Rolling country 2007 thread

I'll admit Aldean's debut won me over, thinking he was developing a rather winning persona as a sorta shlubby, sweetly faithful, nose-to-the-grindstone kind of Everyguy.

This new one though is utterly charmless. I should've expected it after "Johnny Cash," which I know some people like but I think is one of the most hilariously cliched, witless hits to come down the pike in some time. I could only make it through about half the record before losing interest completely, but all I heard were endless crappy platitudes, the inevitable song about his own unlikely rise to fame, and some soggy relationship stuff that wasn't nearly as endearing as his debut.

Gretchen's album is way better, but I don't understand Frank's claim that "I like her a lot more now that she isn't jabbing her demographic elbows into everyone's ribs all the time." If "There Goes the Neighborhood" doesn't fit that bill to a T, I don't know what does. "You Don't Have to Go Home" and "There's a Place in the Whiskey" sound equally generic, but there's some dynamite stuff here too like the title track and especially "If You Want a Mother."

xp: I also just realized that barely a single word in my Cowboy Troy album description had anything whatsoever to do with country music! Well, there are fiddle fills in some (if not most) of the songs. And "Blackneck Boogie" has Troy saying do-si-do bow-to-your-partner; square dance calls were rap before rap existed, after all. Elsewhere, he calls out to redneck women and dixie chicks. And there are sort-of-country-ish background voices -- James Otto in "Cruise Control" is probably best. (Uncle Kracker fans, if any exist, would totally love that song.)

Johnny Cash," which I know some people like but I think is one of the most hilariously cliched, witless hits to come down the pike in some time.

This might be true. Having only possibly overheard it one time in a hotel room, I probably shouldn't have claimed it to be a good song; how the hell would I know? Though I'm pretty sure it sounded okay at the time. (On the other hand, I was on vacation. Lots of crap sounds good when you're on vacation.)

Maybe I just liked that it didn't try to sound like Johnny Cash! Which was probably a pleasant surprise.

anybody out there heard this Beverley Knight record? Music City Soul? I saw a little piece in a recent Billboard on her, she done it here and I think at Mark Nevers' (another one). apparently it's UK-only at this point.

just got the Big & Rich advance, finally, so once I get time today that's the first thing I'll put on. I've been writing about the new Porter last couple of days, listening to his old shit like "Rubber Room" and "Carroll County Accident." on some of those circa-'70 songs, Wagoner sounds like a prophet of acid consciousness straight out of a vintage American International dope movie. Great stuff, and the comp, The Rubber Room, covers all that prime material and even reproduces the wild cover images from those albums, where Porter is a cuckold, a bum, a convict, a farmer a lech (can't see his hand in a shot with Dolly but I bet I know where it is) and in triplicate, twice, on some decent acid but still wearing the same clothes.

so this guy I know here had hiccups, for a day, and it was getting worse, nothing helped, and they tried everything: scare tactics, ice cube on the neck below the ear (that almost always works). what eventually cured them was the ultimate scare tactic: a montage of Amy Winehouse close-up photographs, some with fangs drawn on them, others just as they are/she is. scared the hiccups right out the guy, for real, the curative picture is up on the wall at Grimey's Records in Nashville, so if you have hiccups that won't go away or just need a jolt in general, check it out. I'm still trying to figure out the appeal of Winehouse myself.

Gabneb, there was a lot of discussion of Like Red On A Rose on Rolling 2006 Country, and maybe the beginning of this one.

Josh, I didn't say she was never jabbing her demographic elbows. You're right about that song, but she doesn't sing it nearly as obnoxiously as she would have a couple of years ago. Her singing has gotten better - less blaring. The reason I like the Eurobosh remix of "Redneck Woman" so much is that it transforms an assertion of identity into a chimpmunk-voiced woman making it sound like it's a lot of fun to be a redneck chipmunk.

New Kelly Willis album Translated From Love: Don't dwell on the synths (much as I love them here): this isn't new wave Americana pop: this is just a Kelly Willis album, but one on which she has more fun with phrasing, sounds more alive, so gets more out of her voice (which I'll soon argue in print is one of the most purely fetching voices in country) than she ever has. It's also a Chuck Prophet album, which means I like it 100 times more than the Nels Cline Wilco record.

did Jim Dickinson produce a Chuck Prophet record, or cover some of his songs? on the Wilco, twin guitars rule! I wish they'd just done it as an all-instrumental record, maybe with some Jeff Tweedy Singers doing a few ooh-la-las.

So Cold Eggs is a weird name for a singer, isn't it?

Pulled Gretchen's new one back out in light of Frank's rave, and I'm still not convinced it's all Frank says it is -- not sure how she's singing better (she sounds pretty much the same to me), and her ballads are as dull as they've always been. Why do her slow songs never have hooks in them? I don't get that. Other people's do, sometimes. Hers just go right by me, leave no effect at all. I don't get if her singing just always winds up sounding thinner when she slows down, or that's when producers turn her into a purist bore, or what. Well, "Come To Bed" and "Painkiller" are okay, I guess. I can live with them. But though "You Don't Have to Come Home" might read dumber, it definitely sounds a lot better -- I'd take it over those two on the basis on its beat alone. (Also, I mentioned before that "If You Want a Mother" sounds exactly like "Okee From Muskogee," right? And "Place in the Whiskey" sounds a lot like "Call Me The Breeze," Skynyrd version at least. Don't think I ever heard J.J. Cale's own version.)

Posted this on the metal thread this morning:

Finished getting though the Count Bishops pile, and finally decided that, although tons of the tracks are great, they were also too samey to make for truly great albums. I'm happy to own everything I've got by them, but over album length, the tough r&b cover after tough r&b cover gets a bit wearing, and kinda stodgy too. Someone wrote on some other thread a few days ago that some Dr. Feelgood album I'd never heard was the best pub-rock album ever give or take Eddie and the Hot Rods, and I realized that, if I'm gonna be honest, I might like the one Feelgood album I own (Malpractice) and the two Eddie and the Hot Rod ones I own more, not to mention the one Ducks Deluxe album I own, more than any of the Count Bishops albums I own. They were just sort of one-dimensional. Though it was a very cool dimension.

"You Don't Have to GO Home"

Okay, "Come To Bed" on now. It's nice. Breakup to makeup song, take the grand tour. And yeah, there's some semblance of a hook. But it still doesn't tear me up, which is what it's aiming for, and fighting-during-marriage should do it easy. (I actually like it less when John Rich shows up).

Or maybe it's just that, whenever Gretchen does her more rocking songs, she totally sounds like she's having a blast, whereas when she does the ballads, she just sounds to me like she's fulfilling some kind of moral obligation. (Not sure what sonically convinces me of that, but that's how she feels.) Bottom line is, I have no interest in her being tasteful -- I almost want to say that the crasser is she is, the better she is. Which might be the exact opposite of what Frank's been saying, I'm not sure.

Saw her on the Tonight Show recently, while I was busy, so din't catch many of the words, but def insinuating, "Things are okay tonight, but let's not either of us take it for granted, babe." Good, but her balladering does seem to be rubbing some the wrong way. Voice's Nate C. compared it to Hambuger Helper, which I like, but not on ballads.(Nor does he.) But I haven't kept up with her since the first album, so who knows. So what is your Ducks Deluxe album like? Intrigued by the song Elizabeth McQueen covered.

I think "If You Want a Mother" is the masterstroke on the Gretchen record. think she sings good but sounds a little confused in some basic way.

saw Johnny Bush this afternoon, with a great band. Roy upthread mentioned Ray Price. Bush is in the same league--he tore it up with the insouciance of a jazz singer, Buddy Emmons ripped off some amazing fills and solos and Pete Wade played guitar. did Moon Mullican's "I'll Sail My Ship Alone" just fine and he did "Whiskey River" as a thank-you to BMI--who was there to present him with a certificated saying "Whiskey River" has been played a million times on TV and radio. just damned excellent--he should do the definitive Sings Willie Nelson record, he's the man to do it.

Agree about "If You Want a Mother" being the best song on the Gretchen record. Somewhere, in some alternate universe, there is a DJ playing that and Robbie Fulks' new live version of "I Want to Be Mama-ed" back to back.

I sort of agree that it's cool that "Johnny Cash" doesn't sound remotely like Johnny Cash and sort of don't. Did anyone see the interview Holly Gleason did with Aldean for the L.A. Times? It opens with him admitting he was never a fan of Cash. I guess that's slightly even more brave than it is stupid on his part, and I would give him kudos for his honesty if he seemed like he might be smart enough to be a real fan of any other deserving legend. Anyway, as long as he gets John Rich to write his leadoff singles, people may think he has a personality. But once you get past the "take this job and shove it" sentiments of the first verse of the first song, you're pretty much finished with the "attitude" on the album. Again, not that that's bad--but when he does conventional Nashville tuneage, it doesn't seem like any of the town's finest gave him a song they wouldn't rather put on hold for Kenny or Tim. I don't know why he is sticking in my craw so much, when there are so many worse records coming out. I hardly hold it against people who don't write their own songs. But there's something about the way he carries and presents himself that says: I am the kind of renegade who is realer than all that other stuff. Anyway, woe unto anyone who hears the "screw you, man" in the single and imagines that he is someone who would do anything but bend over backward for the boss.

I really, really loved the first Cowboy Troy album. I cannot tell you how much ridicule and scorn I got for that. When I mentioned to colleagues that I was toying with the idea of putting his album on my top ten list for the year, I honestly felt like there might be some petition started to fire me before that could happen. So, all that said, this followup strikes me on first listen as deeply bad, so much so that I am tempted to imagine that everyone who excoriated me the first time around was right and I was deeply deluded. But I think what I was responding to most the first time was the settings, even though I liked Troy personally; it was like a great melange of vintage pop stylings that just happened to have this other gimmicky hybrid on top. But this time, it seems like they gave the heave-ho to the pop and just put the gimmick on top of a much more obviously nu-metal-derived bed. And that was kind of why "I Play Chicken with the Train" worked, but the fiddles and power chords thing is already becoming its own cliche. Anyway, does anybody else have that same experience--you stand up for something, and then the next time around, dislike it so much that you wonder if you were hypnotized before?

Whisperin' Edd: Can't believe you don't get Amy Winehouse... can't believe anyone doesn't... though it may be instructive for me to figure out what the turnoff (or indifference) factor is. The record more and more feels to me like a classic, or as close as we come this century. But I can also say that she was one of the less rewarding-feeling interviews I've ever done. Whenever I hear somebody trot out the maxim "Don't meet your heroes," I usually say that I've been lucky enough to really never regret meeting anybody I respected. But Amy is the rare case where we didnt click to the point that I can sort of say I probably would have been better off enjoying the mystique from afar... Sorry, off-topic I know (though there is probably some country-inclusive discussion to be had some time about whether interviewing your faves generally enhances the listening experience later or leaves you disillusioned).

(in reply to your "self-deluded after all?" query re Cowboy Troy first vs. second album)Yeah, but have you listened to the first album again, since you had this reaction to the second? Might be just another case of second album slump. I just saw a pretty amazing 50-odd minute Dixie Chicks set on Austin City Limits (more on PBS.org, but I had to catch my breath first. Chamber met arena, and they rocked that chamber like ringing a bell. Mind you, they were deadpan, white faces over black armor (well maybe it was polished cotton, but still), and business-like as much defiant or steadfast, but the music streamed around and from them, more effective for contrast, even though they sang a bit too stolidly sometimes. Think it was all from the last two albums, so no direct competition with the mostly excellent and better-rounded live album, but then that had a few older tracks that sounded sung-out; this set's got its own conhesion and momentum. The Fleetwood Mac influence runs deep (and/or touching on the Mac's own influences), and a certain Subterranean Homesick Tombstone Blues inflection in some of the picking and vocal phrasing (also maybe like late Move/early ELO, when Roy Wood was semi-Lennon vs. Jeff Lyne's demi-Mccartney ick) factor?)But hardly a pastiche, and even "Not Ready To Make Nice" kills (like it always tried to), in this context. Sorry, I know we've spent the best years of our lives gabbing about the Chicks,or I have, but damn!

I liked the firt Cowboy Troy album too! Not top ten worthy, but certainly more top ten worthy than most of what wound up on peoples' top tens that year. And yeah, it's occured to me in the past two weeks that it may not have been quite as good as I thought. But Chris, I think it's more likely you hit the nail on the head when you said the new one seems to forfeit the pop element -- a lot of it just sounds dreary, and "serious." ("Cruise Control" and "Blackneck Boogie" are exceptions.)

Amy Winehouse's retro schtick, on the other hand, just seems ridiculous to me, neither enjoyable to listen to nor remotely convincing. I don't like her voice, I don't hear tunes. As soul music, it stinks. And to be honest I never listen to old Billie Holiday records in the first place. I talked about Amy somewhere up thread. (My thoughts about Ducks Deluxe are possibly up there too, or maybe on last year's rolling thread when I bought that LP. When I have more time, I'll do a search.)

In unrelated news (though somewhat related to the Willowz' blooze-mama schtick maybe), I just listened to and couldn't stand the Amy Winehouse album (or the parts of it I could make it through before I gave up, anyway.) Strained-vocal "fine taste" "soul" malarkey from the UK; comes complete with obligatory Billie Holiday comparisons. Huge over there, apparently; could well hit here. Let's hope not.

-- xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, January 14, 2007

Too late, I guess! (400,000 units sold in US and counting, last time I checked.)

tonight I am too busy listening to my Ducks Deluxe LP. (Don't Mind Rockin' Tonite. Which is great. They may not rock as hard as Count Bishops, but they definitely rock harder than Nick Lowe or Dave Edmunds. And as hard as Eddie and the Hot Rods, at least.) (American equivalent of pub rock would be...Brownsville Station?)

-- xhuxk, Wednesday, March 14, 2007 1:47 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

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On their album Ducks Deluxe cover "It's All Over Now," which has definitely also inspired country covers by John Anderson etc., plus "I Fought the Law" and Van M's "Here Comes The Night," which should have whether they did or didn't. The Rolling Stone "red" guide also says Ducks do a song called "West Texas Trucking Board," but it's not on my copy. There's definitely a hard rockabilly tinge to some stuff though.)

-- xhuxk, Wednesday, March 14, 2007 11:08 AM (2 months ago)

Uh, didn't say that much I guess. More someday, one would hope...

From teenpop thread:

So, can one of the Brits out there explain why Amy Winehouse (whose album comes out in the States in March) is something more than, like, the new Des'ree or Dionne Farris or something? I mean, I get it, I think: "Authentic soul" tedium for grownups with "good taste", and her single is about not being able to stop drinking or taking drugs, apparently, so that makes her Billie Holiday. And what makes her authentic is that her singing strains all the life out, so see, she's obviously on her last legs and therefore highly moving. Why should I care? I couldn't get through four songs on the CD yesterday.

-- xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, January 15, 2007 2:35 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

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"
I like Amy Winehouse, she's funny. She's not asking for your pity, she's asking for a blimmin pint, right now mate and she'll probably give you a wink and a smile if you oblige or maybe even if you don't. She's always been rude and obnoxious and looked a bit like she might start a brawl at any moment but there're also some nice little confessional-without-being-pathetic moments in her music and I think it's genius. She's saying she doesn't want to go to rehab because she thinks it's a load of old bollocks, not 'ooh poor me I can't get off the booze.' Amy certainly wouldn't want your pity, although she does seem to be in something of a state, judging by the less reputable gossip rags, she's always immaculately turned out on stage, bar the fact she has a large tattoo of a woman with her breasts out on one of her arms.

I wrote something about her current album here, if you're a)interested or b)very bored.

-- Hazel Robinson (Moggy), Monday, January 15, 2007 6:21 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

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...and then of course there's always this!

-- zebedee (zebedee), Monday, January 15, 2007 6:26 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

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i'm really bored of the "amy winehouse is grown-up authentic fake soul for the 12-CD-a-year brigade" criticism, sorry chuck, it's just that there's so bloody much of it already over here. (i mean, in these circles alone: the mainstream press loves amy's music.) she mines the past but polishes it up at the same time; her voice is naturally quite bluesy or whatever (i don't think it's an affectation). these may help her appeal to the 12-cd brigade but she's much more interesting once you, y'know, listen to her songs and stuff, rather than just skim them.

"Authentic soul" tedium for grownups with "good taste"

yeah she's pitched as this to various quarters because that helps her shift units. doesn't mean that's what she is.

and her single is about not being able to stop drinking or taking drugs, apparently, so that makes her Billie Holiday

no one's claiming she's billie holiday, and the single isn't so much about how she can't stop drinking boo hoo, it's that she's not going to stop drinking fuck you. ie what hazel said. (a side point about the drinking: i think we're pretty much past the moral censure of famous women who get pissed, in the uk, apart from the more right-wing newspapers. when chaz church and girls aloud go on benders, it's reported luridly, but there's a sense of "good strong healthy specimens of british womanhood" about it all. with amy winehouse it is different because...well she's probably approaching lohan levels of self-abuse here. there's no "apparently" about any of it, girl does need help.)

And what makes her authentic is that her singing strains all the life out, so see, she's obviously on her last legs and therefore highly moving.

the singing in 'rehab' is jaunty and jolly and cocking a snook at everyone who thinks she should be on her last legs! at no point does winehouse even try to move us with tales of alcoholism - the booze is incidental to what she does try to move us with, the heartbreak and vague self-loathing. she succeeds because she's genuinely witty - not waving a big HELLO I'M COMEDY sign around a la lily allen or mike skinner, but smart and self-aware and self-deprecating and assured. listen to the way she sings the couplet "i don't ever want a drink again - ooh, i just need a friend", the wink-wink at the audience of the first line undercut so effectively by the pathos of the second. and 'you know i'm no good' - which is basically my favourite song right now if only because it's a spot-on depiction of a situation i was in a while back - is all about how harmed/harmful she is, but it's full of references to, like, chips and pitta and stuff.

-- lex pretend (lex pretend), Monday, January 15, 2007 10:22 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

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I guess my problem with Winehouse is that, no matter how "funny" Brits seem to think she is (which I get the idea from the posts above has as much or not more to do with her public image as her music -- though Lex and Hazel do note the latter, admittedly), her singing sounds completely humorless to me. Which is to say Hazel's Lauryn Hill imitations absolutely ring true to me: The NPR tedium is right there in her sound. But who knows, maybe I'll change my mind as the year goes on. More likely, there's a language gap. I'm guessing that Americans won't pick up on the humor of it, even it's there; they'll pick up on the impeccable taste of it instead. (As for others making the same criticism as I have, that's news to me; I've barely read a word about the woman, here or elsewhere. So actually it's encouraging to hear I'm far from alone in my opinion.)

-- xhuxk (xheddy), Tuesday, January 16, 2007 1:29 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

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did you like lauryn, chuck? it's maybe a good comparison in that you can hear all these signifiers of tastefulness, the ways in which both would appeal to a white middle-class radio 2 audience (i don't know what npr is - i'm guessing our radio 2 is the equivalent). (amy's a lot less ambitious than lauryn though.)

but unlike others of that ilk, joss stone et al, both lauryn and amy i think are much better than that. (not that i think there's anything wrong with coffee-table diluted soul: i love me some sade.)

americans might not pick up on amy's dry humour but they'll probably pick up on the "boozy british chick" thing, which is if not humour than certainly black comedy.

-- lex pretend (lex pretend), Tuesday, January 16, 2007 1:39 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

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(for the record i love lauryn.)

-- lex pretend (lex pretend), Tuesday, January 16, 2007 1:39 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

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(for the record, i don't.)

-- xhuxk (xheddy), Tuesday, January 16, 2007 1:44 PM (4 months ago)

well, Willman, Amy Winehouse. Sometimes you gotta go with what's being presented you, that's what they want you to notice, and that damned video where AW is in the tub lolling around looking all skanktified (as we say on Sunday mornings)--that just makes me crazy, and the spread in EW makes her look even worse. I mean she makes videos so I'm judging her on that. She's not doing Remedial Billie (Holiday) as much as that, to my ears, typically misguided English soul trip. I don't much care for Joss Stone either, altho she's better-looking (and would Joss be a star if she looked like Mama Cass or Phoebe Snow, both pretty good singers actually)? I mean geez, I listen to soul music all the time and I find Amy W. just bland and forgettable, I ain't buying into any of it and don't remotely care. But she really does cure hiccups.

So far, the new Big & Rich is really really disappointing. The ballads, yuck, and the uptempo songs seem devoid of inspiration. So, to answer Willman's question about loving something/defending it, yep, I found much to admire in the last Big & record (and think John's production of the new John Anderson fantastic), but the new one just kind of lies there.

happy, too, because yesterday I went into Lawrence Brothers on Lower Broad in Nashvegas and found for $9 American an LP of Willie Nelson's Face of a Fighter, '60s demos collected on a late-'70s LP that I don't think has been reissued. good stuff.

I'm finding the Mekons' imminent (and supposedly inspired by "the wilds of the English countryside") Natural (due out in August) supremely lazy and lackadaisical and annoying, even more so than most of the other stuff they've put out in the nearly two decades now since I stopped caring about them. I mean, I know half-assedness and sloppiness and not being able to sing on-key were part of their raison d'etre from the gitgo, but there is a point when such flatness stops being charming and starts being a boring crutch, and I swear for these guys that happened not too long after, I dunno, Edge of the World I guess. I know some people believe they've made great albums since then (just re-read a great piece about them that Luc Sante did for me back at the Voice in his great new collection of essays book, and even he says so), but I've never heard it. Regardless, I'm having trouble believing that anybody is going to fall for this new one, though I don't doubt I'll be proved wrong. Jon Langford sounds approximately as tired as Nick Lowe and Ian Hunter have this year, if not more so. Worst cut I've noticed: An emaciated attempt at reggae called "Cockermouth" that I find downright painful to listen to. And once upon a time, the Mekons did reggae, or at least dub, and mixed it into the Brit death-folk, real good. But somehow, somewhere along the line, their Brit-folk lost whatever beauty it once had, and forget having the rhythmic jig energy to inspire any actual English dancing masters; that went by the wayside years ago, too...Though who knows, I suppose it's possible a Martian landing in his spaceship would have a hard time distinguishing this stuff from Fear and Whiskey. But what the hell do Martians know? For such a proudly unproffesional act, this band long ago turned into the moral equivalent of wheel-spinning pros, and on the new album, they seem to matter less than ever. (On the other hand, I don't doubt that there are many words referencing world-historical events from the past few years. As if that could ever be enough.)

Re. Johnny Bush: I've really been enjoying Kashmere Garden Mud this afternoon. Just a real solid country record. Also: of all the great singers--Elvis, Price, Arnold, Robbins--who've tackled one of the greatest and most demanding songs in the English language--Marty Robbins' "You Gave Me a Mountain"--Bush's version is the one.

Everybody's got the Sante book except me. I guess I'll have to wait 'til it actually gets published.

I don't have it either, although when I asked him about Tintin (comic strip character, not band/artist), he sent me a dandy essay, which he said would be in this book.As with your book, prob publisher limits list to those who might actually get to review and/or blurb it, not us music types. He also sends excellent mulitmedia resource re his current exhibit, The Museum of Crime and the Museum of God:
http://www.apex.org/exhibitions/sante.htm

That is, us music types who are not among the most high Ancient Headz, like xxuxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I didn't get sent one! I got it off the free table at work (where there's also a book bizness magazine.)

Did get sent the new All Access: Big & Rich book, though, oddly. I prefer it to the new album.

Listening to one xxhuxx sent me, Gachupin's s/t, copyright 2005: "Irish Juju" sounds just like I hoped! Wonder if King Sunny Ade's heard it. Some spaghetti dub touches, via Tony Maimone's bass, Frank London's trumpet, and other nice things. Some others have a trans-Carribean thing; Buffett should freshen with this. thanxx

What I wrote about them on the whirled music thread:

Good world jazz (better when it veers toward African reggae in "Irish Juju" and "Green" or dub-metal in "Las Armas Secretas" than when it sticks toward more relatively straightforwardish funk harmelodia in "Preza" and "Freakonomics") featuring Tony Maimone on bass plus sundry Flaming Fire and Klezmatics cats, and based, well, apparently a couple blocks from my own apartment in Sunnyside Queens (I'm on 39th Place; the return address on the envelope they sent me was on 41st street, potentially closer than the grocery store I just walked to though I'm not sure what avenues they're between. Still the closest cdbaby band I've liked):

http://cdbaby.com/cd/gachupin

willman, not only did i put the first cowboy troy album on my top ten, i put a single on my singles top ten and wrote like 6k words about it

couldn't agree more about the ickiness and tedium of Winehouse, though I suppose it says something that she elicts such strong responses - I gave the record zero stars in a daily newspaper review a few months back and it set off a minor firestorm (as much of a firestorm as any review published in a paper in Raleigh, NC can set off), culminating in a colleague penning a column in Philadelphia Weekly that imagined me being in hell getting sodomized by famous critics for my apparent crimes against rockwrite.

fwiw, I still feel the same about her as I did then - namely that her artistry feels 100% calculated and predictable while constantly and desperately trying to reassert its "realness." Contrived transgressiveness is even more lame than contrived purity in my book. Take away the potted drug references and she's Joss Stone, who's equally dull as a singer but infinitely less irritating as a personality.

my review of the winehouse mostly talked about critical reception, i think i was too praiseful of the album itself, its a bit too perfect a pastiche, that said, rehab sounds new, and the sentiment has a commitment towards pleasure that i love

--Big Miranda Lambert interview in the Washington Post today--

The Miranda Lambert interview I wanted to see but didn't so one was custom jerry-built.

I'd link to the LA Times sunday edition on rock musicians crossing over into country but it was just an anthology of the standard cant and year-old leftovers. Jon Bon Jovi! Country audiences like him! He sang with Jennifer Nettles! This sword cuts both ways! Fiddles and mandolins next to guitars! Wanted, dead or alive! Beggars can't be choosers!

Joshlove, what Raleigh paper do you write for? I've written a fair amount for Charlotte.CreativeLoafing, but never gotten such a passionate response. I'm so jealous! It's so hard to find anybody who's bad in an interesting way. (Although that Bobby Conn thing for PaperThinWalls did turn out pretty bad for good.)

(bad album for good review, that is.)(I think I'll go toward spoonfeeding the reader this year, little bit.)

I have decided that I Ike Reilly is a really verbose guy, who actually gives his music a sense of energy sometimes, and who no doubt has very good politics. Sometimes he sounds okay when he's on -- usually when he speeds up. The three songs Matt mentioned as his favorites upthread all sound okay when they're on, and I like some other tracks better than those. Problem is, Ike Reilly is also apparently completely incapable of grabbing me, even for a word at a time, and he has a lot of words, so it really shouldn't be that tough. He's missing something (maybe a band? or maybe a stronger voice? or maybe a producer to give his music more punch?), and I've invested too much time already, so I am hereby giving up. I apologize.

I bet he has a sense of humor, too (not that he ever makes me laugh -- just seems like he'd have one), and he clearly knows how to put details (fish plant uprisings and Valentine's Days in Juarez) in his songwriting, though following them takes work. There's something happening in there. But he needs a Heartbreakers, or an E Street Band, or a Kenny Aranoff. Or maybe just better melodies. As is, as often as not, he irritates me -- Sounds like he's simultaneously trying too hard and not hard enough.

the Raleigh News and Observer, dow. it was one of my prouder moments I must say, though I think it's kind of shitty the guy didn't even bother to contact me and open up any kind of actual dialogue before he wrote the slam. if his piece had been any good I'd be really upset and embarrassed, but fortunately it was hysterical crap.

I still have Ike Reilly's album as my fave rave all-genre album of the year, but there are some others knocking on the door: the 2006 Company revival, Vusi Mahlesela, Los Tigres del Norte, Cortney Tidwell, Macy Gray, Loudon Wainwright III, the Noisettes, Traband, Yellow Sisters, Sean Noonan, Battles, a ton of others. Still though, I've been on the Ike Reilly train since the beginning, I love the verbosity and I feel the hooks, yeah his band could be better maybe but I don't care much. I LIKE working hard on records, and he makes me laugh a lot -- on the new record, I especially like the point where he starts going "I love the ladies, I love the ladies..." and his band comes in with "He loves the ladies, he loves the ladies PLAIN!"

June is national accordion month, for what that's worth.

It's also national Frank Kogan month, in that I've now got a regular column (2x a week) in the Las Vegas Weekly.

Er, that's national accordion awareness month, and national Frank Kogan awareness month.

amazing musical moment for me today, and im calling it country, because i dnot know what esle to call it, walking by the park today, after an art opening, downtown. hearing some noise, adn some handsome men in white shirts and black ties, and women in modifed bee hives, going towards teh front, its 10 women w. accordians, a gospel choir, a brass band, and this one guuy on the cymbals and a preacher, whos wors were rolling, whose cadences were tight, and he had this fantastic rythym, the band would play, then he would speak, and the one guy with the cymbals would get the best clanging, rollicking noise, that managed to undergird everything...

the weirdest thing, was, at the end of it, though he spoke against all my favourite things (booze, sex, shacking up, communism), and he had these awful lurid examples (hundreds of bodies, in the back allies of chicago, dead by booze, doctors, lawyers, dead in the gutter, covered in flies), the music was so happy, so earnest and passionite, and dedicated to something both practical and cosmic, that i walked out of that park, happier then when i left it.

my favourite musical expereince of the year by far.

Wow.

So Miranda Lambert's gonna tour with Toby Keith. I don't think the No Depression article on her adhered to all the standard themes that were bugging George

Anthony's favortite musical experience of the year so far is one of my most favorite posts on this whole thread, with Edd's recent riff on Porter Wagoner (more about Porter in Edd's excellent Marty Stuart feature in this week's Nashville Scene, and also check him on Johnny Bush last week). "Brand New Kind Of Actress": just heard this on World Cafe, and fit with the best Zevon tracks they played last hour (in between interviewing his ex-wife Crystal and son Jordan: she's put together a book titled I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, incorporating some fairly harrowing material from his journals, going way back, and Jordan's put together Preludes, demos and other prev unreleased) Anyway, I was liking the Zevon at his most stomp-stomp heavy-country rock, when the lyrics and other were at their most cogent, with no slightly maudlin and/or otherwise too-distractingly contrived "lyrical" whiffy bits, and thinking whoever did "Brand New Kind Of Actress" really had studied his Zevon discriminatingly, and his Drive-By Truckers too (since they tend to have the same strengths and weaknesses as Z.), and turns out it was--Jason Isbell, who's quit the Truckers, and is finally releasing his solo album! (produced by Patterson Hood, I think)

Are we sure Isbell quit the Truckers? Sounded like a did-he-jump-or-was-he-pushed mystery.

speaking of warren zevon, there is a long ode to him in paul muldoons horse latitudes that might be worth picking up.

a little ramble about dead paper songs up on poptimists.

not paper, babies