Rolling Country 2010

My ears don't tell me when a record's been compressed, though I suppose if I had training I could figure it out (e.g., not a lot of quiet spots). But if modern recorded music is awash in compression, I must be able to handle it, since I like a lot of modern music. Xgau complained about the "compressed-to-oppress production regimen" on Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway, an album whose sound I have zero problems with. Supposedly, Iggy's production botch on the late '90s remix of Raw Power is all compressed and scrunched-up into an oppressive loudness, but my problem with the album is that Iggy took the bounce and flow out of the bass etc., killed the rhythm, and (in my ignorance) I assume the problem is in what he did with the eq, trying to punch up every instrument separately. That's just a guess. (Xgau on the other hand was fine with that remix.) My problem with Revolution, on the tracks that disappoint me, is the songwriting. Of course, the compression may influence my ears, may make me like the music less than I would had the track not been compressed. Or may make me like the music more than if it had not been compressed. I wouldn't know. I sure hope compression isn't mandatory these days, but I don't have a clue when or if it's a drawback or advantage.

that jace everett's pretty nice. wonder what the last big rockabilly album to make noise on the country charts was. got a friend that's been getting some momentum on the east coast with the rockabilly thing but it seems like a limited market... a lot of small, blue collar towns in WVA, MD, and PA.

Holy moly, just listened to the stream of Mellen's new album, not nec expecting that much,but past the first couple tracks, things got amazing pretty quickly. Track 3 def conjures with the fiddle, which I just realized may not be on many other tracks, but by the same token, it really is the overall vibe, as advertised--plus the songwriting. "A Graceful Fall", despite its fancy title, is a genuwine honky tonk classic; could def see it on Merle's next set, with any luck. And "No One Cares For Me At All" ("If I had to guess/It's cawse I'm spotty at best") totally gets that side of Hank, and his studies of Jimmie and Woody have paid off as well. "Love At First Sight" could be the pappy of Paisley's excellent "Me Neither", albeit with a twist in the last line; ditto the parting spark of "Easter Eve", to say the least. And Coug Age catchiness isn't off the map either (reminds me that, just as we might not know or care about musical differences between 1830s and 18880s, many now living are likewise 1930s & 1980s, or soon enough will be--and indeed, long as it works) Oh yeah, here's the stream, though you might have to turn it up:
http://www.spinner.com/new-release#/8

Crap, should a plural http://www.spinner.com/new-releases#/8

My problem with Revolution, on the tracks that disappoint me, is the songwriting. Of course, the compression may influence my ears, may make me like the music less than I would had the track not been compressed. Or may make me like the music more than if it had not been compressed. I wouldn't know. I sure hope compression isn't mandatory these days, but I don't have a clue when or if it's a drawback or advantage.

Yeah, I'd been thinking the same thing. The difference between the tracks on that album that I like and the ones I don't like doesn't seem to be production, and I haven't noticed a major "loudness" difference between the tracks I like on Revolution and the ones I like on the first two albums (which I much prefer, for other reasons.) Also don't hear where everything-loud-at-once does damage to the Lee Brice album; again, there are songs I love and songs I don't, and it's not like the ones I love are less "loud" (if anything, the opposite, though that's more the nature of performances than production.) By the way, unlike Frank and George, I can't swear I prefer the more overwhelmingly rocking live Brice tracks linked above from youtube to the versions on the album, if only because, through lousy laptop speakers, those live tracks are so much less pleasant for me to hear. I get how there's more going on with the band in them, but still wouldn't say I'd rather listen to them than studio versions, which tend to rock tough already to my ears.

Singles Jukers on Brad Paisley's "Water":

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2674

Hope I got the gist of George's Paisley complaints more or less right. (Maybe should have tossed in something about how so many rural Southern areas still lack broadband, now that I think of it. None of which has much to do with this particular song, either way.)

Our most rural AL counties just got some new grants sepa for that, but we'll see what the new Congress has to say. Xhux, say goodbye to bad computer speakers! Get like Maxell headphones, the gray ones with black foam, that cover your whole ear, getum at the the drug store. Or Sony or Koss, long as they cost like $17-20 or so, that's enough, they helped me so much! (not a paid endorsement).

cover your whole ear

You lost me there, Don. I've never met a headphone or earbud that I've liked, at least at home. (Did use them when I used to DJ, though.) Anyway, I'm sure there are other options to solve my bad computer sound quality problems, but I'm cheap, lazy, and lacking anything like an audiophile gene. And even beyond all that, "hearing" what's going on underneath all the crowd and other noise in live youtube clips (sometimes even live albums, if they're real ones) at least as often as not strikes me as theoretical, at best.

that jace everett's pretty nice. wonder what the last big rockabilly album to make noise on the country charts was

Looks like Joe Ely never got higher than #57 (Live At Liberty Lunch, 1990); weird, because I'd been under the impression that Honky Tonk Masquerade was an actual hit. That one didn't chart at all; neither did his more rockabilly Musta Notta Gotta Lotta a couple years later. Do any Gary Stewart albums count? (Everett's albums, the new one inclued, don't seem to have charted in the U.S., country or otherwise, either, though his 2005 single "That's The Kind Of Love I'm In" got to #51 country. Anybody heard his second one, Old New Borrowed Blues, from 2008? I need to track that down.) Anyway, maybe there's somebody else obvious were not thinking of. Guys like Dwight Yoakam and Gary Allan probably have had at least traces of rockabilly on their records, right? And Juice Newton had a #14 country single with her cover of Dave Edmunds's "Queen Of Hearts" in 1981, so at least there's that.

Hope I got the gist of George's Paisley complaints more or less right

Yep. Clueless upper class delight at consumer electronics and the services society, just as Wall Street was wrecking the world economy. All the shit Brad likes so much is the stuff made by slave labor and the stuff that's not, like the idiot robot or the chrome spring leg, is either a toy for rich people or
something for people who would be better off not having had to take advantage of the "technology" at all. Get your leg blown off by an IED that costs 50 cents to make. Now you can have a chrome spring replacement, what, thousands of bucks? That's real progress.

Part of it stems from reading an interview with him from about a year and a half ago wherein he compared himself to Mark Twain, in terms of writing. Which besides being laughable is just plain delusional.

I have a couple select screen shots from his video to make the point, just haven't posted them with appropriate captioning yet. The music's tone is perfect -- he's worked on copping the big jangle for the last couple years and he has it nailed. I still like Time Well Wasted[i] and about a third of [i]Fifth Gear.

In terms of compression tricks, I can always tell because the cd sends me for the volume knob. Anecdotally, it seems less oppressive than it did a few years ago but I'm also buying a lot less of the things you'd find it on.

I've used headphones for years. Settled on an audiophase pair and a backup by sony. I intensely dislike listening to music on the computer and they're the only thing that saves the experience.

Billy Swan=rockabilly. "I Can Help."

posted over at Singles Jukebox on "Water," which is a good Paisley song.
you can read it over there, but I will add that Paisley in general seems troubled in some very strange way by his strenuous efforts to keep himself normalized, I guess is how I'd put it. "Water" is definitely a stages-of-life song and it works as such, and I think the audience recognizes it as such, as they do all his music. And you know, there is some kind of genius in his songwriting--he has the knack for inflecting his structures in a way that connects emotionally and works with the lyrics, just like the Go-Betweens or someone. The guitar solos are cool, but basically all those notes are not necessary, it's like he's so careful to be one way with his actual songwriting he feels the need to show off when he picks. Which is fine, Jerry Reed did the same thing, and he's certainly a deeper artist than Jerry Reed. But I get no sense of gravity or gravitas or any but the most manageable stresses and traumas from Paisley. Not the sort of thing I return to, sounds good when it's on but when it's over it's over.

Swift Boat: the scuttlebutt here in town for a while, which may not be true, but the people who've said this to me are credible, is that Swift has never written her own stuff without help, or maybe not at all. Has had the guidance of a well-known songwriter whose daughter is a young alt-country nymphet. Probably untrue, but interesting.

If by "guidance of a well-known songwriter whose daughter is a young alt-country nymphet" you mean Liz Rose, mother of Caitlin, that's hardly news, or a big deal, since Rose is all over the writers credits on Taylor Swift songs (cowriter of seven songs on album one, four on album two plus two more among the bonus tracks, many of these among my favorites). There's no reason Taylor shouldn't work with collaborators: Lennon worked with a collaborator, Jagger worked with a collaborator, George Gershwin worked with a collaborator, Johnny Mercer worked with collaborators. As for the possibility of Rose doing all of the writing and Taylor none, that doesn't seem remotely plausible, since it would make no sense for Rose to be listed as a co-writer on "Tim McGraw" and "You Belong With Me" but not on "Should've Said No" or "You're Not Sorry" if Rose is writing everything. Unless Liz writes all their collaborations without Taylor's input and some other, mystery ghostwriter is writing the tracks credited to Taylor alone. But this would mean that Rose is lying through her teeth (e.g. here) when she describes what it's like to write songs with Taylor, and that Nathan Chapman is lying through his teeth when he talks about the advantage of working with Taylor. ("She just shows up with unbelievable songs that she wrote, and then we just produce the songs. As a producer I'm not having to go out and look all over Music Row for a hit. She brings them in." Chapman met Taylor through Liz Rose, had worked with Rose previously on demos so worked with Taylor and Rose on their demos, says that it was Taylor who then pushed to have him get to produce actual final recordings, three on the first album, made him co-producer with Taylor on all of the second album and reportedly all of the third). If you don't mean Liz Rose, then your story makes even less sense.

Probably untrue, but interesting.

Well, it's interesting in the sense that it tells us about our deep social beliefs and prejudices, i.e., that middle-class suburbia and middle-class suburban white girls in particular can't be the source of real music unless they become bohemians/freaks and draw on the music of poor blacks and whites or the wild avant garde. The prejudice is strong because, among other things, the South of poor blacks and whites really was the wellspring for a disproportionately large amount of our great music,* and also because suburbia is perpetually trying to get out of its own skin, define itself as fake. But this particular claim about Taylor - this manifestation of the prejudice - is just ugly: like saying that Taylor and her ilk can't possibly be a creative source of real music, so let's invent reasons to discount her and erase her.

Edd, you really shouldn't be posting stuff like this, even if you're expressing skepticism; or anyway, since it is interesting, you shouldn't be posting it and claiming credibility for it unless you really have corroboration, really know that it's true. We're just a little message board, not the New York Times, but that still doesn't give us the right to blacken people's reputations.

Btw, last December I wrote down my top fifteen Taylor Swift songs, so as to prove definitively that "Fifteen" was her fifteenth best. Of the top five, two were by Swift & Rose, two were by Swift alone, and one was by Marshall Mathers, Luis Resto, and Jeff Bass. I thought the two by Swift & Rose ("Tim McGraw" and "Come In With The Rain") had more poetic and narrative complexity than the two by Swift alone ("Should've Said No" and "You're Not Sorry"), which is hardly surprising (though for all I know those lyrics were all by Taylor, with Rose concentrating on the music).

The majority of Fearless was Taylor writing solo, and supposedly all of the new one is. Lots of continued discussion on the Jukebox thread about how well the lyrics to "Mine" work/don't work. I decided that "I was a flight risk - afraid of fallin'" (third line of the first verse) is brilliant (speaking of poetic complexity), but the subsequent lyrics don't live up to it, at least not yet, for me.

*Though urban songwriting professionals was also a part of the fields and backwoods musical story, according to Bill Malone's Country Music USA.

...urban songwriting professionals were also part of the fields and backwoods musical story...

I suppose suburban middle-class white girls can also be considered legit if they go postpunk and alt too (though iirc there was a while when people were questioning whether Courtney Love really wrote her own songs).

I don't understand the phrase "hypothetical bar out-tartings" in Mallory's blurb for "Only Prettier," but I don't think the blurb was ugly; I took it to mean that people in cities aren't spending time thinking about whether people from the country want to walk in and pick fights with them. Not sure how the comment was relevant, though, since Miranda wasn't calling out people in the city, and anyway was writing the song for people who identify with her, not for the "you" the song was supposedly addressing.

xp Well, Swan's "I Can Help" was way back in 1974, so that was a while ago. (Did go #1 country as well as pop, though, apparently.) I put it on a playlist of "secret rockabilly of the '70s and '80s" I made for Rhapsody last year (though there are many other tracks I'd include if I were to get a do-over on that one):

http://www.rhapsody.com/playlistcentral/playlistdetail?playlistId=ply.28955046

Don't see many counry hits on that list, though Eddie Rabbit and Mel McDaniel (covering Springsteen) and Gary Stewart probably were. Anybody know how rockabilly McDaniel's whole albums were? (And what about Billy Crash Craddock?) Actually though, I wouldn't be surprised if the last high-charting rockabilly LP on the country chart, now that I think of it, was some kind of Jerry Lee comeback -- or a post-humous Elvis record, if that counts.

Frank, I certainly see your problem with the comment on Swift, and right, it's no news that she's collaborated. Don't think that blackens her reputation, though, and I guess I don't read as much sociology into someone writing songs as you do, altho sure, the credibility issue would perhaps be less were Swift a different, edgier person. What the comments I've heard here may reflect, though, is a skepticism and a dismissal of what Swift does in the context of country music. Far be it from me to erase her or to discount her; her music is what it is, she's expressing herself quite well and I'm glad she's raised Nashville's profile and all. Sorry if you were offended.

Also, Frank, I understand what you're saying about the wellsprings of songwriting inspiration and suburbia, all perfectly valid points. I don't expect young women such as Taylor to be going there for their inspiration, except that there is a whole generation of young white women and men who are going back to old-time blues, gospel and country for their entire musical vocabulary. That Swift is an original I have no doubt, either. I would say that, in Nashville, there are a lot of people way more concerned about Swift being passed off as "country music" than maybe they should be, I mean I don't think it is, and don't care. But for what it's worth that's what my little comment was about--the concern with authenticity, the belief (and I am well aware of with whom Swift has collaborated and that she has collaborated) that it all just couldn't come from this one person, that her success ought to be dismissed in this way. Suburbia shedding its skin and all that, sure, and boho avant-garde vs. middle class, also sure, but I don't think these oppositions are behind any comments on Swift and her sources that occur in Nashville. I mean all songwriters collaborate here.

her success ought to be dismissed in this way

Sounds like basic sour grapes, to me.

Btw, it also occurs to me that the last rockabilly song to be a huge pop hit (#10 in the Hot 100, didn't chart country though she has otherwise) would almost definitely have been Miley Cyrus's "See You Again," just a couple years ago.

Yeah, fine if she gets help with the songwriting, too band indie rock auteurs don't do more of this; would also be cool (based on my own live listening experience, and esp those of friends who paid hard-earned big bucks for tickets) if she were more dependable in concert; should go the full Elvis route and have a high note person, low note person and hell mid-range person among her backup singers. She was really good with Def Lep on "Crossroads", however that may have been recorded and/or fixed in the mix (no dis; if artists approve pix, why not audio). Sorry of that's crucifying the poor middle class suburban while girl.

too "bad", sorry "if"

Yeah, Taylor's success has engendered the usual sniping here, and if I don't especially think she's the greatest artist to go down the pike and don't think it has much to do with country music (beyond marketing), I certainly don't think the it-ain't-country line gets at why she's either good or bad. Glad to see it all spurred Frank to his usual eloquence. Posted this on her new single over at SJ, btw:

Whether or not it’s completely premeditated–and I hear some of the relatively subtle vocal turns as little things she or her producer or someone worked out for her, to alleviate her imprecise pitch sense and flat phrasing–this has some good qualities. The stop-start aspect was remarked upon above; the pauses make me listen, and I think she handles the time element of the song pretty well. The big power chords toward the end are nice too. “A careless man’s careful daughter,” though, yeech, that’s not exactly brilliant in my book. In general, she sounds either terrified or trying to act scared, I’m not sure. Don’t hear anything particularly distinctive in the music itself, it’s functional and that’s about it, but it’s a good song. I’d be pleased to like it, and Swift, more, because I hear something in there that’s almost like real talent. But my objection to this would be not that it’s too careful but that it just isn’t detailed enough, even given those moments where she illustrates she could learn to sing more effectively. Functional (objectively pretty terrible) pop singing that’s a kind of genius, absolutely–how on earth do you even critique it? The obvious points about her archetypal quality and all that don’t get it. Baffling.

I think her singing is absolutely brilliant, but it's one of those "Kids, don't try this at home" things. It'd be like people trying to imitate Neil Young: it seems like anyone can do it; turns out very few can.

My guess is that she's just got a really good ear for, e.g., when to go frail and when not. I'm sure I could sit down and analyze it and learn a lot. But I don't think that the analysis would really explain it - just as when I look at my own writing, I can see that assonance strengthened one sentence and ruined another, and that I'm overusing a particular phrase, and so forth. But I wouldn't be able to tell you why it was overuse in this instance but not that, or why assonance worked here but not there, etc. (or when I can get away with "etc." and with an antecedent-free "it"). Writing well isn't a deep mystery, but it's not altogether explicable either; same with singing.

As for Taylor's sense of pitch - Himes said in his country poll writeup that he's heard her being pitch-perfect, and my livejournal friend Cis heard her right on-pitch in London. But obviously this is something you can't rely on. Maybe she uses pitch correction in the studio, maybe she does multiple takes, maybe she's just got a congenial emotional and acoustic environment.

Yeah, I don't know how much Taylor sat down and planned the little things she does in "Mine." I do find the attention to detail pretty interesting. What she doesn't know or doesn't want to know about singing she makes up for with smarts, sure. It's a real American voice. When I listen to someone who's about as young as Swift, like Sarah Jarosz (a bluegrass-indie sorta person), and hear how annoying that kind of voice can be, I realize what a free-fall and frightening world Swift must live in, without the crutch of Received Wisdom. That's pop. The wobbles and drop-outs in Swift's voice do add up to something she's manipulating emotionally, I think.

I'm sure there's a lot of great pop and country where the singer has almost no say as to either the material or the arrangement. Obv. when the singer also writes songs and plays an instrument, and therefore knows something about arranging as well, the label may well want to take advantage of these talents, assuming the talents go in the direction that sales will go. And then there're the singers who demand control and for better or worse get the power to do what they want, either through sales clout or an ally in the biz.

But there are also situations where the artists know the idiom and the audience far better than does anyone in the biz. This happened in Britain in the early Sixties. It would've been commercial suicide not to have allowed the bands to generate material.*

The legacy of the Sixties pulls two ways: on the one hand, the biz became full of people who bought into the ideology that the performers are artists and therefore should be the creators, on the other, you get session men, songwriters, and execs who do know the idiom and attitudes and can generate material themselves.

I'm curious, especially for those of you who haven't read it before, what you'd think of this LVW piece I wrote several years ago. The model I detailed for mid '00s teenpop - teen singer-songwriter working with music biz veterans in their thirties - fits Taylor perfectly, except Liz Rose is older than that (she's almost my age). My thesis is that one reason this model worked is that the teens could bring material that the adults wouldn't think to.

The teens are cool, but they burn out

(Haven't done a good job of keeping up with Shanks, whom I called the decade's best melodist; I've been pretty iffy on his country stuff, and on his recent tracks with Miley. Need to know the material better, though. Nathan Chapman cites Shanks as one of his producer heroes (others are Mark Wright, Daniel Lanois, and Buddy Miller). I've summarized a bit of that Chapman interview here: Nathan Chapman.)

Taylor's timing was lucky: she was creating her first album right when High School Musical came along and siphoned the younger teenpop listeners over to Disney, leaving the teen confessional shelf mostly empty. And Taylor waltzed in and filled the gap.

*A partial exception here is the Animals, who did sometimes use biz songwriters, but those songwriters were Americans experienced in the idiom the Animals were playing (Goffin & King, Mann & Weil, Atkins & D'Errico).

xpost

(It's possible that Taylor's got strong models that I don't know or I'm not thinking of. Maybe Neil Young, even. It's mostly mediocre indie boys whose names I've forgotten who try to exploit the high nasal waver.)

Yeah, though here's an exception (from another show preview)
Rascal Flatts with Kellie Pickler
Man band Rascal Flatts faithfully replenish their turf, every time Gary LeVox's high, lonesome tenor crosses just over the rainbow to sensitive pop atmospheres, while remaining unmistakably (yet courteously)country. If that doesn't float your boat, consider Kellie Pickler. While convincingly portraying a dizzy blonde, she cannily rose from rough origins via cogent association with American Idol and Taylor Swift. Her sweetly well-earned word to us all: "Get on with your life." That's also a line from her song, but reached the word limit and fans will know.

Of course Edd's right about details, and in some ways it's good that some/most ambitious artists have to rely more on these, not having the temptation of over-reliance on a trademark sonic ambience, as sometimes happened to Elvis,Sinatra,Willie,Emmylou, Dolly might yet happen to Toby Keith and LeeAnn Rimes. But over-reliance can result in perceived over-exposure, so Willie, Dolly and Emmylou are at least trying to stay focused on sufficient detail. Now to read Frank's linked piece.

Yeah, good points, I guess Swift might be the teen star who's benefiting most by inter-generational collaboration at this point. Usually what I'm aware of is the older guy's production, in response, so the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach brings what I called a "charged nocturnal atmosphere" to Jessica Lea Mayfield's ruminations, while leaving them sufficiently roomy. Though she's not really pop, in the mainstream or even cross-over indie sense, though may well share a peer audience sector with Swift. And I guess neither is punky tonk gurl Lydia Loveless, in this context. Could see some (rougher-edged members) of Pink's confessional rock segment digging all of the above, mind you. But 60s examples might also include Brill Building pros (self-avowedly competing with each other while) writing in response to the *sound* of Shangri-Las etc, ditto Spector's response as producer and sometimes co-writer. And West Coast session kings playing on most of the Byrds first album, so appropriately.And hey, just thought of this: ever-budding Bobby Dylan with all those great, mostly older session guys too. (Plus early guidance of John Hammond and Tom Wilson)(and xgau would prob emph Fred Rose's sub rosa songwriting workshops with Hank Williams)

Um, well, B.D. was mebbe still a teen when Hammond brought him aboard; you weren't talking teens-only, what with citing Stones, etc.

My reviewlet of the new Little Big Town album (not quite a challenge to the Hold Steady as the most disappointing album of the year -- at least LBT's LP has a great single on it -- but not too far off, either):

http://www.rhapsody.com/little-big-town/the-reason-why-2#albumreview

SJers consider the current Sugarland hit:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2682

More Jukebox singles roundups. I may have overrated the first two; I still haven't heard the third one.

Kenny Chesney

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2694

John Rich

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2690

Darius Rucker

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2691

the reggae in the Sugarland single was interesting and the vocoder (?) breakdown toward the end, ditto. seems notable that they need to take up their version of island patois in order to express the clingy sentiments of the song. and the video is ridiculous indeed, altho JN does look pretty good in the blue tights.

so far, the new Little Big Town sounds good to me, esp. the guitar moves (which seem almost more the point than the vocals themselves, I am distracted by the trading off in some of it)--they seem like the point of the music almost. Intricate. the slow ones are draggin' me so far, though.

Speaking of Sugarland, Adkins' "Don't Mind If I Don't" sounds much like the first single from the
former's last album.

My Country Fleetwood Mac Contest -- Lady Antebellum vs. Little Big Town (hint: nobody wins):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2010/08/countrymac.html

Heard of Paz Lenchantin through Jonathan Bogart: sort of "psych folk" or whatever they're calling that stuff; have a feeling that listening to five tracks of hers in a row might cause me to scratch the plaster off the plasterboard, but for one song ("Bloom On The Rose," fifth track down at the Black Tent Press MySpace) this could be a positive attribute - Carter Family type trad material but shifted out of whack and forced into a thick haze. Most of you will hate this.

Think you - and ultimately I - will prefer Juana Molina's "Un Día"; the sliding shifts in the music have an aggressive rather than a hazy effect. Most recent YouTube comment: "Why is this so catchy? And why do I like it? I don't even like Bjork type shit." Finally settles into a Yardbirds/Velvets-type coagulated pounding. I'm hit or miss on her other YouTube tracks; occasional and annoying jazz tendencies, or precious ephemera, which this one avoids altogether. In Argentina she'd built a career as a comedian, which has nothing to do with her music.

Perhaps everyone here knows but Chesney's Boys of Fall is not only a song and a nine-minute video, it's also an hour long paen to football, written and directed by Chesney. It just ran on ESPN but after twenty minutes was so ... I just left it on in the background.

The basic message was that football teaches everyone all they have to know in the game of life, over and over. Everyone says their days as a football player were the best of their lives, so if the former is trye and you never make it past college or high school football, it must be all downhill. Chesney's very
sincere and he's in it with old snaps of himself as a high school receiver and recent ones of his hs football buddies, At some point, "Hey Man, Nice Shot" was used as background music, which was a bit jarring since I was living in Pennsy when Budd Dwyer killed himself in public. Not exactly football music.

A couple people try to make the point -- Bill Curry most notably -- that football brings all the kinds of people who naturally hate each together on the team, the liberals, the rednecks, the etc. Was not my experience in the locker room where most were still unformed in their leanings, which were almost as junior league fascists. It was a nice sentiment, though. Maybe it was true in the old NFL or on Ivy League football teams.

No doubt about it, Chesney loves football. It is lots better than Hard Knocks in the Jets training camp which is only exhibitions of Rex Ryan becoming the most morbidly obese celebrity in bedsheet sportswear that everyone knows, and the Jets as a collection of really big overweight men and physical fitness freaks, all with very little native intelligence and surprising lacks in character and personal hygeine. Which is about the diametric opposite of what Chesney makes the case for.

Ah, now it makes me fondly remember the movie version of Paper Lion. Which made George Plimpton the only liberal in the Joe Schmidt-coached Lions lockerroom. Alex Karras was a gambler, though.

xpost Kinda made me want to go back to the LBT album although, except for "Little White Church," it didn't grab me when I skimmed it on-line.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/08/28/patriotic-class-war-song/

Paz has played (most often bass, but also violin and piano) and sung with A Perfect Circle, Zwol, and many in between; best album I've heard her on is the Entrance Band's s/t (sort of like an aural anime of backstreet progressives, somewhat in the historical, Glenn Beck anathema sense, though more about challenging doomsters to stop playing with shadows in the mirror and come get some clean free needles already--or something like that, if we must reduce TEB's phantosaurus sound and vision to mere sense). She's also contributed to some countryoid offerings of the Silver Jews etc. Most relevant to what Frank's describing,she also locked herself into a backstreet Louisville hotel with some very old school country sides, and recorded self-written songs, think it was an EP's-worth, after her brother died. So thanks for reminding me of that, Frank, I'll check it out. George Plimpton's daughter Martha has played a worthy corporate law adversary for The Good Wife, hope she continues to do so.

You got my hopes up for a moment there, Don! Think you meant Zwan, though, not Zwol (who I wrote about at the link below):

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Meanwhile, I finally saw Mother Truckers Saturday night, at the Continental Club here, their return to town after a brief van tour out West. Definitely sounded more (Stones-style) hard rock than country or college rock or cowpunk live (though "Van Tour" itself qualified as the latter.) Teal (dressed kinda classic hillbilly) is a vocal powerhouse live, and I'd say her hubbie Josh Zee (in a N.W.A. T-shirt and truckers cap) held his own vocally and outdid himself guitarwise, sometimes verging on metal though not as much as the longhaired AC/DC-shirt bass guy Danny G. At any rate, they definitely know how to throw a party -- tons of energy, lots of people (including a few lesbian couples, looked like) dancing, good calls and responses, and I recogized every song except one, I think. (And that one's not on any of their three CDs, looks like.) Favorites were probably "Dynamite" from the second album and "Alien Girl" from the new one; i.e., the most glam-rock ones. Also, as far as I could tell, there were zero college kids in the crowd; possibly even nobody under 30, and I'm fairly positive I wasn't the oldest person there. Just townies, I guess, or people who came here for school years ago then never left. Bottled beer overpriced, but what the heck, still glad I forced myself to go out for once.

Via email from a publicist; any takers?

Was just having a conversation with a friend and the Billboard Top 10 debut of John Mellencamp's No Better Than This album came up. Mentioned that it's John's tenth Top 10 album and that it's offered only in mono which begged the question: "What was the last mono-only album that debuted in Billboard's Top 10?" We're thinking it must have been over 40 years ago as albums were offered in both stereo and mono from the late 1950s onward. Any suggestions? I'd love to make this a contest but since I don't know the actual answer, I'm not sure I'm in a position to declare a winner. Would love to hear your thoughts which I'd share with all the recipients of this inquiry.

Best, Bob Merlis

Also just got word from a different publicist that "I'm All About It," which I talk about above, the fastest and horniest song on my advance of Randy Houser's new album, will be left off the final version "at the request of Mr. Houser", since he "felt that particular track was not representative of him as an artist." (Not sure whether I mind or not; tbh, its novelty was starting to wear off already.)

CMA nominations are out. Miranda Lambert sets a record for the most nominations by a female artist in a single year. Which is a pleasant surprise, unless you're one of the Carrie Underwood fans who have taken to every message board and blog they can find to decry the grave injustice that is Underwood's omission from the Entertainer of the Year short-list.

Some turnover in couple of the major categories, but there's not a whole lot to get worked up about one way or the other. No Laura Bell Bundy anywhere on the ballot, despite the high-profile ACM performance a couple of months back.

The new Marty Stuart is awfully good for the trad-country stumping thing that it is, and Connie Smith sings with him a couple of times, which is always welcome. Also liking the new album by Amanda Shaw, a 19 year-old fiddler from Louisiana, who incorporates a healthy dollop of cajun music and some traditional blues into her pop-country, and she has a husky but not quite ripe alto that reminds me, in a good way, of Alecia Elliott. Have only given cursory listens to the new SteelDrivers and Justin Townes Earle, but liked both pretty well on the first pass, the former moreso than the latter.

This is an interesting news link on the CMA nominations at a music writer's blog, but more for the amount of malicious spam comment (page down, you'll see it):

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/ourcountry/51632/miranda-lambert-scoops-up-a-record-nine-cma-noms/

(Shakes head)

Yeah, we get bombarded with exactly the same kind of spam at the Rhapsody blog; it just doesn't make it onto the site. Until a month or two ago they were having us sort one by one through the emailed comments, but at some point they decided that meant wasting way too much time, since we'd eventually only wind up approving, say, one out of every 100. So now I just guess every comment just goes into the spam trash can -- I don't even see them in my inbox anymore.

Btw, I wasn't aware that "Rain On A Tin Roof" on the new Little Big Town album was a cover of a song on the first Julie Roberts album from six years ago until I read Caramanica's Times review a couple days ago. I probably still have my advance of that Roberts album in my storage closet somewhere (liked two songs pretty well, as I recall), but I never really got into it as a whole.

I mentioned "Rain on a Tin Roof" in my LBT review, as well. They do a fine enough job with the song, but I probably prefer Roberts' version of it. Her second album was better, but there was some real substance to her debut, as well. "Break Down Here" was the top 20 single, but "Wake Up Older" is the standout cut. She doesn't have much of a range to her voice, but she makes up for it with a mindful sense of phrasing and with solid song choices. I'm a fan, but I can't imagine she'll get a shot at a third major label record after Men & Mascara bricked.

Her second album sounded even more marginal to my ears, iirc. (Though the title track seemed okay, and I'm pretty sure the two songs you named from the debut were the ones that stood out for me at the time.)

Re-listening to Ray Wylie Hubbard's early 2010 album right now, for the first time in months. It's better than I'd remembered, especially if you've got a taste for hard dark mean repetitive deeper-and-deeper-into-the-gravel blues drones (which I do, apparently).

Yeah, we get bombarded with exactly the same kind of spam at the Rhapsody blog; it just doesn't make it onto the site.

Baffling, since my domain's anti-spam mechanism is really good at stripping it all out so I -don't- have to look at it.

So how come nobody ever told me what a great singer Narvel Felts was? Or did somebody, and I wasn't listening? Halfway through his self-titled LP from 1975 which I bought for 50 cents (went #4 country, with "Reconsider Me," "Blue Darlin," and "Funny How Time Slips Away" all hitting), and I'm already kind of blown away. Guess I'd put him in the fancy-pants tradition of guys like Roy Orbison, Freddie Fender, Gene Pitney -- is that way off? -- with almost pop-operatically flamboyant falsetto parts. Maybe a Mexican influence, too, deep down. And a soul one, given that it looks like he hit with "Lonely Teardrops" (presumably a cover of the Jackie Wilson song) a year later. (Okay, just checked Xgau, who B+'s the LP -- "Wotta voice," he says. Also mentions Orbison, and calls him "an r&b singer on the country side of the fence.") Probably some influence of Charlie Rich -- who could also do fancy Latinish stuff -- in there too.

Actually been liking an album by a British folk-rock singer named Johnny Flynn -- coming out on Thirty Tigers in November -- while it's played in the background this week. Didn't expect to like it, either. Haven't paid attention to the lyrics (which may well stink) yet. But the music somehow manages to be minor-key pretty and have rhythmic drive at the same time. Mostly ballads. His MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/johnnyflynn

And speaking of folk, new album by Heart is mostly if not all acoustic, and also pretty good, and by now they have a connection to country thanks to people like Carrie Underwood and, uh, Sarah Palin or whoever. Here's what I wrote about it for Rhapsody:

http://www.rhapsody.com/heart/red-velvet-car#albumreview

Also heard the new Those Darlins single (7-inch vinyl 45!), "Nightjogger," today, and was very disappointed to find out that they now seem to be trying to sound like Sleater-Kinney-type alt-rock instead of cowpunk. Not sure if that's a one-time deal or not; if not, too bad, because though their cowpunk schtick had limitations, it made them less generic. So I'm wondering if Edd knows what's up.

Have been watching the CMA rock thing on network teevee. Lots of mediocre blues hard rock, specifically Carrie Underwood as the shouter in short hot short shorts and heroically sexy poses. Hotcha.

But that stuff wears out fast, really, if you aren't doing a sixpack.

Way too much Kid Rock. Had no idea he was so much into being the poor man's Rockets.

No idea why anyone likes Uncle Kracker. Sweaty vaseline-coated obesity in a worn RUN-DMC T with unjustified high self-esteem as a mass psychological disorder, I guess. Same for the guy who sings "Unstoppable." Hnad-wringing sincerity and very clean baggy jeans only go so far.

Best performance by far: Miranda Lambert with "Even Prettier." This sounds harsh but I like the
Ray Nitschke as drag queen look and the c&w attack. Plus her band doesn't have the usual six guitarists they put on stage to play what one or two could do.

Zac Brown -- hippie reggae bookended by twenty seconds of hard southern rock jamming to make you think it might be good before it goes bad.

Morgan in a club with Lambert and the really hairy singer/songwriter, whatever his name is. Over yet?

Now let's all order up another beer while Billy Currington does something rote on that's how country boys roll.

Assume you mean the CMT Awards not CMAs (I make the same mistake somewhere above I think -- easy to do), and actually, Kid Rock being a Detroit boy may just be almost old enough to remember who the Rockets were. Pretty sure the "really hairy singer/songwriter" would be Jamey Johnson; I thought "Macon" was okay on that show, I think, but I like it better on the album, and can understand why people might think it goes on too long in either format. Totally drawing a blank on "Unstoppable" -- oh wait, Google says Rascal Flatts? No wonder. I actually had fun watching that show in total though (in a hotel room in San Francisco), but yeah, I had a sixpack (at least) from the bodega down the block to help.

(Also, bad pizza, iirc. And not saying I put away six-plus beers in the duration of the show; probably more like three. But the rest were there, just in case.)