“How do you like my new favorite song?:” I ask him.

“It’s good!” he says.  ‘Is that Jeff Tweedy?”

“Nope,” I reply, smugly.  “It’s someone you’ve never heard of.”

“Yeah?” he says.  “Sure about that?  ‘Cause it sounds like Pre-

Wanker Wilco.”   Or Tweedy with Uncle Tupelo.

This is high praise from Bucky.  Just saying.

So yeah, neither Bucky nor I had heard of Ronnie Fauss but, one quick listen later, we’re both fans.  Listen here and you’ll see why.

Upon further research, we see some familiar names associated with the disc.  It’s produced by Brent Best (The Drams, Slobberbone).   And Jess Barr (The Drams, Slobberbone) plays some sweet banjo.  There’s also Chad Stockslager (The Drams, The King Bucks) on keyboards.  That one was hard to figure because his name is covered by the spindle for the disc but you can see a tiny picture of Chad and his keyboard.

To round it out, Joe Butcher  (The King Bucks) plays pedal steel, Darren Dement plays mandolin, Gary Rivers (Preston Grey) plays bass, and Bill Spellman (Slider Pines) is on drums.  Buncha Dallas guys.

The “Americana” style folk songs have an intimate feel and sound as if they might have been recorded live.  Well recorded, lightly produced, beautifully performed.  It works.

Fauss, of course, does the singing and songwriting and that’s him on the guitar, harmonica, and accordion.   And he does a damn fine job.

His voice is rough and unpolished.  My favorite kind.  The lyrics are interesting.  Stories are being told and I can tell I’m going to enjoy fleshing out those stories in my own mind.

Like someone dies in a bad way in “With Love.”  It is its own murder mystery – the picture is vivid but the story is unclear.  I’ll have to listen it to a few more times before I decide what I think really happened.  “The Last” is a love song.  Kind of sweet with nice tingly piano in the background and harmonica bridges.

Kinda sucks that the EP is only six songs, though.  Hopefully, we’ll hear some more from Mr. Fauss in the near future.

But wait, there’s more!

Fauss tells us he actually did release a 3 song follow up to this EP, available only as digital download . . .  So there’s that.

Stay tuned for another 6 song EP from Mr. Fauss to be released spring 2010.

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.

If you know anything about this or happen to run across any of these items at a pawn shop, etc. please let me know. No questions will be asked.

Obviously, these are all just material possessions that can be replaced, but on a sentimental level it’s pretty devastating. So if you could spread the word and keep your eyes open for me, it would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
jess

p.s. If you see me playing air guitar at the next gig, please just pretend that I’m shredding on some sweet solos.

I think Gracey pretty much said it all when she forwarded this with the well chosen subject line: "lowlifescumsuckingthieves."

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.

We arrived shortly after The O’s started their set. The O’s are Taylor Young on guitar and John Pedigo on guitar and banjo. They’re probably the best new band in these parts despite their just being two guys. They write great songs and play them very nicely- you can check out a few of them on their MySpace page. They also managed to play the very best song of the day-a cover of The Pogues’ "Body Of An American." It was the perfect song for the occasion and they nailed it.

The crowd had grown some by the time Slacker Country favorites The Drams kicked things off with a fine cover of Neil Young’s "Come On baby Let’s Go Downtown."

They played their best stuff from Jubilee Dive and a few new songs like "Man Of Note" and "Doesn’t Bother Me." They also did The Jayhawks’ "Real Light" and Chad Stockslager’s "Homemade Biscuits" and got a pretty good call and response from the crowd on that one.

Eleven Hundred Springs sounded as good or better than ever. They’re always in their element at these things as much as in a loud bar. I missed a good deal of their set but what I saw killed.

Matt Hillyer’s got to have the coolest guitars around.

By the time the Old 97s came on there was a pretty respectable sized and largely inebriated crowd.  They opened with "Won’t Go Home No More" and pretty much covered their entire span- from "Doreen" to "Dance With Me." They came out for an encore of Jimmy Dale Gilmore’s "Dallas" and closed with a stomping "Timebomb."

After that of course it was time to hit the bars. Weren’t The King Bucks playing at The Dubliner or something?

Thanks to Michelle for the pics!

The Old 97s and The Drams
New Year’s Eve at The Longhorn Ballroom, Dallas

There’s something about the Longhorn Ballroom.

Something that hits you the minute you walk through the door. The room just permeates history from every corner and crevice. It’s an awesome place, in the truest sense of the word awesome. For one thing, it’s as big as an aircraft hangar. For another, it’s the real thing.

Any performer who was anybody in country music played there back in the day. Bob Wills owned the place in the 50s and 60s. Later, it was resurrected briefly in the 80s as a live music venue banking on its biggest claim to fame that it hosted The Sex Pistol’s Dallas show just a few short days before that band broke up.

Having seen a number of shows there through the years, I can personally attest that just being on that enormous stage, where so many came before and made history, seems to inspire bands to go above and beyond what anyone would expect of them.

I had all that in mind and more when we went there on New Years Eve to see The Old 97s, The Drams and The Boys Named Sue.

The show was posted as having a 9 PM start time. That conflicted with the tickets themselves, which said the show started at 8. Now I’ve been to enough shows in this town to know that shows don’t start at 8. People are generally still eating dinner at 8 (I know we were). Doors open at 8, but shows don’t start that early.

Still, we wanted to get there early enough to see all the bands and snag a seat. So we finished up dinner and got there as soon as we could, about 9:00.

Bad move on our part.

When we got there and paid the seven bucks to park in the muddy field behind the place, there was already a line of 60-75 (maybe more) people waiting to get in. We assumed those were people paying cover at the door. That was our second wrong assumption of the night. Virtually everyone in line had done as we had and bought their tickets in advance.

After standing and shivering in line for about 15-20 minutes and getting maybe halfway to the door, we were not at all happy to hear The Drams start playing. One member of our party had driven down from Oklahoma for this show because The Drams were his very favorite band, after Slobberbone, anyway. He became even more agitated after we heard them launch into their second song, Slobberbone’s "That Is All." We’d missed the Boys entirely and it wasn’t looking good for even getting to see The Drams.

We finally got in during their third song and there it was. The most honest-to-god-old-timey-Dallas honky-tonk anyone has ever been to. And The Drams were in full early Slobberbone mode, with Scott Danbaum (Slobberbone, Centro-Matic) on fiddle and Joe Butcher (Pleasant Grove, Polyphonic Spree) on pedal steel. They did what they’ve been doing lately, rocking the place in that alt country style. Only more so. And what a place to be rocking. They played a mix of Drams, Slobberbone, and a Budapest One song. But they were opening so they only had forty five minutes to play.

We weren’t about to get in the seemingly endless beer line till they were done but we had one member of our group that pretty much needed to sit down due to some lower back issues, so I did go in search of a chair.

There were tables near the sunken dance floor but those had apparently all been taken in the hour before we arrived. There were some chairs kind of scattered around near the bathrooms in the rear but every time I approached one I was informed it had been taken.

Then I spotted it – a bunch of chairs shoved up against a rear wall! I wandered over, grabbed one, and was told by a paid staffer that he "wasn’t going to be able to let me take that chair." I excused myself, asked him what he just said and was told, just a little more sternly, "Sir, I can’t let you take that chair." Apparently, they couldn’t pay for sufficient bartenders (more on that later) but they could hire someone to stand guard on the extra chairs. Our friend-in-pain did the best she could by kind of sitting on the edge of the soundboard. She wasn’t happy.

After The Drams set me and a friend decided it was time to get a beer. This is where it goes beyond anything anyone has ever experienced at a NYE show. Or any bar anywhere, for that matter.

The beer lines all stretched from one side of the club to the back wall at the south end bar, and from the front of the building to the dance floor on the north end bar. I can’t even begin to describe how imposing they were. We took our place against the wall in one line and decided to stand in shifts. About 45 minutes later, I was about halfway to the bar when the Old 97s took the stage.

Sure enough, they were thrilled as could be to be up there and it showed. They played the best show I’ve seen them play, maybe ever. We finally got to the bar about an hour and half after first getting in line and ordered everything we could carry.

In between watching the 97s, I started thinking about what would happen if Bob Wills were still alive today. I’m pretty sure he would have issues with The Longhorn’s owner, who incidentally, also owns the Raul’s Restaurant next door.

It was his job to see to the beer concession. The bars had been gutted some time ago, so all they had was bottled beer in big ice tubs – which itself was a huge improvement over the first resurrected Longhorn show I attended, Lucinda Williams, back in September.

Then, I waited maybe twenty minutes to get to the bar, only to find out they had sold out of everything but Bud Lite and Corona. This time, they had the full menu of Bud, Bud Lite, Miller Lite, Coors Light, and, for an extra 50 cents, Corona and Shiner Bock. I flipped a coin and went with Bud. They also had the same two overwhelmed bartenders as the September show. Apparently, they hadn’t gotten any faster in the time between.

Here is where Old Bob Wills would have flipped, I’m pretty sure. It’s one thing to take down the fabled landmark Longhorn Ballroom sign, to be sold, one presumes, to the highest bidder. It’s another to make pre-paid ticket holders stand outside while the show they paid a premium to see goes on indoors. But to make them stand in line for well over an hour to get a round of beers (or soft drinks, or a goddamn drink of water) is just too much. I don’t even know how many people I overheard say they were never coming back to this place again. Some were blaming promoter Mike Snider – but after I talked to him today, he assured me he wasn’t in charge of the bar – that was the owners responsibility. He also told me that he had warned him after the Lucinda show that he would need to hire more bartenders.

So I decided that if Bob Wills were alive today he would have waited in line for about 15 minutes, seen that he had only advanced four or five places, then got out of line and walked over to Raul’s, grabbed the owner by the collar, drug him over to the Longhorn Bar, snatched a beer out of someone’s hand, and proceeded to beat the living crap out of the guy to the cheers of the increasingly angry (and increasingly thirsty) customers in line.

Of course, as the sign on the door said, you could bring in a bottle of liquor for a mere ten dollars extra; but if you wanted a coke or even some ice (3 dollars for a small bowl) to mix with it, you had to get in the hour plus line. At least this time they had ice. At the Lucinda show, there was no ice to be had.

Never has the argument for carrying a pocket flask been made so effectively.

So after that nightmare, with beers in hand, it was about a quarter to twelve. The band did the countdown, played some "Auld Lang Syne," and got back to the show.

Like I said, best Old 97s show ever. They played lots of old stuff. Rhett Miller came out for the encore and played "Message For You" and The Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated" solo. He then brought the band back out for another 3 or four songs, closing the night with "Timebomb."

Awesome show. Awesome room. Worst. Bar. Experience. EVER.

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What can I say- that Tequila Brad sure knows how to throw a damn party.  Saturday night at Dan’s Silverleaf was a total liquor fueled, pull-out-all-the-stops, crank it up and rock this place throw down. With cake.  Todd Mankin and his band started things off.  We got there in the middle of his set and he was already in full rockin’ mode.  He’s got a great voice, some good songs and a kickin’ band behind him. He closed his set with Ted Nugent’s Stranglehold.  Austin’s Band of Heathens were up next. I’ve heard their fine debut CD, Live At Momo’s- and it’s good, but I was still surprised by the full force of their set.They won the “Best New Band” at this year’s Austin Music Awards and it’s easy to see why. They’ve got three singer/songwriters trading leads, Colin Brooks, Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist and each of them have enough talent to front your average band all by himself.  Together, they blend into something pretty exceptional.  They played the best stuff from Live At Momo’s plus a few new songs from their Ray Wylie Hubbard produced, soon to be released studio album.

On first hearing their CD I thought they sounded a lot like the Subdudes- with lots of that New Orleans R&B shuffle thing going on.  And any band that does a Tom Waits cover (Anywhere I Lay My Head) gets extra bonus props in my book.  Saturday night they had more than that going on; nicely blending in country, soul and rock.  They tore the place down and had the crowd on their feet throughout the whole set, which they closed with Cane On The Brazos, an old Texas prison chain gang song made famous by The Band.

Apparently a lot of people came just to hear them. One person had driven all they way from Norman Oklahoma and I think she left early in The Drams‘ set. That’s too bad because The Drams played the best show I’ve yet seen them play- and that’s not just the whiskey talking. . .

I knew it was going to be special when, two songs in, they tore into Gimme Back My Dog. In fact they played lots of Slobberbone songs, mostly from Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today, my own personal favorite Bone album.

It was a party and I was partying so I didn’t get a setlist- but I heard:  That Is All, Trust Jesus, Dunk You In The River, Placemat Blues, Billy Pritchard, Love Is Waning and even that BeeGees cover they did on their last record.

They also did Budapest One‘s Homemade Biscuits and The Band’s The Shape I’m In and a couple of new songs, one featuring Keith Killoren on vocals.  And, of course, a few from Jubilee Dive.

Tequila Brad videoed the whole thing and says he’s gonna post it in it’s entirety, so keep an eye on this space and we’ll link it when he does.

Cheers!

You might if you go to certain shows in the Dallas area or you visit certain discussion boards (The Drams, The DriveBy Truckers, for example).

Well, even if you don’t, you just might want to check out Brad’s birthday party this weekend (Saturday, November 17, 9:00) at Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton, Texas.

See, Brad had this great idea. What if he got three of his favorite bands and had them all play at the same venue for him as a birthday present for himself??? He figures there is not a lot of overlap between the fan bases for these three groups and he might be doing some people some favors by introducing them to more good music. So, these Texas bands, not necessarily in this order are: The Drams out of Denton, Band of Heathens out of Austin, and Todd Mankin out of Fort Worth.

I guess it’s not a secret that we SlackerCountry folk love the Drams so I’ll leave it at that. But we know Brad and we know he also likes another of our favorite bands, Scott Miller and the Commonwealth, and that makes us wanna go to his party and listen to his music. The cover is $10 and Brad says, please don’t bring him a birthday present but think about buying band merchandise to support his favorite bands (’cause he is not only Tequila Brad, he is a patron of the arts – and, if you appreciate irony and the way things all come together and you know Slobberbone like we know Slobberbone, look up Patron of the Arts on Wikipedia for an eerie coincidence – e-mail us if you get it – no prizes in it for ya but we’ll be impressed).

For those who don’t know, The Drams are Brent Best (lead vocals, guitar,  harmonica), Jess Barr (guitar), Keith Killoren (bass), Chad Stockslager (keyboard), and Tony Harper (drums).  This band combines three of the original Slobberbone members (Best, Barr, and Harper) with Killoren and Stockslager from the Dallas-area band Budapest One.  The music is still written by Best so, yeah, the similarities are there but you get the idea they are trying to take it to the next level.  And from what I saw, Killoren and Stockslager have a lot to bring to the table.  You can read and hear more about the formation of The Drams here.

I was lucky enough to spend a little time with The Drams and – I know this is a cliché – but they are not only a lot of fun but just genuinely nice guys. Keith let me have all (well, most) of the pictures on his camera at the time and all the guys said it was okay to post them but, you know, like I said, they are genuinely nice guys, super polite, as a matter of fact.  Charming, even.  And I noticed they just have a hard time saying no.  So I’ll leave the incriminating stuff out of this . . . Let’s just say that Chad is a very good sport and can take a lot of teasing.  

Any fears I had that the transition from Slobberbone to The Drams was a misguided attempt to be more grown up (I hate that stupid beer commercial) were allayed by observing these boys doing shots and just goofing.  You can tell The Drams love being around each other.  They told me that even if they weren’t in a band, they’d be sitting in a bar hanging out with each other.  I can see why.  And it says a lot about the kind of people they are because, the way they tour, they get to know one another, well, intimately.

The Friday night show is a blur to me.  The crowd was decent even though the temperatures were sub-zero that night and the snow was blowing all over the road, making it icy and hard to see and overall, pretty dang scary.  The Drams delivered a blistering set of Drams and Slobberbone tunes, kicking it off with “Gimme Back My Dog” and followed that with a bunch of the songs from “Jubilee Dive” (I remember “Unhinged” and “Hummalong”) as well as the Slobberbone standard, “I Can Tell Your Love Is Waning” and their energy level was high.  Unfortunately, the set, although not short, seemed to fly by and then Will Hoge, the headliner, took the stage.  I was not familiar with his work but had sampled some from his website and was pleasantly surprised by his live performance.  The highlight of his show for me, however, was the encore, “Ooh La La,” by The Faces, where he was joined on stage by Stockslager and a very hyper Killoren.

The next day, the Drams and Hoge headed up across a snowy Divide to Breckenridge for a night at Sherpa and Yeti’s. I missed that one but was primed for their return to Denver for their Monday night performance at Bender’s Tavern. This time, I took notes (well, sorta – actually I swiped the set list).

The Bender’s show was killer.  Not nearly enough people there since it was a Monday night and the Drams took the stage after two other performers but they rocked like the place was packed to the gills.  And even though I knew the altitude was not good to The Drams and even though Keith seemed a bit bothered by the sandwich he ate before the show and even though the audience at Bender’s on a Monday night was way sparser than The Drams deserved, none of that seemed to matter from the minute they took the stage.  Rock gods.  Unbelievable.

Best was incredible, howling and growling his songs into the mike with his long hair all hanging down in his face, looking even better than you figure he’s going to look when you’re listening to him on CD.  Barr was more laid back – just cool and mysterious standing there and playing. Killoren was all bass-player charisma, with Chad getting up and down over there on the keyboards and Tony strictly business on the drums, banging away and sweating up a storm.  Much of the evening is lost in a haze of drink but I can tell you it was amazing.  Or something.

So, let’s see. They played most of the tracks from The Drams’ “Jubilee Dive” -“Unhinged,” “Hummalong,” “Shortsighted,” “Des Moines,” “Make A Book,”- as well as Slobberbone’s very popular “Gimme Back My Dog” and ”Billy Pritchart.”  Brent played some sweet harmonica on “I Can Tell Your Love Is Waning.”  Chad treated us to a rendition of the Budapest One song “Homemade Biscuits.”

Brent broke out the harmonica again (love that harmonica) for the final song, “Robert Cole,” a coming of age ballad about a boy far too young to come of age.  This is the kind of song that reminds you that Best has a lot going on under the surface – he can rock and be rowdy but he can think.  And he’s thinking some dark thoughts, a lot of the time.  Look for “Robert Cole” on Bloodshot Records’ soon to be released tribute album to author Larry Brown.

I had read – and Brent said it again at Bender’s – that the guys started Slobberbone as a way to get free beer.  Yeah, well maybe.  It’s a cute story but I think it’s only half true.  He has songs and stories fighting to get out.  And I can’t say enough about Best’s songwriting.  It’s phenomenal.  In “Gimme Back My Dog,” he gave me one of my favorite metaphors.  If you don’t know what I mean, check out the lyrics.  With a few words, some killer chords, changes, and riffs, and a melody you can’t forget, he can paint a picture so vivid, it comes back to you in your dreams.  Makes you wonder how he’d be at writing fiction.  Let’s hope he never really gets tired of writing songs about screwing up.

Sometimes it takes me a while to warm up to something new. I was major bummed when Slobberbone broke up before I ever got to see them.  But now I’ve seen The Drams live and watched them in action, I’m hearing stuff I didn’t hear before. So those of you that are still bitching about the demise of Slobberbone, listen up. Go see The Drams. They aren’t done yet. And I think the best is yet to come.

P.S.  Anyone have a nice banjo they want to give Jess????  I guarantee he’ll make it look good and sound better . . .

I’ve been watching The Drams progress steadily from that first Dallas show at their home-base, The Barley House, up to a recent Labor Day appearance in a crowded, trendy uptown pub and there’s been a definite arc to their sound that bears noting.

I had gotten pretty familiar with the songs through the shows and bootlegs of the shows long before Jubilee Dive was released. I even dug out some old Slobberbone show recordings and CDs for comparison.

That seems to be the best place to start – with the comparisons.

As has been noted before, a “dram” is one eighth of an ounce of whiskey. That makes the name fitting – The Drams being a less drinking-song oriented band. Slobberbone drank and sang about their whiskey by the bottle (those big jug bottles- to be sure). That’s one way they earned the deserved reputation of “Texas best bar band.”

The other way was by rocking the house.

The songs on Jubilee Dive have the distinct sound of Brent Best trying to break out of the “bar band” mold. He’s reaching further, expanding his style and trying to do something new and different and that’s led to some controversy among many of his long time fans.

(You know who you are)

His greatest strength with Slobberbone was always his dead on observations of drunks, misfits and obsessives, coupled with a self deprecating sense of humor put to a hard rocking, grungy alt country backdrop. When he was writing Slobberbone’s songs, he was best compared to Drive By Truckers’ Patterson Hood. They both do similarly great songs about a particular sub-sect of Southern, rural America. And they both really rock when they do it.

There are still traces of all that on Jubilee Dive, but for the most part, just traces.

There’s not much in the way of humor, nothing as immediately catchy and compelling as “Trust Jesus” or “Give Me Back My Dog.” There’s no wallowing in the hung-over depression of “16 Days,” no epic storytelling along the lines of “Billy Pritchett” or “Little Sister,” no banjos or fiddles or as one commenter on The Dram’s message board so concisely put it: “no drunken anthems about killing a girl.”

There is a lighter, more pop-oriented approach that doesn’t always play to his strengths.

Songs like “Hummalong” and the circa-1990’s REM like “Fireflies” have an optimistic feel to them that really doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard from Brent Best before.

Where Slobberbone made a lot of Jesus references, “Holy Moses” is a prayer to, well Moses.

I’m not really sure where that comes from. Do people even pray to Moses?

The most pop sounding track, “You Wont Forget” has a Sixties Buffalo Springfield meets Burt Bacharach kind of groove to it and sounds like Brent reflecting on his old band and where it was all heading. The bouncy electric piano and vocal bops at the end made it the most surprising thing they played at their shows before JD’s release. At the same time, it was kind of like seeing Polyphonic Spree, in that I just didn’t know what to make of it all.

The best tracks are the opener “Truth Lies Low,” a song allegedly inspired from watching too much CNN and a not-too-bad attempt at political-media commentary. “Unhinged” and “Make A Book” both pick up the pace nicely. Plus the two most Slobberbone-like songs: “When You’re Tired” and, my favorite Drams song yet, “Des Moines.”

“Des Moines” proves Brent still has the songwriting chops- for those of you who think he’s gone soft – a song about trying to connect with a significant other on a cell phone that drops the call:

“What a fool I was to trust
Words so critical to say
To a wireless phone call
From 800 miles away”

He then takes the familiar (and oh-so-annoying) marketing slogan “Can you hear me now?” and turns it into a desperate and frustrated plea.

It sounds a lot like the old Brent. That funny-sad situation observed through alcoholic cynicism with a suddenly sober self awareness. Or something.

You can actually get a little more of that on the album’s excellent closer “A Wonderous Life,” a slowed down, more produced re-visit of “Haze Of Drink” type sentiment.

The band sounds good, the playing is tight and precise and Brent still maintains his distinct drawl at times. Jess Barr is as great a guitarist as ever and the Best-Barr guitar duels are there. Tony Harper still maintains a great beat. A lot of the new sound has been attributed to the addition of keyboardist Chad Stockslager – which may or may not be the case.

When they first started playing live, the keyboards were a little too out front and seemed jarring. Recent shows have found a better balance and the band’s constant playing has honed them into a more cohesive unit. Stockslager and new bassist Keith Killoren are both better vocalists than SB’s Brian Lane was.

Now, rather than sounding just a little like they’re trying to make sure they play all the notes right, they rock with the kind of abandon Best, Barr and Harper (and Lane) were almost famous for.

If you’re among those that worry that Best has strayed too far off field . . . relax. Go see them play. The covers they’ve been playing on this tour: The Band’s “The Shape I’m In,” Neil Young’s “Burned,” and even a really great rendition of Gram Parson’s “Blue Eyes” return Brent and company to familiar sounding territory.

Catch the clip of “Unhinged” for a good idea of what to expect.

There’s still a lot of complaining that they aren’t doing Slobberbone songs, but a recording of a recent show in Iowa finds them playing “Trust Jesus.”

Ironically, it was the least rehearsed sounding and most dissonant song in the set.

Jubilee Dive sounds like a fresh start for a (sort of) old act. It has pretty good stuff to dig into and a few things to ignore.

All in all, it’s a good debut- and if you’re a long time fan of the Bone, I’m willing to bet you’ll find some of that old rock and roll magic you crave at a live Drams show.

You just might not get quite as drunk.

The result was an unabashed rock and roll record that left many long time fans scratching their heads. While the record sounded different, the live shows still sounded like the old Slobberbone.

So when Brent Best unveiled his latest band, The Drams, which includes Jess Barr and Tony Harper, you would be forgiven if you showed up expecting to hear Slobberbone Redux. 

That wasn’t the case Wednesday night at The Barley House in Dallas.

In front of an impressively large crowd, especially for a weeknight, and with no more fanfare than “Good evening, We’re The Drams,” Best and company launched into a set of all new songs that took the progression from alt country to more pop-oriented rock on to the next level. 

Even the look was different.  Best was sporting a new haircut and beard and there were no acoustic guitars or banjos cluttering the stage. 

The new band’s sound is very different.  Electric guitars and keyboards driving rock songs without any pretense of country, save for the familiar twangy growl of Best’s vocals. 

Slobberbone made a reputation as a live band before they released any records, forging their idiosyncratic style on stage.  They built a following the old fashioned way, playing constantly and fine tuning their sound. 

From what I saw last night, The Drams may be following the same formula. 

It’s apparent that Best has been busy writing songs.  And the band has obviously been rehearsing.  They played very well together without anyone but Best taking center stage.

It may be too early to tell, but if last night’s show was any indication, The Drams may well be in it for the long haul.  Hopefully they are.

They resurrected a “Barrel Chested” era documentary film to kick off the night, standing quietly onstage while the film rolled on a screen set up near the entrance.  Then they played for a little over two hours.  While the album of the night seemed to be their second release, “Barrel Chested”, they managed to cover their entire career, but went sparingly on their last and most over-produced record, “Slippage”.

Fittingly enough, the crowd seemed drunker than usual, even for a Slobberbone show. So while the beer and whiskey soaked crowd raised their bottles and glasses, the band kept playing songs about, mostly, drinking.

When they first emerged on the scene way back in the early to mid 90s, they were compared to Uncle Tupelo, just like every other “alt country” rock band at the time; only these guys not only had a sense of humor, they, at least to this observer, didn’t take themselves quite as seriously as that by-then-defunct Illinois band.  And like UT in the early days, their songs were part punk-rock, part southern-rock and part country. They mixed banjos and fiddles with the blaring electric guitars and channeled the feedback into glorious melodic anthems to lost love, lost dreams, and whiskey.  Over the years, it became apparent that they probably owed more in the way of influence to Neil Young and Crazy Horse than to Uncle Tupelo. 

And now that it’s all over, it looks like frontman Brent Best will continue to play the occasional solo show and the rest of us, at least locally, can wait for the inevitable reunion shows.  As far as bands go, it was a great run. 

Here’s to them!