DRIVE BY TRUCKERS fans, UNITE!!!

She had three televisions just like Elvis, the King, used to have...

1. The Company I Keep
2. Love Like This
3. Whiskey Without Women
4. Sink Hole
5. Wife Beater
6. Dead Drunk & Naked
7. Nine Bullets
8. Guitar Man Upstairs
9. Margo & Harold
10.Marry Me

>Playing the new Drive By Truckers album *Dirty South* now. It sounds even more tired than their last one; they've totally given up on trying to be Skynyrd, which sucks. Not horrible, though. Better than Patterson Hood's solo CD, I guess. So I bet it gets very good reviews.<

I'm now convinced, by the way, that *Dirty South* is their worst album ever, by far. The first song rocks okay, but just about everything else drags drags drags, almost 100 percent ballads, damn near no fucking memorable melodies, no fucking energy, nothing. Track #4 is okay, probably some others here and there, I forget which ones. Sometimes the high singing is kinda pretty, and the thing definitely is better to play at work than in a car, since the record does not move AT ALL. "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" strikes me as pandering bullshit. Track #9, "Cottonseed," is one of the most tedious, interminable songs I've heard all year. If somebody really believes I'm missing something, I wish they would explain what it is. Their three EARLY albums (as in pre Southern Rock Opera) blow this one out of the water, if anybody's curious.

Chuck's description doesn't worry me one bit if he really thinks "Cassie's Brother" is better than Decoration Day.

And yes, JMod, I agree - one of the loudest (and best) live shows i've ever seen.

Now, I haven't heard the Dirty South yet so I guess I can't sufficiently respond, but what I'd heard live sounded terrific.

Mr. Deeds 100% OTM about "Daddy's Cup" - blew me away live, and honestly unless they TOTALLY changed the demo version on the website and the way they play it live for the record, I'm really surprised Chuck wouldn't like "Carl Perkins" 'cause it's got such a GREAT poppy riff on it, one of the catchiest I've heard all year.

"Where the Devil Don't Stay" was a great rocker live as well, and "Danko/Manuel" was a terrific ballad to these ears. I will admit that Patterson's songs did sound kind of weak in comparison to Cooley and Isbell, and of course again I haven't actually heard the album so I might be totally off base altogether.

I will say however that I agree with Chuck about missing the humor and playfulness of the first three rekkids, the Truckers definitely do take themselves a little too seriously from time to time nowadays and I'd sure love it if they'd inject a little bit of that Panties in Your Purse/Steve McQueen/Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus) spirit into their newer stuff.

the key line

I'll agree with this. Ah well, can't really argue with Chuck on this until I gets me a copy of Dirty South myself.

And I really like Isbell BTW, I thought his two contributions to Decoration Day were among the best on the album, and at least when I saw it performed live, I thought "Danko/Manuel" was absolutely haunting.

I can see Chuck's point about pandering as far the Dixie Chicks are concerned b/c that song did seem specifically geared to orient themselves in the "don't make 'em like they usedta" camp, but I don't see it with "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" - I mean, that's what the song's about, y'know? It doesn't seem to me to be contrived in the least, certainly it is a "history lesson" and maybe that's a bore for some, but I don't see it as pandering at all.

Funny you mentioned "Long Time Gone" Chuck b/c I referenced that song in my Stylus review of Gretchen Wilson today, how she's big-upping Bocephus while the Chicks prefer Hank Sr.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=2093

I might not think the history lesson was such a bore if it was, say, "Michael Murphey's Cadillac, actually -- which would be way more clever, too, given Geronimo's and all. (Plus, the Kentucky Headhunters did a better song about Carl Perkins on a way better Southern Rock/country album LAST year. And it was easily one of the lesser songs on *that* album.)

I honestly can't remember the last time I was actually excited to meet a band - comes with the territory of being a rock journo I guess

Anyway, I wholeheartedly disagree with chuck upthread - and if you miss the lighthearted stuff, well, there's two songs about Walking Tall, fer chrissakes!! What do you want?? What's more lighthearted than Walking goddamm Tall? :)

They were on Conan last night and they did an Isbell song I think. How old is that kid? His lyrics are just too much. So well written and so fucking defiant. He was all dressed up and looked like an American Idol contestant singing about his sort of fucked up/backwoods life and how he doesn't (or can't, I guess) give a shit. It was pretty perfect.

He knows his southern writers I guess.

god, i love them truckers.

(judging from the song samples I heard on Northern State's site he's dead on about that album though)

you are PSYCHED my friend.

I wish I was seeing them tonight, but I hafta wait until the 9th

Southern Rock Opera rocks beautifully, which is hard to find sometimes. Some of Hood's stuff on that is incredible. The thing I like most about it, though, is that it really captures the Skynyrd soul AND mythology .. the whole "heroes that nobody gathered were heroes that die in a fiery crash ... only to be seen as heroes posthumously" narrative. The music even reflects that, and the whole thing turns weirdly meditative. Boom.

With Decoration Day, I was expecting more of said channeling, which made that record shocking when I first heard it. As Matos points out, the weariness drips all through it but so does this call for transcendence -- "Rock and well means well but it can't help telling young boys lies ... don;t call what your wearing an outfit." Isbell's songs sum up the whole record's theme, love your neighbor even if your neighbor is fucked up. It's one of the smartest rock records in ages. Hmmm, y'all.

The intelligence with DBT is scary. So point is, I bet I'll dig the new one when I catch up ...

This is a touchy subject for me because this band meant more than any other to me from roughly the very long years of 2002 to 2010 but the new vocal sounds horrible in comparison, sounds like they re-recorded it recently rather than using an alternate track from the era.

one of my favorite songs off the album & from their catalog

i dunno if i am ready to hear the reworked vocal. will have to work up to it maybe.
the imperfections is part of what i love about the original.

Yeah, I haven't been a place where I can listen to that, but I was really excited about the reworking - until I got to the part about redone vocals.

It sounds fine. Changes a couple of words here and there. Loses the falsetto bits, which I guess Hood didn't like but which I never minded. And minus a full re-recording it still (imo) fails to nail the way the song sounds live.

Horrible might have been too strong but the beginning is out of sync and there are plenty of places in the second half where he’s just overdoing it a bit. Sounds like someone swiped the vocal track from one of their live performances and pasted it on the original. Just have a hard time imagining this as the ‘definitive’ version and will sound a bit out of place in the middle of the other original studio tracks. Of course I’ve heard the original a thousand times and anything different probably wouldn’t have sounded right to me.

Yeah, that's fair. If you're going to re-do it, re-do it. Swapping in a new version of a song for the old, for mostly cosmetic reasons is, as the kids say, sus.

if Pat’s happier doing it this way i’m happy for him, and on its own merits he does a good job of recreating the anger

but i don’t need it to be at a 10 the whole way through. it needs the quieter bits to make the yelling parts pay off

imo

also lol @ jason

No not at all- Hood sent me mixes as soon as it was done and it’s fantastic. Which record did Ozzy cut me out of though that sucks https://t.co/PuODlIqSio

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) April 11, 2023

lol call him Pat at your own risk ...

Jason just consistently proves himself to be one of the best dudes - funny, great songwriter, standing up for the right things and completely unafraid to push back against trolls and actively piss off "fans" by telling him he doesn't want their hateful views around.

From blog notes soon after first release:

...14 songs, 8 damn good, 2 pretty good, 4 too tawky, and the tawk aint that stimulatin'...Patterson's the culprit, as always, but more so here. Ideas, or at least topics, or at least *words,* don't lead the music, or follow it either. And that tight dry little cigarette voice, which can/could be effective, kind of in there between mosquito zingers of Eddie Hinton and 5 0'clock-shadow-tonsils of Steve Earle, but here it's closer to not-so-Mighty Mouse (and a cracker-barrel-retiree-Steve E.). Still and yet and yet and still more than compensated for/effectively contrasted by the sinuous writ x performance of Jason and Cooley. Brad's big bass drum, Shonna's bass guitar (and her voice, back there in the mix, but adding good thin sharp edge thereby, *when* audible: I keep listening for it, never taking for granted), also mucho gracias.
...Supposedly (according to some sources), DECORATION DAY was a "follow-up" to PIZZA DELIVERANCE, this 'un a f.-u.to SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA. And, before I heard about those alleged relationships, was already thinking how several songs from DS would go good on a really deluxe personal burn of SRO. But *way too many* good'uns to fit that, strictly squinting.
...(later) I was (somewhat) too hard on Patterson. "Tornadoes" is as eerie as Jason's songs, and it's not like PH hasn't done eerie before.And part of that's his voice, which is *not* shot, as I seemed to imply, without meaning to. It will be shot, or shite, if he keeps squinching it as much as he does on some other tracks. Guess I'm mainly frustrated/spoiled cos of their usual standard, but they're always a bit uneven (as I should've said in the Voice re SRO), so should've been ready to listen around the lesser without shortchanging *some* of the gooder. Frustrated here by the expectation-whettin' way PH presents a triptych of songs re the late hickory-stick totin' Sheriff Buford Pusser, of WALKING TALL mythology. WT was based on BP's *account* of his great deeds, otherwise largely unverified by others, or so I remember reading in the 70s, not too long after film came out. Most impressive aspects: a)Manager of one of the theatres showing it in B'ham taped unique-for-him radio endorsement,"and let me reassure all parents that the 'R' rating is for Violence, not Sex." Also (b) the ending, when Buford has finally been brought low(est).(He started seeming kinda sadie-maso, like Evel Kneivel or latterday Mel G.)Courtesy his old main squeezers the State Line Gang, and congregation runs out of church, to destroy the Gang's main den of iniquity. Somehow seemed prophetic to see them in their Sunday best, ripping that place to shreds, and, though I forgot about it, remembered when Moral Majority first burst through my haze, to hold rally on steps of our nation's Capitol. Well! Patterson, who is younger than me, but writes that he saw the movie back then, and who says he likes to do research, and also make up good stuff, really doesn't follow through. Good spoken intro, good snarly vignette, then Cooley's effective "Cottonseed," then whole subset *ends* with the PH tawky-boring bit of the kind I complained about below.However: one of Cooley's is boring me too (although his have grown on me before, so won't name it yet.) And! PH's "Lookout Mountain" does hold its own with Cooley's and Jason's, in the kill-No-Dozin finale totalizm. But "Lookout" is a pre-DBT, and the latter have recorded it before, haven't they. Still!

what many consider to be our masterpiece,

I would have guessed Southern Rock Opera was the consensus masterpiece

I would go for either SRO or Brighter Than Creation's Dark

Yeah, I woulda thought SRO, though still wanting to add for inst "Danko and Manuel" for the roots rocker doom theme, and end it all with "Never Gonna Change," which always seemed Lynyrdly as hell, too bad Jason wasn't in the band yet.
Let's see what did I say about Brighter:

The Truckers' latest roadkill is uneven as ever, but the best songs are good and numerous enough to put it in my Nash Scene Top Ten…Brighter Than Creation's Dark is not full of sweetness and light, and it is a little too long, like most of their albums, but does seem reinvigorated, after getting past whatever tensions re resulted in the slammed doors and illin' irresolution of A Blessing And A Curse. Also, we got the unexpected emergence of bassist Shonna as songwriter and lead singer on some tracks, a welcome respite from the broody testosterone, and even a few songs, especially the one set in the Grand Canyon, where the drivers-by get out of their truck for a while, and actually seem to enjoy doing so.

"Three Dimes Down" is the most fun DBT song ever, "Bob" is the worst, in summary Cooley's songwriting is a land of contrasts

Clearly "Let There Be Rock" is probably the most fun (ingeniously downer subtext aside).

Not even the most fun song on SRO! (Or in the top half of that album IMO)

shut up and get on the plane!

Weird, I think of "Let There Be Rock" as a linchpin of that record, and long one of their surefire live songs. As is "Shut Up," though that one, as it is on the album, feels even more like a victory lap designed for the encore.

i do truly love let there be rock though

one of the first songs that hooked me when i first saw them -i had never heard of them & saw them open for black crowes in 06, no one in the amphitheater but their diehard fans in the first couple of rows
saw the devotion of the fans & was intrigued

let there be rock was def THE song that hooked me. reminded me of the way my husband and i & our friends talk about music, ie experiences tied to live gigs, tagging a good show story with a related story about a similar band/show

i was like “oh yeah, these are my people”

Listening to the Complete Dirty South and I was almost totally overwhelmed by the flood of memories of all the dozens of times I've seen this band and they were exactly what I needed. Or I guess more specifically the first time I ever heard songs like "The Day John Henry Died," "Where the Devil Don't Stay" or "Puttin' People on the Moon." Or the rest it, really. The most remarkable thing to consider is how different Isbell sounds here when he sings lead, like he's already older than his, what, 22 years? 23? What a band.

Oh, and I do like the new remastering/mixing/re-recording/tracklist of "Dirty South," too. It's still too long, but this band (especially this era of the band) does shaggy and shambling almost as well as Crazy Horse.

Yeah it’s pretty great

I’ve come around on the re-do of Sands of Iwo Jima … him dropping the falsetto does make the heartfelt lyrics go over a little better. Maybe he just felt it was weird to sing about his grandad in a high pitched voice lol

I saw Hood a couple of times last weekend (Cooley was actually playing the same night across town one of the nights, but I opted for double Hood). Good mix of old and new, a nice refresher that early tracks like "The Company I Keep" and (always) "The Living Bubba" show how good he was out of the gate. Best of all I brought three people with me, my pal who is a fan, his sister (who had never heard of Hood) and my friend's 70-year old dad, who came away converted. It's always great to go to shows with blank-slates, people not hindered by baggage or snobbery. They loved it.

A case of sterling bigmouth

i sneaked up them stairs

and puked in the toilet

lol

“Don’t call what you’re wearing a sterling bigmouth”

BUT I SURE SAW OZZY OSBOURNE
WITH RANDY RHOADS IN 82
RIGHT BEFORE THAT PLANE CRASH

I like how he's occasionally changed the bands over the years. I've heard him talking about seeing the Clash, and seeing the Replacements, and seeing Springsteen, etc.

it’s one of the first songs i remember from the first time i ever saw them live back in 2006 i think

part of what grabbed me was how this song so perfectly reflected that universal language (well within my friendship circle) the way my friends & i talked to each other, and mr veg and i - the stories that go with those great concerts you saw, or the ones you never get to

I was drinking with my ex and the “scared shitless of what’s coming next” came on and she

*driving
And she cracked up

hood turned 60 today : /

They are touring Southern Rock Opera this fall.

yes! we put in ticket requests for one of the SF Fillmore shows :D

can’t wait

ticket prices seem ... weird.

$40 each for standing room at the Fillmore felt kinda normal or at least less upsetting than Pearl Jam

Bought my tix. They were $45 plus $20 of extra BS for House of (fuckin) Blues. Early all ages show, which is odd. Seeing the second night, because Adrian Belew et al. are the night before, and I am the weirdo that is seeing King Crimson and DBT on back to back nights.

nice!