We here at SlackerCountry.com just updated our blog technology and noticed something interesting. See that tag cloud over on the right? The tag size is in proportion to how often we write about each artist and the Drive-By Trucker tag is suspiciously small.
This caused us to do some serious soul-searching because, really, we slackers (especially me and Gracey) are borderline obsessed with DBT and play them pretty much ALL THE TIME. We’ve all been to see them at least once (twice, three times) in the past year – basically anytime they are in the neighborhood. Much of Gracey’s conversation revolves around things she has read on the DBT fan board. . . . And then there is the whole problem of keeping Gracey from stalking the tour bus.
SlackerCountry.com really loves The Felice Brothers and Gracey, in particular, has a big ole crush on Simone Felice so, when his publicity folks sent us a single from his new side project, The Duke & the King, we said, "Hell, yes, we’d like to post an mp3."
I can still remember when I first heard the Jayhawks in the early nineties. A friend had given me a tape of Hollywood Town Hall and my first response was “Neil Young could probably sue those guys.” I think I might have said that once or twice when the subject of the Jayhawks came up but after a few listens… and then a few more… those songs started working their way into my head on a cellular level. I quit making snarky comments about them and started playing them all the time.
Over the course of three records they managed to forge a sound that was, at the same time, highly derivative and highly original and became one of my very favorite bands.
Yeah, they were more white-guy-folk-rock than the "alt country" label they were tagged with. Their early seventies “Southern Man” style riffs and long guitar jams merged with vaguely abstract lyrics and those ethereal harmonies between songwriters Mark Olson and Gary Louris, created a bunch of stubbornly enduring songs that could stick in your head like superglue.
After Olson left the band at their creative peak in ‘95, despite teaming up with his then-wife Victoria Williams, he kind of faded into obscurity while Louris kept the Jayhawks going, changing their sound pretty dramatically on the next two albums.
I caught an Olson solo show last year. It was a great night of quiet acoustic music with a few Jayhawks songs but there was definitely something missing. Obviously what was missing was Gary Louris.
So when Olson and Louris had put out a new acoustic record and booked a show in town, at the Sons of Herman Hall no less, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person around here who was overly excited at the opportunity.
Friday night they showed this town just what was lost when they went their separate ways long over a decade ago. You can take your Simon and Garfunkel and your Tweedy and Farrar and your Johnny and June and even your She and Him… If ever two people were born to sing together it was Olson and Louris.
Message from Jess Barr, guitarist for Slobberbone / The Drams:
Early this morning my car was broken into and all of my equipment was stolen. This includes my red matchless clubman 35 head and cabinet, my black gig bag with cables and pedals, and, most importantly, my Gibson Les Paul Gold Top.
The Saturday before St Patrick’s Day is the one day every year when Dallas seems almost a little bit like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. A little. People start setting up their party base camps in parking lots for the big parade real early. Kegs, beer bongs, makeshift bars set up on portable tables, lots of people wearing lots of crazy green shit and even lots of dogs wearing crazy green shit. By the time the floats start rolling down Greenville Avenue at 11:00 AM sharp the general ambiance is pretty much mass public intoxication. And crazy shit. And of course I mean that in the best possible way.
After the parade is the big concert in a big fenced in parking lot and this year it featured some of the best of Dallas’ alt-country-roots rock scene. The O’s, The Drams, Eleven Hundred Springs and The Old 97s.
The crowd was kind of thin but you could no doubt chalk that up to the weather- it was cold, windy and the cloud cover was threatening drenching rain at any moment. Still, for the faithful that did show up, it was as fine a day of music as a drunken partier decked out in a spray painted fake beard, 2 lbs of beads and a big green hat could hope for. And I saw more than a few of those.
It really hasn’t been all that long since Slobberbone broke up. Just a few years.
And you could make the argument that they didn’t really break up at all, just went through another personnell change, changed their name to The Drams and tweaked their sound a little.
So why did Tuesdsay night’s show at Dan’s seem like such a return to a time long ago?
They were billed as Whiskey Glass Eye, the world’s premiere Slobberbone tribute band but there wasn’t a person in the jam packed club that night that didn’t know it was a reunion show. Brent Brest, Jess Barr, Tony Harper and the return of Brian Lane (with Scott Danbaum sitting in on about half the set.)
Back in the day, when “alt country” was still an indefinable thing, something you couldn’t really nail down specifically but you always knew it when you heard it, before the corporate record music people got together and dubbed it and anything remotely like it “Americana,” The Old 97s were in the vanguard of that insurgent sub-genre.
Slacker Country was deeply saddened to hear of Chris Gaffney’s passing on Thursday, April 17 . We didn’t even know he was undergoing chemotherapy for liver cancer.
He fronted The Hacienda Brothers and was lately a regular member of Dave Alvin’s band The Guilty Men, as well as a truly great solo performer. He combined the best elements of country, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, zydeco and tejano music to create his own sound, East LA Soul.
Here’s a clip of him performing “In The Garden” with his old band, The Cold Hard Facts
Watermelon Slim and The Workers at Pearl, Dallas, Texas
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Watermelon Slim has got to be to be livin’ the life these days.
He’s got quite a bio, hard knocks, hard times, hard work and all the while “making sure the boss gets paid.” Now that his own dues are paid- in spades, he says he finally gets to practice his true vocation. Bluesman.
And if you go see him play, you get to hear all about it.
I got hipped to him by a friend who sent me his second CD, The Wheel Man, for Christmas. It had me with the first spin.
He played Pearl in Downtown Dallas Saturday night with his band, The Workers, to a pretty impressive crowd.
proportion to how often we write about each artist and the Drive-By Trucker tag is suspiciously small. 
