― anthony, Wednesday, 5 April 2006 17:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 5 April 2006 18:35 (eighteen years ago) link
anthony, are you refering to the wooden shoes bit?
― katie, a princess (katie, a princess), Wednesday, 5 April 2006 18:51 (eighteen years ago) link
http://cdbaby.com/cd/lucasmccain
Lucas McCain, *New Horizon,* yet another excellent cdbaby Southern rock/country-metal album (from Georgia this time) nobody's gonna care about but me and George, though others should. 2006 copyright, too! Anyway, a brief rundown: "New Horizon" (Skynyrdesque gimme-three-steps boogie woogie, they totally know how to dance), "Long Hot Summer Night" (Mellencamp/Adams '80s-style words, riff somewhere between "Run to You" and "Money for Nothing" but heavier + more boogiefied), Home On their Minds" (lament honoring the troops, hoping for peace in a strange land with death all around them), "Gimme Some of That" (funky rock namedropping Bocephus and Skynyrd and saying no-sell-out and we miss that old time rock and roll it's the music that saves our soul), "One Bad Love (Don't Make It Bad)" (divorce lament suggesting, no kidding, John Conlee leading the Marshall Tucker Band), "Does Anybody Care" (gutbust lament where the vocal verges into Eddie Vedder territory though that's just 'cause, as I believe Frank Kogan observed in *Radio On* many years ago, Vedder sang like David Clayton-Thomas; beautiful twin-guitar ending), "Concrete Cowboy" (Charlie Daniels doing "Legend of Wooley Swamp"-style rapneck), "Working on Tomorrow" (riff recalling Eddie Money's "I Think I'm in Love" only heavier.) And there's a couple other songs too (and many other lovely guitar parts).
I also love that they've opened for both Mother's Finest and the Kentucky Headhunters, that's very cool.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 April 2006 19:42 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0404061_hank_williams_1.html
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 April 2006 21:40 (eighteen years ago) link
Australian Angel City fan Leanne Kingwell's "More" (not nearly one of her most rocking songs, but still) is allegedly getting played on terrestrial country stations in Stillwater, OK (KGFY) and Sheridan, WY (KYTI), not to mention Internet stations LexCountry out of Lexington KY and USA Radio Country out of Eagle, ID. I mentioned her cdbaby album, which I love, on the metal and teen-pop threads, but oddly did not think to mention it here. So I'm gonna cut and paste in a sec.
― xhuxk, Thursday, 6 April 2006 12:02 (eighteen years ago) link
so, stop the presses, this album from australia is what avril and kelly (and uh, maybe even ashlee and skye and hope) *should* sound like. which is to say, like the first-album divinyls except less arty and more consistently catchy and funny and sexy, often (in "you stink" and the great and hilarious and furious cheated-on-revenge single "holding your gun" for instance) doing a fast mott the hoople (or angel city?) boogie-woogie hard rock under thick guitar buzz. the *gun* EP threw me at first because it opens with leanne kingwell (that's her name, remember it) doing two power ballads (one of them apparently a cover, since it's credited to john watts and the lyrics aren't in the lyric booklet of the album) with prim and proper aussie pronunciation like for instance pronouncing "france" "frontz", but in the course of the album (now called *show ya what,* which seems to be mostly a reissue of the 2005 album that's up on cdbaby, with "holding your gun" replacing "back to me" and the track order shuffled) the ballads make way more sense, partially by being less plentiful...and okay, i also just noticed that the track "be with you" is credited to brewster/brewster/neeson, which means i was RIGHT about the angel city comparison. "blind" is credited to one james stewart; the rest are kingwell herself. "drop your pants" starts out like "hey little girl" by the syndicate of sound (which the divinyls covered), then gets tougher and thicker, like the sonics, but the effect isn't '60s garage rock nostalgia at all, probably because leann's vocals (basically, she sings a lot like christina amphlett at her most rocking) are the most powerful element in the mix. and also maybe as a tribute to christina, in "my hero" she touches herself. with her vibrator. which is better than you. predicton (probably premature, but who cares, what else is new with me): *show ya what* could wind up being one of the best albums of 2006; "holding your gun" might be one of the best singles.
http://cdbaby.com/cd/kingwell
http://cdbaby.com/cd/kingwell2
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 28th, 2006.
okay, didn't notice these; she's even cooler than i thought:
>"I saw The Angels gig at the Palace in 2000 and it absolutely knocked me out. I was one of a dozen girls in a room of about 1500 guys who just went off and knew the words to every song. That gig got me thinking about how to create some kick arse rock n' roll that girls would dig as much as guys."<
>A four track EP featuring a cover of Fischer Z's 1980 smash "So Long" plus 2 originals.<
and yeah (as reviews on those pages say) i definitely hear the easybeats and suzi quatro in there, too.
-- xhuxkx (xedd...), March 28th, 2006.
― xhuxk, Thursday, 6 April 2006 12:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Thursday, 6 April 2006 14:37 (eighteen years ago) link
On the cover the new CD the last three songs are called "Bus Songs Session #2," so yeah, I guess this is the only time he's done it besides *Shock N Y'all.* And I meant to steal Frank's "escape hatch" metaphor in regards to these, not his "trap door" metaphor. Though I guess it's more honest than coming up with an entirely different alter ego, like David Allan Coe and Clarence Reid have done. (Not that Toby has ever done anything approaching the outrageousness of those guys' sideline stuff.)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 6 April 2006 15:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 April 2006 18:25 (eighteen years ago) link
an unrelated amusing anecdotehes also working w. bochephus, and lives in the old hank/audery home--which apparently is civil war old, so hank jr and tim mcgraw try to figure out which bullet holes are "civl war or hank/audrey war'
― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 April 2006 18:27 (eighteen years ago) link
don -- cute lil ashley monroe came into the office yesterday. has the sharp nuance of dolly. she's 19 and i really wanted to hate her but could not.
― katie, a princess (katie, a princess), Thursday, 6 April 2006 18:58 (eighteen years ago) link
WHY OH WHY CAN'T THIS BE TRUE.
random thoughts/questions:
Saw Sara Evans on the CMT countdown show talking about meeting with the miners' wives and it was pretty vacant. Why is she such a terrible judge of her own music lately? I want "Bible Song" and "New Hometown" as singles.
I just listened to the new Shooter Jennings for the first time and thought it sounded pretty terrible. Do I need to give it another chance or can I safely file it away?
I weep at my inability to keep up with this thread.
(And M@tt -- you know I was country when country wasn't cool!)
― chris herrington (chris herrington), Thursday, 6 April 2006 20:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Je4nn3 Æ’urÂ¥ (Je4nne Fury), Thursday, 6 April 2006 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link
Je4nn3, I wish you'd visit the teenpop thread more often.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 6 April 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Je4nn3 Æ’urÂ¥ (Je4nne Fury), Thursday, 6 April 2006 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 6 April 2006 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 April 2006 21:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Thursday, 6 April 2006 21:49 (eighteen years ago) link
I like it! See waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay upthread, like around January 16. I need to pull the thing back out though. The songs about hangovers and sniffing cocaine are best I think.
― xhuxk, Friday, 7 April 2006 01:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhxuk, Friday, 7 April 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link
the lyrics weren't cringe-worthy but they did make me tilt my head into the upright and locked "huh" position considering she's 19 and she did the majority of the writing for this album when she was 17 (and sometimes younger). i guess that's a popular ageist complaint, but at the same time its hard for me to invest in her sincerity in lovers lost, etc. when she's my lil cousin's age. and i'm a dour old lady at the age of 24!
― katie, a princess (katie, a princess), Friday, 7 April 2006 13:19 (eighteen years ago) link
first impression (i.e., two and a half songs in to her album)? she sounds kinda slow and lacks bounce, and i'd take many of the unknown cdbaby acts on this thread over her easy. also, i think it's rather odd that she says desperate housewives both complain about their husbands no longer mowing lawn AND that the grass is always greener on the other side. this implies that lawnmowing increases green-ness, which is certainly not always the case. (my opinion may well change, though.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 7 April 2006 18:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Friday, 7 April 2006 18:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Friday, 7 April 2006 19:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Friday, 7 April 2006 21:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Friday, 7 April 2006 22:02 (eighteen years ago) link
Leanne Kingwell's Show Ya What: Boogie woogie rock and roll, with brassy chick, right away for fans of the Blackhearts, the early Kim Fowley jailbait and guitars sound. Squealing and tuneful lead guitar, rupture your liver in the middle class bar while dancing to the hooks. She's holding a gun, her cheatin' boyfriend's, get outta here with that other wench's lipstick on yer collar. You taught me how to use it, she sez, and I'm keeping it.Also seems to have something to do sonically with Kings of the Sun and the personal vocal style of Angel City's Doc Neeson. (Or the Angels as she'd call them.)Oh boy, now there's a great pumping roadhouse organ -- or old timey skate rink -- on "Be With You." Lots of crunch on the guitars and bass.Tommy James-style "Crimson & Clover" tremolo on "So Long." Boy, along with the old Conwell CDs, a history book of classic radio ready guitar licks and roughed-up and dirty pop rock singing. -- George 'the Animal' Steele (georg...), April 7th, 2006.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 14:31 (eighteen years ago) link
o far I'm liking but not loving Leanne Kingwell. For some reason the name that pops into my head when listening to her isn't any of the teenpoppers or the Divinyls or Suzi Quatro etc. (though I'm not saying the latter too aren't relevant) but Shooter Jennings; the same almost-nothing of a vocal-cord digging into itself and managing to scoop out a voice for itself.Not that a cross between Shooter and Lindsay wouldn't be worth something...-- Frank Kogan (edcasua...), March 30th, 2006.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 14:33 (eighteen years ago) link
Current album that makes most sense in a CD changer along with *White Trash With Money*: Dean Martin's 1955 *Swingin' Down Yonder,* reissued this month by Collector's Choice. I've never gotten into Dino much -- "That's Amore," "Volare," that's about it. And I've never thought much about him being connected to country music, though obviously Elvis (and Jerry Lee maybe?) considered him a huge influence. But this album (only the second one by him listed chronoligically at AMG, so I would assume one of his first?) is all songs about the South* -- about the Carolinas, and Georgia, and New Orleans, and Basin Street, and the Robert E. Lee and so on, some dating back to the 20s or even 10s (really informative liner notes by James Ritz), and it sounds like he's picking up on what Hoagy Carmichael (I guess - -somebody correct my chronology if I'm way off) picked up from Al Jolson or whoever. (I'm sure I'm missing several important intermediate steps along the way, and would be curious to know what they are.) Anyway, the minstrelized (I guess) yet smoothed out Dixieland-pop sound here isn't far from the jazz the shows up on Toby's new album (and that Merle and Tom T touched on before.) It totally swings, and Dino's signing makes it sound warm and good-humored, even if, obviously, a lot of the lyrics are probably (though maybe not explicitly, as far as I've noticed so far) nostalgia for the good old days of the old plantation south before the War. Anybody else have thoughts on this? And what does it mean that it's still part of country's defintion of soulfulness in 2006?
* -actually looks like there are also four bonus tracks on the CD reissue, *not* about the South. One's abotu Paris! I'ld think that might compromise the concept, but maybe not.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 18:41 (eighteen years ago) link
Just finally got this and listened and I actually had to check the lyric sheet to actually verify that they'd put the right album into the CD case. Every so often I'd drift away and start thinking I was listening to some Ryan Adams outtakes record.
― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
And by the way, have I noted how over the top insanely great that *Texas Bohemia: Polkas Waltzes Schottisches: The Texas Bohemian-Moravian-German Bands* album I bought at Princeton Record Exchange a couple weeks ago is? Well, it is. It's barely left my CD changer since, and the amazing thing is that I keep forgetting it's not Mexican music, which it absolutely sounds like until they start singing in German or whatever. Some of the bands are really big, but some of them just seem to consist of nothing more than a drum and a tuba. Pick hits: Adolph Hofner "Beautiful America - Waltz" 1959 (in which he says everything in America is beautiful including the girls. I have a great album on vinyl by him, too. Must have been really hard to have a name like that in America in the 50s!); Vrazel & Majeks & Bobby Jones Czech Band "Corn Cockle Polka" 1992 (party in the background rock!), Tuba Meisters "Edelweiss" 1993 (yes, that "Edelweiss", but not the "Bring Me..." one); Henry Tannenberger & his Orchestra "On Our Porch Polka" 1986 (on Oompah Records out of San Antonio!); The Red Ravens "Stone Heart Waltz" 1977; Leroy Ryback's Swinging Orchestra "El Rancho Grande" 1985; Knutsch Band "Zwei Wie Mir Zwei" 1993; Vrazels & Majeks & Bobby Jones Czech Band (again!) "A Ja Sam (All By Myself)" 1992.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:15 (eighteen years ago) link
A couple other thoughts/questions about the Dino reissue:
1) I'm realizing that it's never been especially clear to me what exactly Dixieland music (note its name!) *was.* Ritz's liner notes say, "combining elements of New Orleans, classic, and Chicago jazz, Dixieland came into is own in the 1920s." But who did the combining?
2) On the back of the original vinyl version of said album (reproduced small on the back of the CD's inner sleeve), a drum and bugle corps are mraching with a Confederate flag.
3) Clearly one of the obvious "intermediate steps along the way" I allude to above was, duh, Bing Crosby, who went #1 with "Dinah," which Martin covers, in 1932. The album is *all* covers, the notes say, and was partially a response to all the concept albums Sinatra had started putting out in the early '50s. And yeah, as far as I can tell, it does seem to be just Martin's second album. Other songs covered, according to the notes, were originally hits for the Heidelberg Quartet, Paul Whiteman's Rhythm Boys (at least three of them), the Mills Brothers (they did "Dinah" too, or maybe with Bing?), Gene Krupa with Anita O'Day, Jimmy Dorsey, Ozzie Nelson, Gene Austin, and a 20s comedy duo called Van & Shneck. "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" wound up being a million seller for rock'n'roller Freddie Cannon (who was great, by the way) five years after Martin's version, in 1959.
4) Ritz refers to Martin "singing in much the casual manner in which he spoke, which, for lack of better designation, could be called 'conversational singing.'" So could many of Toby Keith's best performances, it occurs to me. As could "laid back drawl that was not quite southern, but a far cry for the east coast sophistication practiced by most male singers of the day." Not unlike (from the LP's *original* notes) Martin's "easy golf swing."
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 23:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 23:37 (eighteen years ago) link
Those of so foolish as not to haunt the teenpop thread may be unaware that Miley and her dad Billy Ray have a TV show, in which - I gather from the theme song, which is all TV-less me knows of it - by day she's a regular middle-schooler, but at night she twirls around like Sailor Moon and takes on a SECRET IDENTITY as a... as a... well, you'll just have to look for yourself.
The theme song's OK, likable enough, not grebt.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Saturday, 8 April 2006 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/polka/bands.html
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 April 2006 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Sunday, 9 April 2006 04:10 (eighteen years ago) link
That Sweethearts of the Rodeo album from '96 I got in Princeton doesn't really cut it for me, though others might think differently. Whoever owned the copy before me had stuck a Xeroxed Alanna Nash review from *Stereo Review* inside the booklet, and Alanna praises it for containing "much more eclectic material than their mainstream county records ever hinted at": i.e, a gospel song, lots of bluegrass, covers of Donovan ("Catch the Wind") and Dylan ("One More Night," never heard of it before) and Jimmie Rodgers, plus what Alanna claims are hints of '60s pop and Celtic folk. I'm guessing that I'd prefer their less eclectic manistream country records (from 10 years before, so mid '80s, Alanna says) myself. I prefer midnight girls in a sunset town to museum curators, which they sound like here.
The Carlene Carter album I bought seems consisently kinda fun but never quite fun *enough*, at least so far. Maybe I wish her poppabilly was more rockabilly, "The Sweetest Thing" is slow, and could amost be a Lorrie Morgan hit from around that time; "Goodnight Dallas," which I like more than most of the tracks, has mariachi horns and yodels, so it's "western" I guess. I'm still waiting for at least one track though to jump out at me as much as, say, "Montgomery to Memphis," which jumped right out of the self-titled Leann Womack CD I bought the second I finally put it in the changer today. So right now I'd say Leann beats Carlene beats the Sweethearts, though Carlene could still win this race.
― xhuxk, Sunday, 9 April 2006 15:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Sunday, 9 April 2006 15:37 (eighteen years ago) link
>More mature, After Here Through Midland lacks the sparkle of Cock Robin's debut. The one time they engaged an American producer in Don Gehman (John Cougar Mellencamp, Hootie and the Blowfish), After Here has a more U.S. rock-country blend to it. In the end, it achieved little in the States, again doing the business in Europe -- "Just Around the Corner," "The Biggest Fool of All," and "El Norte" notched up the U.K. singles chart. "I'll Send Them Your Way" could have landed them the U.S. hit they so deserved. "Another Story" is picturesque -- almost like an Edward Hopper painting of small-town America: small wooden house with porch, a deserted street, heavy grey sky, and one illuminated streetlight. "Nobody's home, so I'll go looking out for trouble," sings Anna LaCazio..
― xhuxk, Sunday, 9 April 2006 16:25 (eighteen years ago) link
Sounds like the uncharacterisically un-lightweight "Me and the Wildwood Rose" on Carlene's CD might actually fill this bill after all (which means Carlene could be a keeper.)
― xhuxk, Sunday, 9 April 2006 22:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― don, Monday, 10 April 2006 03:07 (eighteen years ago) link
carlene's CD doesn't quite make the cut, i don't think, though yeah, maybe as don suggests her new wave era stuff is less perfunctory than what she was doing in '90 (when she was actually having hits, i take it.) even "me and the wildwood rose," about growing up at grandma's and singing for miners with her little sister, doesn't quite connect. i like the rockpile-abilly powerpopsters ("i fell in love," "my dixie darlin'," "come on back," "one love," the mariachified "goodnight dallas") okay but never love them. most surprising cut, just 'cause i never knew carlene did such stuff, is that stately lorrie morgan approximation i mentioned, but i doubt i'll need to hear it again.
― xhuxk, Monday, 10 April 2006 14:15 (eighteen years ago) link
She's called Sharleen Spiteri, by the way.
― Tim (Tim), Monday, 10 April 2006 14:19 (eighteen years ago) link
Yeah, George is right here. *Heavy Traffic* (2002) definitely makes more sense on this country thread than the metal one, though there are some decent riffs in three or four songs (most notably "Diggin' Burt Bacharach," which doesn't seem to have much to do with Burt Bacharach, though his name does enable an okay raplet verse that goes "black jack clap trap any kind of flap trap big mac lookin' back diggin Burt Bacharach"), and once in a great while ("Solid Gold") the traffic does get moderately heavy. Otherwise, always pleasant, and pretty much always pedestrian. I dunno, if it was an unknown cdbaby band, and it just came out, I might hang on to it, but it's not and didn't. Really the most notable thing about the album is the creepy-assed fetish song "The Oriental," about sex with Mia from north korea and Mae Wong from hong kong, the former of whom has a land rover and the latter of whom is a raver. Most crypto-racist verse, assuming I'm understanding this, in which case yucko: "I don't like sushi/She said that suits me/I take a shower/On every hour." (The song reminds me of a similar fetish song called "Eastern Girls" or something like that, by some early '80s new wave band whose name started with L, but their song was way catchier and less offensive. I'm totally blanking out on their name right now.)
― xhuxk, Monday, 10 April 2006 15:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Monday, 10 April 2006 15:55 (eighteen years ago) link