Rolling Country 2006 Thread

http://cdbaby_com/cd/j0hnnyrebel [not real link -- mods]

http://cdbaby.com/cd/shaniatwain2

http://cdbaby.com/cd/shaniatwain

I had a copy of one a mid '90s pre-stardom CD by her once, but wasn't very impressed.

I have not heard it yet, but isn't this new one produced by John Cale? Alejandro has always proclaimed his love for slow-tempoed Velvets and Mott the Hoople songs, and he crossed that with a bit of country and Mexican sounds to create that atmospheric minor chord approach of his.
One of his recent cds was produced by Chris Stamey I think, who pushed/encouraged Alejandro into writing an upbeat pop # or 2. I have always liked him live, but the last time I saw him(with several cello players, a violinist and more)I had the impression that his songwriting had gotten into a rut. But I was just glad to see him alive frankly, as he had been in the hospital suffering from hepatitis c and other ailments. He was sitting down for the whole show.

My review of my favorite current band featuring an Escovedo is here:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0344,eddy,48162,22.html

Yeah, it was piling on. Unsportsmanlike conduct, personal foul, fifteen yards and ejection from game. Jewels was left for last, which is hard, you could see it coming with the judges who were having a hard time distinguishing between the polish, so the last person up gets dinged for overcooking it somewhat in front of the TV audience.

Cowboy Troy would be good in a redo of that abominable Chuck Norris series about two Texas marshalls who administer savage beatings to a few people -- er, varmints -- every episode. Troy would be great for the sidekind, better than the original sidekick. He's bigger for one, and he could unsling his belt and use it as a lash, bonking people -- er, varmints, in the head with the giant oval belt buckle.

Anyway. Johanna Stahley's *I'm Not Perfect* (she's from NYC, I think) is a better Sheryl Crow album than the last Sheryl Crow album. Sounds more like when Sheryl liked beats, back in her "Leaving Las Vegas" days. First song is called "My Big O (I Can)," and, judging from the album cover photo, may well be about the singer's Big O and the achieving of it thereof. Also, she imitates Steve Tyler in it. Another highlight is the one where Johanna falls for a bartender. And even the songs with sorta dreary words don't sound like they do.

>pro sounding, like Coe's Penitentiary Blues in tone<

Interesting. This reminded me of some redneck asshole when I was in the Army who had what he claimed to be an underground racist "joke" LP by Coe (who I believe *did* use the "n"-word in one of his country hits, as some sort of stupid pun), but in searching on line, this website claims some such records attributed to Coe may have *been* Johnny Rebel:

http://www.answers.com/topic/david-allan-coe

Other websites say there were a couple such "X-rated" Coe albums sold under the name Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy, exclusively to bikers via *Easy Riders* magazine, and at least one of the song titles sounds explicitly racist, so who knows? (I'm guessing the persona was Coe's equivalent of Clarence Reid's Blowfly? No idea how seriously he took it.)

The actual Coe hit with n-word I'm referring to is "If That Ain't Country": "working like a n***** for my room and board" (not a pun, I guess; I'd remembered it wrong.)

What makes Johanna Stanley's CD so boppy, I figured out, is how her bassist and drummer play full-on late '60s bubblegum soul beats in three straight songs in the middle -- "The Bartender Song," "What You're Doing," and "Misery," the latter of which doesn't sound miserable at all. Tapdancey alley-cat rhythm of "I'm Not Perfect" (a Rickie Lee or Norah Jones move?) and George Michael Diddleybeats of "Nothing I Would Change" are nice, too.

i think that for a variety of reasons (research, vehement anti censorship, free speech, the only thing that kills mould is sunshine, historical value) that johnny rebel should be availble, and that it was wrong to ask cd baby to take it down. though i am often a hypocrite about this, and sometimes my analysis and yellign seems like a calling for censorship, and i most lilkely feel worse about other words

Anyway, the guy's voice in "Looking for a Handout" resembled David Allen Coe's.

========
During America's sharp decline in the 1960s, there were a few bands that tried to compose some patriotic and pro-White music. I heard a few of these songs and they are really just god awful. The only pro-White music of any quality to come out of the 1960s and early 1970s, was with some American Country music, which has been lumped together to be called "Johnny Rebel." There were many different musicians touring the Southern honky tonks, playing these Johnny Rebel songs. There was one rather famous country singer that is rumored to have written most of the really popular of these songs, such as "Coon Town" and "Move those Niggers North," but if true, he wants to keep his identity private. There was even George Lincoln Rockwell who made an attempt at pro-White music with the band "Otis and the Three Bigots." Otis and his Bigots meant well, but the music was bad.

There were no mainstream record labels that would touch these songs, so they had no ability to become heard, let along rise in popularity. There was one famous Country music singer named David Allen Coe who used the word "Nigger" openly in a song in the 1970s. This song can still be heard in maybe 1,000 jukeboxes currently across America in small bars and restaurants. This song is "If that ain't Country." David Allen Coe also wrote another song that his mainstream record label refused to release. The name of this song says it all: "White Girl and a Nigger."

natvan.com/adv/2006/03-04-06.html

>Also top of the playlist this weekend: Huck Johns, Detroit transplant to LA who google seems to suggest turned down a Velvet Revolver opening slot at least once. Looks like Tim McGraw to me, though I'm guessing he gave a lot more thought to picking his truckers hat and those Fleetwood Mac and Muddy Waters albums on the couch on the CD's back cover than Tim might give to more apparel choices. I won't hold that against him though. Album very much rocks, even the grunge parts, but especially maybe the tributes to "Highway to Hell" and ELO's "Turn to Stone", and the Seger "Ramblin Gamblin Man" cover and maybe more. (Which reminds me I need to get back to that live Kid Rock album soon too.) (Pretty funny too that Huck's Capitol Records subsidiary is called Hideout, same name as Seger and the Last Heard's label from Persecution Smith/East Side Story/Heavy Music daze.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 18th, 2006.

Huck Johns is sounding better and better. Turns out he's apparently from Lincoln Park, MI, and wrote a song for Kid Rock once, though I didn't know that when I put them in the same paragraph up above. Album is basically mostly '70s Ford assembly line singer-songwriter hard rock; the "grunge" I refer to above has to do with ballads that remind me somehow of Stone Temple Pilots, one of one which, "One Good Man" (which I guess doesn't remind *that* much of STP) may have a possible gay undercurrent, given that Huck's searching for one good man in it. In his liner notes Huck thanks not only eternal Detroit AOR station WRIF and Seger but also Johnny "Bee" Badanjek of Rockets/Ryder fame, and the producer is one Arthur Pennhallow Jr--interesting, since I swear I remember a guy named Arthur Penhallow being a longtime DJ on late '70s/early '80s Detroit rock stations. So now I'm wondering if Huck's some kind of local Michigan hit. Weird that the CD's on Capitol, given that it seems to have way more in common to what you'd find via cdbaby.
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 18th, 2006.

Bon Scott, MC5, Bob Seger, AC-DC, Chris Cornell, STP, Rolling Stones, CCR, Pink Floyd, J. Geils, Ted Nugent, Frankie Miller, Faces, Otis Redding, Iggy, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Johnny Cash, Merle, Waylon, Willie

Sounds like I might even like it. If there's a pr e-mail or contact, send it my way so I can make a request.

One caveat I gotta state about the Huck Jones album is that he probably does *too many* Stone Temple-style ballads. They're fine (less coagulated than STP's own early ballads were -- I'm talking STP in Pearl Jam not powerpop/glam mode here -- and, in Jones's "Forgiveness," almost more like a *Use Your Illusion* ballad done in a lower register), but they're really not the guy's best songs (so far I'm leaning toward lead cut/single "Oh Yeah," "Infatuation," ELO "Turn to Stone" rip "Kill Everything," and the Seger cover for those), and they seem too plentiful compared to his faster hard rock. Also STP's best songs weren't ballads anyway. But maybe a la Cargun, I'll decide Huck's aren't as grunge as they seem.

I'm betting Johnny Rebeltunes-type material is also popular in some enclaves of soCal. The LA Times went out and surveyed the white voters after the Bush victory, the counties that went for him which are in the interior deserts and such, also out to the Sierra's, and they sounded like Johnny Reb's. Mostly wanting to vote for Bush because they felt the Reps were better ready to do something about the 'illegals' and here's one quote paraphrased, 'cuz they carried/carry diseases and that's a threat to security. Same as 'Move them Niggers North," only 'Move Them Pickers South.'

And new Dixie Chicks single is streaming here:

http://music.msn.com/artist/?artist=16097852>1=7702

I dig. It's like the Chicks fronting the Hearbreakers. Oh wait, it basically is.

Rough Shop's a St. Louis group that Roy's working with. I posted about their "Far Past the Outskirts" above--basically, it sounds like good ol' tortured drone-country, sort of on that Mekons/Fairport Convention wavelength. I think it's pretty good, and just ugly enough for me. I like the songs that Anne Tkach sings, like "Destination Everywhere."

and Moody Scott's record is real good, the best kind of semi-pro you'll never see on Nashville Star...his raps are good (he doesn't really rap, but he definitely has some things to say about our particular moment in time), and it's all post-Malaco/I-55 bluessoulfunk, with a few cheeseball synthin-kitsch-sink keyboard ballads that because they're coming from Moody, aren't even unlistenable. and the "Something You Got Baby" he does links him definitively to some kind of weird New Orleans tradition I don't have all the links for--'cause it is Chris Kenner's '61 "Something You Got" except very slightly different words, same arrangement/melody. And good--so did Kenner cop his hit (which is really important New Orleans record, as far as that goes, since it started the "Popeye" dance/song craze of late '61, blues skolars) from somewhere else?

xps

In fact, I'm astonished by the songwriting craft on just about ever cut, it only faltering by the last couple of tunes when they turn off the electric guitars. And at one point they even do something that sounds like Jackson Browne around "Running On Empty."

And I didn't think it would grow on me as much as it has. Also belongs in the category of heartland rock staked out by the Michael Stanley's of the country.

I got the new Bottle Rockets, and on first listen, it's pretty good, tougher than the last album, though I'm not so sure about the mastering. Kinda bright for what the band is going for. Release date is early June on Bloodshot.

Well, obv. Woody did, but so did the Hag; if I recall correctly, it goes "The illegal immigrant is making America grow."

also saw Rosanne Cash and The Little Willies (feat. Norah Jones) do an instore - Rosanne only did five songs and forgot a line or two from "Tennessee Flattop Box" but that was fine by me cause the other four she did were all from Black Cadillac and personally I'm loving that album.

oh yeah, and I caught Elizabeth McQueen and the Firebrands twice too, once right before Billy Joe - she threw out a bunch of free swag during "All I Need is Money" and I helped myself to a beer cozy.