Rolling Country 2018

Probably late to this, but I heard this while driving through Ohio last week.

Total rip off of Kid Rock's "All Summer Long".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16s7He1C9BE

Those xpost two Bermuda Triangle tracks on Spotify instantly toke a hold of me, and haven't let go: deepnrich, up front: "You love Suzanne, I love you, where is she? Go and get her." Such a contrast with the aforementioned Becca Mancari set, at least the sound, which is thinned and chill, latte, with most of the vocals double-tracked; they and the good session band are distanced. Going for a the xx effect?

Seems like the writing is good too, but it's also filtered. "Kitchen Dancing" is "dry"/up front, and the best track here; subsequent acoustic single version of "Golden" is better (would like to hear Willie cover this: about a lover who won't go 'way after leaving: "You keep going golden"--was already thinking of when the sun goes level, won't get out of your face, before becoming aware of the words, especially that hook-line at the beginning of the chorus, so I guess in that case the filter is a good test, but still prefer the acoustic, with the increased/undiminished vocal presence).

Really looking fwd to more Bermuda Triangle.

Ah meant "took a hold," but "toke" yes too.

brothers osborne album seems incredibly badass on first listen to me

anyone excited for the new dierks?

me

me too. single has v obvious tom petty vibes

Over at Saving Country Music, Trigger continues his crusade. At this point I'm a fan of the man. He continues to write his criticism in the face of all known facts or interpretation. This time he's taking down Bebe Rexha this week.

I did shorties on Sam Morrow: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/sam-morrow

The Weather Station: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/the-weather-station-wfrances-cone

Charley Crockett's half-assed record: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/mercy-lounge/charley-crockett

Over at Saving Country Music, Trigger fulminates against Bebe Rexha: https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/bebe-rexhas-arrogance-should-be-alarming-to-the-country-industry/

I did shorties on Sam Morrow's Lowell George fixation: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/sam-morrow

Weather Station's dystopian Joni kick: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/the-weather-station-wfrances-cone

Liz Cooper's pretty damn good folk-rock: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement-east/liz-cooper-and-the-stampede-blank-range-and-the-kernal

The great Chris Smither (go find his I'm a Stranger Too! and Don't It Drag On): https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-bluebird-cafe/chris-smither.baB8Vb

Also enjoying Caitlin Canty's pretty darned good new Motel Bouquet, unaffected and moving: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-bluebird-cafe/chris-smither.baB8Vb

sorry to repeat, wanted to add those to the post...

haven't written about Canty, hope to soon. Sorry for the repetitions.

can we save the saving country music links for the worst music writing thread

That Jake Owen ripoff of Kid Rock taking from John M etc is not impressive

new sam hunt:

http://strm.to/DowntownsDead

not an anti-suburbia treatise

Oh, I heard another album by a member of xpost Bermuda Triangle: Jesse Lafser's 2015 Raised On The Plains. It does sport a "Don't Fence Me In" urgency, but then she turns out to be more like a historical cowboy, covering a lot of ground but still making the rounds, having similar experiences despite the momentary excitement and current details: lots of romantic frustration, and though the astute Dylan and Richard Thompson ballad studies provide springy, birch-tree support and projection for self-expression, sometimes she gets into an overly complicated presentation of an easily recognizable point---then again, sometimes you gotta load all the way up with whatever you can find to blast your way through said frustration.
But so far seems like it usually works out, like with "Rosie," which is also one of those BT tracks on Spotify: she leaves the TV on all night long, blasting updates on the forest fire, the better to torture herself via associations with that flamin' outrider, and now the sun's on the bed where you lay your head. Looking fwd to more Bermuda Triangle.

I mean she sounds like she's learned some things about songwriting from Dylan and Thompson, not singing (well maybe what not to do; works for them fairly often, but no need for her to follow suit)

Latest Dierks Bentley hit "Woman, Amen" has annoying arena-rock drums and production. Haven't heard the rest of his new album The Mountain which is coming in June (and was recorded in Telluride, Co)

i heard parts of it recently and liked it a lot but i like arena-rock drums and production

x-post--I like the Sam Hunt lyric

Downtown's dead without you
Girls walk by and friends say hi
Then Friday night it might as well be just another
Tuesday night without you
As long as you're still in my head
There ain't a way that I can paint a ghost town red
Downtown's dead, downtown's dead

I like Bentley’s “Drunk on a plane.” More clever musically

album’s pretty good. brothers osborne and brandi carlile guest

Reminding me I still need to check their latest albums as well as his.
Proceeding somewhut alphabetically, just trekked through Ashley McBryde's Girl Going Nowehre which of course is meant to be and moderately is an inneresting title for what I assume is meant to be a breakthrough album: starts right off not with a band but the foreboding, low-key title track, which is a twist on the obligatory-for-country-girls salute to the hometown. As performed, it's not an ironic twist: she sounds sincerely and humbly grateful for their telling her she's bound to fail, for giving her that much more incentive to make it. Quietly sincere, determined, and spooked.

It's a combo which works great on the better tracks, like "American Scandal," where she turns the volume up to make clear this is non-ironic desperation---she really really needs it to be like Kennedy and Monroe. But the next one, "Southern Babylon," seems, even before the unnecessary mention of "Hotel California," like an alibi for of the fodder it's sandwiched between, the Springsteeny "Radioland" and
and MellenPettyCarnes tap-tap-tap of "The Jacket, " both fortified with country-Americana namechecking o course.

There's a sincere etc. tribute to another kind of family, in a dive bar, but with unremarkable mumblecore imagery she might as well be nodding to the sunday school teachers and grannies as happens in the usual obligatory-for-girls etc. "Next Door To Leroy" at least singles out and details one of the fellow misfits who provided reinforcement early on: says something, pretty succinctly, about your high school years, when you have to recover from the results of peer pressure by going over to the junkie's house. Good loud guitar too (several of these, but she needs more, at least as distraction).

She sincerely can't live without her boring messy boyfriend, Andy."El Dorado" more intended radio fodder yadda yadda, but the countryiest (sincere note to a wholesome type), "Ef yew git tahhred of bein' happy, give me a cawl," may also be the most rocking, in a whiskey-cymbal-splashing, Eric-Church-with-a-much-better-voice kind of way, and is certainly one of the best at least. Ditto the finale, "Home Sweet Highway," sincerely horny ghosty eyes on the prize and distinctive musical twinges amidst the twangs.

"starts right off not with a *bang*," I meant, though might not be a band either on that opener: as I said, it's a very quiet track.

So title track of xp The Mountain is an ominous victory song, and Bentley stays out of the way as the guitar chords and the words skulk their way to the peak, still not satisfied (he turns up the volume on choruses to confirm this). Could be a Neil Young song, about "turning that hill to gravel."
Otherwise, these sundown views of younger wilder times and the road ahead drone on and on through greeting card sagas, til finally Brandi Carlile pipes up on Track 12, "Travelin' Light" (def not the JJ Cale' this 'un's about forgiving yourself and embracing yourself and floating along), and takes it away from him without even seeming to try---once again, he stays out of the way, without even seeming to try either---so many songs, so little voice; it's the longest 44-minute album---ever. Okay, a few others kinda work, and might grow on me, but would require more listening than seems likely.

That one hit on this one that I dislike has scared me away from the whole Bentley album, but maybe I should give it a shot.

I think the Bentley album is really solid. 2/3rds good songs, a couple duds.

I also happen to love (a) his voice, (b) the general lyrical perspective on this one, and (c) all the snow-capped, grizzly-bearded Colorado marketing around it. So YMMV.

agree ^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FuF1xcg5WU

this song is awesome. of all things it reminds me of american music club

colter will be releasing an album this year and this is one of the singles, just in time for the calgary stampede, which is surely not accidental

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYq6zKdqfkY

should mention it's a wilf carter cover

aha Brad I can kind of hear what you mean

I still can't get over that Colter Wall is the son of Brad, but I admit I'm a sucker for that voice of his

He has said him and his dad are very different people if that helps

I didn't really mean it in the sense that it was a problem, but it *does* help!

i really like this keith urban & julia michaels song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC7wWFQUUqU

Fans of the new Dierks album might find similar appeal on his guest Brandi Carlile's own By The Way, I Frogive You: looking out over the blue Rockies at her life's landmarks, incl. relationships w deep and still-rumbling layers, provisional peace, possible wisdom---Dierks sounds happier, but she's still strong, thriving on the drama under her boots and out there---a few tracks I haven't wrapped my head around yet, but overall good stuff.

er Forgive You

really a missed opportunity for a kermit led county classic. i have a one year old so please don't roll your eyes at me

Wish she'd thought of that!

by the way i forgive you is an incredibly powerful album, lots of great tracks with her vocals sounding very big

i have a personal quibble and it's really because i have old man ears at this point in my life

and it's that her vocals feel like they were recorded too hot and are overdriven, which affects my enjoyment of it

i think i understand why they did it though -- it's the whole raw/emotive feel of if, which is good

i just would've preferred warmer sounding vocals, but that would've removed the affect i guess

i'm sure this album is mind blowing live

party of one is one of my favourites

indeed, the Brandi album is great

ya gotta be OK with riding the blurry line between earnestness and over-the-top-ness to lock in to her, but she's definitely got the goods, imo. has for a long time.

She really sells it on party of one. My bro sent me that song and it was enough for me to want to check out the album.

Yeah you gotta be ready for her theatricality, and I kept thinking she's performed with this guy? Even before I got this update:
Elton John calls Brandi Carlile’s By The Way, I Forgive You his “Album of the Year” on his Rocket Hour radio show on Beats 1 on Apple Music. Listen to the full interview, which aired this past weekend(if you've got Apple Music or want to go to the iTunes Store yadda-yadda, anyway I can imagine her singing some of his early country-ish [& other] songs better than he did, no prob)

From Variety:

“I learned a lot about phrasing listening to Frank,” Willie said recently in an interview for AARP magazine (June/July 2018). “He didn’t worry about behind the beat or in front of the beat, or whatever-he could sing it either way, and that’s the feel you have to have.”

Nelson, who cancelled some shows earlier this year due to illness, is back on the road through the end of this year; the “My Way” tracklist appears in full below:

Fly Me To The Moon
Summer Wind
One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
A Foggy Day
It Was A Very Good Year
Blue Moon
I’ll Be Around
Night And Day
What Is This Thing Called Love (with Norah Jones)
Young At Heart
My Way

First single and video is "Summer Wind." Album's out Sept. 14.

x-post

indeed, the Brandi album is great

ya gotta be OK with riding the blurry line between earnestness and over-the-top-ness to lock in to her, but she's definitely got the goods, imo. has for a long time.

― alpine static, Tuesday, 10 July 2018 02:27 (one week ago) Permalink

A tad melodramatic at times, but yes to Brandi Carlile

Willie doing "It Was a Very Good Year" might actually kill me

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-lori-mckenna-writes-the-most-devastating-ballads-in-country-music/2018/07/19/544b51e2-89f4-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html?utm_term=.84e448afa0e0

Chr*s Richards in W. Post on folky gone Nashville country songwriter Lori McKenna who lives in Stoughton, Massachusetts

But this is how her songwriting often begins — eavesdropping and people-watching while she runs her daily errands. “We’re all people-watchers in some way,” McKenna says over the telephone from her living room in Massachusetts. “We see a person, and we make a story up in our head. . . . I don’t know if empathy is the right word, but we develop some curiosity in one another.”...McKenna has said that she feels a pressure to write airtight lyrics to compensate for her limited vocal range — and while it’s hard to hear a voice as expressive as hers as limited, it’s easy to hear how wisely she deploys her resources.

McKenna’s exquisite new album, “The Tree,” directs that curiosity toward families — her family, other people’s families, imagined families, families where the kids grow up too fast, and the parents grow old too soon, families that make her new songs feel as mundane and urgent as life and death. And while many have praised McKenna for her ability to elevate our most piddling pedestrian life-stuff to profound heights, for her, there’s no heavy lifting involved. When the ordinary is already extraordinary, the music is all around us.

this is kind of big I think https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/eric-church-desperate-man-nashville-country-700750/

Church says he’s not a member of the NRA and never has been. “I’m a Second Amendment guy,” he emphasizes again, “but I feel like they’ve been a bit of a roadblock. I don’t care who you are – you shouldn’t have that kind of power over elected officials. To me it’s cut-and-dried: The gun-show (loophole) would not exist if it weren’t for the NRA, so at this point in time, if I was an NRA member, I would think I had more of a problem than the solution. I would question myself real hard about what I wanted to be in the next three, four, five years.”

Church knows he’ll get blowback from some fans for this. “I don’t care,” he says. “Right’s right and wrong’s wrong. I don’t understand why we have to fear a group [like the NRA]. It’s asinine. Why can’t we come together and solve one part of this? Start with the bump stocks and the gun shows. Shut a couple of these down. I do think that will matter a little bit. I think it will save some lives.”

Was just about to post. One of the best interviews I've read in months.

roger mcguinn, chris hillman and marty stuart & his fabulous superlatives, sweetheart of the rodeo full album show, los angeles, tuesday night. opening night of a short-ish tour. it was ragged, loose, occasionally awkward and more than occasionally great. they did one set of truncated versions of hits and deep cuts, and then the sweetheart of the rodeo set, played in full but out of order. i got the sense that stuart and the superlatives rehearsed thoroughly on their own and mcguinn and hillman maybe not so much. they missed cues left and right, were looking down frequently for chords and lyrics, and while hillman's voice was in good form, mcguinn was having a little trouble cutting through. but their instincts for harmony are still dead-on, and stuart fit right into that. i felt like i was watching a band still working out its sound, and as a result, when something gelled, when they hit a sweet spot, it was magical. like watching a band discover itself in real time. and that second set was way better than the first. it felt like having a piece of my own dna read back to me. maybe they felt the same.

encore: two byrds classics and three tom petty classics. i was wondering if maybe they would be able to coax david crosby (who i assume still lives here though i have no idea) onto the stage for a song or two. instead we got mike campbell, who joined for "american girl" -- after which they kicked him off and, strangely, played more petty songs without him. marty stuart did a bluegrassy take on "runnin' down a dream" (thumbs up) and hillman did a fairly faithful "wildflowers," which apparently petty produced for him for an album he put out last year.

they also told some stories. they're not particularly good storytellers. damn those harmonies though.

Was already hoping for an album from that tour, even more while reading your dispatch. Marty and His FS have the drive and expertise to keep those geezers functioning onstage for as long as possible.
Yeah, Hillman's always seemed better in bands, all the way back to the Hillmen, but the Petty=produced set has keepers; my comments from the most recent Nashville Scene ballot:
Have not yet made it through Chris Hillman's The Asylum Years---some hideous harmonies get wasted on the way---but will give it another shot. Some nice tracks on the new Bidin’ My Time, especially "Walk Right Back," one of the many under-covered Everlys Bros worthies, seeds of West Coast country rock at its best (he credits inclusion of this song to producer Tom Petty, who did what he could all over--Hillman's not the strongest solo artist among his peers, but has his moments, when the setting's just right, or just about) McGuinn and The Croz show up; some Heartbreakers, still radio-ready, also appear.