Icon

July 25, 2008 • 6:35 pm 0

Hot Hot Heat / Half a Year in Song

Nineteen-hundred miles later, I’m back in the swamps, ringing out my shirts and screaming about football.  I love Louisiana so much it hurts sometimes.  It hurts when I drive through Baton Rouge, past my old house in the Garden District and the little clap house on State; it hurts when I talk to my friends about football season and they make plans without me.  It doesn’t hurt so much to go into CC’s; that actually felt kinda nice.  It really hurt taking LA-190, cutting through all of the little Cajun towns with names like Port Barre and Krotz Springs, stopping and trying to buy boudin from a gas station only to learn that they’re all out (of course they’re out of boudin; it was eight p.m.).  That may have hurt the most, because there is nothing in the world like Small Town, Louisiana (or maybe ‘T Ville, Louisiana).

So, I burned halfway across America in three days (never do that; it’s a hard racket, even if you do eat fry bread in New Mexico and see the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for the second time in as many months), and now I’m sitting in Louis Armstrong International Airport, getting ready to travel another 1,200 miles to Philadelphia, NJ, and NYC for the week, then off to Newport, RI, to cover the Newport Folk Festival for AD, then home to see the Hold Steady at Chelsea’s, and finally up to Grand Rapids, where I do not plan on moving out of my seat for at least a month and a half.  Fun experiences, to be sure, but completely exhausting.  I can’t tell you how appealing it sounds to sit on a couch and watch TV and not move an inch for at least three days.

Anyway, because I haven’t really had the time to think much about music, here’s a list of my favorite songs of 2008, so far:
wale – the opening monologue
wale – the kramer (both of these are from his mixtape about nothing; the first one attacks hip-hop culture for not caring about anything, the second attacks racism; mos def’s waters to be sure, but wale is more clever, and his beats are fire)
sam sparro – black and gold (this song was all over indie 103.1 in los angeles; i don’t usually [read: never] go for dance-pop, but something about sparro’s voice and the production of this track grabs me.  it reminds me of a poppier TV on the Radio, with searching lyrics)
no age – teen creeps
no age – eraser (both of these are on the nouns lp; eraser is poppier and more fun to listen to, but the melody and thrashing on teen creeps kills; great noisy pop-punk from the current kings of LA)
silver jews – strange victory, strange defeat
silver jews – suffering jukebox (both from lookout mountain, lookout sea, my second favorite record of the year so far; i’ve been very overwhelmed by great lyricists lately [craig finn, will sheff mostly], and david berman’s words strike deep)
the whigs – right hand on my heart (great throwaway thrash-pop; the whigs were the first band I saw in los angeles; alarmingly intense and disarmingly melodic; shades of nirvana)
atlas sound – recent bedroom (druggy bedroom noise, but oddly soothing)
lil wayne – la la la (oh my goodness.  this may be my favorite song of the year so far.  i’m a sucker for anything louisiana-related (duh), and weezy never disappoints there.  really just a good song about growing up)
plants and animals – feedback in the field (montreal indie pop with a spiky wah solo)
hold steady – slapped actress (best song of the year, period.  nothing will beat this.  i plan on writing something very long on this very soon, so i won’t go into it.  just listen to it.)
okkervil river – singer songwriter
okkervil river – on tour with zykos (both from the forthcoming stand-ins lp; will sheff with an eye on indie culture)
sigur rós – gobbledigook (too much fun to not be counted; like animal collective on ice)
roadside graves – far and wide (sounds like front porches and college)
felice brothers – frankie’s gun!! (soulful country music that tells a story [my  grandfather's requirements for a good song], dark but a total party, sorta like louisiana)
destroyer – my favourite year (a grower; i gave trouble in dreams 3 1/2 stars, but this is its best track; i like when dan bejar calms down a bit; i wish he’d do it more often)
dodos – jodi (weird and percussive folk music; some say they sound like animal collective “with songs,” (i’m looking at you, jones), but i think that AC has plenty of songs, so i’m not judging)
abe vigoda – dead city/waste wilderness (AWESOME concept for a band: tropical punk music; i haven’t heard the record yet, but if it keeps the breakneck party-pace of this track, i’m all about it; vampire weekend with fangs)
drive-by truckers – the opening act
drive-by truckers – two daughters and a beautiful wife (both from brighter than creation’s dark, a record that  will probably be overlooked when everyone makes their year-end lists since it came out in early january; patterson hood just tells good stories)

Filed under: Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 24, 2008 • 3:00 am 0

Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
New West Records; 4.5 Stars

Despite their reputation for being the South’s most lovable drunks on stage, the Drive-By Truckers have always found their home on record. Never has this been more true than on Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, the Athens five-piece’s latest record. Despite losing the brilliant singer-songwriter Jason Isbell (who quit the group in 2007 following his divorce from wife and DBT bassist Shonna Tucker), the group have finally made their masterpiece.
The Truckers’ songs have always at least had a bit of a playful spirit to them, even when they were singing about Satan and George Wallace and the fiery death of Lynyrd Skynyrd. That spirit is largely missing on the sprawling Brighter; in fact, the songs here that are meant to be playful (Mike Cooley’s “3 Dimes Down” and “Bob,” among several others) have not-so-subtle traces of melancholy. The negative emotional thrust of the record makes it a tough listen, though the group’s focused aim has served only to help them hit their target with more force. In other words, the lack of “fun” on the album doesn’t take away from its merit or the listener’s ability to enjoy it. Consider it a musical No Country For Old Men, from its black and white portraits to the stark twang and dim static of the music.
Though Patterson Hood has always been de facto leader of the three-songwriter band, Brighter is the first of the group’s records that feels like a unit as opposed to the work of three artists. Hood’s “Opening Act,” the album’s centerpiece, is at its most basic a portrait of the beginning of a musician’s life on the road. But when he croaks about “the sun rising over a Technicolor horizon” after having just mentally chalked up a cocaine purchase as a necessary evil, it’s hard to figure out what the narrator’s success has stemmed from. Do the ends justify the means? Hood’s narrator seems to think so, but the dewy lines dripping from John Neff’s pedal steel guitar seem to suggest otherwise. Hood has made compassionate portraiture his stock and trade for years, but never has it been so focused as it is here on tracks like Neil Young stomper “The Righteous Path” or slow-rolling banjo track “Two Daughters and a Wife.”
Brighter Than Creation’s Dark stands in the same dark corner as Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night and Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It’s a bleak, lush record that bleeds deep for the people whose stories it tells, whether it’s the soldier haunted by the humanity of his victim in “That Man I Shot” or the tired teenagers who live in Cooley’s “Self-Destructive Zones.” Like Neil Young and Neutral Milk Hotel, the Truckers are telling stories that are at once specific but also universal, stories about the world that we all inhabit every day. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark is not background music. It’s not study music, or music you listen to to have a good time. It’s the kind of music you listen to when you’re trying to make sense of the world around you as all of your lovely wallpaper begins to peel at the edges. As Cooley comments in “Checkout Time in Vegas,” “Sin City still shines brighter than creation’s dark.” Here’s hoping we keep our eyes open for the Technicolor horizon.

Filed under: Uncategorized , , ,

• 2:26 am 0

Shooter Jennings/Drive-By Truckers [Voodoo Fest '06]

Somewhere out in Voodoo land, tight pants’d college kids who came for Broken Social Scene and are staying for Social Distorition will be faced with a dilemma. Shooter Jennings, whose records land barely land on the right side of the pop / authentic country line, is sandwiched between the current indie darlings and the legendary punkers. Not that the opinion of a bunch of hipsters could possibly bother the progeny of outlaw country legend Waylon and singer Jessi Colter (a legend in her own right). Shooter’s made rock-infused country his stock-and-trade for the last few years, sharing the stage with David Allan Coe and Willie Nelson and playing that strain of country made especially for outdoor festivals. Could he be the Gonzaga of Voodoo Fest?
On the other side of the ground, immediately following Shooter, are the notorious Drive-By Truckers. The Truckers have made a name for themselves by playing legendary three-hour sets and writing poignant and intelligent narratives about the South. Put briefly, they’re the kind of Southern band that Yankees adore and pretend to understand. Either way, the Truckers will be the loudest band  at the festival, and probably the drunkest (why they keep getting put on bills sponsored by alcohol companies should be no question to any veteran of an early-morning spent at Tipitina’s with the group). These guys are worth seeing for the charisma of frontman Patterson Hood alone, but the portraiture of Jason Isbell and “Stroker Ace” Mike Cooley are not to be missed.

Filed under: Uncategorized , , , , ,

• 2:22 am 0

Drive-By Truckers – A Blessing and a Curse

Drive-By Truckers – A Blessing and a Curse
New West Records – 41⁄2 Steven Stars

In Kennesaw, Georgia, minutes north of Atlanta, there is a store owned by a 70 year old named Wild Man.  Among the many items which Wild Man proudly sells is a used KKK uniform, several authentic Nazi armbands and grave markers, and countless anti-black t-shirts.  Thirty minutes away, in urban Atlanta, is the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center, dedicated to the deceased civil rights activist.  Among the many items which the gift shop in the King Center sells is the book I Have a Dream, “non-violence OR non-existence” bracelets, and countless equal rights t-shirts.  Tourists can see both of these places on the same broiling Atlanta day if they are willing to make the drive.  Most Southerners don’t have to work that hard.  Such, as the Drive-By Truckers have been known to say, is the duality of the Southern thang.

For several years, the Truckers’ stock and trade has been this exact topic:  the relationship between dark and light in Southern culture.  The duality of the Southern thang.   Light and dark, beauty and dirt.  A Blessing and a Curse finds the Truckers no longer painting broad strokes of Southern culture but individual portraits of death, poverty, drugs, and depression that could be from anywhere in the US but still sound better when played with a Southern accent.  “Feb 14″ brings to mind 80s punk along the lines of the Replacements moreso than anything by the Allman Brothers.  The twangy Southernisms of Decoration Day and the perfect Dirty South are still present, of course, but the focus is no longer on geography but sociology.  Each song is a vignette of some poor wretch from Dixie, whether it be the father in “Little Bonnie” who thinks that his daughter’s death is divine retribution or the widowed husband in “Space City” who’s too proud to cry in public.  A Blessing and a Curse falls into the fine tradition of Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night:  beautiful albums too dark to see through.  After all of this darkness, though, Patterson Hood closes the record by reminding us that “to love is to feel pain” before he moans half-convinced “it’s great to be alive.”  Grab what you can get, because happiness is not easy to come by.  This is an album to be listened to with significant volume in a poorly lit room when no one else is around.

The Truckers, it can now be said, are no longer “that good ole band from the South,” but simply “that great band.”  Yes, comparisons to Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner will always haunt them just as the ghost of Ronnie Van Zandt will always float just underneath their music, but the Truckers have become more than that, more important than most of their musical influences.  The South has risen again, and this time they’re fighting with soul.

Filed under: Uncategorized , , , ,

• 2:14 am 0

Drive-By Truckers [Tipitina's, Jazz Fest 2005]

It’s a bit tough to describe the experience that is a Drive-By Truckers show.  I’ll let lead Trucker Patterson Hood do it for me:  “The last time we played Tipitina’s, it was the Sundee before Mardi Gras.  We got in town ’round eleven, started drinkin’.  They gave us some fuckin’ red beans and rice.  Some fuckin’ jambalaya.  We kept drinkin’ Jack Daniels.  We’d eat some more red beans, drink some more Jack.  This went on for twelve hours, y’all.  I barely  made it to the stage, and I don’t even know how well we played that night.  But we love Tipitina’s…”

That, in a nutshell, is a Drive-By Truckers show.  But don’t let the watery words of Mr. Hood fool you; these guys are serious.  Their latest album, The Dirty South, is a Southern Gothic masterpiece that is part Skynyrd; part Faulkner; and, yes, part Jack Daniels.  Hood, along with fellow songwriters Jason Isbell and “The Stroker Ace” Mike Cooley, have built a reputation as the best Southern storytellers since Tennessee Williams.  When coupled with their furiously loud three guitar attack, the Truckers’ “fuck you, we’re from the South, we‘re proud” attitude is dirtier than the General Lee, the Rebel Flag, and a “Southern By The Grace of God” license plate combined.  It should be pointed out, however, that the group is very aware of what Hood calls the “dichotomy of the Southern thang”.  They have always viewed their homeland from an objective standpoint, loving the beautiful and criticizing the horrible.

But all of this lyrical subtlety won’t matter when they take the stage for their 2 a.m. show at Tip’s during Jazzfest.  What’ll matter is how loud they play, how much everyone in the room drinks, and how high the sun will be when the group’s (usually) three hour set is over.  Everyone will leave, shaking their heads in disbelief, smiling drunkenly, muttering “What in Hell was that?”  The Drive-By Truckers are not a live band.  They are a brutal, brilliant, beautiful force.

Filed under: Uncategorized , , ,

The Hold Steady almost killed me.

Eyedrops

Notre Dame Stadium

Touchdown Jesus

Notre Dame Stadium

More Photos

Blog Stats

  • 6,090 smacks

Meta

Friends

Other People Write

Workplay