Uh-oh. There's a big article in Friday's USA TODAY about "alternative country" or "insurgent country." I guess that means the fun is over. Anybody else listen to this stuff?65 responses total.
I'd be interested, I guess. the world is too full of Garth wannabes for me to actually *like* country the way it is now, so some fresh blood might make it interesting.
I like Steve Earle. Somehow his music is very contemporary, yet is also bluesy and harkins back to Hank Williams.
Who are these new alternative country people? I'd probably be interested... the country that they play on the radio stations these days is too close to the "Adult Contemporary top 40" easy listening type stuff.
The band which gave the concept a sense of self-awareness was Uncle Tupelo; a couple of years ago that band fissioned into Wilco and Son Volt. Some other bands I've had fun with are Blood Oranges (defunct), the Jayhawks, Marlee MacLeod, and Courtney & Western (defunct, only a couple of singles). Jimmie Dale Gilmore gets lumped in, and probably Lucinda Williams and Iris DeMent too. Namedrop, namedrop.
One might add two of the orininators, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and KD Lang.
RE #5 Raven, that's "k.d. lang" - she spells her name with all lower case letters.
hmmmmm...i suppose its a better concept than country rap :)
Ah, you would mean Run C&W, there.
Which are actually good. I own the CD, and it cracks me up every time.
country + rap = crap ;-)
There's a nice new anthology on Bloodshot Records called STRAIGHT OUTTA BOONE COUNTY. It's a collection of covers from a certain local scene in the 40's & early 50's -- one of those tribute album sort of deals, except that there's a wide spectrum of songwriters. The big discovery for me here are the female harmonies of Hazeldines (i want a CD by them, now!!!) and a song by The Waco Brothers. I'd been sort of skittish about The Waco Brothers because it's a spinoff from The Mekons, and I've been warm and cold about the Mekons for a decade now. But the Waco track on this anthology sounds just fine.
The "Progressive Torch & Twang" radio show up in East Lansing played a good chunk of the new Sun Volt album on Tuesday night. It sounded VERY good to me, much better than the first Son Volt disc, and much better than the current Wilco disc, which I Just Don't Get. (Did I already explain how the St. Louis band Uncle Tupelo fissioned to yield Son Volt and Wilco?) Jay Farrar, leader of Son Volt, certainly has a distinctive, twangy voice.
Run C&W doing Motown classics in a country style pre-dated
a recent years CD collection of now-mainstream Country singers
doing the Motown classics.
I have this on Run C&Ws "Row vs. Wade" CD. I need to find
their first CD (at hopefully a better price than Harmoney House
or Dearborn Music).
I could make you a tape of my copy, Tim. Runs about 31 minutes
Thank you for the offer, I might take you up on it later.
re #12: Add me to the list of people who Just Don't Get the Wilco album. After reading much critical acclaim for it and a number of descriptions that made it sound like something I'd very much enjoy I picked up a copy which has utterly failed to catch my attention at all. My problem with most of the so-called Alternative Country acts I've checked out is that while I typically enjoy a track here and there there are very few of them that can keep my attention engaged throughout a whole album. Perhaps I'm expecting too much -- there aren't a great number of acts that can do that anyway but I seem to do a little worse than average in this particular genre.
I should write something about the three or four country albums which have been engaging my attentions lately. First on the list are the two Tarnation albums. Tarnation is actually singer/writer Paula Frazer, and her voice is the signature sound. As Leslie explained it to me, Paula sings most of the lyrics in her chest voice, mostly an alto, but then she makes these leaping breaks up into her head voice for wordless vocalizing, almost a slow yodel. On each of the two albums, GENTLE CREATURES and MIRADOR, Paula has a different band behind her. Both albums have some songs which wander into dead ends, but half- to 2/3rds of each album really grabs my obsessions: I've made a great driving tape. There's a bit of a Mexican influence in their sound; when I finally excavated the NO DEPRESSION magazine feature on them, they mentioned Ennio Morricone's movie soundtracks as an influence, which makes sense. MIRADOR has been in the Borders listening stations; don't know if it is still there.
For those who listen to the "Progressive Torch & Twang" show on MSU's student radio: in this week's e-mailing of Tuesday's playlist, original host Jamie DePolo says she's leaving the show at the end of the year, since she's no longer a student. Over in the world music item, we had drifted into a question about "what is insurgent country?" I doubt there's too much inherent in the music to merit such a classification; it's more a social grouping, a perception. Alt.country/insurgent country would be marked by an incorporation of ideas from the alternative/indie label movement of the 1980's, and at the same time an acknowledgement and incorporation of the roots of country music -- the Carter Family, the Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe, and so on. It's also very much outside the Nashville-centric orbit of the major label's country music divisions, although as usual the majors keep looking for artists to buy up.
one of the finest insugent country outfits is local: THe Volebeats.
for all you classic rock fans (i'll just drift a wee bit), check out The Byrds' last album _Sweetheart of the Rodeo_. Straight ahead country, right of the 40's and 50's. They actually performed at the Grand Ole Oprey (sp?).
"Sweetheart of the Rodeo" is one of my favorite albums (and IMHO the Byrds have been seriously cheated of their rightful place in musical history by "classic rock" stations which don't play anything beyond their very cheesiest hits (i.e. "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn.") Most of the very cool stuff they did is stuff you never hear on the radio. Check out "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", "Younger Than Yesterday", "Fifth Dimension", or "The Notorious Byrds Brothers" for four very different-sounding, very interesting, very important and influential rock albums..
Cheesy? Nah..not necessarily..they are just grossly overplayed. "Turn, Turn, Turn" I think is a remarkable achievement as a very popular song that uses scripture for lyrics. But I'll take your word for it-- perhaps someday I'll check it out, after all this school :)
OK, I'll take back "cheesey" as applied to "Turn, Turn, Turn" but you'll
never get me to retract that accusation against "Mr. Tambourine Man."
"Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship" is *NOT* a lyric that
has aged gracefully if, in fact, it was ever NOT cheesey..
I really think it's unfortunate that with the possible exception of
"Eight Miles High" the best-known Byrds recordings are all covers of
other people's songs ("Mr. Tambourine Man" / Dylan, "Turn, Turn, Turn" /
Pete Seeger, etc..) They *did* do quite a number of covers, particularly
Dylan covers, but they wrote some great original tunes, too.. As far as
the covers are concerned, my favorites are William Bell's "You Don't Miss
Your Water" on Sweetheart of the Rodeo and the traditional "Wild Mountain
Thyme" on (I think) Younger Than Yesterday.
A lot of their music has aged poorly -- a fairly common affliction for
the bands of the time. However, I think that much of the Byrds' original
material still sounds remarkably fresh when compared to other popular
music from that period.
I'll take this opportunity to put in a plug for a fairly recent, very
Byrds-like homage album by the British "shoegazer" band Ride -- their
album "Carnival of Light" is an excellent combination of a lot of what
was good about the Byrds sound *and* the early 90's Brit bands.
The Byrds also recorded a cover of another Bob Dylan song called "All I Really Want To Do," which hit the charts about the same time that another version by Cher was popular.
They recorded a *lot* of Dylan songs to varying degrees of success (commercial and artistic..) Off the top of my head, you could also include "You Ain't Going Nowhere", "The Times, They Are A-Changin'", "Lay Down Your Weary Tune", "This Wheel's On Fire" (Dylan & the Band), and probably several others that I'm forgetting. I suppose this'd probably deserve its own item if people were interested in discussing it (rather than just me ranting about it.. :-)
There is a UK collection called THE BYRDS PLAY DYLAN; I think it turns up at Tower pretty often, that's where I got my copy.
Was that a collection of Dylan covers they'd done elsewhere, or 'original' Dylan covers they'd done for that album?
The latter, I think..
It's just a compilation of all the Dylan covers recorded through the other albums.
BTW, another source of "alternative country" can be found in Tom Waits' "Bone Machine". There's at least 4 songs that could be classed as country or western.
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The "Progressive Torch & Twang" radio show up in East Lansing had a great hour-long set tonight. They started with some very nice rocking tracks, including one from the Old Joe Clarks, who are particular favorites of mine. (Note to self: look for the track "Lament" by The Gourds; this sounds considerably advanced beyond the one Gourds album I have.) Then there was a long series of tracks from familiar female voices: Gillian Welch, Iris DeMent, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams. But I didn't recognize any of the songs!! Turns out that they are all on the soundtrack album for the new Robert Redford film "The Horse Whisperer," which goes straight to the top of my must-buy list.
Yet another report on the Torch & Twang show: tonight they played six tracks from the upcoming Lucinda Williams album. It's been long awaited; Williams has had the worst luck with record companies, as her two previous labels folded underneath her. The songs sounded pretty good: release date June 30. Also yummy tonight was one track by The Hollisters, who I know nothing about... yet...
I know Rough Trade folded out from under her (and a lot of others, too..) but what was the other?
After Rough Trade expired, Lucinda Williams went to a label called Chameleon. Chameleon was a startup run by some executive who had left a major label, I vaguely recall, and it lasted about a year.
NP: Wooden Leg, "Wooden Leg." This band is the rest of Blood Oranges, what was left of them after Cheri Knight left. It's a very nice mandolin & electric guitar blend, lots of songs about death and killings. I wish I'd picked up on them when they were current; this is a 1996 release, and I suspect that the band broke up. Commended to Twila, who also likes Blood Oranges.
I've actually gotten to like the Blood Oranges more on a few re-listenings. It just took me awhile to get over the fact that they were <gasp> Country Music... But Cheri Knight's vocals were my favorite part of the band, so I don't know how much I'd like them without her.
Blood Oranges were country music?! No way, hoser. :-) Actually, every time I've looked for them in stores, they've been filed under rock.
That's funny, they seemed very much country to me.
It's a floor wax! No, it's a dessert topping! :)
<raises several eyebrows>
eugene chadbourne oh my.
Eugene Chadbourne? I thought it was an old SNL skit..
It is. I think I still have a tape with it on there sitting around somewhere. First season, no less.
sorry...i was just thinking about all the weerd country stuff that eugene does... i have a basement tape that he traded to me for a toledo mudhens cap (at the majestic) it was himself doing coltrane and john lee hooker on banjo. with lotsa feedback. is that alternative enuf fer youse?
perhaps a little *too* alternative.. :-)
NP: The V-Roys, "Just Add Ice." This batch of Steve Earle proteges is another band which could get filed in the floor wax bins or the dessert topping bins, as they drift between honky-tonk and 70's rock stylings.
(I'd like to hear that coltrane/banjo thing, actually...)
his basement several years ago
Eugene Chadbourne is great. He played on a couple of early Camper van Beethoven albums. He is a master of disonant country jazz improve.
yeah...i have some camper van chadbourne. :)
Twila Price asked for a family tree for Blood Oranges. Blood Oranges were Jimmy Ryan (mandolin), Mark Spencer (guitar) and Cheri Knight (bass). The band spans 1987-1992; they broke up just weeks before a show at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor. (I find one web citation for a 1994 split.) The band predated the alt.country scene and didn't make any money; Cheri Knight says this was the cause of the split, in an interview in the webzine Country Standard Time. Cheri Knight went off to have a solo career; her first release, THE KNITTER (1995) I found boring. This year's album, THE NORTHEAST KINGDOM, I like a lot. I suspect Steve Earle's presence has a lot to do with it; the album sounds a lot like the new Lucinda Williams album, also produced by Earle. Jimmy Ryan recorded several albums for the ESD label, all of which are now out of print. He formed a slightly purer bluegrass band, the Beacon Hillbillies, with guitarist John McGann. The first album, which I think was called BEACON HILLBILLIES, dates from around 1990, and I don't remember thinking much of it. The second album, MORE SONGS OF LOVE AND MURDER, drifts back to more of a bluegrass-rock style and I have been enjoying it a lot. The third album, A BETTER PLACE, I got in the Schoolkids closing sale and I have not played it yet. Jimmy Ryan teamed with Oranges guitarist Mark Spencer in another band, Wooden Leg. They have a 1995 self-titled release, again mostly bluegrass/rock. The webpage at www.hellcountry.com reports that guitarist Spencer has been replaced by a fiddler. That's all the recorded spinoffs I know about.
Maybe I'll go chase down some of those side projects then. Thanks.
NP: Buddy Miller, YOUR LOVE AND OTHER LIES. Miller has been getting a lot of attention lately as Emmylou Harris' guitarist in the Spyboy band and album, and he also plays guitar on his wife Julie Miller's album BLUE PONY, which is a first rate album of country leavened with rock. On his own album, however, the sound and the songs just seem too much like stock Nashville hack work to me. Not sure what went wrong. I also might mention that I picked up Willie Nelson's new album TEATRO, primarily because it is a Daniel Lanois production with lots of Emmylou Harris harmony vocals. So far it seems like a lovely album.
I had a chance to work with Buddy a while back, and he's a genuinely nice guy who is very modest about his (amazing) playing talents. I'm sorry to hear that at least this time around the songwriting doesn't hold up.
For orinoco, following up resp:52 :: The new mailout from the Northside/ East Side Digital/Omnium people says they have closeout CDs at $4 each from Blood Oranges, Beacon Hillbillies and Wooden Leg. Write to them at chill@noside.com and ask for a list, if you are still interested.
Ooh, thanks for the tip...
A kick for this item after two years. I wanted to make some notes to myself about this evening's Progressive Torch & Twang show, the alt.country radio program on Michigan State's student radio station. Three songs in succession caught my interest. The first was a track from the new Bad Livers album. Happyboy and I had been chatting about this somewhere in the conference, and based on the reviews I'd seen I hadn't been planning on buying it. But I liked this track, very intense and banjo-based, so the Bad Livers disc moves into the "buy" queue. Next up was Reckless Kelly, whoever he is, with a silly live cover version of Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love." And finally, Wilco and Syd Straw, a cover of a Jimmie Rogers song about tuberculosis, from the "Red Hot and Country" compilation album of a few years back. I don't know if that's still available. Carla would like to hear it for the presence of Syd Straw.
Reckless Kelly *are* brothers Willy and Cody Braun, from Idaho I believe, Willy on vocals and guitar and Cody playing fiddle and mandolin. Together with drums, bass and more guitar, I'd call them a country band that knows how to rock. They pulled into Austin a few years ago, and are making quite a hit around town. During last year's Austin Music Awards, they won "Best New Band" and "best roots rock band." I don't own any of their albums myself, but I hear their songs regularly on the radio, and a co-worker has the acoustic "Live at Stubbs" and I borrow that from time to time.
heh, alt.country...hank sr. would be considered
alt.country these days. so would bob wills,
the carter family...
Note to myself, no one else is likely to care. Paula Frazer has a web site, like everyone else: www.paulafrazer.com. The band name Tarnation has been dropped. They are shopping an album; in the mean time, she sang one song on the Cornershop album and five songs on an album by The Czars.
I'm eating lunch while reading this and I missed the "z" in that last line, firing off a Ric Ocasek flashback..
Oh, that one chick on the Cornershop album. Interesting... (I think this is further proof that Ken and I come from different planets)
resp:58, followup for happyboy :: The Ark schedule lists Billy Joe Shaver for Wednesday, July 11. "Opening will be Danny Barnes and the Old Codgers, Danny formerly with the Bad Livers." Formerly? I hadn't heard about that.
they pretty much ended when danny barnes moved out to the seattle area. i think he still works with mark ruben the bassist some tho.
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