Rolling country 2007 thread

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Yikes! Amy LaVere's inexplicably skinny-voiced and not-all-that-much-less-skinny-grooved attempt at funk "People Get Mad" just forced me to replace her in the CD changer with the new American Dog album.

And the Michael Ray Cain Reckoning's recited-like-Jello-Biafra preacher homily "Faith Train" may well force me to do something similar next time it comes up. They're starting to remind me a bit too much of all that Mojo Nixon crap I hated back in the day.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:29 (nineteen years ago)

Ha ha, chorus of first American Dog song to come up: "Sometimes you eat the pussy, sometimes the pussy eats you...you know it's true." (With Nugent riffs, so okay, they're more metal thread material.)

What the heck though:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/americandog6

― xhuxk, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:45 (nineteen years ago)

If I'd heard it any time in the last 20 years I might make the argument that Sandanista is better than London Calling (though I love "Brand New Cadillac" and the title tune on the latter).

― Frank Kogan, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:55 (nineteen years ago)

But as I do with Funkadelic, I'm may be one of the only people to underrate London Calling.

― Frank Kogan, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:56 (nineteen years ago)

fwiw (and just to even things out a little), "Kid" by Michael Ray Cain Reckoning (good sangin' and twangin' and a tasty melody) > "The Rose" by Tracy Delucia (I never even wanted to see the movie.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 00:01 (nineteen years ago)

"People Get Mad" on the Lavere record is just embarassing. But the rest of it has a light touch with swingy country that I like, and the opening song, "Killing Him (Didn't Make Her Love Go Away)" is rivetting. And I love the Dylan cover at the end. I also don't find her voice all that little girlish--at least not by current indie standards.

― Roy Kasten, Sunday, 15 April 2007 00:02 (nineteen years ago)

"Miracles Begin" by Tracy Delucia, exlplicity pro-disco semi-billy: "When I was a young girl, listening to the radio, Rondstadt, Whitney, Donna Summer, and a little Billy Joel." (Her cdbaby page also says she was once a huge Mariah Carey fan.) Both this song and "Hands of Time" also talk about being a mom, and sound nicely lively about it.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 01:00 (nineteen years ago)

"Return Of The Magnificent Seven" is verbose, like many songs on Sandinista!, but Grushecky and most others on The Sandinista Project connect with the vitality, especially rhythmic, in those songs. "Return" gets itchy and scratchy, 'til the guitar cuts loose for a while, over that beat. And there's lots of good country, and countrytronica, and Sally Timms and Jon Langford do good offhand country dub on "Version Pardner." You're really missing some fun, xxhuxx.

― dow, Sunday, 15 April 2007 05:18 (nineteen years ago)

I can't remember if Roy said he's seen LaVere live but she's totally different--her records somehow edge away from what she does best, which is strictly rockabilly or something like it. Her collaborator, Paul Taylor, has made a record that is like out-of-it powerpop--very muso, very accomplished, kind of a modern Todd Rundgren one-man-band record without the vocal chops. But Taylor is an amazing musician. I too like the closing Dylan cover and her voice doesn't bother me--my take is that she's not being stretched enough and that she's a very strange songwriter who needs some sort of context Jim Dickinson and cohorts might be too set in their ways to devise for her. But she is indeed cool live, and of course extremely easy on the eye--sexy.

Reading the Johnny Bush autobiography. Really gives a sense of how difficult it was for him to compete in the very competetive world of Texas country in the late '50s, and pretty fascinating account of how he struggled to master the Ray Price shuffle beat. Great portrait of Willie Nelson in his early days, one anecdote finds the whole band smoking weed and Willie walks by and says, no thanks, that stuff gives me a headache. Bush took opera-singing lessons after he lost his voice to a somewhat rare affliction that caused him to basically be unable to sing or even speak loudly. And he describes Nashville in the early '60s, when Bush lived in town, as a place where there was nothing for a musician to do if he wasn't on the road--no openness compared to his San Antonio days. Well written enough--transcribed--and nice.

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 15 April 2007 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

A Taylor Swift outtake (or demo), "Come In With The Rain," is downloadable from the Rashid115 blog (scroll down the page). The rip is low quality, but the singing and song are good, gentle sadness, which she does oh so well. "I leave my window open/'Cause I'm too tired tonight to call your name/Just know I'm right here hopin'/That you'll come in with the rain." (I like the phrase "in with the rain" for not quite being a metaphor, just accompanying the sorrow that's there, whether the guy shows or not.)

Here it is on YouTube.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 15 April 2007 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking of youtube, this link just came in from Anthony Easton. War is hell on the homefront, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cAChVVVZaM

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

The talked part on the Michael Ray Cain Reckoning maxi-EP CD grew on me a little, in a sort of J. Blackfoot/Marty Stuart (on his Native American history album) kind of way, though lighter than either. I guess he's maybe trying to do a Dylan (or Waits?) (or, in "Good Destruction," Barry McGuire?) type thing. Doesn't really pull it off, but I kind of like how his ragged talking voice sounds, except when he goes into Jello mode at the start of "Faith Train," and even that one later builds to some good boogie woogie. (Even his singing is mostly talk-sung, though oddly the one time his singing hits emotional paydirt is when it drops into the sort of goth guy doing Johnny Cash low notes I usually hate in "Kid," then lifts back up and then the guitar twang lifts up higher. "Last Bottle of Wine," which I also like, has a gothabilly edge to it too, come to think of it; his "hyaaah! interjections remind me of Dale Watson in that one.) In the end, not bad.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

(talked parts, actually. plural.)
(and by "goth guy" i mean "andrew eldritch," maybe.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 21:06 (nineteen years ago)

there's lots of good country, and countrytronica, and Sally Timms and Jon Langford do good offhand country dub on "Version Pardner." You're really missing some fun, xxhuxx

Well, maybe I'll see if my copy is still out in the hallway somewhere, and if so, I'll give it another shot. But you know, I'm one of those "Why would anybody listen to any Mekons music from the past two decades?" sticks in the mud. Even though they did make mix up real good country dub once upon a time, like in 1981 or so. So I may be a hard sell.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 21:20 (nineteen years ago)

A Taylor Swift outtake (or demo), "Come In With The Rain"

not bad. the verse melody is fountains of wayne's "all kinds of time," almost note for note.

― fact checking cuz, Sunday, 15 April 2007 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

"Miracles Begin"... and "Hands of Time" also talk about being a mom, and sound nicely lively about it.

Actually, "Hands of Time" is schmaltz; I must've confused it with something. Other one's good though.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 21:52 (nineteen years ago)

(May have confused it with "That Was Yesterday," which is a real rocker but doesn't mention momhood.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 April 2007 23:44 (nineteen years ago)

Also fun is the new Los Straitjackets, where they do 60s Hispanic radio oversions of Top 40 Hits, many of which are improved, although "All Day And All Of The Night" is disappointing, but it's gone pretty fast. (Also some that seem to have been hits only on Hispanic radio, or maybe local/regional crossover, and they're good too.Like "Dejenne Llorar" by Los Freddys.)Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos produces and plays guitar, organ,ukelele, vihuela, and cowbell; Willie C.of Thee Midnighters sings, and so does Big Sandy, who's also on the current tour. Alas, they won't be 'ccompanied by the fabulous Pontani Sisters, but you can see those triplets go-going for the security camera on the Web site (oh yeah, and stream the album too) http://www.straitjackets.com

― dow, Monday, 16 April 2007 04:10 (nineteen years ago)

Freddy Fender fans should dig (justification for mentioning it on Rolling Country)

― dow, Monday, 16 April 2007 04:11 (nineteen years ago)

i tried to get people interested in that record months ago don, nobody bit

― Dimension 5ive, Monday, 16 April 2007 05:17 (nineteen years ago)

The Vince Gill single, "What You Give Away" - The melody is a nice enough old-style rock 'n' roll ballad, but Gill's vocals are locked into a subdued but monolithic Orbison quaver from start to finish (which is pretty much the opposite of how Orbison actually sang, as Roy was always shifting his tones and dynamics). This falls between two stools, "quietly haunting" and "extravagant." The result is boredom. Sheryl Crow is nice on harmony but mixed to low to rescue this. The lyrics are trite; they excoriate a wealthy businessman on the hill for not caring about the homeless.

― Frank Kogan, Monday, 16 April 2007 05:40 (nineteen years ago)

mixed too low

― Frank Kogan, Monday, 16 April 2007 05:41 (nineteen years ago)

hmm, that's my problem with the lauded Gill 3-disc set--he doesn't ever sound like he cares about what he's singing...about. rippin' guitarist.

as for Los Strait, I've always kinda liked them. I'll have to get a copy of the new one; I'm a fan of the Cesar Rosas solo record from 1999 with the great Ike Turner cover. ("You Got to Lose," not Ike glowering on the jewel case...) But if you want the roots of this sorta thing, Pachuco Soul comp on Vampisoul, 30 tracks, Thee Enchantments doing "I'm in Love with Your Daughter" and the Atlantics "Beaver Shot" and the Royal Checkmates greasing Lee Dorsey's "Get Out of My Life Woman." choice.

xps

― whisperineddhurt, Monday, 16 April 2007 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

There was a big article with photos in a DC Spanish language weekly about the Straightjackets new cd. I was surprised to see that.

So tonight:

For the third staight year, Jeff Foxworthy will host the 5th annual Country Music Television Awards which will air live on Monday, April 16, 2007, 8:00 ET from Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville.

Slated to perform live are Rascal Flatts, Martina McBride, Dierks Bentley, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood and Sugarland.

Stay tuned ....

― curmudgeon, Monday, 16 April 2007 14:14 (nineteen years ago)

Well of course something like Pachuco Soul would be thee one to check first, or ultimately, but Los 'Jackets are the ones touring, and Cesar, Little Willie G., even Big Sandy really bring out the Spanish Tinge, as John Storm Roberts would say, in a bunch of mostly Ango-known moldie oldies ("Hang On Sloopy" gets a juicy transfusion via "Hey Lupe", "Gimme Little Sign"gets "Dame Una Sena," "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" gets "EL Microscopico Bikini"--Los Teen Tops' Armando Martinez did a lot of the creative translations for rocanrol Mexicano combos.) Was Pachuco Soul the one that got reviewed in the Voice, in the form of a police report? Perfect, whoever did that.

― dow, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 02:52 (nineteen years ago)

Although now that I look closer, "Dame Una Sena" is dressed in "brand new lyrics by L'il Luis Arriaga!" And they all credit the original writer, and the Hispanic cover artists, but not the translators specifically; that's what I get for prematurely parroting press release backstory)

― dow, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 03:03 (nineteen years ago)

But also, there's a big benefit concert for Scott Boyer, who was in Cowboy, mainly known to me as kind of a country-prog band, sort of like Traffic when on the same bill as dedicated boogie bands like Grinderswitch ("boogie bands" was what we'uns spoke of when "Southern Rock" was still mainly a media term, like "punk" and "metal" and ever'thing else, in the beginning). And for "Please Be With Me," real nice ballad with Duane Allman on acoustic slide. Clapton did it on 461 Ocean Boulevard, still one of his best albums, probably. The other main Cowboy was Tommy Talton, whom I got to know a little bit during his week's set at a local dive, with Bill Stewart, Johnny Sandlin, and a local keybist, Jabbo Stokes, and that was kind of like Jeff Beck and Stevie Wonder, together at last (and not just when they were covering Jeff Beck and Stevie Wonder. I guess they did the countryoid material too, but it was up to the mid-70s high mark, not much nostalgia for Cowboy times, a year or so previous.)Boyer's played with Percy Sledge, Bonnie Bramlett, and in a 60s band, The 31rst Of February, with Butch Trucks and Duane and Gregg, and Butch and Gregg will be at the benefit show at Birmingham's Alabama Theatre, Wednesday night. (There was already one at the Shoals Theatre in Florence.) According to Bob Carlton's article in the B'ham News (which I'd link from al.com, but you gotta register to read it, and yall won't do that), also scheduled to perform are Paul Thorn (wrote "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" and other interesting stuff; a big-mouth live performer, but keeps getting better at it); "Nashville Star" contestant Zac Hacker (just got a promo of his sister's album; she was also a hopeful); David Hood, Donnie Fritts, Wayne Perkins ('Bama who recorded with the Stones, etc.); Topper Price (singer-harmonicat, recorded with Dickey Betts Band); Rick Kurtz (Delbert McClinton's guitarist, sometimes); Bryan Owings (drummer for Buddy and Julie Miller, etc.) Oh yeah, and The Amazing Rhythm Aces, and whover's in The Capricorn Rhythm Section now, and another band Boyer used to be with, The Decoys, and Bonnie Bramlett too. He's known for doing lots of benefits himself, and he's got a damaged artery, and see http://www.myspace.com/scottboyerbenefit

― dow, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 05:20 (nineteen years ago)

[list]Was Pachuco Soul the one that got reviewed in the Voice, in the form of a police report?[/list]

[i}Pachuco Boogie featuring Don Tosti[/i] actually (great album btw), and the author was David Wondrich:

[list][Removed Illegal Link]

Lots of the '60s garage hits (from "Wooly Bully" and "96 Tears" and "She's About A Mover" on down) obviously had border music deep in their loins, of course, especially probably the East L.A. ones. ("Farmer John" by the Premiers may or may not have, but it's one of the greatest rock'n'roll records ever anyway.) As did plenty of East L.A. doowop and N.Y. garage-like-Joe Cuba boogaloo back then. But I gotta say, the Los Straitjackets and Big Sandy (and, sue me, Los Lobos) etc. stuff I've heard has struck me as totally stiff and timid (and uncrazed despite the Nacho Libre masks that seemed such a dumb campy lookit-us-we've-got-lampshades-on shtick the one time I saw Los Straitjackets live in Philly a few years back) in comparison, so I really don't have high hopes for this record, should I ever land a copy, if I haven't done so already. It's possible I should listen to the band more, but honestly, if I did hear that new record it left no impression at all. (I know I got some aging retro college-radio sillibillies covering old songs in the mail this year, but I'm probably thinking of Southern Culture on the Skids, whose CD I know for sure I didn't get far into.) If I get a copy of the Los Straitjackets, though, I'll try it. (Again?).

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 11:11 (nineteen years ago)

"Illegal"?? The Village Fucking Voice??

Lemme try again:

http://dev.villagevoice.com/music/0221,wondrich,34958,22.html

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 11:12 (nineteen years ago)

I gotta say, the Los Straitjackets and Big Sandy (and, sue me, Los Lobos) etc. stuff I've heard has struck me as totally stiff and timid (and uncrazed

By which I guess I basically mean that it's never seemed like their singers and rhythm sections are all that great*. (Though, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't Big Sandy's prior resume' heavier toward the blues/Western swing end of things than, say, the Tex-Mex end? I know I've tried a couple his albums, which basically went in one ear and out the other.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 11:33 (nineteen years ago)

* - No need to revive Los Lobos debate; it's all here:

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=13971

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 11:35 (nineteen years ago)

In other less contentious news that hopefully won't make me seem like so much of a jerk, I finally decided that the cdbaby albums I recommened above by both Brandie Frampton and Tracy Delucia, despite both having a handful of real good songs, are both more uneven than I might have previously implied.

(In the end, I prefer the new Hilary Duff album to either of them, even though I'm getting the idea from the increasingly crypitc teen-pop thread that some people consider Hilary's new one a forced matrurity/dignity move and hence a retreat for her. I don't hear it that way at all, but then again, I'm still waiting for her earlier stuff -- none of which albums I have around here anymore, sadly -- to connect with me.) (But this isn't country, duh.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 12:04 (nineteen years ago)

it's never seemed like their singers and rhythm sections are all that great

Also, on records I've heard, they just don't rock as hard as the best '60s garage punks did. (But perhaps I should shut up until I actually know for sure that I've heard the new Straitjackets album. Any album with "Hang On Sloopy" can't be all bad!)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

East L.A. doowop

Well, not doowop, per se. But r&b at least.

Damn I sound like Xhuxk-by-rote in these last few posts. (Sometimes I should just stay out of it.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:07 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, I dunno. Los Straits are fun live--they don't seem any more or less retro than Big Sandy, for example, of any number of rockabilly dudes I've seen. I remember sharing some herbal sacrament with one of the Big Sandy guys in the parking lot of the now-gone Sutler in N-ville, and the guy tried to scheme on my girlfriend. And Chuck is so right on "Farmer John." I'm fascinated with that whole era in LA music, the zoot-suit riots and all that. Don and Dewey. Don't know how Los Lobos got in there but again, I mean they're really good. Recently in town there was this typical Friday-night bill in East Nashville--a one-man drunken band w/ keyboards called something like Cass Cass Casiotone (he ran off the with tip jar), a strange little new-wave band featuring a blonde singer as good-looking as Dale Bozzio, practically, they sounded like Missing Persons or something, and then a band called Corazon, who apparently have a big following in the Spring Hill section of town. totally cool, big fat guitar player getting all Hendrix-ed out, and they did Bobby Bland's "Farther On Up the Road" good and then essayed some Lobos-style/Santana/idiot-salsa/r&b grooves, not bad at all, but the fat guitar dude tried to sing just like David Hidalgo and you realized, shit, that's harder to do that they make it look. So I don't knock Los Lobos at all myself altho in my less sanguine moments I think of them as the Little Feat of the '90s, and I mean sure I love me some Dixie Chicken.
Kind of into Pam Tillis right now--her new record I decided was actually really good, and not as retro as Elizabeth Cook's. Tillis pulls off the kind of slightly fruity and melodramatic singing and interpreting that I normally would avoid--she picked some great songs and when I say that her band sounds as good as her dad's Statesiders, that's a compliment. I know her Arista singles--she supposedly did a rock record in the '70s. And a tribute to her dad a few years back. To my ears, given the context of early-'90s country, Tillis' "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial" and "Let That Pony Run" sure sound good these days.

― whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

re ? & Mysteriansetc having Latin "in their loins": literally in that case, since ?=Rudy Martinez, and I think the Ms were all Hispanic as well, and yeah, that's what I meant about Little Willie G. and these other guys bringing out "Spanish Tinge, as John Storm Roberts would say," cos of course his book of that title was about covert/unacknowledged Latin elements in mainstream pop & rock (as far as its promotion, overall--although word got around among Hispanics, and certainly about input by their own, as well as Leiber & Stoller's [et al's]admitted integrations of stylistic elements])Not saying it's any great thing, but seems streamworthy, if you follow that link I posted upthread--But! Like I warned, the first track, "All Day And All Of The Night," is the most disappointing, to me anyway. Edd, have you heard Little Feat with that female vocalist? Of course they're a ghost band now, but seems okay enough (speaking of Lowell George, he told an interviewer about replacing Dickie Dodd in the Standells, and at his first gig, was confronted by audience of angry Chicanas, waiting for their hombre: "Where's Dickie, m-a-a-a-n...")

― dow, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

no, last Little Feat record I ever heard was Time Loves a Hero or that live double, altho I've heard a few more recent tracks somewhere or another. What's real interesting are the Cale Paris 1919 outtakes featuring Lowell ripping on slide. btw-- thx, Don, from both me and Duncan, Amnesty is here.

― whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 20:23 (nineteen years ago)

I bet these guys liked Little Feat (though maybe the Grateful Dead more, I dunno -- also some Don Henley in their singing now and then, at least in the apparent Robbie Robertson cover "Stage Fright", so throw the Band into the equation as well as I guess): Real good new country-jazz/proto-jam/soft-rock/white blues/country boogie/bluegrass/Western swing reunion CD from a quintet of North Dakotans whose local heyday apparently went 1974-1982, and even (they say--haven't verified) made Billboard's country singles chart for a week once. Jazzy opening track is my favorite so far, though I don't think the Thelonious Monk cover has come up in my CD changer yet. The songs otherwise are mostly originals, and mostly sound like songs (even more than, I dunno, Donna the Buffalo's or Tea Leaf Green's jams sound like songs, and those bands are both way above the jam pack songwise in the first place). "Battle the Bottle" is good 12-step-program country; "Bottom of the Band" and "2 O'Clock Shuffle" are lively boogie woogie; etc. etc.:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/redwillowband3

― xhuxk, Saturday, 21 April 2007 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

speaking of Tea Leaf Green, I never heard their last, live record. Wonder how they are live--kind of interesting to hear a keyboard-dominated jam band...
inspired by the new Prine/Wiseman collab (and Wiseman is definitely one great singer and someone I got to check out--in his excellent ND piece on Wiseman, Barry Mazor mentions a collab w/ Woody Herman, as well as an entire record of Gordon Lightfoot covers), went back and checked out Prine's In Spite of Ourselves, which I missed upon release. Greatest country record ever made about marriage (or men and women) and its joys and discontents? The duets w/ Iris Dement are just amazing.

― whisperineddhurt, Saturday, 21 April 2007 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

I actually got about four copies of that live Tea Leaf Green album in the mail, Edd, but I'm not sure if any of the extras are still around here; if I find one, I'll mail it to you. Here's what I wrote about it on last year's thread (i.e., not much), though I should confess I didn't wind up putting it on much afterwards, for whatever that's worth:

new tea leaf green album, *rock'n'roll band* earns its title. even better than the last one, for its instrumental parts, by which i mean mainly not only its guitar parts. the vocals, still deadhead mellow, don't grab me but also don't really bug me. if there are any other "jam bands" this listenable out there, i'd like to know who.

-- xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, September 30, 2006 7:10 AM (6 months ago)

Also, the Red Willow Band are South not North Dakotans, it turns out; wow, hope I didn't offend anybody with that gaffe. (And the Thelonious Monk cover, which finally came up, sounded good.)

― xhuxk, Saturday, 21 April 2007 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

New album by David Olney, One Tough Town, is kicking my butt; alternating awesome cynical country songs with Tom Waits-like thumpers which still somehow work even though I'm pretty much over Tom Waits imitators. Guest guitar by Richard Thompson on at least one track, but real star are the actual songs. Title track talks about how Earth is the toughest gig: "They'll put a hole in you they could drive a truck through / And if you don't like it ... " (well he doesn't actually say anything there but guess what rhymes with "truck through"?)

― Dimension 5ive, Saturday, 21 April 2007 16:52 (nineteen years ago)

I've got the Olney too, I'll check it out. Remember him on Austin City Limits 30 years ago, swaggering through this b-movie-boxer-as-primo-Graham-Parker-of-Nashville thing; the audience was laughing,as he strutted among them spouting 100 words per barline (so in that sense like the Brooce of several years previous, but the voice and arragement were as compressed as GP & The Rumour, only it was a Southern Thing too! WooHoo!)(the band might have been The X-Rays, or maybe that was later) Cool, but somehow I've never picked up (or even seen) an album. Also, last night I heard this song, "No Regrets, " which I thought was Tom Rush, suavely melancholy with early-Joni changes, and Rush was one of the first to record her songs, but turned out to be--Waits! From an album he made in 1969. I'd always thought of Closing Time, from maybe '71, as his first, with "Old '55," which The Eagles covered. Pretty good songs, and not really the faux-Satchmo bit yet, but this '69 bit was even better. (And the DJ said he did cover Joni on there, but think this was an original; anyway, might be worth checking out; fairly often did like his songs, but not the full-on vocal thing, usually). Yeah, Edd, Prine with Melba Montgomery and Iris Dement etc. is prob the keeper. Elzabeth Cook's new Balls is tickling me, for the most part. Just pitched it, so I'll hold my enthusiasm for the moneyshot. Not feelin' the new Dale Watson, he begs comparison with Cash and Waylon, who had more emotional range (Cash's "Sam Hill," snarling on the gallows, but Dale's killers are too nice, at least on this album(BTW, the"Yellow Mama" he mentions is Alabama's electric chair, so named for its paint job and a streak of piss-stain, but he's too nice to tell you that)

― dow, Saturday, 21 April 2007 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, the Tea Leaf Green live is conventional jam band, with guitar cranking all possible interest for the first half or so; the others pull their weight eventually, but the studio album was much better, more distinctive, with the translucent, android vocals and keybs up front, the guitar like lighting in the background, suitable for the songs about growing up way back in the mountains, and hazards and beauty of that, and of gradually venturing out.

― dow, Saturday, 21 April 2007 18:55 (nineteen years ago)

Good new version of the Rednex' techno-country version of "Cotton Eyed Joe" on the Pretty Donkey Girl album (Pretty Donkey apparently this year's model to carry on the hamster dance/crazy frog zany zoo tradition.) Discussed further on the teenpop thread. Have not listened to "Holly's Farm" yet.

The "D-Bop Radio Edit" of Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Girl" that Frank burned for me on his most recent mix CD would've fit pretty well on the Pretty Donkey CD, probably, but I still like a bunch of tracks on Gretchen's new album more (closing time boogie "You Don't Have To Go Home," Southern rocker that quotes Billy Idol and Bob Seger "There's a Place in the Whiskey", "Okee From Muskogee" soundalike "If You Want a Mother," "Gold Old Boy"). Basically, again, the rockers. Which are better than her debut album's ballads ever were, and the first album's rockers return the favor to the new album's ballads. Though midtempos "The Girl I Am" and "There Goes The Neighborhood" are fine. She's totally consistent; it's not her fault that fickle fans overrated her when she first showed up.

Tea Leaf Green live is conventional jam band ...the studio album was much better, more distinctive

In retrospect, I would probably agree with this.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

"Redneck Woman," I mean.

Biggest surprise on the first few tracks I tracked through on the new Nick Lowe apparently-all-covers-of-songs-I-never-heard-before album: How flat his voice has become over the years. Not sure why I expected otherwise; haven't paid close attention to the guy since 1979 (guess I've listened to a couple albums in the interim to write quickie reviews, but they're long gone from my memory banks), and my assumption has always been that he turned dullard years ago. Well, he still is one. Albeit a tasteful dullard, apparently. And one whose vocal chords have done what most vocal chords do in 28 years. For whatever it's worth, the song choice seems okay (and even his flatness seems passingly pleasant.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:42 (nineteen years ago)

(Another possibilty: Yep Roc simply brings out the dullard in people. See: Ian Hunter above.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:45 (nineteen years ago)

Haven't heard those particular albums, but might well be the hazards of being a pub rock label, in the sense that pub rock is basically a geezercore thing, though it involves youger art-rowdies too: I like Th' Legendary Shack Shakers and Chatham County Line on Yep Roc, and John Doe too, speaking of geezercore. Ian and Nick seem pretty insular, basically, so at this point the dullard might not need much bringing out.

― dow, Sunday, 22 April 2007 03:32 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think Yep Roc is much involved in production.

― dow, Sunday, 22 April 2007 03:41 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, most likely not (though I wonder if the blandness is part of what attracts the label to these sorts of oldster projects in the first place?)

Anyway, I wish this fellow had more interesting things going on singing-wise, lyric-wise, melody-wise, and rhythm-wise (seeing how he seems to see himself as a disciple of Dylan, or at least his harmonica parts do) but I still think the idea of a concept EP dedicated to the concept of Levittown (the Long Island one, where I've never been, though Billy Joel mentioned it in a song once, not the Pennsylvania one, where I lived when I was in Kindergarten) -- apparently commissioned by the archetypal 'burb for its 60th Anniversary, no less. And it's only eight songs, so who knows, maybe a few will kick in despite their plainness. (I've long been a sucker for suburb rock, though maybe he should've gotten Fountains of Wayne to help him out? Or the Pet Shop Boys, or Rush? Or better still, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw?) I wonder if he knows "Little Boxes" is the theme of Weeds:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/koenigbob

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 12:37 (nineteen years ago)

"I still think the idea of a concept EP dedicated to the concept of Levittown..." is an overdue idea, I meant. (My dashes and parentheses lost me there.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

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