Rolling country 2007 thread

Also in the tradition of early '60s teenybopper fakeabilly by...I dunno, Bobby Rydell I guess? (How rockabilly were Fabian and Frankie Avalon at the time?) (Ricky Nelson is too authentic a comparison!)

Ha ha, "Way Low" on the Jimmy Ray album sounds kinda like if some semi-dancehall reggae guy like Shinehead attempted a rockabilly number with lots of Elvis hiccups in it. (Man, if the Wyclef song on the new Big'N'Rich sounded this cool, I'd be happy.)

And hmmm, Ray's "Look Inside Your Love" is either a BLATANT "Mmmbop" rip, or vice versa (they were both the same year, 1997! Anybody know which came first?)

So okay, I get it now -- What Blake Shelton is doing in his ballads (the two I mentioned a couple posts ago, and "I Have Been Lonely" too it turns out) is keeping up with the empty-honky-tonk post-Bakersfield sound of, obviously, Gary Allan; maybe some Mavericks and Dwight Yoakam in there too? And the non-ballad "The More I Drink," which I like a lot (guy says that drinking causes him to drink more -- it's self-perpetuating in other words, which is true!), has a little of Toby's barroom Dixieland jazziness in it. I also love "The Last Country Song," especially the bizarre, partially Bobby-Braddock-written this-was-our-land-til-"they"-took-it-away-from-us pathology of it (basically the idea is that "the city" is spreading out into spaces that used to be rural, which is of course true, but the subtext is uh, IMMIGRANTS, obviously -- fucked up especially given the chorus's Woody Guthrie reference), though I could live without John Anderson's and George Jone's gratutious cameos at the end. Also love the Chris Knight-penned loser anthem (featuring arson) "It Ain't Easy Bein' Me" (becoming a jerk is hard work!). Great album, overall - second only to his girlfriend's album as far as country albums this year go, as far as I'm concerned. (Bizarre, though: Up above I mentioned a sort of "We Didn't Start The Fire"-type catologue of baby-boom historical events song, and damned if I can figure out which track it is now! Maybe I just imagined it, or it's a hidden track way after the closer, or the shuffle function of my CD player confused me and it was someobody else entirely?? I keep tracking through the whole CD; where is it??)

And okay, I just figured something else out (when I should have been cooking chicken in the kitchen instead): Track 10 of Jimmy Ray's CD, "Free At Last," more "You Can't Hurry Love" and teenpop than rockabilly is on (actually, probably half of his tracks are rockabilly-free, especially the sort of miniature George Michael blue eyed soul numbers, like "Trippin On Baby Blue" etc), and I realized the real precedent for his bubblebilly is probably early '80s Brit pop stars Westworld, of "Sonic Boom Boy" fleeting fame. I liked them a lot, too! (Though sadly, I don't have their album anymore.)

AMG on Jimmy Ray:

Fusing a neo-rockabilly image with contemporary dance-pop rhythms, singer Jimmy Ray was born and raised in East London, where he grew up on a steady diet of classic Elvis, Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele singles. He later surfaced in a techno duo called A.V., recording an album which went unreleased; upon mounting a solo career, Ray was signed by manager Simon Fuller, the same impresario who launched the Spice Girls to superstardom. His debut single, "Are You Jimmy Ray?," was issued in the UK in late 1997, becoming a hit both at home and in the U.S.; a self-titled LP followed the next year.

AMG on Westworld:

Led by the other one from Generation X (not Billy Idol or Tony James, but guitarist Bob "Derwood" Andrews), Westworld also included American vocalist Elizabeth Westwood and drummer Nick Burton. Named after the 1973 Disneyland disaster film, the trio applied pop sensibilities to the punk and post-punk forms Andrews had been immersed in, and hit number 11 on the British charts with their 1987 single "Sonic Boom Boy." The group's only subsequent Top 40 success was "Ba-Na-Na-Bam-Boo," later that year, another single from the Westworld debut album Rockulator. Second album Beat Box Rock 'N' Roll followed in 1988, but 1991's Movers & Shakers was the trio's last.

And beyond that of course there's the whole dang rockabilly-party-on-saturday-night '50s revival coursing back through Brit TOTP pop at least as far back as glam rock, duh. (This is having less and less to do with "country" as I go on, isn't it? Sorry.) Hey kids summertime blues jump up and down in your blue suede shoes. (Wow, I just realized I don't think I've ever heard a Shakin' Stevens song.)

From teen-pop thread (where I should probably shift my Jimmy Ray talk to, now that I think of it):

Plus I just noticed that Jimmy's "Goin to Vegas" contains references to both "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash (via "Let's Dance" by Bowie?) and whatever jump-blues song said "take it right back to the track, Jack" ("Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" by Louis Jordan, I think?) (So the mid '90s Cherry Poppin Daddies "swing revival" might figure here as well.)

One thing that helped his popology, liked it helped mine: he also managed a record store, I think, but didn't recruit his clerks for his band, unlike Hungry Chuck Cleaver or Whatchamacallit that ran The Coolies. What I like best about the song is that his chorus girls ask him, "Are you Link Wray? Are you Johnnie Ray?" or anyway drop their names, and he's somewhere in between those two (although not as intense as either), who are fave raves of mine.And both had something to do with country, in dif ways. Mentions a bunch of other Rays, but leaves out Barry Hannah's Ray, which is quite possibly the greatest novel ever written about or set in Tuscaloosa(how's that for classical qualified hyperbole)

(listening to a song on the radio: haven't quite yet got who's doing what to whom, but it's a quietly shapely tune about stoned beauty, in the sunshine of your oblivious love, some velvet morning by your gate, and on TCM, Paul Newman's just met Piper Laurie, they're sitting in a booth in the bar in the gray daylight, they're talking and he's watching her get wasted, although she's getting her courage up, the stoned song baby's been there done that)("Morphine" something by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and this is a live show, they're way better live, has always been my impression)

(Bizarre, though: Up above I mentioned a sort of "We Didn't Start The Fire"-type catologue of baby-boom historical events song, and damned if I can figure out which track it is now!

That's funny--when I'd finished listening to Pure BS the first time, I thought, "I must have missed that history song Chuck wrote about."
It would be interesting to hear something like that from someone other than Kenny Rogers--pretty much every line of that song makes me wince, particularly the Eminem reference. The Blake Shelton album is pretty great anyway.

well, the label won't send me Pure BS or for that matter the finished John Anderson record. So I haven't heard Shelton yet. So Bobby Braddock is anti-immigrant, or what, in "The Last Country Song"? He's saying somehow that "immigrants" are causing city to slop over into country? Where I sit, people of color have nothing to do with it except for the dirty work--in this rural suburbia I'll be leaving soon, I see like at least 80 houses being built, big McMansions out in the middle of a field and they're laying sewer lines and there's a new Mexican joint with the usual mediocre fare. All these people living out here and there's nowhere for them to go, and nowhere for them to walk, run or do much of anything that you can't do in a car. A few black families, from Ft. Campbell, but it's almost all white and if there are any "immigrants" I don't know where they are, certainly not in any of these new McMansions. So I got to hear that song, if they'll deign to send me the records.


in the US, wasn't the first big wave of rockabilly revival in the very early '80s? Buzz and the Flyers and the Panther Burns? As for modern country, the best rockabilly-influenced record I've heard in ages is Shawn Camp's Fireball from maybe 2 years ago.

xps

"Last Country Song" really doesn't say anything about immigrants (though the chorus--"This land was our land, but now it's their land" could surely appear out of context in a Pat Buchanan screed). It's about a roadhouse being torn down by some developer from the city, and all the folk come together to sing the place out in style. There's talk of the city getting closer everyday, but doesn't city tend to signify African-American culture?--as in "Play Something Country" when the DJ plays P Diddy and Ronnie doesn't want to hear "something bumpin' from the city."

though the chorus--"This land was our land, but now it's their land" could surely appear out of context in a Pat Buchanan screed).

Yeah, that was my point - I mean, obviously, this is the line you'd yell along to if you drunkenly heard the song on the bar in a jukebox. The other lyrics are more subtle; not even sure I got the roadhouse being torn down part until Mulla explained it. Anyway, I'm not saying Bobby Braddock or Blake Shelton or anybody else is anti-immigrant, or racist, or anything else. (And I do agree, the incursion of "city" culture might imply more black people than Hispanic people.) My point is just that, intentionally or not (and hey -- Braddock's a smart guy; hard to think he didn't know exactly what he was doing) that chorus has the potential to push some very real butttons, at least when taken out of context of the rest of the song, which really wouldn't be difficult since the chorus really stands out. Whatever, either way, as I said, it's a great track, and a great idea for a song. When we were on the road last month, urban commuter sprawl from Washington DC had spread all the way to Shepherdstown, West Virgina, on the Maryland border. It's getting very hard to get away from it!

Also, I just solved the "We Didn't Start The Fire" song mystery! It wasn't Blake at all. It's "Just Yesterday" off this (previously unmentioned here) cdbaby album by self-released Southern rockers Ed White and the Next of Kin, which just happened to be in the CD changer when I initially put Blake in. Sorry! Now I gotta figure out what I think of the rest of the record. ("Just Yesterday" gives a stately sort of comfort to its headline-reading, but it strikes me as a bit subdued. The headlines themselves seem cliched yet kinda move me anyway):

http://cdbaby.com/cd/ewatnok1

OK, the Shelton song makes sense now. As for another great roadhouse song in recent country, Jamey Johnson's "Ray Ray's Jukebox" I think is the title off his The Dollar (he's since been dropped by his label!).

Saw Blake in this CNN segment, out in L.A. Nobody knows who he is in L.A. and he's wandering around in bistros saying "I'm Blake Shelton." Talked a bit about his divorce last year but not about Miranda. So given that, Chuck's take on the new record (trying to do some Gary Allan-style post-Wynn Stewart California country) makes sense as well.

Got to get that Gore Gore Girls record!

Speaking of Bobby Braddock, saw an ad for his book ("A True Story"): Down In Orbundale, subtitled A Songwriter's Youth In Old Florida. Lee Smith (good novelist, collab with Marshall Chapman and others on musical): "A fabulous read...he brings oldtime, smalltown Florida back to vivid life." Alice Randall (African-American Music Row songwriter, author of Supreme-Court-case-winning The Wind Done Gone): "A must read for anyone who lives the South, country music, or crazy people." No Depression (author not specified): "Stands along side the work of Flannery O'Connor and Robert Penn Warren." H'mmm, but it is published by LSU, as in Confederacy Of Dunces, The Neon Bible, and a Josh Clover poetry collection, the title of which I'm blanking on, but it's great: http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress

should be "anyone who loves the South, country music, or crazy people," but "lives" fits even better,stresswise.

No Depression (author not specified): "Stands along side the work of Flannery O'Connor and Robert Penn Warren." that'd be me on the book in No Depression, actually.

Looks like Miranda's going to debut #1 Country & #5 Pop. Blake will be #2 Country, #7 Pop. The Country top ten is looking the best (quality-wise) as it has in awhile, with the McGraw on there, Underwood still reigning too. Too bad Rascal Flatts will seemingly perpetually hold a place.

So Ed White and the Next of Kin (the cdbaby act who did the "We Didn't Start the Fire" song I mistook for Blake Shelton) have some apparently good songs on the two CDs I heard No Broken Hearts and Angels and Demons -- not just ""Just Yesterday" (which is actually on both albums) but "1935," "Real Old Country" [which actually sounds more like David Allen Coe than REAL old country, which I don't mind at all] "Nobody's Ugly After 2 A.M.," "Phoenix, Arizona," etc. -- but it's basically impossible to hear them through the lack of studio technology on those two records, which sound so quiet and small they might as well have been recorded over one of those hand-held tape recorders we used to tape things with in the mid '70s. With a decent professional production job, and probably with a real band (though maybe the band's already there -- it's hard to tell), I have a feeling I'd like these guys' CDs just fine. (Except maybe "Nouveau Country," which would still frustrate me by not sounding nouveau enough, since the words set it up to new wavey or something. For all I know, it could have been written in 1981.)

In other news, here's Metal Mike Saunders via email:

there's a loooong Dylan piece up on rocksbackpages that's pretty new and it must be by Ian MacDonald. if i pull it up to read it (meaing, whenever i have time since i dig through the weekly additions in sequence formthe e-mail lists, don't skip around) i'll try to remember to cut/paste it. he has some pretty new/interesting theories spanning "entire career" about mr Bob's modum operandi.

i have a theory no one else is insane enoguh to even imagine.

The Turtles rocked the fuck out of "It Ain't Me Babe" and bobby never got over it. the fuckin' Turtles man! stupid former surf band (the Crossfires) from the terminally unhip South
Bay! trumped johnny cash, trumped the Byrds' covers, jeeesus. to this day Bob goes meltdown if anyone even intimates they're goiong to say the forbidden "T" word -- Turtles. yeah, and their version really IS that good.

history eventually revealed that they had another Dylan song on the table to cover for the followup, but they decided to do P.F. Sloan (two straight two, ie Let It Be and You Baby) instead. oooh.

my theory is at least consistent with my preferences re recorded Bob-output. by a mile i'd rather hear the 1962-63-64 recordings (pre electric) than the 1965-66 crap (no band is >>> to horrible nashville rednecks dozing zzzzzz along cluelessly), and the 1964 band (Bringing It All Back Home), well, huh, that's not even really a band is it? just a ragtag bunch of pickup mooks. dylan's best electric vocals/tunes might be on that one, but that band is a real tough listen.

not to be confused with the most boring band ever, the BAND. man that bob knew how to pick his backing musicians. seriously, if the guy'd had any balls after the fake motorbike accident ( = a metaphor for his dopey marriage i guess) left him clueless and shoeless --

he'd have bought full on Marshall amps/stacks, worked up some old Stanley Brothers brothers songs for the "new sound, man" and played the Fillmore East doing same. power trio, bob and maybe the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section. hell yeah, i'd pay to hear the 18 minute version of "Man Of Constant Sorrow" with fuzz guitar sorrows. fuck this Visions of Johanna shit and songs about joan baez. stomp some fuzzbox onto some old Bill Monroe jams!

erm, probably not something new(ly written) by Ian MacDonald, since he's been dead for years, and Highway 61 was pre-"redneck." I wouldn't mind hearing The Turtles sing Dylan, since I always liked Flo and Eddie (on other people's albums, since I never heard their own post-Turtles sets). Wonder how The Hollies' Dylan album is?

oh wait it was on rocksbackpages, but pretty new addition to archives, so doesn't have to be newey-new! Ya got me!

that's some hilarious wishing for rejiggering of history MMS does there! at the time Dylan and the Band must've seemed inevitable or something. I mean the Band was only good on the Basement Tapes and then for about a year or two on those first 2 LPs, but they could really play and all that. I mean, the Band's very first song on their very first album is boring, slow, like 5 minutes about how children should be nicer to their parents, so that should tell you something right there. The Turtles were great--PF Sloan's songs were fake Dylan and Sloan to this day hasn't ever gotten over Dylan and in my opinion remains as confused about his (Sloan's) talent as he was in 1967. for that matter, who NOW has the balls to rejigger (why that word popped up in my addled brain, who knows, but I like it and must use it in print soon) country as Meta Metal Mike suggests? who in 1968 had the moxie to rejigger country the same way Cream (who have to be as boring as the Band) took a second-rate version of Skip James' "I'm So Glad" (by James himself, who awoke with testicular cancer in a Mississippi hospital bed in the mid-'60s, looked around to find six dudes with long hair and guitars by his bed seeking to glean the secrets of James' drop-D tuning, and decided he could Shuck the 1960s) and made it even more pointless than its creator already had? the blues was one thing and country another.

Don, Hollies Sing Dylan has its moments--it's funny but you realize that Dylan's songs don't suit them as well as the efforts of semi-hacks like that guy who would end up praising rubber bullets and Norman Mailer in 10cc. but the Hollies doing "Quit Your Low Down Ways" is pretty frenetic and pretty great.

Caught up, sorta, and tomorrow will delve into the new Brad Paisley, which just came. 5th Gear, it's called. I love the way Nashville sends the complete lyric sheet with their new stuff, so in case I needed to make sure Paisley's singing about "chicken kabobs" in the first song (he is) or that he's kinky as on "Ticks" where he wants to check this chick for them, or that Brad's thinking about how some people misrepresent themselves on MySpace (taller, don't live with their parents) as in "Online," I can.

Should have a review of the LaVere running next couple of weeks--I know we talked about this one a lot, but listening to it again I was struck at how essentially Victorian the damned thing is, like on "Cupid's Arrow," which isn't a bad song at all, and the whole record is an attempt to gloss over a busted relationship of some kind. Don't know if anyone here has ever listened to Lee Wiley, a pop-jazz singer from the late '40s and '50s--husky voice and a pretty sexy image, kind of smoky-voiced, real good--but LaVere kinda reminds me of her, but not as good. So in an earlier era, I wrote, LaVere would've probably been a big-band thrush, maybe that way she'd learn to do the one thing she doesn't ever do, which is sing OVER and AROUND the songs instead of just murmuring. You're sexy, baby, you're sexy, now time for the hard sock sell and the shout chorus.

oh, and got to mention that I was privileged to talk to Johnny Bush yesterday, from his home in San Antonio. a gentleman and a spirited conversationalist, sounds as big-hearted as his voice implies and I never had a better time interviewing anyone. as you might know, he's suffered from spasmodic dysphonia, which renders you essentially unable to sing or speak for long periods, and he's been successfully treated for it with injections of botox, which apparently they inject small amounts of into the muscles that control the vocal chords. so I mention that Richard Thompson's ex, Linda, also had s.d., and Johnny says, "yeah, I always liked her when she was on Hee-Haw." naw, Johnny, she's English. oh hell, then I guess I'm thinkin' of someone else. but seriously, spasmodic dysphonia is no joke, especially if you're a singer...and at 72 Johnny sounds pretty darned good. Mr. Bush'll be playing here in a few weeks and I'm looking forward to it immensely, and his new one is up there with Dale Watson's, Miranda Lambert's and the Greencards as my best '07 so far.

Now, I'd like to hear Richard with that Linda, she who inspired the immortal made-for-TV movie, Elvis And The Beauty Queen, and later married Bruce Jenner (but she's way past him now, good for her). We've talked before about RT's contributiions to the country hit parade (Jo-El Sonnier's "Tear-Stained Letter," Del McCoury Band's "195? Vincent Black Lightning," etc.), but he should get a closer--he doesn't have that much to do with anybody but other Brits, collaboration or guest-shot-wise. But his versions of "Oops, I Did It Again" and "Genie In A Bottle" totally work; maybe he should cover some country teenpop? A duet with Ashley Monroe, that's it. Everybody I knew, incl. a local country scholar/bandleader/DJ, thought Johnny Bush had died of throat cancer, and then he popped up on Fresh Air a few years ago (Terry Gross sounded pretty startled by this). He said he'd lost his voice for a while, so had worked in other people's bands. Glad you stopped fighting Amy. Some kinds of country have a lot to do with some kinds of blues, but you and I we've been through that.

Band For Sale!

And due to the highly characteristic nature of the music, the songs of Rednex often participate in films.

(that shoulda been in quotes)

"anyone who loves the South, country music, or crazy people," but "lives"

How about "anyone who loves the South, country music, or crazy people, but lives"?

Haven't heard the new Gore Gore Girls but enthusiastically concur on the greatness of "All Grown Up," a Greenwich-Barry nonhit from who-knows-who that the Gore Gores rampage through as if they're the Raw Power era Stooges, except rawer (and not quite as powerful, but close enough to win a cigar).

Blake Shelton's "Some Beach" had a moment of gratuitous pandering and xenophobia, where it's some foreign-car driving dude who gives him the finger, and another foreign-car driving dude who rooks him out of a parking space (as if drivers of American-made cars can't be supreme assholes themselves). (But I love "Some Beach" anyway, and hope to hear the new alb.)

"How about, 'Anyone who loves country music, the South, and crazy people, but lives'?" Should go without saying that anyone who loves all that really lives, no buts about it.(Plenty butts though.) In other news, Oakley Hall continue their para-early Airplane/Fairport/showing-Cowboy Junkies-how-it's-done gallop and canter, on these unreleased tracks: http://www.daytrotter.com/daytrottersessions/143/free-songs-oakley-hall

The Very Best of Little Texas: Live and Loud, which apparently came out late last year on Montage Records, whatever that is, is the best album I've heard by them, and still not good enough to hang on to, I don't think. Definitely better than Missing Years, which seems to have come out at approximately the same time on approximately the same label. I dunno, the idea for these guys seems pretty good on paper -- sweet, undeniably poppy, almost bubblegum at times, country rock with just a pinch of attitude to it or whatever. Plus on the live album there are plenty of background party shouts from the crowd to kick the thing into gear (especially in "Kick a Little," actually. Though "Amy's Back In Austin" is still their one and only great song, as far as I can tell.) But damn are they ever wimpy. I mean, they make Sawyer Brown seem like Montgomery Gentry in comparison; they make '80s .38 Special seem like '70s ZZ Top; they make Firefall seem like, uh, The Eagles.

On the other hand, I am absolutely loving the more country/folk parts of this new reissue of The Ultimate Prophecy by J.D. Blackfoot (insane 1970 proto-metal psych obscurity; consult Stairway to Hell for more info if necessary.) Which country/folk parts I'd forgotten were there.

Honestly, probably what Little Texas are really missing are better songs. (The riffs are there, sometimes. The hooks are barely halfway there.)

new Clientele, recorded in Nashville, has pedal steel but isn't country; they sound like the Pretty Things and baroque-o '60s pop, like the Go-Brethren or Pretty Scarlitti or something. the dude singing sounds just like Green Gartside. the new Ghostfinger single, "Born on the Moon," is more twisted country-rock except they're from Murfreesboro, so if Nashville is the new Brookyln then I guess they're from Providence or Atlantic City.

"Bonnie Blue" on the new John Anderson has got to be the I-love-the-South song of the year...deceptive. Is he singing about the Civil War, post-Katrina New Orleans, when he says "They taught you wrong from right" and then goes on to say "not much difference between black and white"? I was talking about the Band above, and this is the song Robbie Robertson would've traded his Coke spoon to have written back in the mid-'70s. brilliant, actually. So I really did underrate the Anderson record, what seemed like goopy ballads turn out to be the best things on the record, and the atmospherics of "Weeds" proves that Big & Rich don't need no stinkin' Daniel Lanwaa to go all Swamp Eno. There's one of the best marriage songs ever, two great drinking songs one of which also has a marriage in it, and even Big & Rich's patented freakbus sentiments in "Funky Country" are enlivened by Anderson's voice.

can't recall liking a Little Texas song but Chuck I remember your bit about Blackfoot in the metal book, there's another reissue I got to look for.

supposed to be getting the finished Anderson, btw, next week along with the Blake Shelton, which I still haven't heard. If I had credits for the Anderson I lost 'em--anybody know who wrote what on Easy Money? the WB website just says "cowritten with various members of the MusikMafia."

My JA advance copy doesn't list songwriters either, Edd. But yeah, the ballads "Weeds," "Something To Drink About" and especially the totally mysterious
"Bonnie Blue" (which I see you've come closer to deciphering than I have) are right up there with "Brown Liquor" as far as I'm concerned.

Meanwhile, I tried listening to the new Gourds CD this a.m. Still don't get what people hear in them.

Yet more wild 'n' crazy schtick, but they can play, which always helps (re Homer & Jethro, etc.) Sometimes flat, but they go for the gusto when kidding "roots," and get points for freaking out semi-creepy folkie host of Public Radio's Woodsongs via live broadcast citation of gourds as penile sheaths (pre-jock cups for our working hunter-gatherer ancestors, speaking of roots). To be fair to host, you never know what Bush appointees to CPB board are going to get too interested in.

"Bonnie Blue" seems to be about the South, Chuck, as far as I can tell, and what threw me about this really fucking magnificent record was that sonically it reminded me way too much of '80s country. like some of the piano sounds. but they really re-imagine that stuff and give it some historical awareness, plus Anderson sings just great on all of it. Like you, maybe, I listen to a lot of stuff on the changer and kinda go, hmm, that's interesting, but once I got down to really listening to what Anderson was singing about on "Bonnie" I was blown away. I take the line about "showed us wrong from right" coupled with "not much difference between black and white" as a comment on North/South abolitionist stuff. (Don't think that John Rich or Big John has read The Metaphysical Club, but that book gets at something pretty disturbing--that the North was just as fucked as the South in pre-Civil War days, because the North was so hung up on being morally absolute about slavery that it helped push the country into a war it could've avoided...that's simplified but the book is about Pragmatism and how that philosophy arose after the Civil War, and how Moral Absolutes can be dangerous).

from the rolling metal thread:

Phazm does have catchy songs! Crazy blackened rock 'n roll with a country twinge.
-- Jeff Treppel, Friday, May 11, 2007 12:42 PM (Yesterday)

I noticed a couple people calling that Phazm record "country", and I really couldn't figure out what sort of country music they were talking about...The Birthday Party kind, maybe? Actually, who they slightly reminded me of was the great French band Noir Desir (whose singer murdered his girlfriend, allegedly, a couple years ago), but not as good. Didn't hear any "country" in it, though it would be cool if I did, so I could consider it for my Nashville Scene poll ballot at year's end. Still liked them OK, though. I need to dig that CD back out.

-- xhuxk, Friday, May 11, 2007 4:45 PM (Yesterday)
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completely unrelated to metal, that Miranda Lambert album is indeed awesome.

-- A. Begrand, Friday, May 11, 2007 4:55 PM (Yesterday)
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What little girls are made of: gunpowder and lead (which is a metal, right? Or maybe not.) (and I think Miranda's drummer used to play in metal bands, too.)

xp Maybe "country" means "gothabilly"? (Except Phazm don't sound all that gothabilly to me, either.)

-- xhuxk, Friday, May 11, 2007 4:57 PM (Yesterday)
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By "a couple people" I assume you mean me. I suppose you know more about country than I do, but the better tracks have sort of a rustic hillbilly swagger (despite them being French, of course). I used "country" as a shorthand for that.

-- Jeff Treppel, Friday, May 11, 2007 5:02 PM (Yesterday)
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Yeah, I may well have meant "a couple Jeff Treppels".

And I think you use "country" the way Martin Popoff does, actually (which is perfectly valid, and kind of interesting, actually, even if it has no connection with any country music that human ears have ever heard.)

-- xhuxk, Friday, May 11, 2007 5:11 PM (Yesterday)
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Could be alien country music! And with Phazm, that wouldn't surprise me at all.

-- Jeff Treppel, Friday, May 11, 2007 5:14 PM (Yesterday)
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Hey Chuck, this is a bit of a weird question (not sure if this should be on the country thread), but can you recommend some good country records that would appeal to a hard rock/metal fan and educate me on what non-Popoff country sounds like? Besides Johnny Cash and various Southern rock bands, I haven't done much exploring in that area.

-- Jeff Treppel, Friday, May 11, 2007 6:22 PM (Yesterday)
Hank Williams III kind of kicks ass.

Also: Scott H. Biram.

-- novaheat, Friday, May 11, 2007 7:46 PM (Yesterday)
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I've yet to hear any Hank III that doesn't suck ass myself. But then again I've never been fan of toe-the-line hardcore punk bands, and who knows, maybe his good stuff has passed me by. Seriously though, Jeff, try the rolling country thread[s], and check out whatever appeals to you from the descriptions there. I'm not sure where else to start you, give or take stuff I've already posted about upthread. (Okay here: If you haven't already got all five Montgomery Gentry albums, you could do worse than checking for them in used CD bins in your locale. Best one is Carrying On, one of the great hard rock albums of this decade, no question.)

-- xhuxk, Friday, May 11, 2007 9:40 PM (Yesterday)
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Hank Williams III kind of kicks ass.

Oh bullshit. Damned by faint praise. Seek: The David Allen Coe reissue of Penitentiary Blues from last year. Avoid: The David Allen Coe with Dimebag Darrel collaboration right before he was shot thing which doesn't have a memorable tune on it.

Fundamentally, if you know good hard rock albums when you find them, you certainly don't need modern country albums, because most good hard rock albums have some country in their sinews. You'd be better off getting the CCR catalog, or old Humble Pie, or just listening to the Stones and old Beatles records.

Sifting through modern country for hard rock is like panning for gold in a stream where the bed of sand is iron pyrite grains. It looks and sounds neat and seems to yield some good stuff but if you're not getting the records for free, it's a waste of time.

Arena country does hard rock in the way Bad Company ca. Holy Water did hard rock. It's hooky and often a couple songs will be really good, but -- ya know, no one who liked hard rock buys the Bad Company records that have Brian Howe and a couple of hacks on them in place of Paul Rodgers.

Speaking of which, the second Bad Company record, which is country-inflected hard rock and metal, pretty good for British guys.

Let's see -- Shania Twain's song, "If You're Not Ready For Love [Then I'm Outta Here.] You could buy the last Bon Jovi record -- poor man's Mellencamp with loud guitars big in countryland. Or the first Sugarland record.

I've no use for any of it other than it sounding good on the radio as singles -- occasionally, before you burn out on the repetition of it.

There really isn't a shortage of people doing good hard rock in the States and overseas. It only seems that way because it doesn't get on TV or mentioned in popular mags and newspapers, so when a vid from one of the country pop music cripples with semi-loud guitars and thumping drum figures goes into heavy rotation, or winds up being on the big stage at the country festival that followed Lollapolooza in California last week, then some pop music critics start writing ad nauseum about how Miranda Lambert is a tough girl who empowers women, a recruiter of a kicking band -- which are dime a dozen -- sharing a tour stage with some other "Git R Done-type" guy who quotes Skynyrd and says were so neat they smoked dope, to appreciative roars.

Jeezus H. Christ on a stick.

-- Gorge, Saturday, May 12, 2007 1:47 AM (5 hours ago)
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...and says [his parents] were so neat [because] they smoked dope, to appreciative roars.

-- Gorge, Saturday, May 12, 2007 1:51 AM (5 hours ago)
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I've yet to hear any Hank III that doesn't suck ass myself.

I thought "Straight to Hell" was pretty good. I haven't heard any of his other stuff.

If that's what you were referring to, though, I'd be interested in hearing why you think it's so terrible. I mean, it's not groundbreaking or anything, but "sucks ass?" Dunno about that.

-- novaheat, Saturday, May 12, 2007 2:23 AM (4 hours ago)


Maylene and the Sons of Disaster pull off the whole "southern metal" thing pretty well. You kind of have to have a tolerance for metal-core-ish vocals (the singer used to be in Underoath...), but I'll be damned if their new album hasn't grown on me.

-- novaheat, Saturday, May 12, 2007 2:26 AM (4 hours ago)
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George has a point, of course. Hank III is a dumb novelty act without a singing voice and apparently without songs; if you really need to be spoonfed that kinda hickcore shtick you might as well go with one of its originators, like maybe Antiseen on the Drastic/EP Royalty CD. But right, if you really want to hear country in hard rock, you'd really well be better off buying old Nazareth albums or pulling out Aerosmith's "Chip Away At the Stone" rather than anything coming out of Nashville now (though, I dunno, if you can't hear any rock in "Daddy's Farm" by Shooter Jennings or the Kentucky Headhunters collection Flying Under the Radar or their gospel-country blues-rock side project the Mighty Jeremiahs, you're deaf.) I can't really speak for the later hack Bad Company era George is referring to (blocked that from my memory a long time ago though damn, when they went disco-Foreigner on Desolation Angels that was pretty neat) but the hard rock that Nashville is obsessed with right now is the '80s -- reports from the Stagecoach fest a couple weeks back had hit country acts encoring on stage with "Crazy Train" and "Paradise City"; Big N Rich do a very lousy bluegrass version of "You Shook Me All Night Long" on their sadly crummy new album. And that kinda thing has been threatening to happen for a long while now -- Montgomery Gentry covered (now hit country act) Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" on a professional bull riding compilation, like, seven years ago or so; MG's hardest rocking track ever may well be their cover of ZZ Top's "Just Got Paid" on the excellent Nashville-filled Sharp Dressed Men: A Tribute to ZZ Top comp a few years ago (best tribute comp I've ever heard, by the way.) And yeah, there's a sense that unreconstructed '70s hard rockers might scoff at MG or Miranda or Shooter and opt for cdbaby nobodies like Copperhead and Cargun (who are really good) instead; maybe in real life everybody who listens to Montgomery Gentry on a motorcycle wears a tie to his day job; how would I know? Though I'm sure you'd find a few aging Humble Pie and Creedence fans in the audience of this summer's Hank Jr/Skynyrd/38 Special "Rowdy Frynds" tour (with dates only on Friday and Saturday nights!), and I doubt they'll be sleeping during the Hank Jr (who rocks harder than his kid and always will) set. And sorry, Montgomery Gentry and Miranda Lambert still make better albums than Cargun or Copperhead, and better albums than Bad Company ever did (even the first one), for that matter, whether the MG and ML count as "real" hard rock or not. Though then again, I liked hair-metal power ballads, and the idea of country music rooted in "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and "Gypsy Road" (why haven't any Nashville acts covered those, for crissakes?) (and actually, I still say Miranda's sound sounds more rooted in Screaming Blue Messiahs, somehow) strikes me as pretty damn cool. Would Montgomery Gentry appeal to Pantera or Clutch fans? Honestly, who the hell cares? The problem with recommending current country to fans of current metal, frankly, is that fans of current metal have pretty shitty taste, for the most part. And yeah, again, along those lines, that Maylene and the Sons of the Disaster CD has some not-awful moments (that instrumental jam toward the end or whatever -- got rid of my copy a few months ago, so I'm probably getting it wrong), but until bands like that figure out they need a singer, fuck 'em.

-- xhuxk, Saturday, May 12, 2007 7:16 AM (7 minutes ago)
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(Re current arena-country: As George also briefly suggested, a high tolerance for '80s Cougar [+ Seger/Petty/etc] does help a lot. For me, not a problem. If it sounds like "Jack and Diane," as Shooter's great "4th of July" did, count me in.)

-- xhuxk, Saturday, May 12, 2007 7:23 AM (0 seconds ago)

P.S., I dunno, Don, the Gourds sure sounded more mild 'n' lazy than wild n' crazy to my ears. Hmmmm.

No, I didn't say they actually were wild 'n' crazy, I said that was their schtick, though yeah, they do seem too lazy to pursue it all that diligently, which is good. Wild 'n' crazy or whacky 'n' tacky's just something else to mess with, like rootsy 'n' rowdy, but they can be as fun as they think they are sometimes, like say Cheap Trick in their prime. Haven't heard the new one, but the previous (Rusty Ornaments? Why should I waste energy on looking it up; they wouldn't) was pretty bracing, for the most part (though when they tried to play it too straight, got sappy, as with most wiseasses). if anybody cares, I'd say Sir Douglas, among Doug Sahm incarnations, did a lot of interesting country-meets-rock stuff, like "Baby, It Just Don't Matter" may be the first good country metal, and still doesn't that much competition. But yea, Coe's Penitentiary Blues, which Gorge mentioned on Rolling Metal not long after it was finally reissued, and I'd say Rebel Meets Rebel, even though xxuxx hates it and yes it involves Panterans with Coe instead of Anselmo. Hank III's Risin' Outlaw is ligher than his old man's stuff, but affecting too, just as Hank Jr's The Almerea Club is lighter or smoother than some of his other, but soulful and funny like the best of his son's stuff. I reviewed both of those in the same Voice piece, but for once I won't bother with inserting a plug-link. Also, still speaking of Hank Jr.,I'd start with Hank Williams Jr And Friends and Whiskey Bent And Hell Bound and others from the mid-70s, but Stormy is another good later one with rock appeal. Edd's right, The Metaphysical Club is a hell of a book, just read it last week.

And yeah Shooter (wonder how that live album is? Montgomery Gentry kill live, at least when I've seen/heard steaming chunks on TV/Web) And Jessi Colter's Out Of The Ashes, with that calm voice and rumbling keyboard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/14/AR2007051401683.html?hpid=features1&hpv=local

Big Miranda Lambert interview in the Washington Post today, and tonight:

The 42nd ANNUAL ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS, honoring country music's top talent as well as the industry's hottest emerging talent, will be broadcast live on Tuesday, May 15 at 8pm et/pt. It will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas for the second year in a row

Performing on the show: Rodney Atkins
Brooks & Dunn
Kenny Chesney
Miranda Lambert
Reba McEntire & Kelly Clarkson
Tim McGraw
Brad Paisley
Rascal Flatts
George Strait
Sugarland
Carrie Underwood

interesting take on Miranda and alt-country in current Village Voice "Status Ain't Hood."

right on Don, "Baby, It Just Don't Matter" is pretty rocked-out, nice sludgy guitar riff and cool solo, Sir Doug getting down.

saw Dale Watson the other night. classic stripped-down country band, the drummer played a lot with a stick and a brush and knew how to play with real dynamics, and Dale and the pedal steel guy provided all the color. very good indeed. I like him better when he gets over his Cash obsession, but I like him a lot.

I might go see Dale at a brew pub next week, that'd be fun.

yeah, go see Dale. he's way better at minimal shit than Lou Reed!

listening to Johnny Bush on Stop in the '60s. "Daddy Lived in Houston" is one of the greater country-meets-city-and-likes-it (so much that Daddy don't come home to his family after the war!) songs, sort of like that Tony Joe White stuff pre-'68 where it's like mediated local color with Glen Campbell-like post-folk-rock guitar stuff, except Bush's operatic baritone really gets tortured. Great stuff, if a little repetitious.

Lookit this, John Legend singing "Lost in this Moment" with B&R on the ACM awards! This song is OK yet anemic. And the sound quality of the performances on this show is way way below American Idol (I just watched that). My Lord, Rascal Flatts's background vocals sounded like a freakin' Henry Partch record.

Harry Partch? Toby Keith was hairy!

lookit this, sugarland pretending they're ok go, performing on a moving, treadmill-like floor.