The Country Slut Song
Sirius XM gave me some free satellite radio today but only some of the channels so I can’t listen to my favorite, Outlaw Country. Had to listen to The Highway this morning cause that is what the teenagers love and managed to figure out the formula for a hit country song these days. You gotta write about the country sluts – the hell raising girls that party and dance in their tight jeans and shake it all over the place but they’re basically good girls. That way, every girl out there knows you are writing about her personally. Get you a good bass line from a solid classic rock hit (anything from AC/DC or Lynyrd Skynyrd works). add some stuff about drivin’ trucks and wearin’ boots and dirt roads, drinkin’ beer (PBR) or whiskey – so the guys know you are writing about them as well, throw in some God and some stuff about how great the USA is, preferably combining the two (“God Bless the USA”") and there ya go. And it works. Even I love those songs - see Luke Bryan’s “Country Girl”.
And if you don’t believe me, listen to Jason Aldean sing “She’s Country” and tell me which AC/DC song he used.
The Gourds – “Old Mad Joy”
The Gourds’ new disc “Old Mad Joy” comes out on this week. Here’s a preview from our friends at Vanguard Records. What do you think?
2011, 2011, 2011!!!
It’s a brand new year. Congratulations to everyone who managed to stay a toe’s length from the edge of that bridge for another damn year. It wasn’t a great year and I don’t want to go on and on about it, but that ‘focusing on the positive’ wasn’t working for me, either, so I turned on Sirius and listened to the Drive By Truckers ringing in the new in New York City. They were dirty, nasty, dark and put a grin on my face from the git-go, with Patterson sending you all a big, fat “Happy New Year, Motherfuckers!”. They opened with the Gregory Dean Smalley story, reminding us all right away that we can’t die now ‘cause we’ve got another show to do. The Big To-Do was represented, but, mostly, it reminded me of shows of old, with Decoration Day, Gravity’s Gone, Ronnie and Neil, Dead, Drunk and Naked, bunch old stuff, and Ghost to Most! They ended with Shut Your Mouth and Get Your Ass on the Plane and Angels and Fuselage. Oh, yeah, Shonna Tucker broke out her new one. (will be on Go-Go Boots, which they’ll kick out in February)
My year had a few smiles. Ronnie Fauss put on quite a show at our place. He’s a treasure both musically and personally. He has great EPs, too. Check out Naomi’s review of Mulligan and if you haven’t heard him before, you’re missing out.
Ronnie Fauss: New EP and a Denver Show!
Ronnie Fauss is coming to Denver in August! He is slated to play Quixote’s True Blue on August 4.
His new CD, “Mulligan”, comes out around then so hopefully, we’ll be hearing some stuff from that. In the meantime, you can hear it here.
New Brent Best CD
Very exciting news! Brent Best, frontman and songwriter for The Drams and Slobberbone, is working on a solo CD. And for those of us who like to give our money directly to the artist, here’s our chance. Mr. Best is going to be his own record company – just needs a little (very little) cash up front to get the operation up and running. You can read about it here.
But let me summarize. The suggestion is that people who are interested send him $10 now and by the end of the summer, he will send a limited edition, personalized record with his solo material on it.
Here’s what he says about the music: “A few of these songs you might have heard me perform live the last few years, some I’ve never played outside my house and some have never left their hard drive. They’ve marinated long enough, methinks. With that in mind, I’ve decided they should be recorded all proper-like, in a real studio.”
That’s just like two grande cappuccinos from you-know-where but the buzz you get will be so much better and last so much longer. Pretty sure he’ll deliver too. He’s never let me down. And I can’t wait.
Drive-By Truckers
We here at SlackerCountry.com just updated our blog technology and noticed something interesting. See that tag cloud over on the right? The tag size is in proportion to how often we write about each artist and the Drive-By Trucker tag is suspiciously small.
This caused us to do some serious soul-searching because, really, we slackers (especially me and Gracey) are borderline obsessed with DBT and play them pretty much ALL THE TIME. We’ve all been to see them at least once (twice, three times) in the past year – basically anytime they are in the neighborhood. Much of Gracey’s conversation revolves around things she has read on the DBT fan board. . . . And then there is the whole problem of keeping Gracey from stalking the tour bus.
The Duke and the King (Simone Felice)
SlackerCountry.com really loves The Felice Brothers and Gracey, in particular, has a big ole crush on Simone Felice so, when his publicity folks sent us a single from his new side project, The Duke & the King, we said, “Hell, yes, we’d like to post an mp3.”
Tell us what you think of The Morning I Get To Hell!
The Duke and the King’s album, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” comes out on August 4 and the band plans to tour starting in August.
(photo credit: Dave Herron)
Righteous Togetherness
I can still remember when I first heard the Jayhawks in the early nineties. A friend had given me a tape of Hollywood Town Hall
and my first response was “Neil Young could probably sue those guys.” I think I might have said that once or twice when the subject of the Jayhawks came up but after a few listens… and then a few more… those songs started working their way into my head on a cellular level. I quit making snarky comments about them and started playing them all the time.
Over the course of three records they managed to forge a sound that was, at the same time, highly derivative and highly original and became one of my very favorite bands.
Yeah, they were more white-guy-folk-rock than the "alt country" label they were tagged with. Their early seventies “Southern Man” style riffs and long guitar jams merged with vaguely abstract lyrics and those ethereal harmonies between songwriters Mark Olson and Gary Louris, created a bunch of stubbornly enduring songs that could stick in your head like superglue.
After Olson left the band at their creative peak in ‘95, despite teaming up with his then-wife Victoria Williams, he kind of faded into obscurity while Louris kept the Jayhawks going, changing their sound pretty dramatically on the next two albums.
I caught an Olson solo show last year. It was a great night of quiet acoustic music with a few Jayhawks songs but there was definitely something missing. Obviously what was missing was Gary Louris.
So when Olson and Louris had put out a new acoustic record and booked a show in town, at the Sons of Herman Hall no less, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person around here who was overly excited at the opportunity.
Friday night they showed this town just what was lost when they went their separate ways long over a decade ago. You can take your Simon and Garfunkel and your Tweedy and Farrar and your Johnny and June and even your She and Him… If ever two people were born to sing together it was Olson and Louris.
The Gold Guitar
I got this in my inbox this morning…
Message from Jess Barr, guitarist for Slobberbone / The Drams:
Early this morning my car was broken into and all of my equipment was stolen. This includes my red matchless clubman 35 head and cabinet, my black gig bag with cables and pedals, and, most importantly, my Gibson Les Paul Gold Top.
Git Yer Irish On
The Saturday before St Patrick’s Day is the one day every year when Dallas seems almost a little bit like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. A little. People start setting up their party base camps in parking lots for the big parade real early. Kegs, beer bongs, makeshift bars set up on portable tables, lots of people wearing lots of crazy green shit and even lots of dogs wearing crazy green shit. By the time the floats start rolling down Greenville Avenue at 11:00 AM sharp the general ambiance is pretty much mass public intoxication. And crazy shit. And of course I mean that in the best possible way.
After the parade is the big concert in a big fenced in parking lot and this year it featured some of the best of Dallas’ alt-country-roots rock scene. The O’s, The Drams, Eleven Hundred Springs and The Old 97s.
The crowd was kind of thin but you could no doubt chalk that up to the weather- it was cold, windy and the cloud cover was threatening drenching rain at any moment. Still, for the faithful that did show up, it was as fine a day of music as a drunken partier decked out in a spray painted fake beard, 2 lbs of beads and a big green hat could hope for. And I saw more than a few of those.