Vintage Review: Bare Jr's Boo-Tay (1998)

The son of country star Bobby Bare, Junior’s music bears only a passing resemblance to that of his father. Sure, there’s plenty of country influence here – how could you grow up in Nashville in the 1970s and ‘80s with artists like Johnny Cash, George Jones, Willie Nelson and the like hanging around town and not soak some of it up? For Bobby Bare, Jr. however, country is not a means to an end, but rather a flavor to add to his energetic stew of Southern rock and punkish attitude.

The material on Boo-Tay blows away 99% of the alt-country poseurs trying to ride a rising trend to fame and fortune. As a band, Bare Jr. kick out the motherfucking jams with a vigor that surely has Hank spinning in his grave. Boo-Tay’s guitar-driven songs burn with a fervor I’ve only heard matched by Jason & the Scorchers and, more recently, Slobberbone, with the young Bare’s wonderfully imperfect vocals often spiraling out of control like a drunken dervish while guitarist Michael Grimes tears off razor-sharp riffs like some sort of bloodthirsty predator.
 
Bare’s songs tread familiar lyrical ground, albeit with his own peculiar individual twist, the subject matter ranging from self-loathing and lost innocence to betrayal and unrequited love. Cuts like “The Most,” “Faker,” “Why Don’t You Love Me” and the wickedly dark “I Hate Myself” (written with Shel Silverstein) are overflowing with brilliant imagery, not-so-subtle wordplay and hard-rocking instrumentation. One of the more engaging debut discs this year, Boo-Tay is a welcome introduction to the talents of Bare Jr. (Immortal/Epic Records, released 1998)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ 

Vintage Review: Raging Fire’s Everything Is Roses, 1984-1989 (2015)

Nashville is a far different city in 2015 than it was 30 years ago. The Music City has become far more musically diverse, and the city’s rock music scene no longer exists beneath ground, with performers relegated to dive bars like Elliston Square or Cantrell’s. After all, Jack White lives in Nashville now, as do those two guys from the Black Keys, and the city has recently attracted talented immigrants like bluesman Keb’ Mo’. Even the city’s prodigal son, cult rocker R. Stevie Moore, has returned to Nashville.

These days, homegrown Nashville rock bands like Jeff the Brotherhood and Kings of Leon get glowing mentions in Rolling Stone magazine but, back in the day, as a freelance music journalist championing the city’s non-country music scene, I couldn’t get magazine editors on either coast interested in what was going down in Nashville. Jason & the Nashville Scorchers would score a major label deal, but for every local band that would eventually be beaten up and disappointed by the music biz, there were a dozen talented bands like Practical Stylists, Civic Duty, or Shadow 15 that were left standing outside the gates to heaven looking in…  

Ring of Fire

Raging Fire was one of those bands that deserved more, and during their brief tenure on the local scene – circa 1985 to 1989 – they nevertheless managed to make a bigger splash in our small rock ‘n’ roll pond that just about any other local Nashville band at the time. Originally formed under the name Ring of Fire by singer Melora Zaner, guitarist Michael Godsey (who sadly passed away in 2012), bassist Les Shields, and drummer Mark Medley, and managed by ‘man about town’ (and former Phranks n’ Steins booker) Rick Champion, they changed their name to Raging Fire and began dominating the handful of stages available around town with their high-octane performances.

The members of Raging Fire had come up through the fledgling local scene: Zaner from the band Color Flag; Shields from the Ratz, one of the city’s first punk bands; and Godsey and Medley from Committee for Public Safety (CPS), Nashville’s first hardcore band. Their musical influences were as diverse as the members themselves, ranging from classic rock like Led Zeppelin and the Who to erudite punks like X and psychobilly pioneers the Cramps. Fronted by the diminutive Zaner, whose larger than life vocals exuded raw sexuality, the singer was backed by a hungry, ferocious gang of musicians. The retrospective Everything Is Roses, 1985-1989 looks back at Raging Fire’s too-short career, which included only an EP and a full-length album alongside a handful of compilation tracks by which to remember these Nashville rock trailblazers.

Raging Fire’s Everything Is Roses

Fond memories of a band don’t mean much if the music hasn’t held up well after a quarter century, and Raging Fire’s unique sound has proven to be as timeless as it is exciting. Everything Is Roses opens with “A Family Thing,” from the band’s 1985 EP of the same. With a deceptive intro dominated by Zaner’s angelic vocals and Godsey’s acoustic strum, the song literally explodes into a tsunami of chaotic instrumentation. Zaner’s vocals bob up and down through the sonic storm like a warning light as the band continues its instrumental barrage, changing directions so frequently as to create a sort of satisfying whiplash. The rhythmic “You Should Read More Books” is of an entirely different construct, with Medley’s knockout drumbeats and Shields’ dynamic bass playing creating an exotic foundation beneath Zaner’s breathless vocals, with shards of Godsey’s imaginative fretwork puncturing the song’s wall of sound.

“Beware of a Man With Manners” changes directions again, the band evincing a fierce punk undercurrent beneath its Southern Gothic lyrical trappings. Zaner’s vocals here sound a lot like Exene Cervenka while her lyrics channel a similar whipsmart literary edge. Godsey’s guitar playing is amazing here, dancing from 1970s-era arena rock histrionics to switchblade-punk thrash while the rhythm section provides an enormous presence, Shields’ bass holding down the arrangement so that it doesn’t fly off the rails while Medley’s reckless percussion threatens to teeter off the tracks at any moment.

Faith Love Was Made Of

The album's title track, “Everything Is Roses,” serves as the band’s signature song, a blinding performance taken from the City Without A Subway album, a 1986 Vanderbilt University radio station (WRVU) compilation. A monster track that made listeners sit up and take notice, Zaner’s vocal performance is pure lightning in a bottle, soaring above a trashy soundtrack fueled by Medley’s machine-gun drums and Godsey’s flamethrower guitar, the song itself an amalgam of punk-rock, Southern roots, and obtuse poetic lyrics that would make Zimmerman proud. By the time that the band recorded it sole full-length album, Faith Love Was Made Of, in 1986, Shields had left the band, replaced by local scene veteran Lee A. Carr (R.I.P.) of the Enemy.

Carr brought a more anarchic style to the band as opposed to Shields’ strong, soulful rhythms. The other members of Raging Fire had grown, musically, during the interim, the band gradually evolving, as so many do, by performing frequently across the country. “Knee Jerk Response” is a perfect example of this growth, the song a complex blend of Zaner’s vocal gymnastics, Godsey’s razor-blade guitar, and Medley’s more nuanced, but still powerful percussion. By contrast, “You and Me” is sheer punk-rock fury; a runaway arrangement with heavy instrumentation that often buries Zaner’s vocals, Medley’s tribal drumbeats giving way to the blind emotion displayed by Godsey’s screaming strings.

Hear Rock City

Taken from the 1988 CMJ (College Music Journal) compilation LP Ten of a Kind, “The Marrying Kind” was a Raging Fire fan favorite and a constant presence on the WRVU-FM playlist. Raging Fire rubbed elbows on that album with such esteemed “underground” artists as the Gunbunnies and Material Issue as one of the best unsigned bands in the U.S. A more subdued song than some of their milieu, “The Marrying Kind” offers one of Zaner’s best lyrical compositions, with aggressive, emotional vocals to match, Godsey’s six-string work displaying scraps of surf-guitar melody, albeit played with a punkish intensity, Medley’s steady timekeeping supporting the rhythmic playing of new bassist John Reed.

“A Desire Scorned,” from the Nashville Entertainment Association’s cassette compilation Hear Rock City: Tennessee Tracks, offers another great example of the band’s growth. The song’s poppy, melodic opening falls behind a delightfully textured arrangement built on the interplay of Godsey’s shimmering fretwork, bassist Glenn Worf’s bass line, and Medley’s cascading drumbeats with Zaner’s vocals displaying more maturity and confidence as they soar effortlessly above the dense instrumental backdrop.

Demos & Live Tracks

The CD and digital download version of Everything Is Roses include a wealth of rare live tracks and demo tapes, the most fetching of these being “Hands of God,” an unreleased 1989 demo with Rusty Watkins on bass and Jerry Dale McFadden (The Mavericks) on keyboards. The song opens with swirls of psychedelic guitar, and offers an explosive light/dark dynamic with Zaner’s vocals often flying solo through the mix only to be eventually overwhelmed by Watkins’ textured bass lines and McFadden’s inspired, 1960s-styled psych-rock B3 riffs.

Recorded in 2015 specifically for this release, “More Than This” is an update of a song originally released on Faith Love was Made Of. With Shields returning on bass, Medley on drums, and Zaner’s still-potent vocals up front, the late Michael Godsey’s role in the band is assumed by twin guitarists Joe Blanton (Royal Court of China, the Bluefields) and Warner Hodges (Jason & the Scorchers, the Bluefields). The result is a muscular rocker with incendiary fretwork layered in beneath Zaner’s voice, which doesn’t seem to have lost a step since 1989. The performance is of a harder style of rock, perhaps, than vintage Raging Fire, proving that Zaner’s distinctive vocal style plays well in any setting.

Collectible Formats

There aren’t many complaints to be made about Everything Is Roses. The band has released this vital slab o’ Nashville rock ‘n’ roll history in various formats, including a limited edition, extremely-collectible eleven-track vinyl album (which includes gems like “A Family Thing,” “Everything Is Roses,” and “The Marrying Kind”) as well as a 22-track compact disc and a 26-song lossless digital download (a download card comes with the vinyl version). All three formats feature an illustrated booklet with informative and insightful liner notes by Nashville music journalist (and friend of the band) Michael McCall.

Much of the production here is thin, which is more a function of the band’s original recording budgets than anything else, and thanks to producers and engineers like Mike Poole, Jeff Johnson, Richie Owens, and Rick Will, the band eschewed the stilted, unbearable production clichés that plague so many 1980s-era rock recordings. The strength of the performances transcends the production, however, jumping off the grooves and grabbing you by the ears. The band’s core members of Zaner, Godsey, and Medley clearly had an artistic vision for Raging Fire that they stuck to through thick and thin, and while they ran through a number of talented bass players during the band’s brief existence, the music never suffered.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Raging Fire was a band far ahead of its time and sadly, they may have given up the ghost too early, just as musical trends were changing from the Aquanet-drenched nerf metal oozing from the gutters of Los Angeles towards the more organic, alt-rock turf of the 1990s that was friendlier to a band with imagination. Nevertheless, Everything Is Roses is more than a mere nostalgia-tinted look backwards at a band that never made it, the compilation instead a worthy snapshot of a time and place when an outfit as original and energetic as Raging Fire, with an enormous musical chemistry, could develop outside of major label demands and expectations.

Fans of Nashville’s early rock scene will appreciate Everything Is Roses as a fond reminder of their misspent youth. For those who of you were never lucky enough to have caught Raging Fire perform live back in the day, or never chanced upon one of their songs playing on a college radio station, the performances here should come as a revelation, the distant sounds of a young band that never failed to deliver smart, passionate, literary music that still rocked like a tornado in a trailer park. Grade: A (Pristine Records, released October 6, 2015)

Review originally published by That Devil Music blog...

Vintage Review: Raging Fire’s These Teeth Are Sharp (2017)

Nashville’s Raging Fire was, perhaps, the best ‘80s-era band that you never heard. As recent as a couple years back, unless you were blessed by the gods of rock ‘n’ roll to have seen one of their Southeastern performances during the band’s too-brief tenure, all that remained of their legacy was a pair of firecracker recordings and a red-hot memory branded into your brain. Formed in 1984, they were gone by ’89, swept away by the plodding hoofbeats of grunge, the architects of the band’s unique sound and fury moving on to jobs, families, and lives outside the realms of rock.

Sometimes the gods smile upon we mere mortals, however, and such was the case when Raging Fire’s surviving members – powerhouse vocalist Melora Zaner, bassist Les Shields, and drummer Mark Medley – decided to take a look back at their collective past and honor the memory of their fallen band members, guitarist Michael Godsey and bassist Lee Carr, by releasing the retrospective set Everything Is Roses, 1985-1989. Collecting every sonic scrap recorded by the band for posterity, as I wrote upon its release, “Everything Is Roses is more than a mere nostalgia-tinted look backwards...the compilation instead a worthy snapshot of a time and place were an outfit as original and energetic as Raging Fire, with an enormous musical chemistry, could develop outside major label demands and expectations.”

Raging Fire’s These Teeth Are Sharp

In the wake of the 2015 release of Everything Is Roses, Raging Fire got back together and, with some friends pitching in to help, they performed a reunion show in Nashville. That led to the writing of some new songs and, long story short, a wondrous new 2017 Raging Fire album titled These Teeth Are Sharp, the band’s 30+ years-in-the-making follow-up to 1986’s Faith Love Was Made Of album. The core gang of Zaner, Medley, and Shields are here along with contributions from friends like guitarists Joe Blanton (The Bluefields, Royal Court of China) and Jeff Cease (The Black Crowes, Rumble Circus) and keyboard wizard Giles Reaves (one of the Music City’s most underrated talents). The old musical chemistry is definitely present, even with addition of the band’s new playmates, making the nine songs to be found on These Teeth Are Sharp every bit as raucous, intelligent, and anarchic as the band has ever been.

From the opening riff of the title track, one can hear the presence of something supernaturally special. Zaner sings unlike any vocalist you’ve ever heard, her kittenish voice capable of twisting emotion into a things of dark beauty while the backing instruments shift directions with whiplash brutality. “A Narrow Sky” shows its talons early on with swooping guitar licks and Zaner’s poetic lyrics yielding devastating imagery like “do you know the feeling when the air closes in as quiet as the grave?” which is sung in an ethereal voice as menacing as it is seemingly innocent. The album’s lone cover, of the 1960’s-era Rufus Thomas hit “Walking the Dog,” is as alien an interpretation of the Memphis soul classic as you’ll ever hear with breathless, stilted vocals, sparse rhythm, and delightfully jagged fretwork that work in spite of the fact that it probably shouldn’t.

By contrast, “Free to Be” is a bouncy pop song with rapid-fire vocals (some sung in Chinese…), Medley’s stormy percussion, jangly guitars, and an altogether energetic vibe that seems like a genetic hybrid of R.E.M. and the Talking Heads but with pure Raging Fire DNA. “Raindances” is a rocker with imaginative guitarplay coupled with John Reed’s concrete bass lines and Medley’s unrelenting drumbeats, tho’ it, too, throws a spanner in the works with quiet passages that crescendo to an explosive finish. These Teeth Are Sharp closes with “Dreams From Under the Love Seat,” one of the band’s few songs with lyrics written by drummer Medley, who displays a knack for imagery-drenched wordplay. Zaner delivers a stellar vocal performance while the guitars sting with the anger of a thousand wasps and the instrumentation, overall, washed over you like a gentle tsunami.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Here in 2017, Raging Fire is, perhaps, the best band that you’ve never heard. This time, however, you can change this sorry status by heading over to the band’s website and grabbing up a copy of These Teeth Are Sharp before Raging Fire once again disappears into the mists of time. The band’s blend of words and music is as alchemical as it’s ever been as they expand upon their original sound without treading across old creative grounds, exploring new creative pathways. There’s plenty for the band’s old fans to like about this year’s model of Raging Fire, and a world of wonder for the newcomer to explore. The gods of rock ‘n’ roll are pleased… Grade: A (Pristine Records, released May 12, 2017)

Review originally published by That Devil Music blog 

Vintage Review: Pujol’s Nasty, Brutish, and Short EP (2011)

If one were to scratch out a blueprint for the archetypal indie-rock band, Nashville’s Pujol would be the result. Founded by singer, guitarist, and songwriter Daniel Pujol – the only constant in a group that included the Police’s Stewart Copeland at one time – the band that bears his name has made a lot of influential friends in a short period of time. In two years, Pujol has released ten different recordings, including the full-length X File On Main Street album, released by a variety of pureblood indie labels including Jack White’s Third Man Records and Infinity Cat (JEFF the Brotherhood’s imprint).

For Pujol’s Saddle Creek Records debut, the Nasty, Brutish, and Short EP, they build upon their trademark, Southern-bred, garage-punk rock ‘n’ roll with elements of 1960s-vintage British Invasion and 1970s-era power-pop sounds. The opening track “Mayday” starts out with a blur, a Beatlesque “Helter Skelter” riff leaping headfirst into a chaotic swirl of distorted and contorted instrumentation. Somehow the song manages to hold onto its underlying melody, probably due to Pujol’s playful vocals and the adrenalin O.D. of the singer’s whip-smart lyrics.

The following “Scully” doesn’t fare as well, although it’s by no means a bad song…the melody here is lofty, vague, and undefined while the crush of the instrumentation and Pujol’s smarty-pants garage-rock sneer makes for an invigorating, if shockingly intense, listen. The jangly flash-bang of “Emotion Chip (No Feeling)” hides a lyrical treasure beneath its broken heart and razor-wire guitar lines. Pujol’s pleading vocals barely emerge from the mix, bouncing tearfully in between Duane Eddy-styled surf ‘n’ turf riffs and unrelenting rhythms that crash and bash reminiscent of the Replacements on a good night.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short closes with “Stuff” and “Point of View,” two humdingers of unique style and manic creativity. The former offers a swaggering, sweaty barrage of words and rhythm, a too-brief explosion of noise and frantic emotion with shots of wiry fretwork levied across the mix as the vocals march to their own (different) drummer. The latter takes the “wall of sound” concept found throughout the EP to a higher level – you’d need a backhoe to dig out all of Pujol’s lyrics here, but it’s all just so damn much fun that you won’t care. A barely-present melody acts as the glue holding the song together as madhouse guitars sparkle and instruments chime like the bastard children of the Byrds, R.E.M. and Let’s Active, a simply delightful musical moment that buries itself into your medulla oblongata like a chigger and refuses to let go.

The entirety of Nasty, Brutish, and Short runs just eighteen minutes from start to finish, a reckless, barely-contained joy ride that manages to sound contemporary even while absorbing and channeling so much of rock’s hallowed past. If Pujol is the new sound of the south, count me in as a fan. (Saddle Creek Records, released August 19, 2011)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Vintage Review: The Bluefields' Pure (2012)

Probably the closest that the Nashville rock scene has ever come to the birth of a bona fide “supergroup,” the Bluefields are comprised of former Georgia Satellites’ frontman Dan Baird (who, more recently, fronts his own Dan Baird and Homemade Sin band); Jason & the Scorchers’ charismatic guitarslinger Warner E. Hodges (also a Homemade Sin band member); and singer/songwriter Joe Blanton, formerly of such beloved Music City rock ‘n’ roll institutions as the Enemy and Royal Court of China. All three men have a lot of miles under their belts, all three have experienced the fragile joys of a major label record deal, and all three have pursued solo careers with varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, their individual pedigrees are impeccable…

That these three musicians came together is an act of provenance, perhaps, or maybe just the Holy Trinity (Chuck, Elvis & Bob) looking down from the Mount Olympus of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Blanton had returned to Nashville after a decade-long hiatus spent in the hinterlands pursuing the brass ring with an acclaimed, albeit impoverishing solo career. Blanton reconnected with his teenage pal Hodges (the two cutting their musical teeth together on the roughneck late ‘70s Nashville punk scene), the guitarist in turn introducing Joe to Dan, the three subsequently finding acres of common ground. As these things happen, they decided to write and play together ‘cause, well, that’s what rock lifers do, and the trio convened to Blanton’s secret, subterranean recording studio, dubbed by the newly-formed Bluefields as the “underground tree house.”

The Bluefields’ Pure

I’m not sure whether it was the trio’s rapidly-formed musical chemistry, or if jars of pure-D white lightning corn liquor were passed around the basement studio, but Pure, the Bluefields’ debut album, serves up a righteous helping of shit-kickin’, guitar-driven, Southern-fried twang-rock that fans of both the Satellites and the Scorchers will nod their collective heads in approval of, although the Bluefields really sound nothing like either of those bands. Blanton takes the lead vocals on most of the tracks, the man really one of the best singers in the Music City, criminally overlooked among the glut of clones marching in lockstep through the halls of the record label offices that line Nashville’s notorious “Music Row.”

Hodges does what he’s always done best, and that is to bash and mangle that plank of wood and steel, tearing sounds out of his instrument previously unheard of by man nor beast while Baird, the M.V.P. of any session he’s involved with, plays the fat-string, adds a little of his trademark Keith Richards-styled rhythm guitar where needed, pitches in on backing vocals, and even adds keyboards if necessary. Friend of the band Steve Gorman, from the currently-on-hiatus Black Crowes, adds his thunderous drumbeats to the majority of the songs. The bottom line, though, is that regardless of the talent assembled, it’s the music that matters…and Pure offers up more than a few surprises.

The album kicks off with “What You Won’t Do,” the song’s brief instrumental intro displaying more than a few strains of Led Zeppelin’s Eastern-fueled musical mysticism. When the band kicks in, Gorman’s blast-beats ring loudly and the intertwined guitars are simply smothering. The instrumentation is thick, like an intoxicating smoke, the arrangement more than a little Zeppelinesque but with more twang and bang for your buck, mixing roots-and-hard-rock with a bluesy undercurrent to great effect. The jaunty “Bad Old Days” is both a gripping morality tale and a humorous page straight out of the Dan Baird songbook. With a rolling, Southern boogie-flavored soundtrack, the lyrics recall a tale of woe that all three band members have lived in one manner or another. Sobriety doesn’t come easy, those crazy old days are in the rearview mirror, and with guitars that swing with anarchic glee, “Bad Old Days” is an unbridled rocker tailor-made for radio…if radio still played rock ‘n’ roll, that is…

“Don’t Let Me Fall” is an old-school romantic ballad, the sort of song that, with enough hairspray and metallic hooks, would have had the spandex-clad bottle-blondes pulling out their lighters twenty-five years ago. In these days and times, though, Blanton’s vocals are timelessly heartworn, Hodges’ Duane Eddy-styled background riffs a perfect accompaniment. The band doesn’t stay morose for long, though, launching directly into “Nobody Loves You,” a pop-tinged rollicking boogie-rocker with a ‘80s new wave vibe built on a spry rhythm, ambitious rolling drumbeats, and shards of wiry guitar.

By this time in the album’s sequencing, the Bluefields sound like they’re having way too much fun, a hypothesis easily proven by the Zep-styled reprise of “Repair My Soul,” a larger than life, foot-stomping hard-rocker. Built on a foundation of dirty Delta blues, the song is raised to the heavens on the strength of intricate (and inordinately heavy) guitars that sound like a clash of the titans, and Gorman’s unbelievable drum tones, which sound eerily like the angry ghost of John Bonham banging on the cans. With lyrics dealing with sin and salvation, if this one doesn’t scorch the hair from your head and get your feet a moving, then you’re probably deaf (or a Justin Bieber fan…shudder).   

As good a song and performance as “Repair My Soul” may be…and make no mistake true believers, it’s one of the best rock songs you’ll hear in your lifetime…the Bluefields trio scale the heights of the aforementioned Mount Olympus with the incredible “Flat Out Gone.” A runaway locomotive of choogling guitars, racing drumbeats, defiant vocals, and swaggering rhythms, one can hear the entirety of the pantheon of rock heroes channeled through each and every note: Chuck Berry, Duane Eddy, Gene Vincent & the Bluecaps, Eddie Cochran, Big Joe Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Roy Orbison, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bob Seger, Bo Diddley, Johnny Burnette, Ike Turner, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Doug Sahm, Link Wray, Mitch Ryder, Elmore James, the Yardbirds, the Band, Bob Dylan, and the almighty Elvis himself. The song is three minutes and twenty-two seconds of pure, unvarnished rock ‘n’ roll cheap thrills, the likes of which come around far too infrequently these days for my tastes and, I’m betting, your tastes too...

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There’s more, much more to be heard on Pure, the album probably the best example you’ll ever hear of three guys getting together and making music for the sheer joy of it all. Every note played, every word sung, every beat of the drum is the result of lives lived in thrall to the muse of rock ‘n’ roll, albeit with a distinctively Southern perspective. As a result, Pure lives up to its name, the album probably the purest expression of reckless country soul that’s ever been carved into wax. (Underground Treehouse Records, released 2012)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Vintage Review: Will Hoge’s Draw the Curtains (2008)

Given the circumstances, Nashville’s Will Hoge could have become just another music biz casualty. Ignorantly dropped by his major label deal after a single brilliant, shining album – Blackbird On A Lonely Wire – Hoge nevertheless continued to crank ‘em out with alarming regularity. Studio albums, live collections for the fans, an excellent EP…better than a half-dozen, by my count, all while the artist continued to tour a couple hundred nights a year, developing a loyal fan base and finding his voice as a songwriter and performer.

Will Hoge’s Draw the Curtains

Now Hoge is back playing in the major leagues, and as good as Blackbird On A Lonely Wire was (and continues to be a jukebox favorite ‘round the Rev’s home and office), Hoge’s latest effort and Rykodisc debut, Draw the Curtains, is hands-down an incredibly humbling collection of tunes that perfectly frame Hoge’s talents as a singer and a songwriter. A near-perfect hybrid of streetwise rock, Memphis-styled soul, and country twang, Hoge belts it out like a Beale Street busker one moment, and soars like some hard rock god of yore the next.

Draw the Curtains opens with the lovesick ballad “When I Can Afford To Lose,” a gutsy move in an industry that demands up-tempo iTunes-fodder to draw in attention-deficient teens. Hoge’s masterful performance here is simply amazing. Beginning with just his pleading voice and a lonely piano, Hoge amps it up with a tear-jerking, soul-stirring performance that Rev. Al Green would be proud of; if your heart isn’t breaking for the singer at the end of three-minutes-plus, then there’s clearly no hope for your future. Hoge follows this suburb opener with “These Were the Days,” a guitar-driven rocker and another forlorn love song where the protagonist begs “give me something that I can hold onto” while desperately adding “don’t let it all just get away.”

There’s plenty of other good stuff to hear on Draw the Curtains as well. The complex, textured “Silver and Gold” would sound great on the radio, a blistering, nearly-fatal cheatin’ song with strikingly mournful guitarwork courtesy of Adam Fluhrer, Hoge’s sharp-tongued lyrics, and gospel-styled Hammond-bashing by guest Reese Wynans. With just Chris Carmichael’s beautifully-weeping fiddle for accompaniment, Hoge stretches his rough-hewn vocals to their limits with the haunting “I’m Sorry Now,” an apology, of sorts, from a man that done his woman wrong and asks, yet again, for forgiveness one more time.

Washed By the Water

“Washed By the Water” is a thinly-veiled commentary on New Orleans and the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, written from a survivor’s perspective. With Wynan’s elegant B3 work behind Hoge’s forceful vocals, accompanied by a church-style choir and magnificent six-string work from Pat Buchanan and Dan Baird, Hoge belts out the telling verse, “then the President came down and said things is awful sad, but ain’t no words from that man gonna bring us nothing back, but in the ghosts of church bells I hear my mama say, down here we’re washed by the water, the water can’t wash us away.” It’s a powerful musical moment, delivered with heart and no little amount of passion.

Behind Pete Finney’s pedal steel, Hoge delivers a magnificent tour-de-force in the album-closing “The Highway’s Home,” one of the top two or three “life on the road” tunes that has ever been penned by a songwriter. With brilliant language and world-weary vocals, Hoge describes himself as a “burned out junky truck stop saint” traveling down the road “with a suitcase full of empty dreams, a guitar with broken strings, a busted heart that longs to sing the blues,” apologetically explaining to the love he leaves behind that he has “a mind that always leads me wrong, a head full of Hank Williams songs,” concluding “I’m sorry honey, but this highway’s home…” The song sums up the frustrating paradox faced by every road-worn musician and perfectly captures the endless landscape of Interstate signs, billboards, and yellow lines.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The rest of Draw the Curtains rolls back and forth on much the same well-trodden path, Hoge delivering masterful performances of Stax-flavored lovesick soul and throwback six-string rock. Much like John Hiatt’s wonderful early ‘90s work, Marc Cohn’s first couple of albums, and D.L. Byron’s lone classic LP, Will Hoge is a romantic poet at heart, a skilled wordsmith capable of capturing complex emotions into a single phrase or verse. His lyrics are imaginative and often cut to the bone; when accompanied by his uniquely organic sound, there’s simply nobody that does this kind of music better than Hoge these days. Forget about American Idol drones and Pitchfork-approved indie-rock clones; Will Hoge is the real deal, a rock ‘n’ roll lifer with a hungry heart full o’ soul. (Rykodisc, released 2007)

Review originally published by the Cashville411 website, 2008

Vintage Review: Glossary’s Long Live All of Us (2011)

 

Perhaps it’s because of their geographic location – about 30 minutes south of Nashville in Murfreesboro, Tennessee – but Glossary all too often gets lumped in with the Americana or alt-country crowd. While Glossary has been known to let slip a little twang now and then on the edges of their guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll songs, the reality is that for going on 14 years (and counting), Glossary has quietly earned a reputation as one of America’s best, albeit obscure rock bands.

In the end, Glossary defies critical or commercial expectations and instead plays like a square peg jammed into a round hole. With the band”s seventh independent album, Long Live All of Us, Glossary delivers a strong rock ‘n’ soul collection that leans more towards Memphis and Stax Records than it does to Nashville and Music Row. Lead singer and songwriter Joey Kneiser has long been one of the most underrated scribes in indie rock, and he outdoes himself with a stellar collection of songs on Long Live All of Us. The album opens with the laid-back “Trouble Won’t Last Always,” a rollicking 1970s-era mid-tempo Southern rocker akin to Delaney & Bonnie, but with a few interesting instrumental flourishes that fall out of the ether into the spry arrangement.

Glossary’s Long Live All of Us

A trembling guitar lick and Memphis soul rhythms intro “A Shoulder To Cry On,” a delightful romp that showcases Kneiser’s weathered vocals and guitarist Todd Beene’s nimble licks. Kneiser’s voice captures the kind of forlorn emotion and pleading sincerity that a bigger-name but lesser-talent like Justin Timberlake can only hope to achieve, Kneiser’s vocals a cross between Wilson Pickett and Roy Orbison, with Beene playing the role of Steve Cropper (or maybe James Burton). The hauntingly beautiful “Nothing Can Keep Me Away” is a slow-paced folk-country gem with Kneiser’s high-lonesome vocals accompanied by Beene’s tortured fretwork and blasts of mournful horns courtesy of saxophonist Jim Spake and trumpeter Nahshon Benford.

The heart of Long Live All of Us is “When We Were Wicked,” an unbridled rocker with chaotic rhythms from bassist Bingham Barnes and drummer Eric Giles, a wicked riff via Beene, and Kneiser’s Springsteenesque vocals, doubled by wife Kelly’s loftier tones, wrapped around one of the best “Born To Run” styled set of lyrics this side of the Hold Steady or the Gaslight Anthem. The equally up-tempo “Heart Full of Wanna” features a fat Barnes bass line, Giles’ heartbeat percussion, and Beene’s wiry guitar dancing behind Kneiser’s joyful vocals. The tuff-as-nails “Keep It Coming” is Sam & Dave on steroids, a mid-tempo blue-eyed soul heartbreaker with serpentine rhythms, Beene’s imaginative guitarplay, and Kneiser’s swaggering vocals, which swing from a Tom Petty-styled drawl to a mournful Otis Redding plea within a single verse.   

Long Live All of Us was financed, at least in part, by the band’s Kickstarter campaign, and it looks as if they’ve used the money wisely. The production is lofty and nuanced, without busting the budget, the CD’s eco-friendly digipak displaying Glossary’s usual graphic arts savvy. Given that they’ve done seven increasingly-impressive albums on a shoestring indie-rock budget, I’d love to see what they might do with a little more cash in hand and a sympathetic producer like Jon Tiven or John Porter. Then again, maybe this is all they need – a rock-solid set of songs, a little guitar, bass ‘n’ drums, and enough studio time to get it down on wax. You can’t argue with the results, Glossary one of the best rock bands you’ve yet to love! (Last Chance Records, released 2011)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2011

Vintage Review: Daddy's For A Second Time (2009)

Back when you kiddies were still watching Saturday morning cartoons in your spidey PJs and eating chocolate-frosted sugar bombs by the boxful, two nice young men from Kentucky, and another from Alabama, were playing in a critically-acclaimed rock ‘n’ roll band called the Bis-quits. Although these three gents had spun a wonderful collection of intelligent garage-pop with blues-rock overtones and a soupcon of country twang, they were soon forgotten, lost in the enormous commercial shadow of a bunch o’ guys from Seattle named Kurt, Eddie, Chris and their, well, kinda grungy, flannel-clad friends.

Fast forward 16 years, and you’ll find Daddy, which is, really, mathematically two-thirds of the Bis-quits playing with some (talented) friends. Over the past decade-and-a-half or so, the three nice young men – Will Kimbrough, Tommy Womack, and Mike “Grimey” Grimes – have pursued various fates in and out of the music biz. Grimes played for a while with alt-country cut-ups Bare Jr. before escaping the industry’s clutches only to open his much-lauded record store in Nashville (Grimey’s Music – tell ‘em the Reverend sent ya!).

Kimbrough has toyed around with a critically-acclaimed solo career that has yielded four solid albums (and an EP), but his real bread-and-butter has been touring and recording as a guitar-for-hire for folks like Jimmy Buffett, Rodney Crowell, Todd Snider, and others. Womack, on the other hand, has put his experience with the Bis-quits and, previously, the much beloved Kentucky cult band Govt. Cheese, to good use as a whipsmart, slightly neurotic, constantly embattled solo troubadour, also with four acclaimed studio albums (and a live disc) under his belt.

Daddy’s For A Second Time

Daddy began as a one-off between friends and former bandmates, their live 2005 album At The Woman’s Club documenting two nights’ shows in Frankfort, Kentucky. As these things are wont to do, demand for Daddy and the band’s growing popularity has resulted in For A Second Time, the official and righteous Daddy studio debut. A ten-song collection of various Kimbrough and Womack originals and a handful of collaborations between the two (and one excellent total band effort), For A Second Time may well be the best collection of pure music-making that you’ll hear come out of Nashville this year.

As they say in Nashville, it all begins with a song – something forgotten long ago by the industry’s Music Row – and Kimbrough and Womack are two of the best wordsmiths ever snubbed by the biz. Both songwriters have been around the block a time or three and suffered through the indignities and ignorance of men in suits with corporate smiles, and their experience shines through their songs. The semi-biographical “Nobody From Nowhere,” for instance, sounds like a John Hiatt outtake circa Slow Turning, but with Kimbrough’s slinky fretwork and great harmony singing between Kimbrough and Womack. The song perfectly sums up the isolation of growing up in the rural South, where everything is miles away from anything else, and dreams of the big-time are tempered by simple pleasures.

Much of the rest of For A Second Time follows a similar tact, Kimbrough and Womack swapping lead vocals on songs that are built around the former’s tempered optimism and the latter’s wry sense of humor and joyful cynicism. “Early To Bed, Early To Rise” is Womack’s advice to a younger generation, an only-slightly-tongue-in-cheek warning about the rat race from a man that has lived it firsthand. The New Orleans-tinged “Wash & Fold” possesses all the funky soul of the Meters, Kimbrough mouthing a sly come-on to a young lovely that is equal parts Ray Davies and Aaron Neville.

Of course, the Daddy guys also recognize a good song when they hear it, and their loving cover of ‘60s-era folkie Mike Millius’ “The Ballad of Martin Luther King” provides the sort of intricate wordplay that Womack excels at spitting out. The ode to the African-American hero is especially ironic provided the band’s deep-rooted Dixie sound, but these boys have always embraced equality in all things – especially music – and the song’s folkie origins are amped up with squalls of harmonica, bluesy guitarwork, and more than a little introspection.

The full band collaboration “I Went To Heaven In A Dream Last Night” is a syncopated, almost stream-of-consciousness tale of Womack’s brush with the almighty that evinces a dark sense of humor, manic vocals, and more great throwaway lines and imagery than we can recount here (although “a funny thing happened on my way to the grave, I didn’t burn out and I didn’t fade away, my heart kept beating until the end of the ride” is a pretty damn funny line). The band backs it up with a funky-cool, twang-jazz soundtrack with lighter-than-feather cymbal brushing, scraps of honky-tonky piano, and Kimbrough’s piercing six-string notes. “He Ain’t Right” is another semi-autobiographical look back at childhood and what it’s like to be smalltown different, the lyrics pounded home above a muscular rhythm, bee-sting fretwork, and potent, gospel-tinged keyboards.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack bring the best out of each other, creatively, and with nearly two decades of friendship and shared musical history to work off of, it should come as no surprise that they’re able to come up with gem after gem. The background guys in Daddy are no slouch, either, but rather talented pros able to cut loose from their day jobs and spin some fun, complex, and satisfying music behind their charismatic frontmen. Altogether, For A Second Time adds up to more than the sum of the individual band member’s talents; Daddy the best band that you’ve never heard (yet). (Cedar Creek Music, released 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2009