Rolling Country 2006 Thread

Thanks Roy, will glom. (Send me that DC, hokay?) Anybody who likes Status Quo's Bacharach line might well dig the current thread where we're invited to make up our own Tom Waits lyrics. It's a troll gas beany man jim-jam.

(forgot about the CMT Awards, but they'll show it 10 more times)Just saw CMT's World Premiere of the Chicks video, though it's been on the WuhWuhWuh for a while, I guess: who knows how it will wear, but this time it grabbed me right away. No melancholy allusions to the night before, and let's pick up the pieces.(Now that Bush's ratings have gotten as low as Nixon's and Carter's at their lowest points, and lower still re the war specifically.).Hell no.Picks up the pieces, but then continues right where they left off. It could be about a bad lover, bad family, bad town,in a compressed, taser sort of light: no poisoned American Pie code that I noticed. We can still tuck it into our own mental revenge, on whatever level. It also picks up where they left off musically, with Home's chamber atmosphere now flooding onto a more open stage;like,"if you want another crack at us, come ahead."(That's not from the song, just summarizing how it sounds and looks.) Tom Petty has one with their kinda title, "I Won't Back Down." But this is more compelling than that song, or any others of his that I've heard. Structurally, it does bear out what Kevin C. and others have reported about the Petty-Eagles schematics(and Kevin also says they've been writing with Gary Louris of the Jayhawks). But that stuff's just a point of departure here. So far, no problem. (Big closeups of Natalie, the main target, but the sisters look just as ready to resume.)

Roy: I meant, "please send me that CD," not "DC," sorry (must've known I was about to see the Chicks!)

>I gotta order something from the Hobo Shiner Band<

Their track on the Tritonkt comp, "Prune Waltz," is quite the drunken oompah party, and assists regularity as well! (Also I realized I left off my list of faves the version of "Cotton Eyed Joe" by the Fayetteville Flash [Lee Roy Matocha's Orchestra], though that might go without saying since I don't think I've ever heard a version of "Cotton Eyed [or Eye for that matter] Joe" I *didn't* like. Rednex's is still best, though.)

Don: Email me your address when you get a chance. Your dmoo at yahoo bounces back.

from metal thread, but applicable to the ZZ Top end of country too:

George, check out these guys: Hard-hitting bottle-fight punk-tempo metal'n'roll boogie from the Northwest, complete with yackety sax for coloring and a cover of "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" by, uh, Sonny Boy Williamson, right? Would sound great next to the Count Bishops or Sonics. Cdbaby find of the week, unless I find an ever better one:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/dirtybirds

I'm liking the Mother Truckers' *Broke, Not Broken*, too. (From Austin but with New York roots, I think. I could've sworn I saw them on cdbaby before, but a search for their name is not finding them right now, so maybe I saw them somehwere else.) Anyway, the songs the guy, Josh Zee, sings lean a little bit too much toward vaguely alt-country leaning *Workingman's Dead* mellowtude though in a perfectly palatable way (the title track, about having being short on cash, is probably his best), but the gal, Teal Collins, gives her singing a lot more life and makes it move a lot more and the music always seems to follow suit. Best tracks: "No Mercy" (the opener, which they both sing on I think) is funkgrass like a real good Donna the Buffalo track only brawnier; "Slipping Away" has her going into gospel phrasing over some piano woogie; "Northbound Trail" is Southern gospel rock; "Magic 8 Ball" is a real good one about how she didn't wind up marrying a country star or turning into Miss America like the magic 8 ball promised; "Love Me Like a Man" a bawdy bump-n-grind blues attempt that's sillier than they hope (especially the weird line about "They always want to rock me like my back ain't got no bone/I want a man to rock me like my back...bone," huh??), but once it kicks into its John Lee Hooker/Thorogood section I like it regardless. In general just a really happy, good-natured, sun-(and maybe slightly pot)-baked album.

"Love Me Like A Man" was written by a man and adapted (don't know how it compares to the original words or title) by Bonnie Raitt, on Give It Up, her second album, and still one of the best of the 70s.(Or "once again" rather than "still," since it finally got remastered a couple years ago, as remastered ears eventually required.)Just saw the Drive-By Truckers and Marty Stuart on back-to-back installments of "Music Road," a new, travelin' series on Turner South. Both in clubs, not concert halls: intimate enough, but with good damn sound, and just a little bit of talk, answering a few questions from host Edwin McCain. Truckers had a steel guitarist on all songs, many of which sounded just over the fence from, say, Dierks Bentley's"Come A Little Closer,"in terms of non-standard usage. But no Lloyd Maines-type steel raveups like on Joe Ely's Live Shots (or like the guy on some of Dylan's tours); wonder if the Truckers ever get to that? There was also one more traditional use of steel, on a goood Cooley song, about when grief's turned wife: "Past that big white light's where my spirit's gone, she's wonderin', what's takin' me so long." His voice was more dependable than Patterson's,though not too predictable: that'un was sung higher and older than I've heard him do. But not strained, like Patterson tends to (no need to go higher, PH, you're high enough). But mostly, I thought Patterson sang (or vocalized, incl some recitation) effectively. Especially on the new "World Of Hurt," on which Jason played real good electric piano. (Can't believe how much piano keeps discovering me in recent years: Jason Moran, Benny Lackner, Jessi Colter, Shooter Jennings.)First song, with everybody playing rhythm, sounded like they were turning into Feelies (in a good way). Later, PH and Jason played with members of Goat, with incisive slide from Jason, and the Goat throat bellowed great. I didn't see all of Marty's set, but it incl.(all low-tuned) slightly jazzy shuffle; the rocking-er side of honky tonk; an off-hand rockabilly murmur (Kenny Vaughn vox);, and a bunch of songs from Badlands, which fit right in musically, without losing (or overemphasizing) their points. Also, "Hobo's Prayers" ("Ah'm a circle, in a world of squares").These sets will be re-run on 4-26, as far as I know now.

Edd on Van Zandt and Kristofferson.In regard to the latter: "sings almost as good as Henry Gibson."

I've had that Dino-down-south CD for a while. it was cut in '55 and the bonus tracks like "Hominy Grits" were done in the early '50s. what really got that whole Dixieland thing going was Bill Russell's rediscovery of old-time Louisiana trumpeter Bunk Johnson, as documented in the remarkable book "Bill Russell's American Music." so it seems to me that by the time Dino recorded "Swingin' Down South" there was this idea of "music of the '20s" pretty current. there was a revival of boogie-woogie piano in the late '30s, too. anyway, it's a really listenable record, and almost as essential as "Dean Martin Live at the Sands Hotel" from '64.

has anyone heard Blaine Larsen's latest single, on the radio? I keep listening for it and so far have missed, and "The Beaver" here, local country station, always seems to lose my requests.

and, catching up here, I ended up really liking Jace Everett's album. I did a piece for the Scene in which I compared it to Radney Foster's record, and if anything I prefer Jace's. "Gold" is an amazing simulation of a classic '70s single, complete with those almost-black sexy, wheedling female backup singers. And the closer, which is about how Jace follows in the footsteps of his fathers and so forth, has some of the greatest massed guitar moves abstracted from, again, a thousand half-forgotten '70s records. Jace sings totally professional, though, which means nothing really gets thru except the sheer formalism of the whole shebang; whereas Radney sings all soulful, sort of like a cross between Dwight Yoakam and Lyle Lovett, but a little deeper, and the sound is "warmer" (Waddy Wachtel on guitar, analogous to the guitar moves on "Jace Everett). And a great Rockpile imitation, or Fabulous Thunderbirds as produced by Nick Lowe, on Rad's "Big Idea."

and I'll say that I don't know enough about teenpop these days to intelligently post there, but that I really liked about half of Jewel's new one, "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland," some ace, ace pop moves and sunk-back guitars and surprisingly mordant bridges and choruses and thangs...and two songs better than anything on Liz Phair's last one, and comparable to the best stuff on Carrie Underwood's debut. In fact, they sound similar; and Jewel oughta record something like Carrie's in N-ville, if you ask me. all I can say is, anyone who gets all excited about the jammed-together pop of something like the New Pornographers, Jewel's "Satellite" and "Only One Too" beat that stuff, you axe me. and her "country" move, "Stephenville TX," surely belongs with Carrie's "Ain't in Checotah No More" as stardom-I-love-it-I-want-a-peanut-butter-sandwich statement.

Yeah, you nailed Townes, as much as anybody can. I've known people who've known him, sort of(and it's there in the music, of course): that scale of volatility, of anger and humor and charm and distance and fatalism and depression and zombietude. Bipolar maybe. A stoical quality too, at times. But mainly he took the romantic, arty art balladeer approach further than most of the people he inspired, re out-front living like one of the characters in his songs.(Also,his songs could be better and worse than most people's.) The outsider artist as insider and vice versa: less like Howard Finster than the late 40s/early 50s, *post*-Mermaid Ave. Woody Guthrie, if he'd kept a-goin', as they say in Nashville (the movie).

Just saw Brooks & Dunn doing "Believe," on rererun of CMT Awards (the only remarkable performance so far): He's lying awake, remembering the guy, "and I don't know whether to cry or laugh," appropriately reversing the usual order of those options, cause he's almost laughng in amzement as he finds himself empathetically following/tracing the lost one's latebreaking news: discovery of affinity for those "words in red" (the ones Jesus said, denoted thus in some Bibles). There's an excitement in the song, and the performance (best Dunn vocal I've ever heard, by far). A sense of real narrative: shit happens, signifies. Not the usual barely-anecdotal chapters and/or placeholders, til the moneyshot chorus comes back.(Common to all genres, duh.)

I wrote this about the new KK single:

he new Kris Kristofferson, does the same thing, he always does--try
to find his place in the universe. Under rated as a singer, and
perhaps the best american song writer since the mid 60s (more
consistent then dylan, more lonely then merle haggard, smarter then
bruce springsteen and less sentimental then anyone else) The single
has a sing along chorus, that sounds like a pentecostal sing-a-long,
but wryly upends all of the cliches we expect of country songs about
jesus.

hes an old man now, an elder but hes always been ragged, always been
downtrodden--what does it mean when he sings this:

Am I young enough to believe in revolution
Am I strong enough to get down on my knees and pray
Am I high enough on the chain of evolution
To respect myself, and my brother and my sister
And perfect myself in my own peculiar way

Its brave, because his desire for radical change is tempered with
doubt, and he realises that to lay prostrate to the creator of the
universe is not the moral equivalent of going out for a pint with a
buddy, and he doesnt see anything wrong with admitting in evoution,
and his desire towards unity is communitarian.

the new album is smart, because it isnt a fuck you to dubya (haggard
did that with his last album), but an upbeat reflection on a minefield
of interior change.

single not album, i havent heard the album

Have you heard The Silver Tongue (or Tongued) Devil And I? Might've been his first. I liked most of the songs, though I haven't heard it since prob the mid-70s.And mostly good use of his voice, even, especially on the war-weary "Christian Soldier," dronin' 'bout "turnin' on and learnin' how to die." (Yer young, so maybe I should explain that's an ironic ref to Leary's Homefront Gospel, "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.")Also effective on the title song: voice awesomely arrhythmic, so good at swaggerin' drunk. Might've gotten him into Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, the new DVD recut of which is much better than original theatrical version, according to The New Yorker and some others.

Good Easter music, as the fronds unfold once againe: a live radio set from the Peasall Sisters, who have a new album out."Small" but ever-budding voices, forthright, hazel-and-garnett tones, genetic harmonies. Previously on the O Brother soundtrack, though I can't quite place them. Beguiling,clean-cut, the girls next door; literally, perhaps since they mention home schooling, in the present tense(The fiddler is twelve).(And O Brother was a while back.) But not insular; they sound confident about going forth upon thee land. Wonder how the album is.

Anybody else heard this Eric Church debut album? I guess it isn't out until this summer. "How about You" is an early single that's getting airplay. I really like the little I have heard so far.

haven't heard eric church. just now listening to advance of new blaine larsen, "i'm in love with a married woman." which is well-sung, a bit blah, down-tempo. "i thank god she's married to me," of course. fuck 'im.
but i like blaine, moreso when he's uptempo as on "spoken like a man" which is about guys bragging about sex, and the one guy who doesn't chime in is the good guy, "crazy about the feeling/they can set reeling when they turn out the light." ace guitar, song a bit, uh, boring. looking forward to hearing the rest of it, because he can sing.

Goodun on Ladies Of The Canyon, esp the espers you tracked down. Got the new Truckers, so just a little more on them: uneven as always, but (so far) not as much momentum as always showed up, eventually. A narrower range of variations too, or more obviously narrow, re dealing with loss etc. But still, the bulldozers are back, with a few more bulletholes letting the breeze in, just in time for spring cleaning. Should come in handy enough, for a little while longer anyway.

im liking the truckers more and more since the redneck/blueneck book

first: rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerrated (or however you spell it.)

second:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/hillbillyjones

the hillbilly jones from central illinois. expertly swinging (as in, they cover glen miller at least as well as they cover merle haggard and billy joe shaver) rhythm section; best moments are when the singing stops and they just play. "flattop guitar and sangin'" sound thin in comparison to the "doghouse bass" and "electified belly fiddle" and "drumset," though that may have more to do with low-budget production than actual musicianly ability or lack thereof. and "ridin' high" and "runaway train" do have some pub-rock boogiebilly kick, and "ready to fire" is a dark one that ends up in the middle of a sergio leone western, and "muhlenberg county"'s a good one too, and they like johnny cash more than i do, but at least the cash they seem to like most is "folson prison blues" type stuff.

(also, they look like absolute dorks on the cover, which is to their credit. i like that turkey buzzard thing; i't on the back cover and inner sleeve too, so it must be their mascot.)

There should be more country instrumentals. Seems like, bluegrass aside, 90% of it was always afterhours, and/or unreleased (right, Edd??) Such a trip just to hear that tag on Dierks' "Lot Of Leavin' Left To Do," but of course the DJs usually cut it off. Apparently he used to do a lot of extended versions, touring with Cross Canadian Ragweed (!?)Wonder if he still does, with his current band? I think the thing about DBT's A Blessing And A Curse is that those xpost bulletholes already happened offstage; "she died before I was born"--exactly! She should be dying NOW, or soon,like on their previous albums. But some good songs anyway. Something that did recently give me ghoulish thrills n chills was Rosanne Cash's recent return to "World Cafe." She didn't have Dylan's guitarist Larry Campbell (whom I think Roy mentioned haven't seen her with), but she made her dark swirliness signify: after explaining that "Black Cadillac" was about realizing once again that she never would get her road dawg Daddy from the clutches of the public,she conjured up a house on a lake, one of John's she was directed by the will to dispose of, and then she swirled it away. (Also, just when I was thinking that some of the lyrics' philosophizin' was wearing thin, she said that the discipline demanded by *music* was what got her through losing Johnny June Vivian so close together). That was only about 5/6 songs though (with upbeat "Seven Year Ache": "I feel like my daughter wrote this!") Don't know if I'd like the whole album, not at once anyway. So? Sip the winedark slowly. (Luc says that she and Rodney attended a reading once, and he made them laff! He was thrilled.)

can we talk about josh turner, i fucking loved the dark polysemy of his long back train, and the theological sophisctaction there in, and i love even more his low slung, chug-a-lug bass voice, its one of the most distinctinve voices that have come along in years--

and then your man, its fantastic, yeah the lyrics are awful, and the video for your man is kind of creepy, but when he sings your man, and goes down lower then almost anyone else, so its this meoldic, r esonant, rich, seductive, barritone, like a white boy barry white, its utterly amazing, one of the best singles of the year, for sheer skill--and the whole album is like that--hes too fucking young to be this much in control...

i was worried he would be a one hit wonder, but your man, the album and the single, may be the best thing ive heard so far this year.

I bought the Peasall Sisters LP and it's lovely. There's an endearingly hesitant kind of delicacy throughout. Most of the record consists of fairly straight folk-bluegrass heavy country, delicious harmonies on trad melodies, very nice. I suppose what makes them them is the breathy singing, whatever twang there is in their voices isn't at all strident. I can't get over how good the first song is: "Home To You" is straighter country than the others and the slight, charming clumsiness of the verses is matched gloriously by the chorus which is the prettiest noise I've heard this year.

I can imagine some of my freinds thinking the whole enterprise rather twee, but I still think twee can be a compliment, and twee country's not really something I've heard or even thought about. What twee country have I missed?

skeeter davis, email me and ill send some tracks

the cornballitude of hillbilly jones singer jon bridgewater's elvis affectations gets to me sometimes (in "ridin' high" the vocal actually is *improved* by being muffled through some studio gadget or gizmo), and though their rhythm section's splitting of the difference between swing and rockabilly has a real roll to it that they've got the chops to pull off, its underlying jive bunny and the mastermixers gone hee-haw aesethtic leaves me a little queasy. still, a pretty good album. i like how "pink cadillac" (not a bruce cover) starts out like "hot rod lincoln." too. best cuts: "ridin high," "ready to fire," "runaway train," "georgia buck on a fast train" (though when shaver did it, it didn't have "buck" in its title, right?)

has anybody else noticed the verbosity of the liner notes on the shannon brown album? i didn't, not until this morning, at least in part because i hadn't played the actual finished object much, after i'd played the advance copy so much when it arrived last thanksgiving, back when my 14-year-old kid sherman was a whole inch shorter. anyway, shannon sure does blab a lot about her songs on that inner sleeve. talks about how "good old days" is her "disco groove thing that i grew up on," and reminds her of her "mom's and dad's bar back home" where there were "no stereotypes, no rules and regulations" and "every walk of life is found there and it's OK," close to toby's "i love this bar" i guess but a far cry to the situation in her single "corn fed" where only country music gets played on the radio. and "high horses" is about inclusiveness too, so shannon's got a lot of contraditions whether she knows or not, which is not a bad thing. and though "can i get an amen," the song with BTO or Doobies riffs, talks about being born again, shannon's liner notes suggest that her main use for the word "amen!" is the equivalent of "hallelujah!" when you get out of "an unhealthy relationship." she also says in her notes to "turn to me" that "i have deep rooted alcoholism in my family, and [the song]'s about a woman being strong enough to support her man." does that mean she joins sheryl crow in frank's co-dependent rock hall of fame?

hey old news i'm sure but did anyone ever write the obvious 'kerosene/kryptonite' piece? and good to have you back xhuxkx!

You don't mean that "Kerosene" reminds you of the Spin Doctors song about Kryptonite?! Say it ain't so, so I won't think about it. Anthony, does "the dark polysemy of long back train" mean what I think it does? In the video, a pregnant girl and others in lone peril each stand on the track, but raise their arms and disappear, just as the train is about to touch them. So Salvation is like a personal Rapture? But since it's not THE Rapture, they have to reappear in the world, and go about the Lord's business, waiting for the Call for All, or their own Call to go on through the gates, regardless of what time it is for everybody else? Or this is their own personal call to Heaven?"Underlying Jive Bunny and the mastermixers Hee Haw aesthetic" gets you queasy, but that's not too far from a description of Big & Rich, is it? Maybe it's more Big Kenny solo, since you dint like his drum machine. Shannon Brown's in their Muzik Mafia, hence the commie commentary, right? Twee country: try the Kendalls, and download Ashley Monroe's "Satisfied," and check others on the Rolling Teenpop thread. Brenda Lee, maybe?

yeah, all that don, and also, how you are never sure whether the train is the dark side of god, the wrath, the machine of salvation, or whether its the devil, or whether its something else, something stranger--like how sometimes the train saves you (midnight special) and sometimes it isolates you (folsom prison) and sometimes saves (orange blossom special) and how the song is about all of those things, and its almost an unsolveable--and it all rests on his voice, cleaner, more precise, more classically beautiful then cash or ledbetter or others who like the train song...

the songs on the new album arent as good as this (but the more and more i think about it, long black train is a singualr work, and part of the canon and unrepeatable) but some songs on the new album use his voice to similar effect, the warmth and the precision about pleasure, instead of duty, but still its resoant...

i fucking love mr turner, and i wonder why he hasnt got more love

NO NOT SPIN DOCTORS BUY A RADIO YOU FREEX JESUS

ie. big boi's 'kryptonite' - as far as i can tell (playing in my head - haven't done an actual head-to-head comparison) identical hooks that work identically in the songs (ie. they are the songs), i'm not sure if the little harmonica/organ, um, counterhooks in the songs work the same way or resemble each other much worth noting and i'm pretty sure any thematic/lyrical similarities are a stretch or a coincidence.

ha ha, i thought you meant Three Doors Down (way less forgettable than the big boi version).

i thought you liked 'kerosene'!

This preview of Dylan's XM radio show is tantalizing:

www.xmradio.com/b0bdy1an_s3c
username: press1
Password: xmr0ck5!

I think Frank posted something somewhere about how this would be a great show if Chronicles guided the playlist. Not quite, but close. I wish I could afford XM.

I love "Kerosene"! I've just never noticed any similarity to any song named "Kryptonite." Which is not to say there *isn't* a similarity, and next time I hear Big Boi's one, I'll listen with "Kerosene" in mind and maybe like it more. (My copy of that mostly boring *Got Purp Vol II* comp is long gone -- it was on there, right?) Right now I'm listening to the Steeleye Span album I bought used on vinyl in Seattle two days before getting fired (*All Around My Hat*) for similarites to Montgomery Gentry, whose "If You Ever Stop Loving Me" (I think) somebody on ILM said a couple years ago reminded them of Steeleye Span, though I'm not sure why. Intriguing comparison regardless, and SS sound real good, but not like MG so far. (Though I believe I've heard this is one of their more rocking albums) (though so far it's not *that* rocking, not compared to some Fairport Convention and Horslips I've heard.)

Also it should be noted here that I actually like "Me and My Gang" off the new Rascal Flatts album -- not a Gary Glitter cover, but swamp-country sifted through Big'n'Rich hick-hop.

Your last post could be read as saying you got fired for similarities to Montgomery Gentry.

im sure he did

jesus christ xhuxk buy a radio, 'kryptonite' was all over it - anyhow same song as 'kerosene', same hook, different instrumentation. three doors down or whatever's 'kryptonite' is basically a bookend to spin doctor's 'kryptonite' too, seven years later jimmy olsen's blues pressurized from coal to diamond, limp noodlewank turned to altvedder portent (millenium approaches side-effect maybe) with common dna = blooz groan and po' pitiful male skeez narrator. tv on the radio should do a song about kryptonite to complete the trilogy.

miranda lambert came thru again and i missed her again. 14 dollars!

"po pitiful male skeez narrator": that tears any pedantic correlations, incl. basic implication of "kryptonite": Miranda aint got time for no ol comic book alibi Superman, man, man (turn around your cape's on fire). Anthony, I get the impression that Josh is one who has been doing his homework backstage. (Somebody told me he co-wrote "Pretty Paper," but he looks way too young for that).Is now stepping forth from Music Row apprenticeship, like Dolly Parton, Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley.(Must look up lyrics to Woody G.'s "Little Black Train" tomorrow.) Eddy, this the second time you've gotten fired from the Voice. Three strikes, so WATCH IT.

what d you mean doing his homework backstage don?

"Backwards" on the new Rascal Flatts album is good too. Fast and catchy, with an Eddie Rabbit style rhyme-talking section in the middle and a real clever conceit, namely that if you play a country song backwards (which sadly they don't, I don't think, but what the heck), you get your house and dog and hair and wives you lost back, ha ha. The ballads, and there are too many, seem way less bearable, though; so far the one I kind of like (or at least don't hate) is "Ellsworth," with lots of specifics about small-town Kansas life in 1948.

Also slowly exploring the two-disc, R Crumb-artworked new Yazoo comp *The Stuff Dreams are Made Of: The Dead Sea Scrolls of Record Collecting!: Super Rarities and Unisseued Gems of the 1920s and 1930s.* Quite a hodgepodge, united as the title suggests not by genre but merely by how hard the records are to find, never a good sign, but I'm liking pretty much all of it regardless and loving lots of it, including tracks by Dock Boggs, Andrew & Jim Baxter, Ollis Martinn, the Three Stripped Gears, and especially Wilmer Watts and the Lonely Eagles. Those are all on disc 1; haven't touched disc 2 yet.

Judging by their names,The Lonely Eagles c'est moi (ditto the Three Stripped Gears). R.Crumb did a really funny scarey comic feature in the New Yorker recently, about him and Aline visiting their daughter in Manhattan. It sure looked real.One of daughter's neighbors is a girl tattooed blue, all up and down one side of her shaved crown and face and neck. R "But, do you have trouble getting a job?" Daughter: "Oh, DAD!" She could join the Blue Man Group, if she keeps getting tattooed; she's sure the right shade of blue. Later, they're walking down the street, and he's getting hungry, and spots an Entremann's pastry box. So he opens it up, "It's full of human shit!" But overall, the visit seemed go fairly well, as these things go. Anthony, I just meant, from what little I've read about Josh Turner, he's worked in the biz, getting ready to be a full-time performer, like those others did. Here's the song I was thinking of:
The Little Black Train
There's a little black train a comin
Set your business right
There's a little black train a comin
And it may be here tonight
Go tell that ball room lady
All dressed in the worldly pride
That death's dark train is coming
Prepare to take a ride
God said to Hezkiah
A message from on high
You better set your house in order
For you must surely die
He turned to the wall in weeping
We see and hear his tears
He got his business fixed all right
God spared him fifteen years
We see that train with engine
And one small baggage car
Your idle thoughts and wicked deeds
Will stop at the judgement bar
That poor young man in darkness
Cares not for the gospel light
Til suddenly he hears the whistle blow
And the little black train in sight
Have mercy on me Lord
Please come and set me right
Before he got his business fixed
The train rolled in that night.

So okay, here are some show preview listings that I wrote for my former publication of employment in the past seven years that for some reason never ran (longer explanation on metal thread. Okay not that much longer.) I may or may not agree with these now. (also, most of them are more folkie than country I guess, but there is no rolling folk thread):

ALINA SIMONE --- Passive-aggressive, apparently humorless art-song emoting, from a gloomy gal born in the Ukraine who grew up in Massachusetts and decorates her EP’s five songs with lap steel, violin, and farfisa parts.

SUGARPINE -- Brooklyn alt-country, probably rock enough for Drive-By Truckers or Bottle Rockets fans, if not Montgomery Gentry or Lynyrd Skynyrd fans. Singing's a bit bland, and sadly "Effigy" is not a Creedence cover. But in the early '80s, they would've been called cowpunk, lumped with Rank and File or Jason & the Scorchers. And "Manhattan Special" even sounds kinda funky at first.

REV. HORTON HEAT -- This Texas retrobilly guitar vet, who quite possibly peaked with his charbroiled Subpop *Smoke 'Em If You Got *Em* way back in 1991, celebrates his new Christmas CD, which doesn't sound half as raunchy as you'd hope.

ELIZABETH COOK -- This photogenic Florida-born second-generation retro-country hopeful has predictable smidgens of Loretta and Dolly in her inflections, but, on *This Side on the Moon*, not much memorable in her words or tunes. A poppier producer would help.

BRIAN KEANE --- Despite going shirtless on his CD cover, Brian has the commendable distinction of being a local singer-songster who is not hard to take, thanks in part to his sense of rhythm. His sound has blues, soul, and Latin in it, albiet via Paul Simon and Jackson Browne and Counting Crows. And he knows Mexico and small towns can be good subject matter.

JESS MCAVOY -- At first the first song on this Aussie bird's CD seemed to say "You could arrange your world to consist of Opening Day," and I thought, "cool, a song about a boyfriend who likes baseball too much!" But nope, the lyric sheet says "opening doors," oh well. And her sometimes-slightly-cello-and-trumpet-jazzed folk-trope unspecifics continue from there.

NORFOLK AND WESTERN -- This Oregon boy and girl call their album *Dusk in Cold Parlours,* but manage to scare more life out of their apparent Leonard Cohen and John Cale and Appalachia and minimalism influences than most indie drone-folkies.

RON SUNSHINE -- Cornball-not-entirely-on-purpose NY (ten-piece-) swingbandleader who seems to miss the annoying jump-blues revival from a few years ago. He's recorded with the P-Funk horns, and croons about drugs and abominable snowmen.

LEAH CALLAHAN -- Former indie-rock grrrl goes the smokey-room jazz-cabaret lounge-revival-all-over-again shtick route.

CHRISTOPHER JAK -- This young strummer, who began in Jersey then spent time in Colorado before landing in these parts, covers Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" and sings both verses and stanzas about his unbelievably deep feelings

MARLY'S ANGELS -- You'd think the Carole King comparisons plus Steely Dan comparisons plus Norah Jones comparisons plus that beret on her head might add up to Rickie Lee Jones, but local writer-warbler-pianist Marlys Hornick just ain't crazy-funky-beatnik enough for that. Sincerity with jazz changes; should hire a saxophone player.

THE TYDE -- The debut CD, *Once*, by these shambling and jangling crystal-canyon Los Angelenos (some of 'em moonlighting members of Beachwood Sparks) was named 44th best album of 2001 by morons at *NME.* Their new CD is called *Twice* (get it?), and is quite twee. Though "Henry V111" is oddly not a Herman and the Hermits cover.

OK, in the spirit of Chuck's post, here's a brief take on someone I'd considered pitching him (and might still pitch to his former employer):

REVEREND GLASSEYE Our Lady of the Broken Spine: Way way better than its satirical title and campy drama-club intro vocals led me to expect. Which doesn't make this super amazing, given the lowness of the expectations and given that the campiness is basically a cover for a voice that has no other way to achieve extravagance. Nonetheless, this is passionate music, drenched in Mexican horns that have been colored with Romanian (or some such) density. Country & (spaghetti) western guitar boogie is a frequent spice.

That's the right length, but you gotta have quotes. ("Frequent Spice is a gas to work with," laughs Tom Glasseye.)

more R. Crumb: saw Marley's Ghost do a short, 6-song set at Douglas Corner last night--Americana Tonite radio broadcast with 3 other performers, all forgettable (first solo singer, Diana Something, had a nice catch in her voice and finished off one song, "He Called Me Pony" I think, with Native American humming of some kind or another) except Marley. I find their latest "Spooked" pretty fine--especially the original tunes like "Ballad of Johnny Hallyday," which they did. They have a drummer who plays drums and keyboards, at the same time! Their vocal blend was nicely idiosyncratic, they use pedal steel in a totally non-doctrinaire way, and their version of Paul Kennerley's "High Walls" is one of the great I-ain't-going-to-prison songs. And they look appealingly motley: Ed, the pedal-steel player (he runs the studio, Sage Arts, in Washington State, and was telling me about all this amazing vintage tube mixing board they have now, and had all their previous 7 CDs along with various solo efforts for sale) is bald, thin, intense and wore a green do-rag during the performance; one is hulking and completely bald and very friendly-looking, one is "normal" with glasses, etc. It's clear that neo-folkieism has gone into areas previously unexplored. I hope they make a go of promoting this record (they sold no CDs last night, not the venue for it, since things move quickly for radio and there were only 25 people there anyway), since Ryko is distributing and they have Van Dyke Parks as producer, Crumb cover art, guest appearances on the record by the great bassist Buell Niedlinger and Bill Frisell...

they dedicated one song to Jack Clement, who came in to catch their set and sat next to us. I went up and shook Mr. Clement's hand, too, after they were through.

I saw Clement play last year, which I really enjoyed.

yeah, he did a good set on Woodsongs, which is often (not always!) a real good Public Radio concert show, if you can get used to the host's own opening numbers (only one song per show; he doesn't make the guests duet with him, unlike Garrison Kellior). Eh, Edd, xxhuxx and I were unable to groove with Marley's lead singer for long, despite many good songs, and I don't think I would've noticed the presence of those big names if they weren't listed. (Codger singer didn't inprove my own aging alertness.)But maybe they'll turn up on a live show,and that might work better. Finally unearthed the Maybelles' press package, and their White Trash Jenny is tray fetching.(Not that they'd be likely to fetch me a tray, or if they did, might well be more than I bargained for). Despite title, not kitschy at all, though lots of sly fun. And "Twin Cousins" certainly related to the truth about (at least) one branch of my own hillbient family tree. (It's not as much cousins, at least not at first, but starts like Number One Son of Family A marries Number Three Daughter of Family B, whose big brother then marries Number One Daughter of Family B,etc. etc., and the cousins of As and cousins of Bs may also factor in.)Personal-is-poitical themes meld with older-seeming story songs, love songs, etc. As with garage-glam etc., my fave Appalachoids these days seem to have mostly female voices: Uncle Earl, Polecat Creek, Michelle Nixon & Drive, Peasall Sisters, Freakwater, Mollys when they were in the mode (I've mentioned all these on this and/or prev Rolling Countries).Mostly string band, with room for Coy Dog's "slide guitar and hillbilly guitar," and Mike West's banjo, mandolin, and bandjola;but also,Track 9 features ripple-woogie (a bit quieter than boogie-woogie)piano; and trumpet that's so limber I keep thinking it's trombone. The former has a Trailer Bride feel.(As in the TB song with the line, "She used to be real smart!" But this doesn't have that anxiety.)"Walkin' Blues," with Warren Byrom's trumpet, is a bit like "Walkin' After Midnight," but not too much, and is also like one of Lil Mo and the Monicats' better tracks.(Lil Mo can be too cutesy, unlike the Maybelles.) So xhuxx, I saw how to contact Jan Bell, but what's Melissa Carper up to these days? Oh yeah, speaking of non-standard steel guitar, Turner South's Music Road is rerunning those xpost Truckers and Marty Stuart sets tonight, an hour each, back to back, 7-9 (Central Standard Time, that is).

Dang, that's what I get for depending on the Truckers' email-herald. First hour is actually Paul Thorn, who wrote Sawyer Brown's "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand, " and has been getting better as a performer. (I mentioned his spooky live "Mood Ring" upthread.) Now he's got the best band I've heard him with: a buzzy grunty shuffle for openers, and then a Steely Feat: "I didn't sleep with your wife, we stayed awake all night, she was calling you name, Joe, while I was holdin' her tight." Joe being a guy in the sudience whom he just met; fortunately, his wife is a good sport, unlike in the song, it might seem, but then it sounds like her calling Joe's name was part of the turnon for Paul. Fixing to have special guest Elvin Bishop, later "Devil McClinton."(Maybe the second set's the actual rerun from last week? Hope it's Marty's, I missed some of that.)