Rolling country 2007 thread

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

Dead babies can't take care of themselves. Dead babies can't take things off the shelf. I don't think I know any country songs about dead babies, actually. But jokes about them were big in 7th grade.

Got the new album, Burnt Toast Offerings, by Gretchen Peters, who apparently wrote "Independence Day" for Martina McBride. "England Blues" seemed promising but I couldn't get into the rest of it.

Also couldn't get into this guy's album, though I suspect I'd think it was better than anything I've heard lately by Steve Earle (who he reminds me of) if wasn't "mostly recorded in my bedroom" (in L.A., apparently) with just his "tex mes Fender strat & a big tex acoustic and a Gibson SG." He needs a band. And I don't know, maybe he'll get one -- this stuff has clearly come out pretty quick, since the album is already "dedicated to victims at Virginia State 4-16-07." Anyway, it's Hippie In A Redneck World by Eddie Cunningham, and two of the songs were written with Kim Fowley, who he has apparently also recorded with, and he says his country-rock groups Cowboys & Indians were signed to Atlantic between 1987 and 1990. I never heard them; has anybody? And I do hope to check out his less-demo stuff someday; hard to heard Hendrix influences on bedroom tapes.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/ecunningham5

"Hard to hear," I mean. And Cowboys & Indians were only one country rock group, not more than one.

The country-oriented cdbaby CD I have been loving this week (actually there's two, I'll get to the other one momentarily) is called Hip Hop Country Rock by The Xchange, from New Jersey (white guitarist guy/white singer gal/white bassist guy/black drummer guy), and it blows both the new Big N Rich and the new Cowboy Troy album out of the water, combined, but so far I'm thinking the country might be more in the trappings (the lyrics, which talk about frontgal Tracey Lande being an urban cowgirl a lot, though I suspect she's really more a surbuban cowgirl when you get down to it since this is Jersey after all, plus her cowboy hat) than in the actual sounds of the music. Her voice has actually got plenty of oomph and sweetness to it, and no doubt there's a Gretchen Wilson tinge in there somewhere, but for the most part I'd say her inflections are more r&b than c&w. Though then again, since r&b inflections are something c&w needs, I'm not complaining. And there's some country in the music -- especially maybe "Hit The Floor," which might be the most realized fusion of line-dance two-step and crunk I've ever heard and defintely has actual twang in its guitar hook, and "Don't Let It Get Away," where Tracey starts out singing like Amy Lee from Evanescence for a couple seconds and then the hippity-hopping kicks in over a great and very smart and actually quite beautiful sample of Ennio Morricone's "The Good the Bad and the Ugly" (have rappers sampled Morricone at all since Bambaataa days?), which counts as country or at least western in the spaghetti sense I guess. And the album finale, "Urban Cowgirl and Reprise," I think might mention working 9 to 5 and definitely pronounces the world "cowgirl" in a vocodered way highly reminscent of sometime country star Kid Rock saying "cowboy." So there's that. But one track ("Eyes Don't Lie" I think) also sounds a lot (melody wise) like City High's "What Would You Do," one of my favorite r&b hits of the '00s. Overall, it's all (or almost all) good though. Also really like "Good Girls Gone Bad," which is very attitudinally Gretchen. Forget how "New Sheriff In Town" goes right now, but I'll spend more time with this thing:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/thexchange

And the other new cdbaby CD I've come across, believe it or not, is by Joy of Cooking! I haven't even put on the 1972 live concert live in Berkely on the second disc yet, but the '68-72 studio recordings on disc one have been grabbing me in ways that that the couple vinyl albums I've heard (at least one of which I talked about upthread after buying it on the road a couple months ago) never have -- most likely because Joy of Cooking's relaxed but energetic Celtic Latin folk jazz boogie-woogie breakouts make more sense sinking in casually in the background the way random CD changer play allows but less "passive" (I guess) LP play never really makes possible. Or maybe they were just reigned in on the albums I've heard -- I guess that's possible too. Anyway, I've been loving the piano and harmonica etc swing of tracks like "Summer Fire" and "Flying Saucer Blues" and "Trippet"; if they're proto-Quarterflash, the Quarterflash they're most proto too is the fusion-folk experiment "Williams Avenue" on Q-flash's first album, which is one of the best things that band did. But they (or at least Terry Garthwaite) are also clearly post-Janis, maybe post-Big Brother. And I like the Dylan cover "Love is Just a 4-Letter Word" a lot, though I can't recall off hand how Dylan's version goes, and the solo jazz croon "Song in Blue" is real purty too. (I also have "Look Back" marked as a favorite -- I put a star next to its title, but no note.) And I only just begun. Plus, how many cdbaby pages start with a recommendation from a music review by Ellen Willis?:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/joyofcooking

from the metal thread; guess I should post it here to since this is where I dissed the new Mekons album, plus sheep farmers as country too, right?:

...New Zealand's Pumice, who I think are my favorite indie rock (in the sense of being twee) band in the world right now seeing how I loved their previous album too; how come indie rock fans never mention them? They totally keep the drunken off-kilter Flying Nun post-Velvets sheep-farmer kiwi-folk prettiness alive, and "Greenock" sounds like the new Mekons album should (i.e., it sounds like the Mekons did 27 years ago), and "The Only Doosh Worth Giving" and "Onion Union" might be the two most beautiful tracks of improvisatory style noize racket I've heard this year (Dead C influence, I'm guessing, but I haven't listened to enough Dead C to know -- hence I guess they qualify for a metal thread, in some way), and then they close with a placid instrumental called "Pipi" that goes completely in the opposite direction. New album is called Pebbles; the one last year was Yeahnahvienna; I recommend both even to people who usually hate all the other music I recommend.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=77222512"> http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=77222512

there is a long ode to him in paul muldoons horse latitudes that might be worth picking up.

Everything by Muldoon, such a great poet, is worth picking up. Along with mad-genius-roustabout Chris King, I'm working on scoring his long poem Incantata. Last year about this time we recorded Muldoon reading the whole thing from beginning to end in my apartment, but I think all he wanted to do was dig through my records.

Since writing with Zevon, Muldoon has started a band, and at least judging by the little clip I saw on the Web, and his comments on there, he seems more interested in playing guitar than emphasizing his actual-poet lyrics. Didn't really grab me, but was pretty brief, so who knows. Yeah, I don't remember Willis writing about JOC, but they def had the same appeal and sensibilty, re the self-made bluecollar collegetown "post-Janis" picking-up-the-pieces early 70s point of embarkation.

Not that they didn't actually "embark" earlier than that, and what joy it was to find EW cookin' in The New Yorker of all places, in its Daddest, endless-rumination days, but pickin' up the pieces certainly seemed like more of a priority in early 70s, so EW and JOC (esp. Terry, and continuing on the few solo LPs I heard) were reassuring to wobbly kiddos like me.

so have Big & Rich become sad philosophers of the road and of their own excess? sonically the record has some real moments, I like the strings and they work variations on the standard hard-rock changes. what they're singing about, I have no real idea except that it sounds like the usual piety successful artists adopt round this time in their career. how much partying are they doing to sound so sincere, between hell and amazing grace? they're worried about not giving enough back, not utilizing enough black people, what? I really do approach them like I'd think about Zappa or George Clinton, a big philosophical backdrop that's self-consciously inclusive (or exclusive as in Zappa, although he championed the common man's ability to be as weird on his own terms), thus the actual musical product can seem self-indulgent, contrived, false unto itself (since the record mentions religion). Strange shit, and how do two savvy songwriters come up with something as tenth-generation as "Man in the Mirror," from the title to the song itself? So they're just accepting banality as first principle and saying that can be its own weirdness, everybody join in but let's make it all overstated and easy? I don't know, but I love the opening of "Radio."

No love for the new Ryan Adams?

Two(With Sheryl Crow on backing vocals) is playing on his myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/ryanadams

The rest of the record is fucking good too.

<i>Scott explained that metal fans like it because they enjoy thinking about very classic Big, Serious Things, like death, and war, and gods. It seems faintly ridiculous now but these are what people thought about all the time not so long ago, or at least Serious Men did.</i>

That's me quoting Mike Barthel paraphrasing Scott Seward in my LV Weekly column followup that gets posted today unless it gets posted tomorrow. And then after-the-fact I checked with Scott to see if he ever actually said anything like this and he said "guess i'd go along with that. like sci-fi fans, a lot of metal fans are interested in the, uh, metaphysical and good/evil realms. or stuff that is beyond the mundane/everyday at least. like 70's rune-rock fans of yore."

So. Listened to the Dale Watson, and I decided that, in the above sense:

Dale Watson = death metal

Or, anyway, Great Themes. Justice. Suicide. The Endless Struggle. Authenticity.

It actually works well, feels observed rather than pretentious. Had trouble with the deep voice at first (same trouble I have with Marty Stuart) but by the end of the album I was doing OK with it.

Is definitely on the western end of country & western.

"Have you ever noticed that? The monsters are always such nice guys," sez one of Sam Shepard's characters, and then there's Nelson Algren's Book Of Lonesome Monsters and Frankenstein etc, but Watson needs to make his bad men scary and bad as well as drawing us into or toward degrees of empathy or sympathy (the degree of *being* drawn in *is* the experience of their power and thus our empathy re the slippery slope and crossroads and valley of decision) they're just too nice and boring on this album, though maybe I'd like others more (got the Little Darling Sessions but Edd says Dale's disowned it, so I haven't listened, though I will). So how faintly ridiculous it is to think about death and war, how faintly ridiculous is everything else, la-dee-dah.

It's like way into Watergate, Greil Marcus heard Charie Rich dedicate "Feel Like Going Home" to Richard Nixon, and then sang the hell out of it, and made Marcus feel a sympathy for the Old Nick he never, ever (ever) wanted to feel---and the equally excellent Garry Wills wrote Nixon Agonistes and I'm sure somewhere Nixon's stll digging those hits, glamorous ol monster that he is (tough shit about his victims). C'mon, Dale a little ol' teenage girl like Mary Shelley did it, you can do it too!

The Xchange MySpace page. As Xhuxk described, songs melodies and arrangements are basically r&b (and rock&b) but there're some country licks. One of the guitarists wears a cowboy hat. "Urban Cowgirl" starts with the lead singer chanting the phrase "urban cowgirl" through a vocoder. A funk song, but with harmonica, guitar picking, slides. And rapping. "Sounds like: Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani, Prince, No Doubt, Kid Rock, Madonna, Missy Elliot, Lenny Kravitz, Nelly, Mariah Carey, Big + Rich, Snoop Dogg, Shakira, Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain, Lil' Kim, Coyote Ugly, Lynard Skynard, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, The Eagles, Britney Spears, Lil' John, Janis Joplin, the CRUNK!, Aerosmith, AC DC, KISS, Eminem, Diddy, Beyonce and Destiny's Child, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Gretchen Wilson, Usher, Lisa Marie Presley, Notorious BIG, Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Minogue. Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Joni Mitchell, Janet Jackson, Jay Z, Mary J. Blige."

On first listen they sound weaker than I want them to, though competent.

apparently, Dale Watson is going to re-cut some of the Little Darling songs. He wasn't happy with that record at all, or with Koch, from what Watson told me when I talked to him last month. (Was going to use a quote or two from Watson on his relationship with Johnny Bush, but ran out of space.) I see Frank's connection to death-metal, and certainly Watson's song about the 'Bama electric chair is pretty hardcore. Live, Watson is pretty hot but the songs sort of betray him. I count two or maybe three good ones on Cradle and the rest are pretty weak, actually.

Went back one last time to listen to the June Carter Cash tribute. Genteel and nondescript; altho Grey De Lisle does OK with "Big Yellow Peaches" and I still dig Billy Bob Thornton deadpanning his way thru "Road to Kaintuck" (note: you probably won't make it because of the Injuns). Phoned-in backing, but man, Patty Loveless sings purty. What's kind of a ripoff, though, is that the tracks on this tribute echo almost exactly those on the Dualtone '05 comp Ring of Fire: The Best of June Carter Cash, plus that record features her take on A.P. Carter's "Cuban Soldier," a real good political number.

don't see anything here about Toby's newest. some interesting stuff going on even though ultimately it's not appreciably better or worse than his last couple of records, frequently excellent but also maddeningly uneven (the title track and "Hit It" are two of the worst songs he's cut).

still, lots here to like and marvel over. maybe I should've been tipped off by the surprising contriteness of "Love Me If You Can," but it sounds like Toby's been listening to two of the Right's biggest boogeymen (and I know Toby's not 100% "Right" but still) - namely Bruce Springsteen ("White Rose") and Steve Earle ("Pump Jack"). "High Maintenance Woman" also reminds me explicitly of something, and it might be Springsteen but I'm not sure. As always, I'm impressed by his songcraft and effortless lyricism, but wish his grooves had a little more oil in the joints.

i still mantain that the best thing about the lewis duet album is that toby duet, where he manages to be sad and tired and humble but still hold his own againt the fire of the killer

I haven't heard Toby's new one, but his previous one was as un-uneven as any album released last year.

Dale Watson's new one just sounded ponderous and leaden to me (after loving his previous one, which had way more bounce). So given how plenty of metal sounds ponderous and leaden as well, Frank is right.

(Though that Toby album last year did have that one horrible pro-school-prayer/anti-choice song or whatever it was. But that was just one bad song on an album otherwise quite good from start to finish.)

(Dale's album last year had plenty of humor, too. New one is the rare example of a 25-or-whatever minute record that seems like it lasts a whole hour.)

(But I've said all this stuff before, I think.)

idk, the bus songs on White Trash with Money were fun I guess, but I never really had the desire to hear 'em more than once or twice (except possibly "Hell No," that one was a cut above the other two). I also thought "Note to Self" was pretty generic, and definitely "Ain't No Right Way" was idiotic. the first half of the record, on the other hand, is consistently terrific, definitely.

Still seems like he's peaked, album-wise, with Pull My Chain. And since then, the singles have (more gradually) gotten hit-or-miss, quality-wise. xxhux, you say "the previous one was as un-even as any album released las year," but in the next post you say,"...an album otherwise quite good from start to finish," and you seem to be talking about the same album--? Xgau in Stone likes Elizabeth Cook, Miranda Lambert, is disappointed in Blake Shelton and John Anderson (says over-reliant on "over-extended" John Rich). Dang, and xgau was the one who got me into Anderson, like 20 or more years ago. He also enjoys several new Dolly Parton reissues, to some extent, ezpecially Coat Of Many Colors, which is the best described (so the one he's most into, it seems), with "Travelling Man" (Mom steals him from Dolly), and "Before I Lose My Mind" (Hubby talks Dolly into trying the swingers' scene,like wifeswapping and other 70s pursuits, apparently). I had never heard of either of these. As Rev. Jerry Lee would say, "Mercy!"

you say "the previous one was as un-even as any album released las year," but in the next post you say,"...an album otherwise quite good from start to finish," and you seem to be talking about the same album--?

Nope, I say UN-uneven. Double negative intended. I still think White Trash is his most playable album (and I do like the bus songs ["Hell No" is in fact is my least favorite of the three] and think "Note To Self" is fine.)

"Runnin' Block" has replay value.

I just found out that Tracy Byrd did that "Johnny Cash" song Aldean has out now a few years back--dunno when, but it's on his Greatest Hits CD which came out in '05.

I thought I'd call people's attention to "Goodbye Nashville, Hello Camden Town," a new two-disk pub rock anthology.

http://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Nashville-Hello-Camden-Town/dp/B000MTOSD4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-8209677-6688418?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1181405956&sr=8-1

It's 49 songs deep, I've heard about half of it so far, and only in the background. If I can generalize, it's only intermittently rocking, more Burritos than Stones. But it's uniformly pleasant. Good chops, good tunes, fine blokes, and a chance to hear a lot of bands I'd only seen in discographies. I hope the second disk turns up the heat a little bit.

Other people on the teenpop thread, re Miranda:

Don't think Miranda Lambert was - or quite is - in Favorite Artist category, but "Kerosene" was in Favorite Song category, and her new album is not a disappointment, even if it has no "Kerosene." (There is something missing, however; something that doesn't infuse the roles she's playing with... er, not sure what; she's got personality galore, but the personality itself seems to be a role... or I want something to shine through the roles, in the way that role players like Jagger or Astaire had a Jaggerness or Astaireness that was simply there... I don't think I know what I'm saying, actually. Maybe the Miranda-ness <i>is</i> there and it excites me but doesn't warm me. Still the best album I've heard this year.)

-- Frank Kogan, Friday, June 8, 2007 3:01 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

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Frank - My initial instinct after I heard the Miranda album was that it was a good album but that it lacked real standout, great tracks. Then I realized that ALL of the tracks are so good that NONE stand out and particularly great. It's a good problem to have. Agreed that nothing on there is as good as "Kerosene", but there's like 4 or 5 9/10 tracks on there, to me.

-- Greg Fanoe, Friday, June 8, 2007 3:11 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

It might be that Miranda has a "type" she can be heard as conforming to -- can hardly mention her without talking about, say, Gretchen Wilson to use a current example (at least not in the press -- and vice versa, don't know if I've seen anything about either of them without mention of the other) -- whereas someone like Ashlee or Dylan or Jagger or, uh, Marit Larsen, though they might have their derivatives, don't have a clear precursor or "path" they followed. So that even though Miranda does what she does really well, you get the sense that she's not the only one who could be doing it. Miranda's my #1 by some margin right now, but a more unique and personal-connection type personality would beat it pretty easily. But that album doesn't come along every year, so she could conceivably stay on top. (Conversely, R. Kelly has an album I rate pretty highly almost entirely because I can't imagine anyone else making it, even though the album itself isn't fantastic -- just very good -- overall.)

-- dabug, Friday, June 8, 2007 7:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

OK, have my people get in touch with Xhuxk. I've got this really great idea about Miranda Lambert, I like the wording, and the next idea is great too, I just want him to, like, connect the two, you know, a paragraph transition; I can't seem to avoid using the word "anyway," but I've used it three times already and need something else.

-- Frank Kogan, Friday, June 8, 2007 7:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

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Funny, I've never thought of Miranda in connection with Gretchen (whose new one is her best, by the way; hilarious song where she tells the hubby, OK, if you want someone to mother you, these are the new rules). As for the way Miranda sounds, she's like a stray-cat version of Natalie Maines (that's an incredible compliment, by the way) [um, get Xhuxk back on the phone; need a new phrase that can do the work of "by the way"]. Maybe she's one of the "Goodbye Earl" girls twisted beyond justification and self-satisfaction. But really, she's a Cops girl. (A friend of mine once described her sister's marriage as being a Cops marriage; i.e., the sort of household that the police visit on Cops to break up a domestic disturbance.) [Er, call Xhuxk again; I'm not sure about the parallelism between "marriage" and "household." What? He says it's OK? Like ice cream and cabbage?]) I can picture Miranda's P.I. dad telling stories of the messes his clients get into while teenage Miranda doubles over in laughter.

-- Frank Kogan, Friday, June 8, 2007 7:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND MIRANDA LAMBERT: She'll bite your fat neck. George Smith envisages the epitome of the Miranda Lambert interview.

-- Frank Kogan, Friday, June 8, 2007 8:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

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Didn't know anything about Miranda's background, actually, and haven't listened to her all that much (had the IKerosene album, which I liked but not as much as the new one, since late 2006 and just bought her new one at a used CD store)l. I liked the characters she was creating in the songs in the new one, but jeeeeez those Dick Destiny highlights are rough. (Yeehaw? Admittedly re: Gretchen, I guess.) I might have assumed she grew up in a small town before going off to Nashville (plenty of teenpoppers do this too), but other than that she's not exactly wearing her day-to-day "rough and tumble" life on her sleeve. I mean, the first coupla tracks are like (great) novelty tunes! ("COPS girl," weirdly enough, doesn't nec. suggest to me a real person at all -- even though it's a reality show.)

-- dabug, Saturday, June 9, 2007 1:20 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Link

xgau's review of the new Miranda album from the latest RS (if anyone's interested):

Garth Brooks fan turned Nashville Star discovery Lambert stormed the country charts with the incendiary "Kerosene" in 2005. Now she tops herself on what will likely remain the country album of the year. Just twenty-three, Lambert plays the rebel girl, revving up the mood of the Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye Earl" and Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman." On the lead track, she waits on an abusive boyfriend with her shotgun; on the title track, she leaves her pistol in the car and wades into the bar barehanded. Lambert does have a thoughtful side, but the violent moments define a little lady who also cites the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" and rocks a Patty Griffin cover. Smoking.

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

(Posted: May 30, 2007)

(In my Miranda comments I was riffing off the Billboard day-in-the-life profile of Kara DioGuardi where someone from "the Ashlee Simpson camp" phones Kara and says Ashlee wants her help in writing a transition into a chorus.)

Gave the new Mary Gauthier a spin in the background while doing some work. On most of the album she mutes the growling abyss in her throat that I'd found so absurd on her last album. And you know what? I miss it. Or miss something. Or maybe there are just fewer good songs. However, the opening track, "Snakebit," gets her balance right. A crawling blues, good growl, slow burn, exhaust funes. A stereotype just as much as Amy Winehouse is a stereotype - you know, the slurred rack of darkness. But not one I can't respond to.

TOBY KEITH -- First impression of his new one, surprise surprise, is I am loving the rockers (the truly rock'n'rolling almost Jerry Lee style boogie woogied "Big Dog Daddy," heavily powerchorded Cougar circa Uh Huh style eight-ball anthem "Hit It," and of course "High Maintenance Woman" -- maybe "Get My Drink On" and "Pump Jack" too but I'm not positive about those since the thing has been playing in the background since yesterday and I haven't been paying 100 percent attention all the time so it's possible they're non-rockers for all I know but I think they're not) and reacting in a comparatively "meh" manner so far to slower stuff like "Walk It Off" and "Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya" and "Love Me If You Can," the latter of which is apparently the token politically incorrect chain-puller. (He sometimes thinks war is necessary but dreams of peace on earth and he gives his money to the homeless but feels every able-bodied man should work, doncha know.) "Burnin' Moonlight" seems pretty good, though. And "White Rose," a eulogy to a long-gone gas station that was once the one horse in a one horse town, is the one ballady track that I absolutely love already. Some others will kick in soon, I'm sure, given Toby's previous track record.

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE EXCHANGE WHO FRANK UNDERRATES BY THE WAY: (1) Frank will deny this, but there is audibly at least a little bit of (I'm guessing unintentional, but who knows?) Teena Marie to some of Tracey Lande's vocal inflections in "That's How We Roll," "Eyes Don't Lie," and "Dontcha Go." (2) Teena was not only a much better singer; she was also a much much better rapper, but that's okay. (3) The band's secret influence, unacknowledged on their myspace as far as I can tell, and maybe entirely unconscious, seems to be early '90s Europop -- and oddly, I hear this more when one of the guys (Ernie Davis, I think) is rapping than when Tracey is. The duet sound of "Run Away" is somewhere between Roxette/Colorhaus/One 2 One and OMC ("On The Run" I think) to my ears, and Ernie's vocal in "Dontcha Go" reminds me of Bob Rosenberg in Will To Power. This may have more to do with trying to do r&b/dance stuff and not getting it right, but it is very cool, and in the best cuts they do it quite gracefully. There's another track (one of the last couple on the record, I didn't write down which one) that goes into a melody that sounds a lot like Real McCoy's '90s Euro version of Redbone's "Come And Get Your Love." And interestingly, the two cuts I might well like least ("New Sheriff In Town" and the way too heavyhanded "Hip Hop Country Rock" title track) are two of the ones where the band seems to try hardest to play up their nearly nonexistent country influence. But they have a good chance of making my Nashville Scene top ten at the end of the year regardless --they're country 'cause they say they are (and as I said above, they do have country moments, even if most of them seem to hark back to country stars like Kid Rock and Ennio Morricone.)

(Er, Will To Power were from Florida, Colorhaus from Australia, OMC from New Zealand, One 2 One from Canada I think. But they all sounded Euro.)

Speaking of sounding Euro, has anybody listened to this supposed pyschobilly trio Tiger Army on Hellcat, who have a stand-up bass player and are apparently topping the charts on KROQ in L.A. right now? I'm actually liking them okay, but damned if I can tell where the "billy" is in their sound. There's definitely some Misfits in there, but as K.Sanneh (who called them psychobilly himself) pointed out in the Times this week (this is the Euro part), "Spring Forward" sounds a lot more like New Order. (Lalena asked if it was the Smiths; same difference.) And "Forever Fades Away" is the Cure via A Flock of Seagulls or something. So: '80s haircut music. But not even the Stray Cats kind.

MORE THOUGHTS ON JOY OF COOKING -- They really stretch out on the live disc on that reissue I spoke of above, playing up their Latin percussion influence way more than on any of the studio recordings I've heard. "Dancing Couple" is basically a straight salsa track. At the beginning of "Laugh Don't Lie", which is nine minutes long, they could basically be the Incredible Bongo Band (honestly, some hip-hop song should sample those beats before somebody else does), and it eventually turns into Santana. "Brownsville/Mockingbird," even longer at 11 minutes, is blues-structured piano jazz with a major Bo Diddley element (if the billy goat don't float Bo's gonna buy you a mockingird or however it goes.) Otherwise, the folkie vocals know how to mesh really well, though there are moments (in "Humpty Dumpty" for one) where the hippie looseness gets a bit too loose, and almost falls apart. Also, back on the studio disc, I want to mention "How Deep The Dark," maybe the most avant-jazz cut here, but with a real melody to it. And all in all, I think I'm understanding more what Christgau and Willis loved about this band. I'm not sure it ever came across on their regular LPs, but I could be wrong.

Okay, there's at least bit of a little wide-open spaces gothic western feel to "Pain" on that Tiger Army album. I like this! Dark but not dragged down. And Nick 13's voice is easier to take that Danzig's ever was. ("Hotprowl" is straight hey-hey-hey-shout Misfits, though, and I'm sure it's not the only track like that here. And though I never cared about the Misfits, I have cared about blatantly Misfits-inspired hey-hey-hey bands like Naked Raygun before.)

Or maybe I mean woaaagh-woaaagh-wooagh bands.

And both "Big Dog Daddy" and "Hit It" are more '70s Southern rock than the Jerry Lee/Cougar comparisons above imply, I suppose. Also, "Hit It" blatantly quotes "Knock On Wood." And "Big Dog Daddy" turns into a great band workout, though I'm not especially interested in how big Toby's dog is (it is, though, another in the line of his boisterous boasts about size and mastery. Very hip-hop of him, really.)

The Xchange...have a good chance of making my Nashville Scene top ten

More like "an outside chance" (there's lots of competition already, and lots more coming, I just realized), but I still do like them.

Also, I spelled their name wrong in the last post -- They're filed under "X", not "Ex."

Toby's "Get Your Drink On" sounds a lot like "Indian Outlaw" by Tim McGraw.

Toby's "White Rose" (written by Fred Eaglesmith, who Robert Christgau always said I should listen to but I never got around to it, and with a dark melody that makes me think "minor key" though musicologists might argue that that makes me an imbecile) sounds alot like "City Of New Orleans" by Arlo Guthrie.

New album seems to be merely good Toby, whereas his previous album was great Toby. Great Toby being jazzier than the new one even attempts. But good Toby still being pretty darn good.

Morrisey affectations over rote pop-punk hopscotch in "Afterworld" and emo leanings in "Where The Moss Slowly Grows" are not marks in Tiger Army's favor.

And Toby's "Pump Jack" is even more Uh-Huh Cougar than "Hit It" is! Guitar sounds very "Authority Song." It pumps! Half songwriting credit to Bobby Pinson, whose albums always sound like demo tapes to me, but that doesn't mean the he can't write words.

Toby's "White Rose" (written by Fred Eaglesmith, who Robert Christgau always said I should listen to but I never got around to it, and with a dark melody that makes me think "minor key" though musicologists might argue that that makes me an imbecile) sounds alot like "City Of New Orleans" by Arlo Guthrie.

the first song that came to my mind when i heard that one was (kinda appropriately!) billy joel's "the great suburban showdown," which shares one small bit of melody -- the part where i think toby's singing "now there's plywood for glass" -- and is an entirely different kind of suburban lament. (actually i guess toby's/fred's is more a rural lament.)

as for the tonality, the chorus of "white rose" centers on a B minor, whereas the verse lands on a D major. i'm not smart enough to know what key that makes the song, but the chorus certainly acts like it's in a minor key, and the verses go through a minor VI and a minor III on their way from I to IV, so make of that what you will. sounds dark to me too.

Interestingly, the Miranda Lambert thing on my blog has a steady stream of readers from Google searches, usually off people looking for some iteration of -- miranda lambert tattoo. People want to know about it. Google Analytics says they all read it to the end. Since comments are moderated, I'm spared the imprecations from wounded teenagers and twentysomethings.

I'm telling ya, if you're a delver of web analytics, it'll crush your faith in humanity overnight.

Watched "Shut Up & Sing" a couple times last week and liked it. Not quite enough to be a constant fan of Dixie Chicks music. However, with it on Pay-Per-View and far enough removed from the journalistic cant that surrounded them, it was a good watch. I thought it was neat the way everything was kept in indicating they didn't know how bad the tidal wave was going to get even as it was beginning to sweep over them. The pr person blowing her stack and having a meltdown was amusing, too.

Other points in the movie's favor: It kept framing discussions and interpretations by pop music journalists out of the loop, except for two brief ones, and both of the people came off looking crabbed and vile. Made me want to see the act live.

Metal threaders on Tiger Army below (Spanish song is "Hechizo De Amor," a laid-back sort of border desert croon. I'm liking "Ghosts Of Memory" alright, too; another moody slice of vibrato gothabilly):

That Tiger Army disc is like a perfect amalgamation of everything a Southern California mall-punk kid would like - a little punk, a little rockabilly, some overt Cure and solo-Morrissey ripoffs, and even a song in Spanish for the Mexicans in the crowd. It's a good disc.
-- unperson, Sunday, June 10, 2007 7:38 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

I have one of the earlier Tiger Army CDs, and it sounds pretty -Billy to me. That may have changed, though.
-- Jeff Treppel, Sunday, June 10, 2007 8:32 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

speaking of gothic western etc., the first three tracks on Ananda Shankar and his Music are stolid, but the rest are strong post-Bollywood/Morricone (not as over-the-top)romantic bluescapes, from '75, reissued with typically good Fallout sound.