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Grex > Music2 > #18: Alternative Country Hits The Big Time | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 65 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 34 of 65:
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Jun 3 07:22 UTC 1998 |
I know Rough Trade folded out from under her (and a lot of others, too..)
but what was the other?
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krj
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response 35 of 65:
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Jun 3 23:10 UTC 1998 |
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.
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krj
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response 36 of 65:
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Aug 30 05:58 UTC 1998 |
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.
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orinoco
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response 37 of 65:
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Aug 31 03:14 UTC 1998 |
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.
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anderyn
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response 38 of 65:
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Aug 31 13:40 UTC 1998 |
Blood Oranges were country music?! No way, hoser. :-) Actually, every
time I've looked for them in stores, they've been filed under rock.
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orinoco
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response 39 of 65:
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Aug 31 16:05 UTC 1998 |
That's funny, they seemed very much country to me.
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krj
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response 40 of 65:
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Aug 31 23:48 UTC 1998 |
It's a floor wax! No, it's a dessert topping! :)
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orinoco
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response 41 of 65:
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Sep 1 02:12 UTC 1998 |
<raises several eyebrows>
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happyboy
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response 42 of 65:
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Sep 1 02:46 UTC 1998 |
eugene chadbourne
oh my.
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mcnally
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response 43 of 65:
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Sep 1 08:48 UTC 1998 |
Eugene Chadbourne? I thought it was an old SNL skit..
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senna
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response 44 of 65:
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Sep 1 13:14 UTC 1998 |
It is. I think I still have a tape with it on there sitting around somewhere.
First season, no less.
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happyboy
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response 45 of 65:
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Sep 2 01:56 UTC 1998 |
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?
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mcnally
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response 46 of 65:
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Sep 2 05:00 UTC 1998 |
perhaps a little *too* alternative.. :-)
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krj
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response 47 of 65:
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Sep 2 16:26 UTC 1998 |
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.
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orinoco
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response 48 of 65:
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Sep 3 22:39 UTC 1998 |
(I'd like to hear that coltrane/banjo thing, actually...)
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happyboy
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response 49 of 65:
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Sep 4 02:08 UTC 1998 |
his basement several years ago
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raven
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response 50 of 65:
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Sep 4 06:26 UTC 1998 |
Eugene Chadbourne is great. He played on a couple of early Camper van
Beethoven albums. He is a master of disonant country jazz improve.
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happyboy
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response 51 of 65:
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Sep 4 14:58 UTC 1998 |
yeah...i have some camper van chadbourne. :)
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krj
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response 52 of 65:
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Oct 14 19:14 UTC 1998 |
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.
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orinoco
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response 53 of 65:
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Oct 15 00:41 UTC 1998 |
Maybe I'll go chase down some of those side projects then. Thanks.
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krj
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response 54 of 65:
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Oct 30 10:07 UTC 1998 |
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.
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goose
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response 55 of 65:
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Oct 30 15:39 UTC 1998 |
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.
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krj
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response 56 of 65:
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Dec 13 16:15 UTC 1998 |
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.
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orinoco
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response 57 of 65:
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Dec 14 02:23 UTC 1998 |
Ooh, thanks for the tip...
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krj
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response 58 of 65:
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Jan 31 03:39 UTC 2001 |
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.
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