Rolling Country 2006 Thread

http://cdbaby.com/cd/lindseykristy

And it's a picture disc!

http://cdbaby.com/cd/kathyx

Kathy X, *Ready for Anything*: minimalist clippity-clop semi-hopped-up rockabilly rhythm from two not-so-young guys who keep their mouths shut provides frame for a not-so-young woman to both rant in endearingly tuneful semi-hiccuped british accent and steal noisy link wray twangs in short songs about cat fights and demon possession, plus one joan jett cover. energetic, in a way closer to girlschool than the stray cats. i like "love they neighbor," "i love rock'n'roll," "ready for anything," "let the devil in," "bitch like you," "black box" (for starters.)

RIP BUCK OWENS

second off, i just got back from princeton record exchange, where i unloaded somewhere between 15 and 20 huge boxes of CDs I don't need. on the way there and back i decided that dale watson's *whiskey and god,* which even has a funky country rap song about a transvestite not to mention a song about a woman with the impossible dimensions 38-21-34, is probably my favorite '06 country album so far unless maybe if carrie underwood counts. also, i bought/traded for these (mostly but not all country) CDs, which i am listing in descending order of how much i predict i will wind up liking them. if you know something about them that i don't, feel free to predict otherwise, but realize first that i cheated a little bit by listening to parts of maybe half of them on the way home. (also, the prices listed are the sticker prices; since i traded in CDs, they're actually cost me less):

1. toby keith *honky tonky university* 2005 $3.99 (i never heard "big blue note" before, and i like its sing-talking but was surprised to find out its music apparently contains no big blue notes. also i'm realizing i much prefer funny toby to sincere toby, which means, outside of the three hits, my favorite track so far is "just the guy to do it," where he picks a fight with a knucklehead in a bar. also i'm sad to learn the album does not contain toby's current billboard c&w hit with the intriguing drinking title, which i have still yet to hear.)
2. akon *trouble* 2003 $2.99 (not country)
3. status quo *heavy traffic* 2002 $3.99 (not country, but probably boogie)
4. *texas bohemia: polka-waltzes-schottisches: the texas bohemian moravian-german bands* (tritonkt german import compilation) 1994 $3.99
5. lee ann womack *lee ann womack* 1997 $1.99 (autograhed by her on the CD cover!)
6. carlene carter *i fell in love* 1990 $2.99 (title track sounds familiar, so i guess maybe it was a hit? it also sounds like a nick lowe song, though he apparently didn't write it)
7. smegma *ism* 1993 $1.99 (not country, and i may well wind up hating it, i dunno)
8. kaci brown *instigator* 2005 $1.99 (who is she? she looks young. and i'm assuming she's country because that's where three copies of her CD were filed, and i think i heard of her before, possibly either in billboard or on one of these rolling country threads.)
9. cock robin *after here through midland* 1987 $3.99 (not country, but with harmonies anyway. i've long wondered what their deal was. maybe joe mccombs can explain them to me. who was their audience? i've long wondered if maybe they were like a lesser version of quarterflash or something, but the guy's voice on the couple tracks i listened to sounds british or aussie--maybe more like dream academy or icicle works, whatever that means.)
10. sweethearts of the rodeo *beautiful lies* 1996 $4.99 (on sugar hill records, but didn't they have country chart hits earlier? i've never heard an album by them before; bought this because "midnight girl in a sunset town" has long been my favorite song on the k-tel dance country CD i mention upthread. the songs i heard on this so far are not bad, but also nowhere near that good. they do cover "muleskinner blues," though - -that's a jimmie rodgers classic, right? but why the hell would somebody want to skin a mule, anyway?)
11. jamey johnson *jamey johnson* 2006 $3.99 (i could wind up liking this more than this placement suggests, but "the dollar," which i'd never heard before, disappointed me on first hearing after all the compliments it's received on this thread and even from christgau. seemed sappy. the cat's in the cradle with the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon when you coming home dad i don't know when, we'll get together then son etc.)

The live DVD of 'em doing their modern show really kills though. The band just shreds when the two Telecasters get going on the stomping parts. But they don't do that so much on the contemporary records.

Cock Robin, I lump in with sophistipop of the period like Prefab Sprout, Danny Wilson, Blow Monkeys, and Style Council. And indeed, Dream Academy. I'm partial to that kind of stuff but then again I've never been accused of rocking too hard.

(Oh, and add Double ["Captain of Her Heart"] to my list above.)

Best songs on Dale Watson album: "Whiskey or God" (vs. "Drugs or Jesus," though Dale picks both -- in another song he mentions pills too by the way); "No Help Wanted" (as in "Get a Job" or Gary US Bonds's "Out of Work', with Dale stuck in a truckstop in Pittsburgh PA -- only thing is, for some reason I can't imagine truckdrivers being unemployed! Seems there could never be enough of them, but what the hell do I know?); "Truckin' Queen (I Got My Night Gown On..)" (imagine Jerry Reed in "Amos Moses" mode doing "Where's the Dress" crossed with "C.B. Savage" and you'll maybe get the idea -- the tranny is a trucker DJ in KC, and the song ain't remotely homophobic by the way near as I can tell; Dale seems in awe of the guy); "I Wish I Was Crazy Again"; "Heeah!!". Second tier: "Sit and Drink and Cry," "I Ain't Been Right Since I've Been Left," "Tequila and Teardrops," "38-21-34"; "Outta Luck." I'm still wondering if this album's a huge leap, or if he's always been this good.

Of those Princeton Record Exchange albums, the Bohemian Texas polkaholics seem to be winning. The Toby album has four or so great tracks surrounded by too many sincere love ballads. An interesting move for him, but not always an entertaining one. But maybe the slow songs'll kick in later -- Toby's showing off his voice, which deserves to be shown off.

And they will be coming to NYC in April.

and yeah, I still need to research me some Tex Czech one of these Saturdays.

and finally, I forgot to mention that Cock Robin have a really weird name.

i guess i should listen to that dale watson album, it's been sitting on my coffee table for two weeks. and funny you mention robert ellis orrall because i thought he'd long ago vanished. i remember him because i saw him (in his new wave days) open for u2 on the war tour. it was my first-ever rock'n'roll show so i thought he was cool even though he probably wasn't.

Excerpting, unfootnoted:

The problem is that after the first 30 seconds of “The Garden (Part III),” the opening track on Taught To Be Proud, I was ready to forcibly rip the CD from my computer and fling it from the nearest window. Jam band? Ugh.

Bouncy, semi funky drum track? Check. Rhythmically shaky and slightly off pitch backup vocals? Check! Looming shadows of Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic and the Allman Brothers? Super double check!

How many bands of well meaning college students (with guitars) have beaten this poor little Birkenstock-clad and patchouli-scented donkey-of-a-musical-movement into the dust over the past 15 years? Hmm?

But upon further listening, I started finding the good stuff lurking in the corners. Trevor Garrod’s vocals call up some combination of the Jayhawks’ Mark Olson, Neil Young and the illustrious Paul Simon — all great. His wah-wah Rhodes solo in the title track is groovy and well played. “John Brown” is a moody, little, historical tale peppered with some “20/20 hindsight” observation. After a few spins, one begins to notice that for all the jammy affectations, there’s real potential for good songs. Heck, there ARE good songs on this album. They just get

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Headin’ Down to Bonnaroo

The band burst into the “jamband” scene with a stellar performance at Northern California’s High Sierra Music Festival in 2000. Five years later, the group found itself in front of ten thousand screaming fans at Tennessee’s fourth annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.

“It was of one of those special shows that reminds you why you want to perform in front of people,” Chambers says. “The crowd was just on fire. I mean it was one o’clock in the afternoon and 100 degrees out, and ten thousand people still showed up to see us play.”

Quite suddenly, Tea Leaf Green had morphed into a venerable tour de force on the scene. The group expanded its performance schedule, and fans—many of whom just wanted to see what the fuss was about—came out accordingly. In less than six years, the band went from playing Bay Area house parties to posh East Coast theatres three thousand miles away from home.

“Now it’s getting a lot better for us,” Chambers says. “We’re making more money, getting bigger crowds—I mean we’re still all poor—but it’s nicer. We can actually expect people to be at the shows now, as opposed to two years ago we’d be happy to have 50 people there.”

Living Organically

Tea Leaf Green, like many of the group’s “jamband” brethren, knows not of radio airplay or MTV videos. Chambers says things like grassroots promotion on Internet message boards and opening for former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio have been keys to the band’s success.

“It was great playing with Trey and meeting him,” Chambers says. “He told us a lot of fun stories of what he went through in the early Phish days in comparison to
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I have never heard a single note of Calexico. That is kind of weird.

just kidding. they're one of the bands that i like but wish they were just, overall, better.

i will lurk the sh*t outta your brazilian jazz thread. ;)

>. kaci brown *instigator* 2005 $1.99 (who is she? she looks young. and i'm assuming she's country because that's where three copies of her CD were filed, and i think i heard of her before, possibly either in billboard or on one of these rolling country threads.)<

well, album definitely seems more like "r&b-leaning teenpop" (pretty ignorable so far, though that may change) than c&w. AMG's explanation:

>Kaci Brown grew up in Sulphur Springs, TX, and was singing at a very early age. Throughout her youth, she performed across her home state, appearing just about anyplace that would have her. To further her career, her family moved to Nashville in 2001 — remarkably, before attaining a record contract, she had a publishing deal and was writing for country artists. Though she intended to be a country artist, she was repeatedly told that she'd fare better with pop. By the end of 2005, she had summer touring dates with the Backstreet Boys, in addition to her Interscope-released debut album, under her belt. All of this happened before she passed her teenage years. A few of the things she adores, as noted on her website, include "love," "purple anything," "boys with guitars," and "boys in general."<

and it turns out Moody Scott, who we were discussing upthread, recorded in Nashville for Sound Stage 7 in the '60s, had some regional hits. there's a new comp of his SS7 stuff just out, called "Bustin Out of the Ghetto." now Moody lives in Las Vegas.
xps

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bearfoothookers2

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bearfoothookers1

I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this Miko Marks CD, I keep being surprised by her voice, at moments when I'm not expecting to be surprised (I suppose that's a pre-requisite of being surprised, but still). Less so from Dierks Bentley, which I was expecting to like more than I do. The only bits I find myself responding to are the sappy bits, which I suppose isn't that unusual for me.

Yeah, replaying the first album, I'd say it's definitely more alt-country than the followup, though fairly often the rhythm does pick into a passably sprightly mid-tempo waltz or choogle for the aging longhair dancefloor. Still more Dead than Skynyrd, though "Dirty Whore Blues" does okay with the latter; she leaves his member sore and he tells her "woman don't come around here no more," you get the idea -- and this is one of their better songs, actually. They're not too complimentary of the gal in "Damn She's Fat" (5'2", 300 pounds) either. (But the album covers kind of remind me of Michael Hurley's.)

No FYPL though, I'm afraid, though I have the 7" on House of Orange if you don't mind a bit of off-centre pressing and the consequent wow (or is it flutter?).

If I'd had the choice, I'd have prioritised Ella Washington or Ann Sexton, but I don't know how the licensing works so I shouldn't criticise. I'm glad someone's doing it.

(This made me go and check to see what Ella Washington CDs are available, and there seems to be one containing at least some SS7 stuff, though it doesn't have the outrageously good "If Time Could Stand Still", which is a shame. Not such a shame that I haven't ordered it, obv.)

Oddly enough, the *newest* bearfoot hookers CD single (which I hadn't noticed in my pile til now -- one of those thin paper sleeves, you know how it goes) is called "I'd Rather Two-Step Than 12 Step," ha ha, funny title, and one of its lines is actually about "falling off the wagon." So good for them, but the title's the only really clever thing about the song, which is your usual alt-country joke hokiness.

Rachel Williams CD single from cdbbay: First song "Some Things Make Her Cry" mentions Springsteen and the 49ers (presumbably the football team not the old house music group); second song "Get Home" has gospel backup. Not bad, but not enough. Nice voice, forgettable tunes.

Am reading Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy and I'm at the bit on America's official religion and its intolerance and "disenlightenment." And that's Pentecostalism now and the Southern Baptist Convention he says, sounds right to me, so when the one contestant admitted to his P-ism to Wynonna like he should get a pat on the back, I naturally began to hate him. Even though he still sounds like a pro and does as good a job as all the others.

But the show's highpoint was its first episode and now it's just going through the motions, whittling away at the stick, everyone saying "I so do want that recording contract" like the song "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth."

how much of this shit is geographic

The upside of this is that I get to see Lee Ann Womack on Staten Island, in a theatre with a capacity of a couple of thousand. I imagine this venue to be smaller than she would regularly play in towns more receptive to country music.

No, no, no, I'm *IN* New York. I am not now and have never been and will never be "from" here, no way. And New York's illiteracy about country has indeed given me the opportunity to see excellent Miranda Lambert, Shelly Fairchild, Lee Ann Womack, Montgomery Gentry, and Big & Rich shows in rather small venues. (I even saw Toby Keith do some industry-only sitdown-and-strum thing maybe five years ago, before I knew who he was! Though I mainly went for the free food, I think.)

Quite right. We've been talking a bit more about her on this thread.