Rolling Country 2009 Thread

New Taylor Swift vid for "You Belong With Me"; on my lj I described it thus: "Band-nerd-in-glasses Taylor Swift employs venerable communication technology to snare boy next door, defeating her evil, popular, dark-haired double":

(Presumably Big Machine will whack that link sometime in the next few days; here's another, though it'll probably also fail to survive.)

(By the way, I didn't mean to imply that Miranda and Little Big Town are teenpop-leaning, though I wouldn't mind it if they were embraced by the wee ones. Basically I meant Taylor and Carrie.)

Caitlin & Will's mushy new ballad single about unsuccessfully attempting to mail a letter to a dead loved one is not nearly as good as their cheating-on-each-other song (which is indeed great. And it's been a while since a country couple hit with one of those, hasn't it? Except I have no idea if Caitlin & Will are a couple, in the romantic sense. Plus "Even Now" wasn't actually a hit, apparently. I do like how neither duo member seems physically attractive in any traditional American sense, however.)

I don't understand how CMT's Can You Duet works, but Caitlin & Will hadn't even met before the competition. They'd each showed up with different partners, the judges (or whoever) threw out the respective partners in Round One (or whatever) and I guess Caitlin and Will were assigned to each other.

As for their lack of traditional beauty, I love Rodney's response to this picture over on the Jukebox, "Wait… they look like an Evanescence reject and a short-order cook at a sub-Denny’s diner?":

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9626/caitlinandwillgothandde.jpg

(And a new link for "Like We Never Loved At All.")

most of the teenpop-leaning country lasses are children of Natalie Maines

This inspires me to recommend this alternate list of five songs to Shannon, since today's teenpop-leaning country lasses are sort of children of these, too (whether they know it or not):

Mindy McCready, "Oh Romeo"
Faith Hill, "Wild One"
Rebecca Lynn Howard, "Pink Flamingo Kind Of Love"
Alecia Elliott, "I'm Diggin' It"
Meredith Edwards, "The Bird Song"

Honorable mentions/Extra credit:
Jessica Andrews, "You Go First"
Possibly something by Cyndi Thompson (though I'm not sure which song I'd pick)

Caveat: I don't think any of these sound as hard rock as Carrie's "Last Name"* or as bluegrass as the Dixie Chicks' "Long Time Gone." But I feel they are somehow in the same neighborhood, wherever that is.

* -- Well, actually, "I'm Diggin' It" might. But it's got more funk and bubblegum in it, which might counteract the hard-rock feeling for some people.

(Shania Twain probably belongs here someplace, too.)

I also want to note that, in the car yesterday, I heard Dierks Bentley's "Sideways" within ten minutes of Paul Wall's "Sittin' Sideways" (on different stations, unfortunately) and liked them both pretty much exactly the same as each other. (But I didn't like either of them nearly as much as "Bizzy Body," Paul Wall's current single featuring Webbie and Mouse, which gains likeability points by reminding me why I used to like the Ying Yang Twins so much.)

Thanks a lot, Frank and Xhuxk.
I'll start digging around and report back!

Cool, Shannon! One more caveat, though, before you start spending your money: A couple of the songs I named (definitely the Alecia Elliott one, and maybe the Rebecca Lynn Howard and Meredith Edwards ones too) are also much emotionally lighter -- more giddy fun, less intense -- than "Long Time Gone" or "Last Name" (or most of the tracks Frank named, for that matter.) But they're still good! Hope you like them.

Actually, come to think of it, this might be way more along the line of what you're looking for:

Ashton Shepherd, "Takin' Off This Pain"

But that's already a whole lot of songs to sift through, between Frank's recommendations and mine.

But what the heck, how about more? Here are the six songs that pandora.com calls "similar" to "Long Time Gone" (none of which I can vouch for one way or the other):

Dolly Parton, "Marry Me"
Alison Krauss, "Doesn't Have To Be This Way"
Alison Krauss, "Don't Follow Me"
Alison Krauss, "The Lucky One (Live)"
Donna Hughes, "Bottom Of A Glass"
Donna Ulisse, "Gone"

And here are the six songs pandora.com claims are similar to "Last Name", ha ha:

Taylor Swift, "You Belong With Me"
Taylor Swift, "Fearless"
Taylor Swift, "Teardrop On My Guitar (Acoustic Version)"
Taylor Swift, "Picture To Burn"
Taylor Swift, "Love Story"
Taylor Swift, "Breathe"

On a related topic, here is Metal Mike Saunders, via email:

as pop songwriter gaga is a MAAAJOR talent. her and taylor swift are 100 miles beyond anyone else in this country i've heard in eons. (the melody line in Love Story is somethnig i've never heard in my entire life -- just 3, sometimes 4 notes back and forth through the whole chorus while the chords proceed in a pre-beatles C-Am-F-G type chord progression) (the one it took new wave/ramones to bring back from the musical undead zone of "uncool," 12+ whole years later).

taylor's current routine of "write some songs, go in and record em on your day/weekend off; repeat; repeat" is classic pre-album rock. (the 4 songs / one session method of producing 1 or 2 future singles back then, THEN pad out the "album tracks" as needed later).

Anybody heard these? (I have gotten real lazy about youtubing, so maybe somebody can youtube them for me)

51 1
Henry Cartwright's Produce Stand, Trent Tomlinson
L.Reynolds,T.Tomlinson (T.Tomlinson,D.Wells,M.Kerr ) Carolwood PROMO SINGLE | 51

55 NEW 1 Foot Stompin', Davisson Brothers Band
D.Hanner,B.D.Willis,D.Grau (D.Davisson,C.Davisson ) CharTunes DIGITAL | Yell | 55

Turns out the Carter Twins are more squeaky-clean teen-pop boy-band soft-rock country, like Love and Theft only not as good (at least as far as their singles, the only songs I've heard by them, go):

Also, first noted on the Rolling Hard Rock thread:

Talas's 1982 Sink Your Teeth Into That...the first band featuring Billy Sheehan to get recorded... closer "Hick Town" concerns growing up in one and needing to get out, and is kind of cool because Jason Aldean's first metal-guitared country hit a couple years ago had exactly the same name.

More on that otherwise non-country LP here:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

Here's me briefly being meh about Brad Paisley and Sugarland (and giving Kelly a meh-plus and Eminem a less than meh).

About six months on I still haven't figured out what I think of Taylor Swift's Fearless, except that I severely underrated it. Xhuxk was wrong about its being quiet and lacking hooks, except I kind of agree with him anyway. That's because, though it actually has as many or more hooks and loud songs as the first alb, it feels more static, a deep sea of feminine feeling, the songs seeming all to partake of the same ocean, so less differentiated. The problem with the hooks on Fearless is that when they're assertive they get in the way (happened a few times on the first album too, e.g. "Teardrops On My Guitar," where the sing-songy chorus undid the catch-in-a-throat mood). I think the second album works best when a song's parts have an even impact, the hooks and choruses being subordinate to the overall mood. "Love Story" is only half an exception here in that the chorus ramps up the mood without losing it. My favorite track is "You're Not Sorry" which is just floating, dripping, profound hurt. "You Belong With Me" is atypically airy, her shaking the drops off her wings with the "can't you see-ee-ee, you belong with me-ee-ee," but it still partakes of the emotions drifting up from below.

She's a singer-songwriter, of course, reporting on her grand search for self by way of busted relations with boys. Menstrual rock (to adapt a phrase of Adam Sobolak's, who back in an old Radio On said that with "Stand Back" Stevie Nicks had invented menstrual disco). She was on the first album too - crucial song is "Cold As You," cleaner but just as angry as "You're Not Sorry," its relative stillness a set up for the storm unleashed a few tracks later with "Should've Said No" - but the first album had more resolution and release and choruses to take away and hum.

(And of course Natalie Maines is a bridge between the Sea Of Stevie Nicks and the current country lasses.)

(So's Deana Carter.)

If there's anyone around amidst the tumbleweeds, here's what we said on the Jukebox about the Miranda Lambert single, "Dead Flowers." This is the first and no doubt will be the last time my score for a country track is lower than the Jukebox average. (My chief motive for reviewing was to work in an Alice joke, which I had to strain to do.)

Also, there's a fellow who regularly pastes info for tracks 46 through 100 on the country airplay charts on a message board here.

What is menstrual rock? What is menstrual disco?

They're what come after pre-menstrual rock and pre-menstrual disco.

That's what I was afraid of ("deep sea of feminine feeling""floating, dripping""storm unleashed""cleaner""they're what come after")Countywise (countrywise too) The Band had it down, so to speak: "Rag Mama rag/Do what you wanna do/Aw shag Mama shag/While you're raggin' too." Okay by me, who never could afford to be picky. This Jukebox is a fine thang too.

Banastre Tarleton Band of Columbia, MO just called their version "Redwings." Not sure whether Tim McGraw's "Red Ragtop" fits the theme or not.

Herewith, I ketchup with new reissues of three '80s LPs by post-cowpunk urban rustics and onetime inexplicable Pazz & Jop successes the Del-Lords:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

The Jukebox is slammin' great on Taylor's "You Belong With Me."

(By the way, people from here should post on the comment threads there, and vice versa.)

Something I enjoy like a gray day Lonely Street Happy Hour jukebox band is John Doe & The Sadies, on Country Club. The Knitters are ite, but like a high class reunion, whereas The Sadies been playin' since they's babies, or the co-leading Good brothers (offshoots of one of Cananda's beloved Good Brothers) have. No showboating, they've backed Jon Langford and Neko Case and offer discreet but firm, Jeeves-type consultations to idiosyncratic voices. Doe has no prob with that weirdass shift to the bridge ("I wo-OH-nder, if, she's sorree") of "I Still Miss Someone", which gets also gets speeded up just enough, like several other ballads, and Doe even delivers the dread "Help Me Make It Through The Night" with some plausible demonstration of its powers of seduction, more than sodden-ploddin' manipulation, as usually happens with this thing. But most choices aren't that obvious, at least to me. Female voices on here occasionally, but I don't have the credits yet. It's no masterpiece, but purty cool. (Anybody heard the Good Brothers?)

Menstrual country from Toby:

We talk about your heart
bout your brains and your smarts
and your medical charts
and when... you... start

Paste magazine asking their readers for donations. Not a fan of the mag's taste or much of its writing, stodge passed-off as maturity (but visuals are impressive); still, this is a bad thing, that it's in trouble.

Ordered the 14-track Epic '97 The Best Of Collin Raye: Direct Hits from Amazon ($0.99 + postage, cheapest hits anthology he had there) since I love his new album so much (still the best new non-reissue album I've heard this year in any genre), and the best-of is solid enough to suggest that his new album is no huge fluke; with less of shot at getting on the radio, he's maybe taking more risks now, but the sound's funkiness hasn't changed all that much. Thing is, turns out my three favorite tracks "That's My Story" (written by Lee Roy Parnell), "My Kind Of Girl" (she likes Martin Luther King and Faulkner), and "Little Rock" (not the Reba song), all country top tens at the time (and all of which I recognized hearing before once I played the CD -- had just never known who did them), all come from Raye's 1994 album Extremes, which an AMG writeup I referred to upthread pegged as his hardest-rocking -- which these tracks pretty much bear out, at least in relation to the rest of what's here. Though he does wind down to pretty decent cover of Journey's "Open Arms" which is one of "4 New Cuts" here that hadn't been released before. (Lorrie Morgan covered "Faithfully" around the same time -- probably my favorite thing she ever did. Not sure if there was any more Journey-country beyond that, but I believe Garth Brooks was a fan.)

Also liking the imminent (due in June) album by this Atlanta Southern rock band Blackberry Smoke -- produced by Dan Huff, which I gather means they might try to pitch it country. Press bio compares them to Molly Hatchet (an exagerration, they're never that heavy) and .38 Special (maybe, though they're not that powerpop) -- they more land somewhere between Montgomery Gentry and the Kentucky Headhunters, I'd say. Which is not a bad place to be.

...Or actually, it'd probably be more accurate to say that the three best tracks on Raye's new album probably do have more funk and rock in them than those three Extreme tracks, but it sounds like a natural progression, not a departure.

So can somebody (maybe Anthony Easton, if he's out there) explain Randy Travis's "Three Wooden Crosses" to me? I get that it's a sermon story, but I'm not sure I'm getting the lesson. Is it something about the preacher gives the hooker his cross after the bus crashes into the 18-wheeler when he hands her his bloody bible (so wait -- maybe he didn't die??), since they'd both been searching for lost souls? Or what? (At first I honestly wondered whether the hooker didn't get a cross because she didn't deserve one, seeing how she's a fallen woman and all. But not even goody-goody Randy could be that pious.)

Oh, okay...I just read the lyrics on line. Hooker survives crash, walks away with the bloody bible, reads it to her son, who becomes another preacher, who waves it to his congregation on Sunday. (I actually like the song, btw, despite my confusion.)

Via email, of interest to Frank and maybe other folks, almost three years after advances went out:

Nashville, TN (May 18th) – SONY has announced that it will release the original Columbia Records version of Ashley Monroe’s Satisfied album on May 19th at all major digital outlets. The project, produced by Mark Wright, was sidelined during the original Sony BMG merger. “ I was resigned to the idea that this record would never be released” explained singer/songwriter Ashley Monroe. “ I’m very proud of the album we made”.

Monroe continues to make impressive strides as both a singer and songwriter. She joined forces with Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn on the self-penned “I Don’t Want To,” which garnered an Academy of Country Music nomination for Vocal Event and also scored a #1 CMT Video. In November 2008 she was invited by Jack White to join the Raconteurs on a re-make of their song “Old Enough,” which was documented in a short film and video by acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Autumn De Wilde. The project was widely praised and led to other Monroe collaborations with members of the group.

Ashley Monroe has established herself as a talented songwriter with recent cuts by Nora Jones, Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean and Kelly Pickler. She writes for Wrensong music publishing and is currently writing for her next recording project. Look for Ashley this summer as she joins Jewel on her July west coast tour dates.

Satisfied can be heard at:

http://www.ilike.com/artist/Ashley+Monroe+Music

Chris Brown considers going country:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20090520/en_top_eo/124879

Though come to think of it, before all that uh other stuff happened, weren't there already rumors to the effect that he might be on the next Tim McGraw album?

song for him to cover "(I Feel Just Like George Jones When He Was a) Heel to Tammy" by Curtiss A

Singles Jukebox reviewers slam "Alright" by Darius Rucker (which most of them like much less than I do, though I really don't like all that much, either):

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=656

This thread appears to have died again, but what the heck; here is Jon Caramanica in today's NYTimes:

Jessie James

Here is what Taylor Swift hath wrought: “Wanted,” the debut single by the Georgia-raised, Nashville-based Jessie James, is feisty shampoo-commercial pop save for three bars near the bridge, when a country guitar shows its hand. If Nashville can go pop, why can’t pop start out a little bit Nashville? That’s what the music of Ms. James, whose self-titled debut (on Mercury) is due in July, is asking. And while we’re mixing, why can’t it be hip-hop as well? “Cowboy,” written with Jamey Johnson and Randy Houser, has snappy snares and puckish fiddle. The clever “Blue Jeans,” which uses a beat drawn from Ms. James’s own step routine and tweaks Dem Franchise Boyz’ 2004 hit “White Tee,” is perhaps the first white-girl country-rap song. But Ms. James knows getting embraced by the home crowd would be nice too. To wit, the Twitter message she recently posted to the producer Mitch Allan, imploring him to “make a country version of Wanted!!! Country stations want it!” But can she go home again?

Sounds interesting (if a little cryptic) (as if I should talk), though I'm pretty sure the first white-girl country-rap song was actually "Chariot," on Gretchen Wilson's debut album a half decade ago.

Meanwhile, heard Rascal Flatts's "Summer Nights" on the radio today, and it sounded like not only the best thing I've ever heard from them, but probably also the most blatant early '80s Bryan Adams rip (riffwise -- "Cuts Like A Knife" I think -- but also possibly subject matter-wise) in '00s country yet. Vocal phrasing in the verses also sounded like Southern soul music, somehow. Not sure whether I'll change my opinion on subsequent hearings or not.

To wit, the Twitter message she recently posted to the producer Mitch Allan, imploring him to “make a country version of Wanted!!! Country stations want it!” But can she go home again

It's hard to know which is more witless, the twitter or the fact it was actually a subject of any discussion in the Sunday Times.

Yeah, that was part of what I thought was cryptic, even more so since I have no idea what "Wanted" is*, and doubt most other Times readers would, either. (Also don't know what Jon means by "her own step routine" -- like, she does it in shows? Where?)

* -- If it's "Wanted Dead Or Alive" by Bon Jovi, which is the only song that came to mind, there have already been a couple country versions this decade, by Montgomery Gentry and by Chris Cagle.

man, i know it's lol-alt-country and all, to the extent it's country at all, but scott miller's new album is his best thing since his first solo record. he started his own label now, f.a.y. (fuck all y'all). anyway, it's good. dude is sadly neglected imo.

("i'm right here my love," his duet with patty griffin, is one of my songs of the year so far.)

I tried listening to that new Scott Miller album, and just couldn't get past the dry bland stodge of it; didn't get very far. Interview in Paste with he and his wife made them seem like interesting people, though, so I wish I liked their music more. Has anybody from Nashville covered their songs?

Singles-Jukeboxsters on Reba's new single "Strange". Most of them (including me) like it, but I get cranky about her in the comments section anyway:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=694

Presumably the "Wanted" that Jessie James wants a country version of is her own song "Wanted" - so she probably just wants a more country mix to be pushed to country radio.

Presume that Caramanica's Taylor ref isn't meant to say that Jessie sounds like Taylor - she isn't close; much closer to Faith or someone like that going pop, as Faith has done innumerable times (and it it's got a tinge of teenpop, it's more like the old teenpop of someone like Rose Falcon) - but rather just that, like the cuts on Fearless, the song isn't particularly trying hard to hit the country signifiers. But it doesn't sound far outside of poppish country to me anyway, Deana Carter, Alecia Elliott (Chuck would identify the relevant c. 2000 country pop girls better than I could), with rock and soul inflections.

Somewhere, Hope Partlow is saying, "I could do that shit."

Wiki hagio:

In April 2007, Hope announced on her Myspace that she had teamed up with guitarist Ryan Wilson to form a new duo act, Hope & Ryan. The new Myspace profile featured a demo by the two, titled "Try." Just three months later, Hope announced through a Myspace announcement that while seeking a female vocalist and musician to join her and Ryan, they found Sara Rachele and have now decided to become a trio, called The Love Willows. Since then, Sara has left the group.

On April 24, 2008 The Love Willows announced on Myspace that they have officially signed to Decca Records/Universal Music Group. Their first full-length album, titled Hey! Hey!, is set to release May 28, 2009.

The Love Willows' MySpace says the album is coming out "Summer 2009." Songs on the MySpace seem simultaneously pale and shiny (don't know what I mean by those adjectives; weak power pop - OK, got to shut up with these oxymorons), but anyway a lot went into the songs compositionally; Hope's got a great, flexible voice, which comes across strongest when she heads towards brassy puttin'-on-the-ritz stylings, but mostly it isn't penetrating through all the popistry. Stuff could be growers, but I'm not betting the farm.

They were touring with the Veronicas and got kicked off. (Also, though they moved back to Nashville, and even though Hope would be a great country singer, they're not particularly country, unfortunately.)

I tried listening to that new Scott Miller album, and just couldn't get past the dry bland stodge of it

yeah, i don't really hear that. (miller's a lot of things, but stodgy isn't one of them. v-roys used to get drunk onstage and do judas priest tunes.) anyway, a few of his albums on sugar hill were sorta tamer, but i think the new one has a nice live sound. i don't know of anyone doing his songs, except kelly hogan a while back did a nice version of "lie i believe."

Okay, I admit it -- I'm a brainfarting idiot. The dry bland stodge I heard was on Buddy Miller's new album with his wife Julie (who were also the interesting couple interviewed in Paste). Duh.) For penance, I will make a point of checking out Scott (even though I kinda hate Judas Priest.)

buddy miller's a great sideman. i saw him and julie live once, opening for somebody, and they were pretty good. but i haven't heard the records.

The first seven seconds of Rascal Flatts "Summer Nights" sounds like Eminem in demon mode. Then it turns into Kenny Loggins trying to sound like the Jackson 5. Real good.

On a six-week trip to SE Asia, so my Country moments may be few and far between. Or maybe not - first day in Bangkok I walked into a restaurant for lunch and they were playing "Islands in the Stream" (and then "Rhinestone Cowboy", John Denver, Neil Young). Also watched some kind of video countdown from my hotel in Phuket, of US/UK pop, and Taylor Swift's "Teardrops on My Guitar" was on there at #10 as "her new single".

Keep us posted, erasingclouds. Tipsy, it's not nec. "lol alt-country" around here 100% of the time, only about 90, by my scientific calculations (or we here tend to think of it as good=indie, bad=alt, with some actual stylistic/attudinal/metabolic differences, though not that many). The following might possibly be good; thinking of old bios that claimed Dierks originally made a name in the grassroots for tours with his band and allegedly jammish-live Cross Canadian Ragweed, and the studio tracks where he gives his band augmented by some sessioneers maybe, room to flourish in between his solemn hunka pronouncements:

DIERKS BENTLEY RELEASES
iTUNES EXCLUSIVE "LIVE FROM
SOHO"

Bentley's Summer Smash "Sideways"
Pushes Towards No. One
NASHVILLE, TN - May 29, 2009 - Award winning country music singer/songwriter
Dierks Bentley will release an exclusive six song EP as part of iTunes' "LIVE FROM SOHO" series on June 2. The intimate performance was
recorded at Apple's flagship Soho store in January.
"LIVE FROM SOHO" Track Listing:
1. Feel That Fire
2. Sideways
3. I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes
4. Life On The Run
5. Trying To Stop Your Leaving
6. Free And Easy (Down The Road I Go)
Bentley and country superstar Taylor Swift remain the only two country artists to participate
in the program, which has also featured GRAMMY winning artists such as Adele, Kings of Leon and Linkin Park.
The second single "Sideways" from Bentley's No. one debut album FEEL THAT FIRE continues to
plow its way towards the No. one spot at country radio, landing at No. five this week. Fans can catch Bentley perform at LP Field during CMA Music Fest on June 11 and on the CMT Music Awards on June 16. For
complete list of upcoming appearances and tour dates, visit www.dierks.com.

One of my earliest Ashley posts; ref to Black Sage at beginning meant to favorably contrast this very indie, prob part-time band with ability of Music Row pros to keep the thing moving, sev subsequent posts mention frustration with the production and maybe mis-guidance re material, though promo no longer extant, me not know how many songs had co-writers thrust upon her, ect, so maybe any flaws are all her fault but I really doubt they gave a 19-year old female newbie that much room (would rather have the best tracks put with brand new ones than have the version I heard finally issued in all its fardled glory, but glory there be on it)(the terms "waif" "ghostown" and "stalker," meaning her, also apply, but I seem to have applied them only in a Rollung Teenpop post referring to this post)
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Okay, Ashley: funny how Black Sage, those lovable locals, pick up the tempo, while the Nashville tracks don't know how to sustain initial interest--so many ballads, so much time. The neediness sounds convincing enough. Reading the bio after listening, re what "she still sees as an idyllic life," before her father suddenly died when she was 11 ("often the age of puberty for today's youth", says Dr Joyce Brothers), and how her family went "into freefall" after that, and "with few friends among often callous classmates," how she could look so hungrily at taken-for-granted, supposedly sweet deals of ungrateful married women. And covering Kasey Chambers' "Pony," with come-hither-when-I'm-legal drawlpretty much to the tune of Peggy Lee's "Fever"), before stalking the guy (who has a grown woman, way ahead of her)to verses that sound like Neil's "Old Man," before reaching out, falling short, trailing with a few more notes anyway, in "Satisfied."(But in between she's still sounding young and damaged, she's been "Used, passed around")Then she does find a guy! Who's as little ol' as she is, and "That's Why We Call Each Other Baby," goo-goo--but he's--Dwight Yoakam, old, bald, and a dirt sandwich (this last according to Sharon Stone). Oh man. Lucinda's "It's Over" is faster, but needs some false stops or something to go with it's thing about she can't let go. Not enough titles provided so far, but there's one that is faster and works like that should: a Terri Clark-type blowing up her self-image of poor poor pitiful me like Harry Smith's headlines, til it's lying in the street, underneath a white sheet (do a video of that). And she's in the back of "Hank's Cadillac," making him drink his coffee black, cos you just gotta make that next show, be fair to the folks, but it's not working, she's clutching his little skinny carcass to her bosom, and--oh god,maybe this thing will brainwash me, but right now it's dropping most of these High Concepts. At least "Hank's Cadillac" has some narrative. The one that sounds like it's intended to be the followup to "Satisfied" makes the usual sargasso seizure irrelevent, cos (as with "Satisfied") the chorus sounds so nice, I don't need to go anywhere else.
― don, Friday, 7 April 2006 21:58 (3 years ago)

And yeah, like Frank said (and I prev said, in 08 or 07 Nashville Scene ballot comments, if 07, on thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com, if 08, beginning of this thread) she's got stuff on her publisher's myspace and maybe elsewhere, and that Raconteurs track featuring her and Ricky Skaggs is pretty sweet too. Think I liked The Love Willows tracks they posted better than Frank does, but been a while since I listened. Theirs is another album been a longgg time coming. Why did they get kicked off the Veronicas tour?!

Ryan, posting on the Love Willows' MySpace blog:

as you’ve probably heard by now, the veronicas have indeed kicked us off the rest of the spring/summer tour. there were a few myspace bulletin postings from hope and from the veronicas on friday, after we received the final word from our management that we were removed from the tour. the bulletins caused quite a bit of stir on the myspace. the veronicas stated in a bulletin, "we didn't kick them off the tour, we were never even made aware they were ever 'promised' the entire 3 months!!" well, whether they were aware or not, we had contracts with the venues, as well as billing on the venue's websites and promotional flyers. from my understanding, the headlining band has the final word on who is, or who is not, on the tour. the fact that we share the same booking agency should further my point. would our booking agents remove us? we were very much in the dark as to why we were dropped from the tour. maybe the veronicas thought our sound was a little too pop? or maybe because we didn't wear all black? or that we actually had a stage show and took the time to create stage props? or that we had, new ('09) merchandise? we're still yet to get a clear cut reason, answer, or explanation, but by reading through some of the myspace comments and doing a little 'googling' of my own, i found out for myself that they have replaced us with a band called carney. oddly enough, that's lisa's boyfriend's band ;)! is that what we do now?! does that sound like coincidence or a decision made by the veronicas? you tell me. i find all of this very disrespectful and upsetting. we had such a blast on the last two weeks, we were really looking forward to the two months of touring, seeing you guys, and making new fans. we actually had quite a few other engagements in and around these dates that were supposed to coincide with each other, which we'll now have to cancel. we also turned down other tour opportunities to be on the veronicas' tour, which we can't get back, because those spots have already been filled. hopefully we can make up for it and catch you guys soon!

-ryan/tlw