippi); Sneakers/dbs (mostly from Winston-Salem, mostly R.J.Reynolds High, Class of '75 There were exceptions of course(Todd Rungren was from Philly or Pittsburg; Harry Nelson/Nilsson was from L.A, I guess, though might have been from a bad neighborhood like Beck) Isolation and wishful thinking=fewer distractions/options, more motivation (of a sort/specialized arc)(like where are they all now, but you could say that about most people)But countrywise, some of today's top Nashville Cats, like Pat Buchanan, were power popsters early on.

Most cringe-worthy current hit I'm hearing on country radio in Texas so far: "I Wish" by female-fronted Christian-pop veterans Point of Grace, now crossing over to country (unless they crossed over previously and I was lucky enough not to notice):

I wish there was a cure for cancer
I wish somebody had an answer
And all God's children never got hurt
I wish Eve never bit that apple
Young men never went to battle
And I didn't get so mad at the world
I wish I was more like Jesus
And could pick up all the pieces
And make a better life for my baby girl

"I wish I was more like Jesus and could pick all the pieces": Yeah, "more like" should help me do that. I second QuantumNoise, if that's who it was saying Joan Baez was actually pretty good sometimes when in a country mode or mood, like in the 60s with "I Still Miss Someone"(except when she went too high on its bridge), "When You Hear Them Cuckoos Hollerin'," and several from-the-belly Spanish-language songs. Her One Day At A Time LP was before the show of that name, but title song was Willie's (def not the show's), when he and even the saying weren't that well known. She was pregnant on the cover, waiting while her husband was in the Pen for inciting anti-draft activitiies. Had some rolling spirt, accentuated by several duets (incl title track) with Jeffrey Shurtleff (sp?), who sounded a bit like Elvis's folkier side, but not glum like "Kentucky Rain" Elvis, or not so much. Also--kind of funny that Steve Earle should be the one to reign in Queen B.'s mannerisms a bit, but he can be a pretty astute producer of others, and sometimes of himself. Her band's pretty good too, with Solas-co-founder John Doyle, Todd Phillips, Dirk Powell (songer and multi-picker and hubby of bayou heartbreaker Christine Balfa) Anyway, another show preview (didn't have room to say that Earle wrote the song I quote in front)
"Everyday that passes/I'm sure about a little less/Even my money keeps tellin' me/It's God I need to trust/And I believe in God/But God ain't us." "God Is God" sets the unsettled tone of Joan Baez's latest album, "The Day After Tomorrow." Producer Steve Earle seeks to keep the Queen of 60s Folk Music on a solid spirit level, with compact cadences and carefully selected songs. Further along, Patty Griffin's "Mary" is "covered in roses...covered in slashes," finding her (and/or Her) way through the story's edits, somewhat like everybody else.

Her road band's the trio I list; lots of other worthy players and singers on the album.

"I Wish" despicably now at #57 on Hot Country Songs, btw. "Shuttin Detroit Down" (which is being played to death on Houston radio) inches up one notch to #17; "High Cost of Living" stalled at #43; Miley's "The Climb" (her first solo country charter, unless I'm wrong) debuts at #48, as does something called "Runaway" (always a promising title) by somebody named Love and Theft (late Dylan fans?) at #60. Have yet to hear "High Cost" or "Blue Jeans and A Rosary" (which climbs slightly to #50) on the radio in Texas. Did decide I kind of like "Brand New Girlfriend" by Steve Holy though (only hit song ever to mention a "shitzu hound"?). When is that from? And who the heck is Steve Holy, anyway?

"Runaway" makes Love and Theft sound more like Firefall and Pure Prairie League (and later in the song, Def Leppard and Bryan Adams) fans than late-period Dylan fans, totally fine by me. Something in chorus's melody reminds me of "Just Remember I Love You" by Firefall. Three heart-throbby boys strumming and chiming harmonies; one is said to be the Stephen from a Taylor Swift song. I like it:

And to answer my other question, "Brand New Girlfriend" by Dallas native and Curb recording artist Steve Holy turns out to have gone #1 country in 2005. But according to Wiki, Holy has only charted country with three songs since then, none higher than #35. So for now at least, a has-been.

i liked 'brand new girlfriend.' but holy's career has been so weird, i hesitate to count him out. his first singles stopped shy of nowhere, and then 'good morning beautiful' was a slow burn that finally sat at no. 1 country for weeks (which i never really warmed to, but seemed like a natural hit, sweet as it was). it kept low embers from there, staying in backup rotation, keeping the album on shelves. so even though his debut album was in 2000, he still managed another no. 1 country hit in 2005 from his sophomore (released half a dozen years after the debut). he's a good performer, but not a great one. regardless, i figure he'll be back if he can ever get another album out.

yeah, I think I saw Holy once here in town and he struck me as being almost a good singer, but he had a weird, almost menacing stage presence.

Decided that I liked Eric Church's record more the third or fourth spin; I'm impressed by the sheer flow of the thing, and the way that there really seems to be a side A and B. He apparently planned it that way. I think he's one sly operator all round, and he manipulates pop quite well. Even the strings and the "African" percussion work here. Could be that "Where She Told Me to Go" is the absolute great song on the record, but there's more to this record than songs.

Also halfway liked the Defibulators' Corn Money, having been into Dave Dudley, Buck Owens and the Mar-Keys for most of my life. Clatter of the record is a turn-off; I wrote a pick on their upcoming Nashville show and said that it sounded like it was recorded both for and from AM radio. But "Go-Go Truck" is a cool Dudley pastiche. The lunacy seems a bit forced, but I like the idea.

New Glenn Tilbrook has a cool Doug Sahm pastiche that leads off, complete with accordion. Pandemonium Ensues.

Here's my Nashville Scene piece on Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.

Pretty certain by now that I like the new Pat Green and Rodney Atkins (which sounds great, and hasn't been mentioned here before) more than the new Eric Church, which I've decided has a fairly sub-par second side, at least until the guitars it ends on. New/imminent Urban, Bentley, and Aldean (probably in that order) all stike me as iffier, though they all have moments I like and/or love, and the 100%-lovey-dovey but sometimes kicking Urban could be a grower. Doing a roundup of all these for the Voice; if anybody has opinions about which of these dudes are the hunkiest (Urban and Bentley, right?) or un-hunkiest (Aldean maybe?), please state your case.

Thought the Defibulators (whom I mentioned upthread) very much lacked the music to support their schtick, which isn't all that amusing a schtick to begin with.

Thought the new Dave Alvin was mostly dull, despite a couple engaging cuts, most notably the spoken one about Big Joe Turner. Only got through four or so songs on the new Cherry-Poppin-Daddyfied swing-revivaly Wayne Hancock.

Think it's way too early for a Shooter Jennings best-of (after only three studio albums, wtf?), but the live version of "Daddy's Farm" (apparently actually from a barely distributed live album I never heard) is the heaviest thing I've ever heard from him. George should hear it, and should also hear Charlie Sexton (who I've never cared about at all before) doing "You're Doin' It Too Hard" hard on the new Doug Sahm tribute on Vanguard; also like the Flaco Jiminez, Delbert McClinton, and Joe "King" Carrasco cuts on that one, and don't remotely mind the no-name covers of "Mendocino" and "She's About A Mover" or the Los Lobos brown-eyed-soul tune--which I guess makes it a keeper, at least a marginal one. (Like somebody said above, tribute albums are always more viable when you don't know the originals, and I'm a long way from being an expert on most Doug Sahm.)

George might also like some stuff on the upcoming Mick Fleetwood Blues Band live album, which I've actually played all the way through four times, strangely enough. Ultimately too stodgy, and it takes too long to get going, but the backloaded six/seven-minute "Black Magic Woman" and especially "Shake Your Moneymaker" crank. Don't mind the more boogie-woogie/New Orleans r&b/"My Toot Toot"- rhythm tracks scattered through, either.

Also worth noting that the Shooter best-of omits "Little White Lines" and "Hair of the Dog," my two favorite tracks on Electric Rodeo, which increases its pointlessness quotiet even more.

More marginal blues-rock that doesn't quite make it: Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears on Lost Highway.
I like when he pretends to be Mitch Ryder, Wilson Pickett, Howlin' Wolf, and Slim Harpo more than he pretends to be James Brown. But not that much more.

Best old-school soul-revival I've heard in a long time is Betty Padgett's Luv N' Haight on Ubiquity -- real good covers of "My Eyes Adored You" (smooth reggae) and "Rockin' Chair," plus "Sugar Daddy" is the catchiest, warmest, most propulsive early (as in mid '70s) disco facsimile in recent memory. Also, the gal can sing. (Apparently this is a comeback, but if I skimmed her bio right and she did indeed record in the '70s, I never heard her.)

Songs I may well like even more than the Joan-Jetty single "Do It For Free" on the new Sarah Borges: "Yesterday's Love" (which totally gets the hookiness of 1978 Costello sound pub-wave down), "I'll Show You How" ("Hey Little Girl"/Sonics-riffed sex-predator garage rock from a gurl's point of view but with singing that doesn't try to sound garage), "It Comes To Me Naturally" (early Nick Lowe power-pub-pop with Yardbirds/Zevon "A Certain Girl" backup call and response), aforementioned cover of Smokey's "Being With You." Which makes five tracks I like a lot out of ten: a real good batting average.

Still trying to get the hang of Austin radio. Weird being in a place where you can hear not just Alan Jackson but Robert Earl Keen on the air. There's what seems to be a fairly mainstream commercial country station, but also another station (98.1) that mixes commercial country hits with more old classics and plenty of "Texas music" that I doubt gets much airplay in any other state. (For instance, they played Joe Ely's "Honky Tonk Masquerade" the other day, a song I've loved for nearly three decades but don't think I've ever actually heard on commercial radio before.) And there's also a Triple A station that seems to mix in country on occassion.

And oh yeah, Black Joe Lewis should not be confused with the similarly named and similarly marginal Soul Of John Black, who I reviewed for Rolling Stone here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/25823377/review/25895699/black_john

And a Brooklyn-boho old-school folk-country prankster album I liked more (though not that much more) than the Defibulators' one is the one by Andy Friedman, which I reviewed for emusic here:

http://www.emusic.com/album/Andy-Friedman-Weary-Things-MP3-Download/11371123.html

i'd guess the shooter jennings best of is contract filler. he's done okay album-wise, but hasn't had a hit single since "4th of july." depends on what, exactly, universal thought they were getting.

you need a copy of Mendocino, Chuck. that's the Sahm to start with.

yeah, the Defibulators are tiresome over the long haul, but I do like a few of those "songs." I guess I hear it as too much music, though, instead of not enough; the same old guitaristic obsessions and formalist winks getting in the way of, you know, the basics.

thinking of going to this Keith Urban Press Conference next wk at BMI here. will keep you informed, maybe Nicole will be there.

Favorite songs on Aaron Tippin's way tougher than I remembered him Greatest Hits...And Then Some from 1997 which I bought for $3 on CD at Austin's "Citywide Garage Sale" today: "A Door," "I Got It Honest," and "The Call Of The Wild," the latter of which may well be the most Cramps-like wolf-howl I've ever heard from a modern Nashville country singer. (Aaron's howling about a woman who gets loud at night, and I'm guessing he and the Cramps share inspiration of some wild-haired old rockabilly I can't place.) Xgau wrote at the time that Tippin was "as prole as Music Row gets," which may or may not be true, though I'd say "Working Man's Ph.D" is more prole than Bob's own two faves, namely "Cold Grey Kentucky Morning" and "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong With The Radio," both (actually all three) of which I also like. Also want to note that Tippin's down-and-out ballad-singing voice reminds me of John Conlee sometimes. And his mustache on the front and back cover reminds me of a '70s porn star.

Upcoming album by Martina McBride sounds better (ballsier, bluesier, darker, more energetic, more involved) than her last couple, at least after a couple listens, but that's all I can claim so far. Except that I read on line that Martina was one of the people (Sheryl Crow was another) attending a record preview party this week by some new band of Jack White (which also includes one each person from the Greenhornes, the Kills, and Queens of the Stone Age.) I don't have especially high hopes for the band, but I still think it's cool Martina was there.

Turns out on subsequent listens that Betty Padgett is maybe a more average B-or-C-level soul voice than I implied in my post yesterday (and her covers of the Frankie Valli and Gwen McRae are less astonishing than I may have implied), but I still like her album, especially her very convincingly disco-bubbly single "Sugar Daddy" (incl. its second version with background party voices), where I'm pretty sure I read in an email press release earlier this week that she's backed by Detroit indie-rock Afrobeat nine-piece Nomo (whose first couple albums sounded funky enough, but whose upcoming one doesn't hold my attention for some reason. Never heard their third. Do like where they're coming from, however.)

George might also like some stuff on the upcoming Mick Fleetwood Blues Band live album, which I've actually played all the way through four times, strangely enough. Ultimately too stodgy, and it takes too long to get going, but the backloaded six/seven-minute "Black Magic Woman" and especially "Shake Your Moneymaker" crank. Don't mind the more boogie-woogie/New Orleans r&b/"My Toot Toot"- rhythm tracks scattered through, either.

Yeah, probably good percentage, if I ever see it. "Black Magic Woman" never cranked, though. "Shake Your Moneymaker" did, illustrating the split personality of Fleetwood Mac as one of the most successful during the Brit white boy blooz boom. Jeremy Spencer fronted the band on the Elvis-flavored stuff like "Moneymaker". Peter Green took over for everything else. Be interested to know if Fleetwood dug up Bob Brunning to play on this, since he was one of the first members of Fleetwood Mac.

Actually, the best buy for blooz boom stuff now is the 3-disc reissue of Mike Vernon-produced Chicken Shack, originally on Blue Horizon. Two thirds of it has Christine McVie singing every other number, alternating with Stan Webb. By the third disc, McVie --then Perfect -- has left and Webb has taken Chicken Shack heavy for Accept Chicken Shack. The band would spin off into Savoy Brown and UFO.

And if it's remakes/revisits you like in this vein, the new Foghat live album kills. Even though half of Foghat, including Lonesome Dave, is dead. Hard to figure how this is done, but everyone in the band is all on the same page, spiritually, I guess. Thirty five years later, they do "Fool for the City" like their lives depended on it. And I saw the originals do it many times.

Huhx, my fave Sir Doug is mostly from the 70s or late 60s, def Mendocino, as Edd says, though don't know how its baked wired mellow sound comes across on CD (it's more consistently focused than some of his, though). Also (these are all billed as Sir Douglas Quintet): The Return of Doug Saldana, with more actual Chicano scientists than usual in SDQ albums; Together After Five (skoal yall); Rough Edges ("Doin' It Too Hard," which might have inspired the Tex-Mex section of "Sister Ray", plus Tom T. Hall's "The Homecoming," many other lost wages rescued by Paul Nelson, for a new grab bag). Also ragged and rugged is 1+1=4, with horns (which turn up here and there on various other albums)This takes Gatemouth Brown's Texas blues-bop toward Coltrane on one track, which is still mostly funky, and 2-man high school marching band overall. More horns, getting a little Texas lounge-y at times, but with tight small group tracks too, on The Sir Douglas Band's Texas Tornado. Most tracks from this and Doug Sahm And Band, plus prev unissued from the latter sessions, can be found on Rhino's The Best of Doug Sahm & Friends: Atlantic Sessions. I liked the And Band stuff a lot more than expected, considering what Marcus and xgau's sympathetic but low-ish ratings (xgau's pretty good on Doug overall, though)Border Wave was the SDQ comeback, in the heyday of Rockpile etc; their Day Dreaming At Midnight is marred by the hair metal licks of son Shawn Sahm, according to some, but I like it, esp vs some of the songs' Dad commentary (although they Texas psych punk out on an sncient track by Mother Earth, who I had no idea ever did such thangs, thought it was all about Tracy Nelson's waves of gravity)Oh yeah, other excavations: Norton Records' Doug Sahm, San Antonio Rock: The Harlem Recordings 1957-1961 --I haven't listened that it much yet, but I dig Edsel Records' She's About A Mover-The Best of Doug Sahm and the Sir Douglas Quintet, which is I think a volume in a series, The Crazy Cajun Recordings. Anyway, 60s tracks, like prob original "Mover" (which gets "that freaky guitar--you musta learned that in San Francisco," he informs himself on the excellent Mendocino re-make). And some great prev unissued, like extended "Funky Side of Your Mind," more VU-bait, though it's also a studio zen forensic. In fact--xhuxx I'll send you an email

And of course we mustn't forget the hits 'n' tits of the Texas Tornados!

The LP referred to as 1+1=4 is actually 1+1+1=4, and I meant it employs the approach I associate with Gatemouth Brown, not his actual presence, alas.

xhuxk wrote: Pretty certain by now that I like the new Pat Green and Rodney Atkins (which sounds great, and hasn't been mentioned here before) more than the new Eric Church

I haven't heard the Rodney Atkins album yet, that "America" single kind of turned me off from hearing it. I'd love to hear more about why it sounds great.