Check this out

I don't have anything particularly intelligent to say about this, but it's beyond awesome:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQGjkBuMGAU


Wait for Jerry Douglas's little solo. That's why he gets invited to play on EVERYTHING. That ole boy knows what to do with that dobro.

Well, I do have something semi-intelligent to say. . . I made a long post not long ago about Townes Van Zant and Steve Earle. Guy Clark hung around with them folks too, and he frequently plays Townes songs. Although his own songs are plenty amazing.

Seriously, though. Are there many songs out there that are better than this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwUpkEK6yk&feature=related

The Big Surprise

When I went home last time, I made an overnight stop in Nashville to see a show on the "Big Surprise" tour. The Felice Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Earle, and The David Rawlings Maching (David Rawlings and Gillian Welche, but with David as the frontman and Gillian as the backup singer).

The gimmick of the shows is that the bands played with each other frequently, and people were constants coming and going from the stage. "It's Justin Earle with the Old Crow Medicine Show. . . . is that a Felice Brother plugging his guitar in during the middle of the song. . . who's that guy. . . oh it's Benmont Tenche. . . holy shit, that's Benmont Tenche!"

It was pretty much 100% awesome, although the order the bands played didn't quite work for me. Old Crow was treated as the headliner, although they are probably my least favorite band on the bill (although I like them a lot. . . hell, I'd drive down to De Moines on a Monday night to see them). That made the last hour a little anticlimactice, but then there was an encore featuring EVEYBODY, which was completely awesome.

Great show. I recommend seeing any of those bands in any configuration.

While I'm thinking about it, Justin Earle is one of my favorite young performers, and he gets better all the time. I saw him in Macon a couple of years ago with just a vague idea of who he is. DAMN. I was pretty much blown away. His onstage presence is pretty much Hank Williams Sr. but with tats and a greaser hairdo. He's the real deal. He's not much like his dad in terms of what he sounds like, but he's got that same "thing" that great performers have. At the show I saw in Macon, he had the whole bar rocking, with people dancing and hollering like it was a punk show. And it was just a skinny dude with an acoustic guitar. Bad ass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjOkIlF_bGQ

Great Songs, pretty good record: Stupid song, great record

"One of These Days," and "Uncle Frank," both by Mike Cooley (of DBT). Phenomenal songs that I hadn't much paid attention to until recently, mostly because "Pizza Deliverance" was recorded before the Drive By Truckers really found themselves. I've got it and I've listened to it, but some of it doesn't connect in the way that their post "SRO" stuff does. When the band plays those songs NOW, they are AMAZING, but the versions on the record are just good. "One of These Days" contains some of those great Cooley lines that I can't help but share:

"Dropped out of school when he was just sixteen
fell right in to a tire plant
building the very things that make the asphalt sing
and put Alabama far behind you"

Here's another one:

"It's no wonder everybodie's scared of downtown Birmingham
it's just a little too close to home
But there's more crooks down here and the cops don't care,
while old white men wearing ties can do anything they want."

And another:

"One of these days when my face looks like a roadmap gonna find my way back home.
And i'll go walking on the west side after dark and leave my gun locked in my car.
One of these days you'll take one look at me and run. "

Mike Cooley is something else boy.

Luckily, "Uncle Frank" got rerecorded and released on "The Fine Print," so it's ready to appreciated for the masterpiece that it is. I think DBT needs to do a big live record someday so that we can hear the band as it is now play some of the early stuff. The astonishing versions of "The Living Bubba" and "18 Wheels of Love" on the Austin City Limits thing suggest that there are other songs would be well served by a little refurbishing.


AS I was considering this topic, it occured to me that many of the classic 50's rock and roll songs are kind of interesting in the light of my categories. Little Richard cut some undeniably great records that redefined popular music. Most of the songs he recorded are way beyond stupid.

Tutti Frutti, for example. It was originally a song about anal sex, and a pro songwriter came in and scribbled down some quick couplets to replace the original lyrics.

Here are some of the original the lyrics to Tutti Frutti:

"A wop bop a loo mop, a good goddam!
Tutti Frutti, good booty
If it don’t fit, don’t force it
You can grease it, make it easy."

Here are the revised versions that are in the record:

"I got a gal named Daisy
She almost drives me crazy
I got a gal named Daisy
She almost drives me crazy
She knows how to love me, yes indeed
boy you don't know
What she do to me"

Not really up to Cooley's line about tires, but it's still a great record. There are a few good covers of it too.

And one truly god-awful one, which was actually a bigger hit than LR's version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvieb2OedWE


This shit is awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYHgbrUyirE&feature=related

Upcoming Posts

A lot running interest of mine is the difference between a great song and a great record.

Bob Dylan has written dozens of great songs. He's only made a few great records. (Although the majority of the records he's made are really good.) Some of his best songs are merely very good records: "If You See Her Say Hello" for example. This is no slight on Bob Dylan. His stuff is kind of "of the moment," if that makes any sense. His songs exist in performance. His very best performances are live. The Manchester Concert from 1966. . . the famous "JUDAS!" show. . . is undoubtedly the best Bob Dylan record ever. For years it was just a live bootleg. It was an accident of a particular time and place.

It's plenty hard to make a really good record. No shame in a forty plus year career filled with records that are mostly very good and a songbook waiting for others to mine. Garth Freakin' Brooks even got a hit out of an overlooked Bob Dylan song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkiD_vkXITE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqUFHEyu5hM&feature=fvw

(By the way, the guy playing the drums in that BD video later had a small part on "Home Improvement." He was the big guy with the crazy red beard who showed up on "Tool Time" occasionally and mugged while Tim Allen did dangerous nonsense. Ah, TGIF.)



Joy Division, on the other hand, wrote songs that were mostly just pretty good. By the standards of pop radio, they were pretty astounding, but that's not saying much. But they made records (and created live performances of the arrangments that are on those records) that can only be described in superlatives. Ian Curtis certainly had a way with a lyric, but most of his stuff kind of floats into the either. It's the tension between him and the rest of the band that makes it work. That's why Joy Division songs aren't covered very often. It's mostly a dumb idea. You can:

1. Do it real faithful but make it more aggressive or modern sounding. NIN did this with "Dead Souls." Worked out okay, and it was cool to get to hear the song more often, as NIN was more popular that JD back in the day that NIN was popular. But there's no reason to listen to that anymore. Techno artists like to cover Joy Division. It usually doesn't embarrass anybody, but it's not a good use of time.

2. Be New Order.

3. Do it acoustic. This means you are clearly an idiot. But knock yourself out. Idiot.

Seriously though. This shit is pointless:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIe3IgmdSlI&feature=fvw

Here, wash that stupid out of your head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flVEoNuEYgE&feature=related




In my world, the Clash made great records. Leonard Cohen writes great songs. Beach Boys: great records. Jimmy Rogers: great songs.

Of course there's pleny of overlap in my silly categories, and the two aren't really seperable. It's tough to make a great record out of a bad song (although Phil Spector did is many times), but it's easy to make a terrible record out of a great song. Leonard Cohen's version of "Tonight We'll Be Fine" is revolting unless you consider it to be a joke. I do think that in pop music, artists tend to lean one way or the other.

A few of the greatest of the great really can't be described in this way. Merle Haggard is one of America's greatest songwriters and his classic records are among the most well produced and perfectly considered pop recordings ever. The Beatles reinvented both the songwriting and record making wheels several times over, although I'm not the biggest Beatles fan. (That's a subject for another day.) Duke Ellington's compositions were meant for specific musicians to play. That's Jazz too, where composition and performance get blurrier.

Maybe breading it down my artist doesn't work that well. It's an interesting little excersize though. If you had to list the greatest SONGS in pop music history, that wouldn't be the same as the greatest RECORDS in pop music history.

Songs might include "Like a Rolling Stone," "Satisfaction," "Chealsea Hotel No.2," "Your Cheatin' Heart". . . .

Records might include "Strawberry Feilds Forever," "Lucille," "That's Allright," "Anarchy in the U.K.," "Love Will Tear Us Apart," "God Only Knows". . .

Anyway, an intersting topic. I'll keep considering it.

Jim Carroll Died

He sure did.

Seriously though, he was an accomplished artist who I haven't gotten around to exploring seriously yet. I mostly revere him for writing this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBbuPnfG0Vo

The Drive By Truckers often play it as an encore. They played it at the Macon show I saw last month. When somebody plays that song seriously it's an amazingly cathartic thing, as it was in Macon when Patterson started yelling and hollering about the people he had recently lost.

R.I.P. Jim Carroll.

DBT MUTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah baby.

It's been a few weeks since I've posted. Been busy. I said I was going to do some more DBT stuff. That is correct sir.

As I advertized, I was going to see the Drive By Truckers in Macon. I did. It was great. ANYONE reading this should make a habit of checking their website to find out the next opportunity they'll have to see them. I hate when people talk about pop music in term of "authenticity" and "realness," but there isn't really another way to really explain what's so great about DBT without resorting that. They are one of the very few real rock and roll bands around. I don't know what I mean by that, but if you get the chance to watch Mike Cooley make silly faces at people while playing guitar solos for three hours, you'll agree.

As I hoped, they were in better spirits this time around. They were awesome last time, but they seemed a little burned out. This show was a much looser, goofier. . . happier show. Shawna kept grinning and winking at the audience. Patterson kept laughing and waving his arms around. Cooley floated around with his eyes closed, except when he'd make an exaggerated "guitar face" and roll his eyes back in his head. They were obviously about half lit up on whiskey, but they never missed a cue, musical or emotional. I was standing two feet in front of Cooley and Shawna.

It was heavy on the more humorous side of the band, which showcased a part of the band's personality that some of the "Southern Rock Opera" worship can obscure sometimes. When it comes to black humor, these guys are in the same league as Warren Zevon/Frank Zappa (more on Warren Zevon later). They started the show with "Hell No I Ain't Happy," which pretty much set the tone for the night. The cool thing about DBT is that they have such a deep catalogue and such a wild onstage presence that you never quite know what you are going to get. They aren't exactly a different band every night, but depending on the mood of the crowd and the mood of the band, they can play a pretty different show for any occasion. In Macon we were drunk and weird. I was standing next to ANOTHER big ole dude with a shaved head and a black t-shirt. People kept asking if we were brothers. Where was I. . . . oh yeah. . . the neat thing is that they played a show without "Sinkhole," "Putting People on the Moon," "Two Daughters and a Wife," "Heathens," "The Living Bubba," or a bunch of other great stuff, but we didn't miss it. This show was catered to a particular vibe. It was sort of perfect, even if it wasn't the definitive DBT show. There is no such thing as the definitive DBT show. That's why DBT is so great. This show was very different from the more measured performance they gave on "Austin City Limits," but just as good (seriously). I'm not the first person to note this, but what they really need to do is to put out a serious of concert albums ala Pearl Jam or the Dead that document the band on different nights. Or a big live boxed set with good shows from different periods of the bands history. (It's been a long decade for these guys. . . they've been through three different periods already.)

High points. . . . a rocking version of "The Company I Keep" which evolved, as it always does, into a goofy singalong ("sometiiiiiimes I feeeeel like SHIT!! Sometiiiimes it ain't the half of it!"). . . . "Dead Drunk and Naked" because that three chord riff gave us all a chance to headbang. . . "People who Died" because it's fast and morbid.

Alright then. . . that's enough of that. . .

In other DBT news, they put out a new record the other day. It's an odds and sods compiliation called "The Fine Print," and it'll end up being my favorite record of the year. Like most albums of this nature, it's got a couple of songs that wouldn't make the cut normally, but UNlike mose albums of this sort, most of it is fantastic. There are several songs that are as good as anything that DBT has ever done, like "Talking George Jones Cell Phone Blues" (which is what it sounds like, except it's a country rock song and not a talking blues song) and "When the Well Runs Dry" (one of Isbell's meditations about the performer's life. . .oh yeah, most of this stuff dates back to when he was in the band. . . this is mostly the "Dirty South" DBT), there are several GREAT covers which were done for various compilations or tribute albums, including a version of Warren Zevon's "Play it All Night Long" that songs pretty much like a song from "Southern Rock Opera" (and which includes Patterson yelling "SWEAT, PISS, JIZZ, BLOOD!!!) and a version of Tom Petty's "Rebels" that is waaay better than the original (which I have always actually liked, even it Tom Petty overproduced it. . . by the way, Tom Petty was working on that song when he got frustrated, punched a wall, and broke his hand so bad he almost lost the ability to play the guitar. . . don't do cocaine kids). Of course it also includes "Mrs. Klaus's Kimono," a weird novelty song about killing Santa Claus. It has lyrics about Santa having sex with a reindeer. It's nice to have it around, but it's not hard to figure why they hadn't released it yet.

Best song is Mike Cooley's "Great Big Horse," which is seems like something left over from "The Basement Tapes." It's a beautiful little song that was apparently inspired by a dirty joke. Figures.

Check this shit out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLP_r7NZY_w



And this is from the actual show! I was watching this from the bar. Capital needs to get more bartenders. This actually a pretty fun moment. Patterson is messing the crowd to see if he's gonna be able to do any softer stuff. Nope. Yeah, we got that he was ribbing us. That's Tift Merrit playing guitar. That's Jack Daniels in the bottle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH7zE3vICYY


I don't remember this at all. Beer memory. Capricorn Record's offices are down the street from where Patterson is standing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xp3cqDCnfY&feature=related



And here's the end of the encore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF5nY_pC8c0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj8YxEqnGWM&feature=related


There are two big dudes who look like boulders jumping around in front of Cooley. I'm the littler one with glasses. That's David Barbe playing Bass. His band played down the street after the show and all the DBT went down. I got to meet them down there.


This is very unlike what they did in Macon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v5OiZ9C8zU&feature=related



That's enough DBT posting for a while. I think I'll write something about horror movies next.

Or about the "Big Surprise" show I saw in Nashville.