Thread for Lydia Loveless, Country-Rock Lady I Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDq1_rnJVE4

a little loretta, a little exene, a little westerberg overall imo

big fan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeaxL3KzZV4

happy birthday to Lydia Lunch!

hell of a voice, good lookin out hoos

Found out about her through a baseball podcast of all places last year. Especially love "Can't Change Me".

digging the new one - although I'm not sure how memorable this music really is

the new one is good!

for one second i misread it as Lydia Lunch on spotify and i was like damn new direction!

Maybe the Lydias will get together; could imagine a real good record (Together Again, or Reunited, or Let It; something like that).
I usually stick to links, but here's some freshly rescued blog-bait,fed to http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com: LL featurette and shorter preview; can skip to the latter re the gist of her appeal:

Just noticed that the place where this was first published has once again re-launched, once again sans most of its archives, at least those from 2011. Lydia Loveless has a new album out; more on that later, but here's some backstory (if Local Pop Radio's podcasts are still up---can also try it via patradio---they're a great trove of OH punk and other indie through the aeons):

LYDIA LOVELESS BRINGS THE PUNKY TONK TRUTH

By Don Allred for 4-18/19-2011

The living legend of Lydia Loveless began with the 2004 birth of her punk-inflected family new wave band, Carson Drew. Which is also the name of intrepid tween-lit girl detective Nancy Drew’s invaluable lawyer-father. So, the band’s name could be considered a salute to the then-14-year-old Loveless and her sisters’ own drumming dad, Parker Chandler. But, as their blog proclaimed, they were all “Carson Drew, Attorneys At Large”---ready to rock the halls of justice. Soon after the 2006 release of their album, “Under The Table”, Carson Drew imploded, and the country-bred Loveless reached for her heretofore-spurned roots. She wrote her first songs, busting the male malefactors of Columbus Babylon.

A still-available “Local Pop Radio Hour” podcast finds Loveless’s rhythm guitar and Chandler’s drums nailing a whirlwind of unanswered questions to a no-frills, every-night waltz. “Miller High Life” cross-examines the narrator, her man, her God, and even the “champagne of beers”, with a relentlessly spare clarity. This makes Loveless’s more typically cascading up-tempo testimonials seem like blessedly tempestuous vacation fare. Her characters were born to struggle, and they thrive on the noise-meets-poise of her 2010 solo debut album, “The Only Man.” Its independent producers excluded Chandler’s drums, among several other Nashville-associated decisions, but they were true venture capitalists, committed to finding new focus for Loveless’s jolting jukebox visions. Columbus-based Peloton Records’ Steve McGann released the album, then teamed Loveless and Chandler with equally seasoned lead guitarist Todd May and bassist Ben Lamb. McGann’s direction led them to Bloodshot, the pioneering record label of volatile Americana.

Loveless, now 20, is producing her Bloodshot album, “Indestructible Machine”----an appropriate title, judging by advance tracks. In writing them, she said, “I generally come up with a line that won't let me be. If a song wants to be written, it will get written.” The song’s gestation can take months, as Loveless tosses a bundle of inspiration to her band and audience, checking their responses. Then again, Loveless wrote several songs the night before her new album’s sessions began. “It was nerve-wracking but fun,” she reported. Another creation suddenly materialized at a Rock Potluck jam. “ I wanted to be good that day, and my fear made a song come out of me. I'm pretty proud of it.”

This show will feature “mostly new songs”, plus cover versions, probably including Goldfinger’s “Without Me” and CCR’s “Someday Never Comes.” Steve McGann also reminded us, “She almost always does ‘Miller High Life’ live.”

Lydia Loveless will be performing with supporting acts JKutchma and Joe Fletcher & The Wrong Reasons at the Rumba Cafe on Thursday, April 21.The doors open at 9 p.m. $6 all audiences. For more information, please visit www.pelotonrecords.com or www.columbusrumbacafe.com.
In a nutshell, from 2010 preview & Nashville Scene ballot comments)
Veteran Columbus OH teen Lydia Loveless sometimes includes the
Replacements' intensely frustrated "Answering Machine" and Def
Leppard's dynamically mesmerized "Hysteria" with her punky tonk combos
deliveries, unstoppably tumbling up, down and onto life's thrilling,
killing, chilling and flat moments. Loretta Lynn's points of departure
are extended and twisted through Loveless' compactly epic,
self-written debut, The Only Man, as desperately wired sexual power
struggles zap the void in passing: "Girls suck/They suck and suck and
never get enough," wails one contender, but it's time to ricochet off
another incisive epitaph.

this album is terrific. WINE LIPS, imo, is the highlight of a very strong set of songs/performances.

Album is really good. One of the best of its kind, whatever that is, since the s/t Lucinda Williams. Or at least of a kind with that one.

Actually, maybe I'm getting Patty Griffin "Flaming Red" vibes from this?

since I posted up there on March 1, I've decided this is my favorite record of 2014 so far, which shocks the hell out of me

Every time I play this it's like "damn, why don't I play this all the time?" Appreciate the reminder.

Head is such a killer track. The cover at the end is great. There's basically one song on the whole album I don't love, and I don't even skip that one

"Wine Lips," "Head," "Verlaine Shot Rimbaud" make a heck of a trilogy. The one about the farm kills too; pretty much true-to-life, apparently (but if they hadn't had to sell it, her Dad might not have time to be her drummer, or not such a kickass one)

Yeah, this is absolutely great.

Not convinced it's better than Indestructible Machine yet, but there's clear growth/refinement. I've never gotten Lucinda or Patty vibes from Lydia--more just general Bloodshot vibes.

Definitely: solo and various combinations of Kelly Hogan, pre-New P. Neko, Carolyn Mark; also, in days of old, bands led by or featuring crucial female presences, like Trailer Bride, Moonshine Willie, The Meat Purveyors, The Mekons, for that matter (Plus others, mostly all-guy acts, I didn't follow as closely, like Split Lip Rayfield, Waco Brothers, Deadstring Brothers, Ha Ha Tonka, Robbie Fulks).

All Bloodshot! Or Bloodshot-distributed, like Carolyn Mark's albums on Canadian label Minty Fresh.

Deadstring Bros. are the best of the group of acts you "didn't follow as closely" that I know (not familiar with Split Lip Rayfield), but they're all basically in the lineage of The Mekons --> Uncle Tupelo --> A.M.-era Wilco. Certainly not earth-shattering, but Starving Winter Report is worth a listen.

See also: Nora O'Connor, Old 97s, Lone Justice.

Basically the personnel list for:

https://www.bloodshotrecords.com/files/styles/album-image/public/album-images/album_main_bs077.jpg?itok=jYvSuBIV

I picked this one up yesterday. Lots of terrific songs on here... especially feeling "Everything's Gone".

Speaking of Old 97s, she's doing a show with them in Columbus tomorrow evening; local station will stream: www.wcbe.org/listen! Dunno when it starts, exactly; promoter's site says "Doors Open 7:00 PM." That's Eastern Standard Time yall (note to Central self).

Corrected link: http://wcbe.org/listen

They're touring together. Saw photos of their DC gig but didn't make it myself.

new Old 97s album is approximately 74 bazillion times better than I would've expected it to be, ftr

Looks like they are not going to stream it, at least not now---I misunderstood the excited post on the station site. Shit, sorry.

saw her last night in a tiny packed club

amazing, obv

pre-set music was the entirety of the mats 'let it be' which

if i weren't already smitten

More details plz!

played a solid hour with stuff from all 3 records, roaring 3 guitar attack on the loud stuff and didn't miss a high note

mainly played a telecaster, which surprised me

surprised that it was a mostly middle aged crowd, but i guess she's doing kind of classic-rock-vibe stuff

saw her last night in a tiny packed club

amazing, obv

Yes! I saw her on a whim when I was in Louisville a few weeks ago, having never really listened to her before. Impressive. Did not know until I looked it up later that she's married to the bassist:
http://www.columbusalive.com/content/graphics/2014/02/26/ca-m-lydialoveless-10.jpg

they write a lot together too apparently

Washington Post freelancer liked her best at that gig without the band

Probably the most auspicious thing that happened to Loveless on Wednesday was when she popped a string on her electric guitar. Thereafter she played an acoustic guitar, allowing her vocals to float higher to the sonic surface.

For the final trio of songs, she performed alone. “Everything’s Gone” and “I Don’t Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)” were simply heartbreaking.

The clutter was cut away. And the point was made very clear. Loveless may never figure out what or whom she wants, or why, but in her own hands and voice, she’s got everything she needs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/lydia-loveless-deconstructing-country-rock-with-a-healthy-dose-of-frustration/2014/09/25/be3821a0-44db-11e4-8042-aaff1640082e_story.html

So glad she finally redeemed herself in that guy's eyes---and ears!

Just discovered her thanks to this thread, I love her! Thanks ILM!

Oh honey let me melt in your mouth tonight
Let me hold you in my palm like a prize tonight

She's great.

Last leg of the Somewhere Else tour: back to Skully's in Columbus on Friday, with another young Bloodshot turk: Cory Branan, whose new No-Hit Wonder incl. input from Isbell, Craig Finn etc. Can't cover it, but those currently better supplied w weed, whites and wine might be ready for the drive, before she goes away for a while:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1625543074336871/

i do like that cory branan

Lydia Loveless ‏@lydia_loveless

"So you are very straightforward and sing about sex. That's very manly."

Alfred on Lydia (and Jesse Ware, who seems pretty promising)
http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/jessie-ware-lydia-loveless/ Note re his mention of Westerberg, she's been covering Replacements, often as encores, from way back.

Kinda like her but she reminds me of the Hold Steady of all people, including crap production and mixing. I'm guessing she's much better live than on record.

Sure, sounds just like Craig Finn. Meanwhile (this is educational, at least for me):

Lydia Loveless ‏@lydia_loveless

That awkward moment when a guy tries to hit on you as you're on your way to take a period poop #reallife

hahaha

Don't get the Hold Steady comparison either, but I agree the mixing/engineering could be 10x better. One of my favorite songs on the album is the "Everything's Gone," which is almost entirely her voice and acoustic guitar. It's a beautiful, gripping song, yet every time I listen to it, I can't help but think, "This acoustic guitar sounds like complete shit, and it sounds like she's singing in a barn."

Ie, classic Bloodshot.

Unusually I pretty much disagree completely with Alf's review : 'Verlaine Shot Rimbaud' may be my favourite song of the year - the (rive) gaucherie of the conceit is totally redeemed by the way she sings "Just wanna know that I'm the one that makes you write that *shit*". But she totally flubs the post-pause "bay-bee" in 'They Don't Know'. Had to fill in an albums of the year poll last week and made this my no.2 - thinking now it should have been my no.1

it was my #1 for a lot of the year, not sure if it's gonna end up there or get knocked down a peg or two, but definitely top 5

post-pause "bay-bee" is definitely not perfect, but it's cute that way

Real has slowly become my favorite

Taking pre-orders, her first self-release, Sept. 25 (she recently tweeted pic of a cake her friend made, with this cover art https://lydialoveless.bandcamp.com/album/daughter

New one's her best.

oooh thanks!

i hope that's true but there's no way it's better than Somewhere Else

will report back if i am proven wrong

The title track is a particular stunner.

oh so this is just a re-release of the Boy Crazy EP and a handful of singles & bsides? the Boy Crazy EP is indeed fantastic. not sure I'm familiar with these other tunes in the second half. Wouldn't really compare this to her proper albums (Somewhere Else is my favorite, too).

https://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/boy-crazy-singles

No, it's a whole new album of originals:

https://lydialoveless.bandcamp.com/album/daughter

lol I was so confused. Alfred way ahead as usual. Very excited for this one!

Yeah, and Boy Crazy + Single(s) is good too. Before I forget, the xpost doc is on nicely priced DVD (and Prime stream) here*, with lots of pleased purchaser reviews:
https://www.amazon.com/Lydia-Loveless-Who/dp/B074QVPDPQ/ref=sr_1_4?crid=34ORI9S6140VV&dchild=1&keywords=lydia+loveless&qid=1601053495&s=music&sprefix=Lydia+%2Cpopular%2C186&sr=1-4

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81WZHdqs81L._SL1200_.jpg

*(also a sep listing for vinyl soundtrack)

"September" is gorgeous

So the new one returns to her consistently Columbus-to-Chicago urban country jangle, though now all in the searching, introspective singer-songwriter mode, though certainly more concisely compressed, candidly judicious than most such albums; she's not letting fly like "Idiot Wind" and bridge-barn-burning Natalie Maines. She's past that, going deeper/further/along in this remarkably shitty, damaged and damaging time, having apparently broken with her mate and Bloodshot too:
In a second floor apartment
The heat does rise
It’s a sensory bombardment
Sweat and tears in your eyes

Well isn’t this what everybody does
Go out on their own
I was the one who wanted more
Now I’m just sitting at home
---but even the most developmental tracks, incl. the strongest ones, "Daughter"
There’s never been a better time to be alive
The arms of opportunity are spread wide
I wanna be a part of you but it’s not enough
If I gave you a daughter would you open up

Oh to be like Mary full of grace
You’d be worshipping my body and my brain
Cuz I know you never take me at my word
It’s always something you’ve already heard
Why can’t I show you this side of me
And prove to you who I could be

There’s never been a better time to be a wife
I wanna show you something you can’t memorize---and the equally eerie finale, "Don't Bother Mountain," so far seem anchored tp Phil Collins-recalling drum atmospheres, though with her own deft production touches, and gray Morning After sources: no bad tracks, but I miss the headbanging sweat-it-out breakthroughs of yore---some wailing on "September," and her voice is strong, committed, all through, but overall effect so far a bit frustrating. I hope there will be more remixes.

Words can be amazing, music not as much.

It's all pretty slow, is what I mean.

Too cautious.

But I'll keep listening, prob get more involved in details, to some extent.

"Never" -- fabulous.

Yeah, the new one is really good.

This is the first year in ... years that I have not been able to keep up with all the good records I don't just think I need to hear but *want* to hear.

My first impression based on yesterday's afternoon listen is that her voice is too mix forward or something and kind of overpowers the rest of everything in a not great way. It's like a wet blanket.

First time through and agree with much of what's been said. I'm listening on shure iems and there are a few tunes, most notably "Can't Think," that sound super muddy beneath her vocals (somehow made even worse by some studio tricks in the last twenty seconds?). New producer/mixer appears to have done all the Jeff Tweedy associated production for the last decade, so surprised (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/tom-schick-mn0000934331). I thought the Bloodshot "sound" suited her well.

On the songwriting side, I like the second half more than the first. Side A has some downtempo tunes that lack the emotional gut punch of an "Everything's Gone." Side B has:
- "Never" - successful marriage of heartland rock and synth pop
- "When You're Gone" - really interesting structure without a clearly defined chorus (?) but still feels like a sing a long
- "September" - piano and cello ballad with some call and response help from Laura Jane Grace that works

All that to say, very hard to imagine Somewhere Else ever being impeached as my favorite of hers.

I will fall asleep and have fewer nightmares of death once I know that a Killer Psychiatrist is tucked away safely in a mental institution and led to believe he works there.

LL copes with late night-on-tour-to-quarantine anxieties via old faithful Lifetime:
https://www.nodepression.com/spotlight-lydia-loveless-on-leaning-into-lifetime-movies/?mc_cid=6035ce295f&mc_eid=b850f832a1

Might not have helped with the album though.

Enjoyed your review Alfred

Just skimmed this thread enough to be intrigued and really liking her stuff so thanks all.

Thank, ums!

Yeah. Wish I heard it more that way, maybe eventually.

okay now I do, should have stood by, as the President requests, and listened some more before maiden post. Helps that I came back to it after bandcamp streaming Boots 02: The Lost Songs Vol.2, by Gillian Welch, who is much closer, or more obviously (to this simple male mind) close to being a full-time inhabitant of this guarded, weathered truck garden of love and regret, the one with no-frills flights on a leash (and both artists' current sets sport fine September ramblin' bridge songs), but now I get that Loveless is more confrontational, just as intimate, but in a clinch, noting the marks she's leaving and has and will leave---and though, no "headbanging sweatbox catharis" as I prev. missed these flights do achieve liftoff into that LL narrative momentum:
I can’t believe the worst kinds of people achieve
Everything they want
But it takes medication to get me off

So sick and tired of living in a rut

Love is not enough
I wonder if it ever was
I shouldn’t have to bleed you dry to fill me up
Not that she's letting him off the hook---ooo, always wanting her tp provide a little "sun," like,"Smile more often, " like the Bossman say---and the way she gets from opening with:
What is my body worth to you
Without your blood in it
to closing time:
If I gave you a daughter would you open up,
and all points in between, as ZZ Top would put it, via LL wide-awake dream logic, relentlessly articulate---is true grit poetry, LL as hell, incl. Loretta Lynn talking points.
And seems more like To Be Continued than total closer (she's tweeted something about pregnancy).
The music, as written, arranges and performed-inhabited, now carries me through the words much more than on first listen, and the last track's dark groove, pushing on falling back pushing on, also seems like something To Be Continued---still hoping for more remixes, for one thing.

Tangential to Loveless, but I had no idea the extent of this mess:

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/bloodshot-records-nan-warshaw-rob-miller-royalties-sale/Content?oid=84834310

ugh

Forgot about all that for a little bit

Warshaw’s excuse for not doing anything about her partner’s harassment is pathetic.

Yeah this is revealing:

Nearly two years before Loveless's post, she says, Miller told her "out of nowhere" that a female Bloodshot artist had confided in him that Panick was sexually harassing her. He didn't initially name the artist or get into specifics about Panick's misdeeds. Warshaw says those omissions left her powerless to rectify the situation and set her up to appear unsympathetic...

He adds that Warshaw should've known the allegations he'd originally shared involved Loveless. "I said it was an artist at our South by Southwest showcase that year," he explains. "Lydia was, that year, the only female artist. I assumed, falsely, that Nan could extrapolate that I didn't mean that the Waco Brothers were being harassed."

Stiener says that Loveless had only recouped $2,000 after three albums

@lydia_loveless
This is super corny, but I had a dream last night me and the band were on tour with DBT. It was one of those I am sad that isn’t real/sort of keeping me positive today dreams. I hope one day we can actually live real life again.
5:30 PM · Jan 31, 2021

@lydia_loveless
Also I wish I could say I am using this time to write the album of my dreams and be there for people, I’m actually consuming art and making it in a way that is equivalent to standing in front of the fridge naked and blasting reddiwhip into your mouth. I am not ok. But will be.

Lydia Loveless
@lydia_loveless
I’m currently at a school for audio engineering surrounded by people ten years younger than me and I’m amazed thinking about all the older people trying to bang me at that age. Please let young adults be young adults they are the future

Lydia Loveless
@lydia_loveless
Just got divorced and now have reached the age where all my peers are getting Christmas engaged lol
7:46 PM · Dec 26, 2021

Every time she tweets about her divorce there's a mob of reply guys.

Lydia Loveless
@lydia_loveless
I’ve been really hard on myself my entire life and it hasn’t really done me that much good. There was a decade or so where flogging myself internally furthered my career but now I’m just thinking maybe gentleness is what I need. New ye201ar more oily mental masturbation is my mantra
8:28 PM · Dec 31, 2021
210 likes
Lydia Loveless
@lydia_loveless
Just lubing up my sore brain and easing back from the ol socials and will see you when I’m a big sexy oil can again.
8:30 PM · Dec 31, 2021
112 likes

@lydia_loveless
This is super corny, but I had a dream last night me and the band were on tour with DBT. It was one of those I am sad that isn’t real/sort of keeping me positive today dreams. I hope one day we can actually live real life again.
5:30 PM · Jan 31, 2021

Welp

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS LIVE 2022
* with special guest Lydia Loveless
APRIL
12 - Ponte Vedra, FL - Ponte Vedra Concert Hall *
14 - Augusta, GA - Imperial Theatre *
15 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl Nashville *
16 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl Nashville *
18 - Lexington, KY - The Burl (Outdoors) *
20 - Ashland, KY - Paramount Arts Center *
21 - Harrisburg, PA - Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center *
22 - Syracuse, NY - Westcott Theater *
23 - Ottawa, ON - Bronson Centre *
24 - Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall *
26 - Burlington, VT - Higher Ground *
28 - Boston, MA Royale *
29 - Asbury Park, NJ - Stone Pony *
30 - Philadelphia, PA - Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia *

MAY
1 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle *

Saw them play a set of mostly new solo/acoustic/fierce unabashedly queer songs. No idea if the songs will be recorded that way, but they really worked, going ina new direction from what I’d heard before.

Turns out one song I thought was new was from 2014: “Mile High.”

did yall see this:
https://pitchfork.com/news/lydia-loveless-announces-album-shares-video-for-new-song-toothless-watch/

that's great! very classic lydia loveless soaring chorus

Indeed! Looking forward.

been listening to the new one a lot, love it, never could get my arms around the last album

another new one from the upcoming album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unm3vH9kwW8

Digging the new one right now...