Rolling Country 2006 Thread

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Huck Johns' influences from his myspace page. Frankie Miller and Ted too, hmmm.

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.

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Saturday, 18 March 2006 17:48 (twenty years ago)

That info would be at work, George. I'll check on Monday, though.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 18 March 2006 17:55 (twenty years ago)

Huck sounds like he's of the house and lineage of Akron-born, Grand-Funk-touring-with late 60s Coe. Were there other such back then? I'll have to dig up my early Creems, but the closest I can remember is a folksinger with attitude, not a country singer: Jonathan Round, who is decribed, in Rock-a-Rama, as doing a mock-Shakespearean "Sympathy For The Devil." (Before Bryan Ferry did his Tiny Tim Karloff version, and while the Stones were usually taken very seriously elsewhere in those pages.) And the reviewer say, "Aww whattya expect from a DEETROIT folksinger?" Made it look pretty good, but I never found it.

― don, Saturday, 18 March 2006 19:44 (twenty years ago)

re "on Capitol, but seems more like what you'd find on cdbaby": isn't Tea Leaf Green on cdbaby? But, despite being credited to "Greenhouse Music under exclusive license to Reincarnate Music" also says "manufactured in the USA by SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (st address) under exclusive license from Reincarnate Music." so what still possibly passes for the Majors, infiltrating the indie frontier? Bet Tea Leaf Green hasn't seen any big bucks from Sony yet. Strange album. My opinion still hasn't firmed up yet, but the auteur, Trevor Gerrard, seems like he's got his own (lived)version of the riddling spiritual-emotional crisis-quest of Hunter-Garcia.(Singing kinda Garcia-Furay, which shouldn't suit my tastes at all, but somehow it kinda does.) But he isn't a guitarist, which might help the vocal, cos keeps resemblence from being the usual jamband-begging-and-faring-badly-by-close-comparison. (Plus it's not really a jamband.) He plays piano, more like Chuck Leavell than the Dead's keybists. The whole thing is tied to (and kept in line by)his electric piano: as aural metaphor/setting (sparkling waters! Stream, creek, sometimes river) for the early songs about struggling/sticking with his roots/insularity, or venturing forth. So he does both. the piano also sets the overall rhythmic pace, so the other instruments tend to rustle, except the guitar[kinda Duane or Derek T. or Warren Haynes most of the time, though can be a bit like Dickie or Eric or yeah Tom V.] is maybe something in the sky, but over and through the backside of the trees. "5000 Acres" an interesting change of stylistic shading, cos the most Verlaine-ish, and it does deal with a forest fire, and suddenly reminds me of Patti Smith's Television profile in mid-70s Rock Scene (before they'd recorded, except as Neon Boys): she says that Tom and Hell started a forest fire in Alabama, just to watch it burn. (Perhaps inspired by Randy Newman's "Let's Burn Down The Cornfield" ["and make love while it's burning"]?)Plus, it's one of the few Tea Leaf Green lyrics that seems to acknowledge something happening in the present-day outdoors, that's not yet totally processed by Trevor's diffusion. I mean his methods (as bandleader-composer, dynamically, and making the guitarist seem like a hireling) get a bit too same-o, after a while, same as so many CDs. (LPs were shorter, so same-o couldn't spread so far, not as often as on CDs.) But I still listen, and maybe Trevor's programming me, we'll see.

― don, Saturday, 18 March 2006 20:28 (twenty years ago)

from metal thread w/ typos fixed:

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.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 18 March 2006 23:43 (twenty years ago)

This song can still be heard in maybe 1,000 jukeboxes currently across America in small bars and restaurants.

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.'

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Saturday, 18 March 2006 23:51 (twenty years ago)

"Pickers" sought out (if not brought here, or mailordered) by those Free Enterprisers who pay without taxes or Workmen's Comp to worry about, if indeed they end up paying los illegals at all. (What are they gonna do, complain to Uncle Sam?)Somehow such employers never seem to be the targets of such ire: if the pickers parade like crack-flaunting jailbait, right under the nose of Mr Businessman, what else can the rich man do? End of Editorial.Somebody should write a song. (Just now on the radio. Hazeldine's doing a female-sung, assertively folk-rocked "Whiskey In The Jarro": sounds like Thin Lizzy's, but kinda better)

― don, Sunday, 19 March 2006 02:12 (twenty years ago)

Back from Austin and I'd just like to say The Mammals are more stomping live than you'd ever guess from their record.

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.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 20 March 2006 21:51 (twenty years ago)

Listening to this lo-fi New Zealand art-folk indie-rock album (EP?) by Pumice on Soft Abuse (which is very very pretty and I like a lot), I'm realizing that some Flying Nun-style New Zealand stuff is sort of country in the way the Mekons circa 1980 (*Devils Rats and Piggies* era; very early but not *extremely* early in their career) were sort of country. Frank wrote once (in *Why Music Sucks* I think) that New Zealanders did prettier things with Velvet Underground music than anybody (except maybe the occasional Clevelander), but I hear as much country Mekons here as Velvets. My favorite song is "Worsted," I think.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 12:01 (twenty years ago)

at risk of offending someone mightily, and im not sure who, i got rough shop's new album in the mail today, and though the ocver art is amazing, its kind of dull in that rough shod earnest indie way...

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 13:41 (twenty years ago)

who or what are or is rough shop??

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 13:47 (twenty years ago)

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

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 15:22 (twenty years ago)

Detroit Disciples' Saving Grace has stuff belongs on current CMT. A lot of stuff. They're from Sonoma in my state, they tell me, and xhuxk must have liked them. And I can see why because the first three tunes, "I Can't Complain," "Government Man," and "Fallen In Love," are stellar singer/songwriter roots rock and very very catchy.

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.

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 16:41 (twenty years ago)

xhuxk: you should have gotten the Rough Shop CD by now. If it doesn't show up in a few days, I'll resend. Anthony: No offense remotely taken. Thanks for taking the time to listen. And I'll take some credit for the cover art 'cause it was my design, though Bob Reuter, St. Louis's best rock 'n' roll photographer, took all the photos. Anybody else want a copy, feel free to email me.

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.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 17:25 (twenty years ago)

Yep, George, I do like Detroit Disciples! (See upthread, circa Feb 2).

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 17:51 (twenty years ago)

But Roy! Tellus about SXSW!

― don, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 17:58 (twenty years ago)

I agree, it made me immediately think of Michael Pare in the Eddie & the Cruisers movies. (There were two of them and the sequel was really really awful!) But Detroit Disciples overcome most of the bowling alley and roadhouse stodge with the actually great songs. It's obvious they mean it in the sincerest manner and that counts on some things, this being one of them. I can listen to it a lot easier than I can Yep Roc's roots-rock-with-paprika-and-other-spicy-weirdnesses CDs these days.

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 18:05 (twenty years ago)

All kinds of thoughts swimming in my aching head about SXSW but I have 1000 words on these here Nina Simone reissues due in like 2 hours, so it'll have to wait--mostly. Of the 60 odd bands I caught I didn't see all that much country-ish that knocked me out. Biggest thrill was a full set by Roky Erickson (the resurrection is as real as anyone could hope for and something I never thought I'd see). Also: total funk tightness from Sharon Jones and an 8 piece version of Margot and the Nuclear So and So's and a very very rocking Willie Nile show, pick-up bass player and drummer not withstanding. But could someone explain the appeal of What Made Milwaukee Famous? They're like an even more faceless Emerson Drive (if that's even possible) with bogus hipster pretentions. Somebody must have thrown a lot of money at Esquire to get them on the Saturday finale at Stubb's.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 18:38 (twenty years ago)

Somebody should write a song

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

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 18:52 (twenty years ago)

Speaking of Kid Rock, people (me) tend to forget how great Devil Without a Cause is. Was thinking about him because I recently borrowed Rage Against the Machine's Los Angeles from the library and basically felt sad listening to it, how these guys seemed to have the moves, the noise, the dance, the energy, but ended up dry-as-dull-dust, the splash of music not even there as a mist or a droplet - though the album went platinum, so someone heard something. And it clobbered Kid Rock in Pazz & Jop, though the Kid went 9 times platinum so what does he care? Anyway, Rage seemed to just be short of someone like a Kid Rock to find them tunes and emotion and humor. But Kid has been a mystery to me since then, mainly because I stopped following after that boring second album, but the little I've heard after that left me puzzled. So, any more thoughts, especially his would-be country escapades, but not restricted to those? It seems to me that though Rage needed someone like him, he also needed something like Rage, some rhythm and noise to put his nonlegit voice in full effect.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 19:17 (twenty years ago)

(xpost illegales songs)Don't know the Hag's; also, was thinking about Woody's "Deportee" and maybe "Plane Wreck At Los Gatos," if that's even the right title, but I don't know the words to either, well enough to know if they fit the condemnation-exploitation I was preaching about. Roky's revival was also mentioned in Parales' SXSW report,linked from the SXSW thread--that is really amazing. xpost Yep Roc spices, Shack Shakers' Pandelrium is mostly pretty solid, and although they're not (yet?) as accomplished as Gogol Bordello, I was comparing favorably even before I saow the Gogol link on the Shack Shakers site (and G.B. does tour the South fairly often, for that.) But also, if I could've figured out how to squeeze this into the forthcoming review, I would've added that my personal faves are the country-est, like "No Such Thing,"("Is that a bone in my leg? No, there's no such thing") and (country with rolling horizons)"Nelly Bell." Which could be a real obit set to music, and reminds me of a plainer "For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite," at least some of the words of which came from an old circus poster, Lennon said. Also the one on prev. Cockadoodledont, about Wilkes's neighbor, who gets drunk and sits on his horse in the front yard everyday. Man and steed are old, and don't race no more, but not falling down, not in the song, anyway.

― don, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 19:42 (twenty years ago)

don't know if anyone else caught Billy Joe Shaver at SXSW but I'd never seen him live before and it was a real treat, equal parts hammy and heartbreaking, a sly, salacious old polecat who did an unbelievable song about "faxing" all night long with a girl from Kinko's that also compared cellphones to dick size and lamented that nowadays the ladies all wanted the "cowboy troy model." thought i'd die laughing. did almost all his classics ("old chunk of coal," "honky tonk heroes," "georgia on a fast train") and proved he could still hold a crowd with his latest "live forever."

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.

― Josh Love (screamapillar), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 19:59 (twenty years ago)

I got to see the Rosanne set at Stubb's, first time I'd ever seen her with a full-on band, and I was surprised at how well she does chunky and loose rock, maybe it was the drummer (no idea who) or Larry Campbell holding forth on rhythm guitar so that her hubby could just play without atmospherizing as he tends to. I hope she's touring this band.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 20:14 (twenty years ago)

Ha, Frank, I can't even remember which "boring second album" by Kid Rock you mean! "Amercian Badass*? *Cocky*? There have been so many rip-off stop-gaps (most recently the live one, which I like just fine this week), I have trouble remembering which were the official ones. (Plus, *Devil Without a Cause* was something like his fourth; he actually had hinted at going the redneck route with *Early Morning Stoned Pimp* before that.) Anyway. All the ones since have had music I enjoy on them (more "music" than "songs"), and they're all pretty much been completely forgettable, and I assume I'll say the same thing about *'Live' Trucker* in two years, and I really don't mind for some reason. It's like the guy has taken a clue from his coked-out '70s country and rock heroes and settled on just being a dependable journeyman; I seriously doubt he has any interest in making an album as great as *Devil Without a Cause* again. And I disagree about him needing his own Rage Against the Machine. The Rage-style stuff on *Devil* (including, uh, the song with "rage" in the title) was the album's worst stuff, and the Twisted Brown Trucker Band have "the moves, the noise, the dance, the energy" at LEAST as much as Rage ever did to my ears, plus they've got a sense of fun and sense of humor and, hell, sense of funk that I never heard in Rage, so they *don't* end up dry as dust. (Though it's very possible I just never listened to Rage enough, or their vocalist got in the way of me hearing their music, like what happens to me with hip-hop so often.) I mean, Twisted Brown Trucker are more a hard rock boogie band than a complex Zep-style metal band I guess (I *assume* that's what people hear Rage as; am I wrong?), but that doesn't bug me. The first song on the live CD, "Son of Detroit," boogies quite funkerociously to my ears, and it's fun how they end with the Gap Band's "Outstanding". Oddly, the song that holds up worst for me on this CD (compared to its studio version) is "Only God Knows Why," which I think was my single of the year in Pazz and Jop the year it came out -- then again, maybe it's just that there's been such a huge and unexpected deluge of great Southern rock since then that it doesn't sound so special anymore, who knows. And I still kind of like "Picture," whether Sheryl or Alison or Gretchen are duetting on it, and I know you don't, Frank (not sure why, though.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 23:40 (twenty years ago)

(I mean, I've talked about this on other threads plenty, gotten in arguments with Miccio about it and stuff. And I totally understand why people feel let down by the guy; he *did* pretty much turn into a hack, lost his sense of punchlines as much as the Beasties ever did, and so on. But I feel like his band has kept his head above water somehow, and some day I'll handpick a great CD-R out of his post-*Devil albums, and 10 years from now maybe some smart whippersnapper will argue convincingly that *Devil* wasn't even his best after all. Anyway, here's what I wrote about his last one, for whatever it's worth:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0350,eddy,49290,22.html

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 23:54 (twenty years ago)

Two other small thoughts in his favor:

1) There are definitely good arguments available for moving from Limp Bizkit type music to Lynyrd Skynyrd type music (or even from Rage Against the Machine type music to Bad Company type music). (For example, here's one: melodies are *good* things.)

2) He makes better albums now than Eminem does (which I wouldn't have predicted.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 01:14 (twenty years ago)

And I gotta say I really love how he identifies so much with Bob Seger, since in some ways (local Detroit City fame years before he exploded nationally, etc) their careers do have certain parallels. Though of course if Kid had done it right he would have put out his *Live Bullet* tribute *before* *Devil Without a Cause*. Still, it should be noted that, in hindsight, *Stranger in Town* doesn't seem near the artistic dropoff from *Night Moves* it was once seen as, and maybe someday it'll make just as much sense to the same about *Cocky* in relation to *Devil.* And Seger's '80s hackwork could be distilled into a great CD-R, too.

And by the way, speaking of *Cocky* (and Iraqis) the last line of this great RJ Smith review from late 2001 now seems eerily prescient; I wonder if Kid read it and took it to heart?

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0151,smith,30841,22.html

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 01:38 (twenty years ago)

(Okay, maybe not a great CD-R, but a RESPECTABLE one. For the late works of Bob S and Bob R both.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 01:59 (twenty years ago)

More thoughts on new Brox: It's their best record since 24 Hours A Day, which is probably their best record over all, and it comes up with compelling answers to the eternal question "What would Neil do?" They've had guitar crush before, but not with the gravity of the opener "Better Than Broken" and they've never been quite this universally dark (Zoysia, I've since learned, is a strain of creeping grass, and a metaphor for how the suburbs are destiny and not a pretty one), though any record with a song that celebrates the individualism of sobriety (the one dud to my ears) won't be confused with Tonight's the Night. But there's aesthetic coherence here, not greasy or gritty or trashy really, just a diamond hard chiseling of who the Bottle Rockets are, even if, on the best acoustic number, they claim they're not from where they're from. I don't think it's too much to say there's something existential going on here--and it rocks too.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 04:46 (twenty years ago)

Am watching Nashville Star right now, predicting I'll be checking out after thirty minutes. Gretchen is the guest music star and I'm overworked on the redneck shtick which is the theme of the show, straight down to the hack slob/fool Larry the Cable Guy. Show us your buttcrack, hey? It was old and odious when Dan Aykroyd did it on SNL.

So everyone is talking 'bout how redneck revolution means rocking and they can get fucked as far as I'm concerned. Being a redneck is coincidental, poxy fules.

The sound is noticebably off in this epidsode. It's reverberant, shrill and the crash makes it difficult to decipher what Cowboy Troy is going on about. Troy is up, he's so up it seems he's taken a pill, maybe one too many. He's talking too fast and a Prilosec logo, the drug for curbing heartburn acid reflux, is flashing next to his face and if there's someone who looks like a bigger fool tonight, you're going to have to go a long way to find him or her.

Rock, rock, rock, redneck rock is the mantra for tonight, adds Wy. Let's all rock through the show. It's so irritating my teeth are rattling.

Last week was fair. This week the meat wagon's being driven over the cliff. Were the ratings bad?

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 06:25 (twenty years ago)

i watched the first hour
the voices arent v. good, arent even v. good bar band good, and the two i like i didnt know how they did.

only one id like to fuck, too, which is why i msotly watched last year

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 06:27 (twenty years ago)

The sound continues to be bad. The vocals, which were good last week, are obscured by the crash in the hall which tells me the PA is too loud and there aren't enough bodies in the hall to soak it up. Troy's mike made him mostly incoherent.

Gretchen did her second song, Politically Uncorrect or something, and the fiddles and Telecaster were way too loud and I like loud instruments. But the Tele player was just a goon hack with a shaved head and the fiddles, eh. And you know I'm sick of Gretchen who appears to have lost weight which tells me she's taking pills on the advice of her management. Plus, they were phoning it in because they had the look of people who expected the audience to go wild every night while playing it, which is what the studio audience did.

One girl came on -- Torres -- and she looked great and her jeans were spray painted on, but the song was boring and everyone fawned over her because she was HOTT.

Another of my big objections is that none of the contestants show any human superciliousness or enmity, both of which are necessary qualities in pop rock and dealing with any audience live. It stands to reason the guy who did the Big & Rich cover OK, after being drubbed by Anastacia the dick for two weeks running, would have snarled back at her. But no, all the contestants, when fed shit, ask for more. Good character traits for working in cubicles at corporate America USA, maybe convincing to sheep watching on TV, not so good for anything else.

Quote of night: "I love to have a great time." Wow, pearls before swine.

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 07:12 (twenty years ago)

the weird thing, is that with the big and rich song, there has to be a swagger, same with the messina, and well no swagger at all, they care too deeply to be loose with the material,

and well, lets not talk about the guy who did the charlie daniels, the desperation and exhaustion and sadness and esmaculation and all of it hiding behind this played out masculinity...its a hard song to sing, and he was so safe, people shouldnt play broken hearted drinking songs until theyve had enough time to be well be broken hearted and drunk--last week the same thing happened with tequilla, unless you actually have spent time on a bender, the lavisoucness just doesnt slither out...

and cowboy troy is just awkard, he doesnt know where to go and what to say...

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 08:13 (twenty years ago)

> Brox: best record since 24 Hours A Day, which is probably their best record over all<

Really? *Blue Sky* is the only album by them that's ever really clicked for me, and that one only half way; I mean, I liked "Baggage Claim" just fine, but despite their trappings they always seemed to wind up on the wrong side of the alt-country vs. southern rock divide to my ears. Haven't listened to the new one yet, though. And perhaps I should listen to their old ones more (though outside of *Blue Sky,* none are around here anymore.) (I was thinking I liked some almost pub-metal/Count Bishops song they did in the mid/late '90s with "rural route" in the title, but I'm not finding it on AMG; maybe I'm confusing them with somebody. Either way, I always wished their guitars were louder, a la the Cactus Brothers.)

ps. I never knew Bottle Rockets' nickname was "the Brox" til now. But I figured it out!

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 12:08 (twenty years ago)

"Rural Route" is on their first album, which could be out of print for all I know. I'm not sure what you mean about the alt-country vs. southern rock divide though. Maybe not enough r&b in their sound? If that's the case, then you might like that sobriety tune on the new record--first Bottle Rocket song with female back up vocals? But "Baggage Claim" always struck me as stilted--I have no beef with Bread but that's not why I listen to this band. I think you'll like the guitars on the new one.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 13:14 (twenty years ago)

Not enough rock in their sound is more what I mean, Roy. "Kinda rock for an alt-country band" is nice, but not enough. But yeah, I'll check out the new one, and I can see how some funk or soul might help matters too. (And though "Baggage Claim" is the track that sticks in my head from the last album, I'm not claiming that was necessary its best cut. Don't think I've played that CD since the year it came out.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 13:52 (twenty years ago)

It's a mark of my taste that I tend to get interested when (especially) Chuck mentions on this thread that something "doesn't have enough rock in it". I can't really stomach the rock, or the rock end of country.

There's no reason whatsoever you should be interested in this fact.

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:14 (twenty years ago)

Don, as far as I know, "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos" is the correct title of the Woody song that people tend to refer to as "Deportee." The plane crashed by the South Bay, the newscaster described the victims as "just deportees," that's what inspired the song. (I wouldn't be surprised if there were several songs called "Deportee," but I doubt that they'd be by Guthrie.)

Xhuxk, I was thinking that "Devil" was Kid's first. I think American Badass is the one I was calling his second. And of course I don't necessarily believe it needs to be Rage-type guys who back him up. Just someone to lay down some fire. My impression (and this may be very wrong, since I haven't listened to nearly enough of it) is that his singing nowadays is trying to be straight-up legitimate, whereas I think he needs something to provide him cover so that he can do what he does best, which is to do some variation on sing-talking. As I said, this could be all wrong, including my opinion on what he does best.

"Picture" felt like slow, dead sentimentality pinned to the near calm sky. But I've not heard it more than 3 or 4 times, and not recently.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:11 (twenty years ago)

(I listened to the Rage Against the Machine because I was impressed with how Flyleaf seemed to be finding the dance in Rage and Nirvana and using it to lift a live-wire wailer to the spotlight, where she pours her melodic-harmonic heart out in the higher registers, and roar with the wolves in the lower. But I wouldn't claim that Flyleaf are close to country, so if I need to say more I'll take it to the teenpop thread.)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:17 (twenty years ago)

did nathalie merchant do a cover of ...los gatos?

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:24 (twenty years ago)

Maybe Flyleaf belong on the metal thread, too, Frank! (Girlie says they're sending me the album, but I haven't seen it yet. And oh yeah, I'm going to call you about your review of it later today.)

Turns out I goofed; there's no Kid Rock LP called *American Bad Ass*. Shows what I know. That was the single off *The History of Rock,* which was mainly sort of an odds-and-sods early years comp, duh:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0027,eddy,16173,22.html

"Picture"'s beautiful-loser bullshit actually sounds fairly lush and billowing and good-humored to my ears, not dead or draggy at all.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:32 (twenty years ago)

And oh yeah, I'd say his "legitimate singing" attempts (which I often enjoy, often more than his rapping attempts) are still more the exception in Kid's repertoire than the rule. (And I love where RJ says Kid raps better than George Jones and sings better than Jay-Z.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:34 (twenty years ago)

Not enough rock in their sound is more what I mean

That totally baffles me, which only means I'm all the more interested to hear your take on the new record!

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:43 (twenty years ago)

Has Gina Villalobos been mentioned yet? I just heard her new record "Miles Away," and a lot of it kicks, not unlike Miranda or Gretchen, but with a scratchy still wide-open voice. "Somebody Save Me" would sound great on country radio.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 19:07 (twenty years ago)

>That totally baffles me<

A couple songs into the new one, I'd classify them more as "loud folk music" (or, in Chris Cook's great old Pearl Jam formulation, "loud mush") than as a rock band. The guitar blur is there; the rocking from drums and bass is not. Basically, they sound like an alt-country band with louder guitars. I'm gonna shelve them for a little bit; will come back to it some other time. Hope that's not too baffling!

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 19:20 (twenty years ago)

They sound weak-kneed, somehow. (Actually, who they were making me think of wasn't Pearl Jam at all. More like an alt-countrified late Soul Asylum, maybe. And I wish Soul Asylum were more rock, too!)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 19:24 (twenty years ago)

The Soul Asylum comparison is interesting--something I never thought about before, but, yeah, I can kinda hear that, especially on the first track.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

xpost yeah, I realized as soon as I'd posted, that I'd listed two dif titles for the same Guthrie song. Anthony, I don't know if Natalie's recorded "Los Gatos (AKA Deportee)," but Dolly Parton did a good version of it, although involved some 80s synthesised strings, as I recall: the wrong flavor of cheese,for me(though many peoples like it). Natalie was good on the Mermaid Avenue albums (surprising me, as did all the other performers, except Corey Harris, who's usually good). So maybe she should record this too; very timely. I guess Woody might say we really need Industrial Workers of the World to sign everybody up, and make sure they don't have to flee to the land of the carpetbaggers to try and make a living wage (good luck). There were at least two versions of "Picture" that got some airplay (also maybe CMT played the version from that Kid Rock/Hank Jr. Crossroads I sent you on VHS, xxhux). Dif duet partners, presumably cos Sheryl's people didn't want her own product crowded by the single. One of these may've been worse than the other (and may've been heard more by Frank than by xxhux or whomever)

― don, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 19:37 (twenty years ago)

Side note on Deportees: Woody wrote the lyrics, but there was no melody till Martin Hoffman, a cohort of Judy Collins, put it to music in the late '50s. A few years after that, Hoffman killed himself.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 19:46 (twenty years ago)

I only know "Deportee" from the Byrds' version on "Ballad of Easy Rider," isn't it?

I like the Shawn Camp record OK...Nashville in its second Billy Swan, or Roy A. Loney, phase, perhaps? A rockabilly record from 1979? anyway, someone (they left the byline off the online version, and the print Scene don't make it up on the ridge here on Wednesdays) did an interesting piece on it today. turns out the guy wrote half of Josh Turner's latest record, so he's not lacking for rockabilly boots or panties, I suppose (and there's something by me in same issue on Jamey Johnson):

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Arts/Music/2006/03/23/Swingin_/index.shtml

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 23 March 2006 01:16 (twenty years ago)

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