Rolling country 2007 thread

As for Over the Rhine, Chuck, that's a section of downtown Cincinnati that used to be a nice German part of the city and then after whiteflight days of the '50s and '60s turned into pretty much a horrible slum. It might be different now--I lived there in 2002-2003, what a weird place that was, beautiful and in many ways fascinating, a once-major city all sunk in on itself--so that area might be in the throes of urban renewal by now. The German elements in Zinzinnati weren't as obvious by the time I got there, but you could still feel it. Then there's a whole side of town that's settled by people from eastern Ky. and Tenn., the "west side," I think, the city is separated by a big ridge. Where King Records was is just a run-down slum, not much different from where Stax was in Memphis, except you ate "chili" instead of weird tamales and barbecue. Maybe they're changing all that, too. As the band Over the Rhine, never could figure out what the fuss was, boring.

as for almost-country-why-not, Ron Sexsmith. his new one I've tried to like, I mean I like it a little bit and I respect its obvious sincerity and craft, but he's just not much of a singer. He sounds a bit like Jackson Browne, which isn't too bad, and he also sounds uncannily like Ray Davies in spots. he hits the notes but he lacks drama. And the songs are good, but there's just an extra-X element lacking that could take any one of them from OK into really good. he does one about being bummed out by hearing Leadbelly as backdrop for a bookstore ambience kinda thing, and OK, but the obvious riposte is that *his* music does exactly the same thing, it sort of murmurs in that genteel way. Still, he obviously has something, but doesn't in my book deserve the praise he's gotten from lots of people, like, er, No Depression...guy there says his work "not only echoes but rivals that of the Kinks at their most exquisite," but I don't hear it. It's *not* exquisite, is the point, but rather workaday. Maybe I need to be in the right mood, like buying hundreds of dollars worth of books and magazines in Borders while eating a five-dollar muffin and drinking coffee. Plus the Kinks at their best were endearingly crass and Sexsmith doesn't seem to want to ever commit anything so energetic to disc.

I lived there from Kindergarten to 4th Grade, so I guess around 1965 to 1969 or so. Don't remember it much (just like everything else at that time in my life), but the one time I went back to the city in the mid '80s to drop in on Richard R., the greenness and hilliness of its vistas reminded me a lot of Germany around Mainz and Bad Kreuznach, where I'd been stationed in the Army. I should go back again sometime (to both places.) And I should track down that book.

http://www.biblio.com/books/8788803.html

http://www.amazon.com/Vas-Ever-Zinzinnati-Dick-Perry/dp/0517240564/sr=1-1/qid=1168715521/ref=sr_1_1/103-7550218-1307818?ie=UTF8&s=books

ohio is a great fucking record because karin is a great singer and songwriter. their followup drunkard's prayer was a conscious pullback away from karin being in charge of the band; it saved their relationship and linford's fragile ego, but at the cost of her truly being able to be free to cut loose. it was boring and i said so. i saw them on both tours and the last time (after they had supposedly gotten back on track with each other) there was a palpable tension between them onstage, no adoring looks, no chemistry, no nothing. it was really weird. so anyway.

it sounds a bit like the new teddy thompson but thompson is much more beautiful.

As slightly country-inflected indie rock goes, I'm liking Tigers & Monkeys' Loose Mouth more. Singer is Shonali Bhowmik, formerly of Atlanta-based-I-believe better-than-Breeders mid/late '90s Breeders-like art-pop-rock band Ultrababyfat, and she sings with a bit of a drawl these days. That's the country part, which is negligible but still undeniably there somewhere (and as I recall they list country as an influence) and Shonali also has a knack for repeating non-word syllables musically, in a way that sort of reminds me of Frank Blank from the Pixies a little albeit in a way I can actually stomach. But the songs that are hitting me on the album ("You Know," "Rave On," "Fire Escape" which Shonali sez is the only way out and hot hot hot, "The Ballad of the Smoking Gun" which is not a ballad) are more like if PJ Harvey (in blues-rock mode) was actually fun, and they have a decent push and bounce for indie rock, maybe even an okay one for non-indie rock. Most of the other tracks are less good though, but I haven't taken the album out of the CD changer yet. Here is their myspace if you want to judge for yerself:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=6078986

Or maybe he just needs a better band! Somebody else figure it out.

"The Ballad of The Smoking Gun" on Tigers & Monkeys' album has a very cool (and very blatant) Ricky Wilson type guitar twang making it dance. "From Where I Stood" is a nice alt-countryish slow one.

(and p.s: no, smashmouth really aren't very good in the first place.)

interesting: last night sharon and I were talking about the white stripes and their antecedents, and she dismissed jack and his rhythmically challenged wife/sister: "they didn't do anything the flat duo jets didn't do years before." I dunno about royal trux, but I do like royal crescent mob!

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.

So, back to "actual" country: I'm definitely liking Jason Michael Carrol's rockers ("Waitin in the Country," "I Can Sleep When I'm Dead," "Honky Tonk Friends", and especially the yeah slightly rap-like "Anywhere U.S.A.") over his ballads ("Alyssa Lies," "Love Won't Let Me," "Let It Rain.") Though maybe the latter just need more time.

So Edd, have you figured out what exactly Alyssa is lying about in "Allysa Lies"? It's growing on me now just 'cause I'm intrigued by the apparent mystery of it, but maybe I just haven't listened closedly enough. If she a victim of sexual abuse? Bulimia? Cutting? Or is she just a chronic liar? (Her and her wife, Morgan Fairchild?)

1. Blue
2. Allysa
3. closedly
4. If

Maybe when Alysa lies in the classroom she's lying down (as i taking a nap.) (Totally permitted if she's in Kindergarten!)

My goal this year is to stay up on current country, because I've been really loving this genre lately. But only for the last 1.5 years or so so I have a lot of "catching up" to do, hence the G. Brooks comments above.

OK the Greg Fanoe crash course in modern country is continuing now with Martina McBride. I was expecting to like her stuff a lot, based on the first few singles that I heard, but on first listen, none of her albums really struck me. "Independence Day", "This One's For The Girls", "When God Fearin' Women Get the Blues" I absolutely love though. I haven't liked her ballads enough because I think they rely on the strength of her voice too much, to the detriment of the songs tehmselves. "Learning to Fall" is good though.

If anybody has any suggestions at all for any essential country albums from the 90s and 00s (and nothing is too obvious/canonical that I would clearly be familiar with it, short of Dixie Chicks or Shania [both of which I love]), I'll check out any and all suggestions. Otherwise, I'll proceed in essentially random order. I think Vince Gill is up next, once I've had more time to process Martina and Garth.

I also think that Jason Michael Carroll should get his bleedin' hair cut, though I suppose that's his business.

Okay, so basically "Allysa Lies" is "Luka," until Allysa dies:

"Alyssa lies to the classroom,
Alyssa lies everyday at school,
Alyssa lies to the teachers
as she tries to cover every bruise"

What makes it hard to decipher is how Jason mumbles that "bruise" line.

And "Lookin' At You" is Jason's Kenny Chesney-via-"Sharks" by Jimmy Buffet summer-sun move. I like when he runs into the mailbox, I like the baseball line that (probably) inadvertently echoes "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", and I like the three of four seconds of melody that even more inadvertently echo Ryan Paris's Italodisc classic "Dolce Vita," but I'm still not sure it adds up to all that good a song.

And I totally agree about the dude's hair. He looks like he should making Shawn Mullins type music (though maybe he sometimes sorta is.)

http://countryuniverse.wordpress.com/tag/classic-albums/ )

I'm still really enjoying this Sunny Sweeney record, which it seems has been picked up by someone or other for proper release later this year: http://cdbaby.com/cd/sunnysweeney . Just as I was patting myself on the back for winkling out an obscure gem by scouring blog lists and so on, I read that she is on heavy rotation on the ultradull UK Radio 2 country show hosted by old beardo "Whispering" Bob Harris. BAH!

In that case you should check out this NYC band too (whose new album Born Too Late -- debut full-length after so many demo EPs and singles I lost count -- I also like) (caveat: no country here that I can discern; maybe they'd make more sense on the teenpop thread):

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=3425560

Martina McBride's got a decent Greatest Hits set from 2001 that's worth picking up, though yeah, that's before her great "This One's For the Girls," which is a shame. You already named her three best songs; I'd likely put "Love's the Only House" in fourth place.

Turns out the best tracks on Tigers and Monkeys' album ("Loose Mouth," "Rave On," "The Ballad of the Smoking Gun") are among their least alt-or-whatever country. "Stay Up" and "Sweet William" and "From Where I Stand" jangle a bit, though not very compellingly.

the song that made me fall in love with george strait (and, yeah, he has been spotty) is "amarillo by morning." i'm also quite in love with the soft, almost yacht-rocky "it just comes natural," the title cut of his 2006 album.