June 2004

El Pl�tano Blanco's Guide to Live Music

Filed under: Imported

While the State of Minnesota is getting it from the business end of a light rail train, those of us with leaky tires and rickety transmissions are out and about leading our finest warriors on raids and skirmishes into small buildings where the oxygen is thin and the liquor flows like the great river god down to the sea. It's important at these times to don the headdress of a hillbilly gringo warload and lead your disciples into situations of mortal danger; not mortal in any physical, real sense, but mortal in the soul robbing mode of Beezlebub and his minions. The naked city is filled with wrong choices every night, but some nights are nothing but Plans B and left turns, and it's these nights that you're liable to find yourself having a conversation about how much coffee is stuck on the docks in Caracas with Elvis Presley himself, at 4am on a Sunday morning, in the apartment of a 33 year old single mother of one, whose bedroom is filled with boxes of leaflets on the Green Party and the ability to make an entire car out of industrial grade marijuana. When Elvis didn't die, he was forced into a great many adventures, always mindful of hiding his identity, and now he spends his dotage dispensing wisdom at after-bars in Northeast Minneapolis, reading from the Tao of Pooh. If you're a hillbilly gringo warload whose eyes are floating in your head as the sun rises, the site of the King of Rock n' Roll tearing up when talking about the calm center of Piglet is enough to make you snap and grab the old school DeMarini single wall out of your pickup and start swinging for the sweet spot.

Word in the jungle has it that former President Bill Clinton's favorite song lyric is:

But old handsome Jack he said
Goodbye Marie
You're too damn ugly
For a rich man like me

Which is pertinent, really, when your best scout is always out on the edge of the treeline, with his ear on the Great White Father's train tracks. Children of famous songwriters seldom amount to shit in America. Arlo Guthrie had two good songs, I'm not sure what Jacob Dylan is doing, and don't go holding your breath on anybody else's kids. BUT, for some reason, Bobby Bare's son Junior got the old man's talent for telling it like it is. He sometimes comes across as bats-playing-saxophones crazy, and there isn't much consistency to which genre or style he's trying to adhere to, but my medicine man Demko likes him, and his new album is about ten songs of pain, mockery, and weirdness that used to be the very core of American musical existence. He'll be at the 400 Bar on Saturday night, if you care.

After making the mistake of trying to coax the pilgrims out of the mission and into the hills to see Richmond Fontaine last week, I've been forced to rethink my rebellion. The Great White Banana is nothing, if not practical. The fact is, outside of Minnesota, and especially in Europe, Graham Lindsey and Ben Weaver are absolutely huge with the filterless cigarette and heavy beer crowd on The Continent. Those people don't come down the river with Marlow often, though, and sometimes Mr. Kurtz' reality is just a little too heavy for them. But the crazy Russian is as wise as Falstaff, and if he says that the station chief is expanding the natives' minds, it might be worth a look. My own jester has taken to calling me The Magnificent Unpeeled One, for which I recompense him a pittance; but you weekend safari types should definitely don your pithe helmets and wander into the darkness of Lindsey and Weaver's souls, as they spill their guts into their amps and draw your own midsummer miseries right out of you this Friday night down at the 400 Bar.

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 30, 2004 12:06 AM

El Plat�no Blanco's Manual of Disturbing Summer Behavior

Filed under: Imported

This Jack K. Sparks has ran his yap for far too long. It's time to get down to the nitty gritty of life once again. The sport has gone out of living, because people have forgotten how side-splittingly offensive existence can be, without being illegal. What the world needs now is a gringo warload, known only by his jungle nickname...El Platáno Blanco. Yes disciples, enrich your sun-drenched summers with just a few short suggestions for complete deconstruction of social architecture.

1. Pants yourself when using the urinal at the ballgame
That's right, drop your pants and skivvies all the way to your ankles when throwing a whizz at whatever concrete monolith your city calls home plate for the hometown nine. Being a grown man, you might get your ass kicked, but then again, a twenty foot perimeter might be created around you immediately, and more importantly, silently.

2. Carry food coloring with you when you go to backyard barbecues
In fact, play with all the public food you come across in the season of outdoor group eating. Remember that scene from "The Golden Child," where he dips into the pot full of oatmeal and the blood seeps from underneath? Try something similar. Bring a bowl full of green onion chip dip, but booby trap it with ketchup underneath; as it gets stirred around the red will come gushing forth. Good for a cheap laugh.

3. Visiting friends
If you have a buddy who just got married, when you visit his house, stash half-smoked packs of cigarettes all over the place, then sit back and wait a few weeks for the accusations to fly when the discoveries are made. If your buddy, in fact, smokes, then stash a hard pack of something into her things, or, find one of his jackets in the hall closet and stash a pack of slims with a matchbook and a made up phone number in it. Write a man's name next to the number.

4. Fashion
You should have at least one TShirt with something completely inappropriate on it, like "Colonel Lingus." Wear it everywhere, as often as possible. If you wash it more than twice all summer, you're a quitter.

5. Go to Church/Temple/Mosque
You're going to need an alibi. Leave 3 x 5 index cards in all the pews with "2 Samuel 3:14" written on them in Sharpie marker.

6. Always take something to read with you to the Lake/Beach
A porn magazine, while funny, seems a little too obvious, even for disciples of El Platáno Blanco. Much better is something so off-center that anyone around you informs the police; go to the bookstore and get a large Curious George book, turn it upside down while you sit in the sun, concentrate on the pages intently. If you want to give them the full effect, bring a small notepad and pretend to take notes.

7. Just because you can't kill geese out of season...
Buy a handheld air horn. Your favorite lake or park will undoubtedly be overrun by these flying rats. Waltz up next to a group of them and just start blowing the air horn at them. Fuck these fucking things.

8. Carry a tape measure with you wherever you go, measure everything
For instance, go to the big olive bar at Byerly's and get a little tub and measure each olive individually before you throw it in. Throw a few back. Cuss under your breath a few times, just loud enough for those around you to hear.

9. Refer to yourself in the 3rd Person all Summer, but use the nickname you gave yourself
The White Banana doesn't drink whiskey. The White Banana doesn't eat cashews. The White Banana doesn't fish with nightcrawlers.

10. Write mini essays into the newspaper crossword and leave it on a breakroom table at work
For instance, fill in the boxes like this:

THEM AYORCAN NOTFORCE
METO CUTMYGR ASSHEMUS
TDIE

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 22, 2004 9:50 PM

Richmond Fontaine, Wednesday, June 23rd, 400 Bar

Filed under: Imported

 

While the mentally damaged are over in England dancing around Stonehenge celebrating the fact that some jagoff made a bunch of slaves drag a handful of immense stones into a circle to celebrate some Sun God that didn't exist, Americans were thrust head first into the long Summer funk, where Monday evenings are bereft of baseball scores and everything else that seems to matter in life. While rusted-out, late model Camaros with multi-colored doors idle next to the payphone at the BP station just before University Avenue turns into a drag strip for the run North to 694, Big Frank sits pensively at Grumpy's Northeast, trying to decide whether he'll bowl league this Winter, or hang up the slicks and concentrate on perfect taps and point spreads. SportsCenter is reduced to reporting vicious rumors about Shaquille O'Neal being traded to the Sixers and soccer highlights from some tournament that Demko probably thinks is important. No one really cares about Wimbledon, and my friends think it's both sporting and funny to lob statements like, "the Royals just traded Beltran to the Braves for Chipper Jones and an 8th round pick." Fuck nights like this. I should have never gone to law school, I probably should have married Linda, and I should go home to Kansas City more than once every 28 months or so, they are after all, family.

There's no way to break out of a funk like this but to get tired; not tired in any 24 hour sense of the word, but TIRED. What's lost on financial advisors living in townhomes in Edina is that Minnesota Summers turn on Mondays being absolute throw away days, and if you're fresh and awake between midnight and midnight on those days, you've wasted at least 5, if not 6 dawns and dusks leading up to them. Mondays were meant for wearing your sunglasses around the office and rubbing aloe vera lotions on exposed parts of your epidermis. Going to bed for a quick nap after work on a Monday night during the summer is a fatal mistake, and not being so tired that you'd kill your own mother for one is a crime against the mosquitos, the fish that eat them, the bears that eat them, and the convicted and released sex offenders living in the boundary waters who eat them.

Darin and Brian from Big Ditch Road first turned me onto Richmond Fontaine in a practical way. Like all elitist hipsters who follow alt-country from printed schedules in our chain wallets full of 50 and 2 dollar bills, I'd heard of this Pure Depression band from Portland, Oregon and their brand of luxurious four-walled, pedal steel, grunge-ish Country attack through various trade publications, word of mouth, and ham radio. But, I hadn't turned on to them until my copy of Winnemucca showed up at the old FM. "What kind of dark, dead of summer Monday had spawned this fucking gun-in-your-mouth masterpiece?" I asked myself. Country has always held the promise of being the pastoral poet's thinking man's musical genre, and luckily the unkempt few who practice the purest form of alt-country aren't afraid to embrace the Robert Frost in all of us while channeling a little Merle, a little Gram, and maybe a little Pink Floyd, England's second greatest Country band.

So anyway, fresh off of playing the rehearsal dinner at my friend Chuey's wedding weekend, Richmond Fontaine will hit our fair berg in support of their absolute gold-medal album, Post to Wire, at the 400 Bar on Wednesday night, the true genesis of any summer weekend with a cock, two balls and an inflamed clitoris. In the next 18 days, the club-hoppers in this town are going to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the cops will be busy cornering us like cockroaches on Eat Street as we dash from joint to joint soaking in overly amplified music and life philosophies bustled by asphalt, booze, and guilt. If your boss thinks you should be productive next Monday, then he or she grew up in Wisconsin, or worse, Illinois. Better to set the bar high now, and worry about the consequences when it's time to shovel and winterize the radiator.

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 22, 2004 1:04 AM

Lord Jack, 3rd Earl of Rosedale

Filed under: Imported

I'm a huge fan of the all the folks who take the time to email me about my various rants and screeches. I'm also a massive fan of imitation, criticism, and/or parody (if you've never read Brad Zellar's Open All Night, you're missing what I think is one of the Top 10 blogs on the whole stinking internet). But, whenever I post big lists like my recent Top 100 Country songs of all time, I get hit, without fail, by two pieces of criticism that must be addressed.

First, alt-country is constantly attacked as being patronized by some sort of hipster club, where everyone wears vitalis in their slicked back hair, hooks their wallets to chains, and smokes nothing but hand-rolled and/or filterless cigarettes. The fact is, I tend to shop at Mervyn's, and when one of the 3 pairs of jeans I currently have in rotation wears out, I go buy another pair of Levi's, 36W 34L, and throw the old pair into the rag bin. I have a collection of T-Shirts that started sometime when I was 16. I cut my hair when it gets unmanageable, because I simply comb it wet out of the shower and let it dry as the morning goes. I hate to shave, and only do it about twice a week. In other words, I'm a hillbilly slob.

But even beyond that, to say that alt-country people are all hipsters is to ignore the essential nature of alt-country: alt-country is everything, that's even slightly twangy, that doesn't get played on Mainstream Country Radio...which is a lot of stuff. And that brings me to the second bit of criticism: we alt-country hipsters are exclusive, elitist snobs, that's why we don't like Shania Twain, and we cling to our self-righteous notions of the musical purity of people like Johnny Cash. This is the one I really hate. Let's see, for the last 15 years, Mainstream Counry radio has INSISTED that everyone played on air look like a model, and either sound like Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Shania Twain, or Faith Hill, and WE, the alt-country folks, are the ones being exclusive and elitist.

Well, I guess ya got me. One night I'm listening to some kind of crazy hillbilly rock jug band from Austin, Texas, the next, I'm listening to some kind of psycho grass band with a guy playing a Gas tank from Kansas, the next, I'm listening to a guy from Pennsylvania singing a Springsteen-esque, pop-infected, laid-back twang set, the next, I'm listening to a hobo tramp from Wisconsin sing acoustically about murder and love, the next, I'm listening to a bunch of goobers from Oregon wail about women and booze, the next, I'm listening to a local boy growl about some shit I can't even fathom....yep, I'm the one with boundaries.

But see, that's what well-respected journalists, label executives, and program directors from the number one country station in a town with one country station do: they try to redirect the finger and say that THEY'RE the ones who are open to musical innovation, when they're the very people choking it off. Maybe the several hundred thousand women between the ages of 25 and 45 who listen to K102 everyday don't want to hear "3.2 Flu" by Split Lip Rayfield on their lunch breaks, I'm willing to admit that. The point is, we'll never know, because they'll never get played on that station at any time where the "P1's" are listening. AND, the flip side of that is, even if a lot of people WANTED to listen to them on there, they still wouldn't get played, because nothing that wrecks that P1 group is ever going to be given a chance to do so; they've worked long and hard to "synergize" their audiences as a cluster so that they can say with authority that their P1 group is XYZ. If they started widening their playlists to appeal to the very broad, non-exclusive group that IS people who listen to country music, they couldn't tell their advertisers who was listening at 2pm, after "Days of Our Lives" and before "Oprah," and that would be revenue suicide. They simply don't give their audience REAL choices, so this notion that the audience is somehow picking the music just doesn't hold water.

So, don't call me a hipster, because I'm a hillbilly slob. And don't call me an elitist, because I don't want to listen to some Barbie doll sing songs her husband wrote about her broken heart from their castle in Switzerland. Yeehah.

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 18, 2004 9:52 AM

Yer Honor, the Defense Rests...

Filed under: Imported

From this week's Nashville Scene:

So is it cheating that [Faith] Hill's career relies on studio fixes? Is it a sham that she, like so many modern music stars, uses auto-tuning in her live performances? Or is it just a good use of the latest of studio technology to take an ambitious and dedicated young woman with an appeal beyond mere vocal ability and, with the right packaging and investment, help her become an international superstar?

Not only is it cheating, it's borderline fraud. If her face, body, performance, and voice aren't real, maybe we ought not believe all that happy little family shit that she and McGraw peddle as well. There's more heart, guts, emotion, and truth in 3 seconds of Van Lear Rose, than there is in Faith Hill's entire catalogue.

If you listen to the "Country Station" here in town, while they play this crap, you're being sold a fraudulent bill of goods. The Program Director there is solely interested in getting you, if you're a woman between 25 and 45, to stay tuned into his station during the commercial breaks. And, since he has no musical taste whatsoever, he's more than willing to accept whatever Warners, and Sony, and BMG, and Mercury, and Universal just throw at him to deliver the demographic, pretty package and all. He and his DJ's don't sit around in a big room and say, "Yeah, that's a good record, it'll play well to Minnesota people who like Country Music." They're delivered big boxes of music with track upon track of this garbage complete with thorough instructions about what time of day to play it, and what kinds of commercials to play it around. It's disgusting. And if some reporter in this town reads this Nashville Scene article, and then calls him up for reaction in the local paper, if he defends the use of this stuff, or says something like "I let our audience and my DJ's pick the music," well, you'll know the truth...

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a self-righteous bastard about a lot of things. But, I also like to believe that the Twangy music I love comes from a spot in the American heart where truth wins out, and the warts don't matter. Go through your music collection tonight. If you have albums by the people insinuated as phoney in this story, go sell them back to a used CD store and give the money to some charity. The fraud must stop at some point.

All of the bands appearing on The Other Side of Country are road hogs. They might not all be pretty, but they get the job done.

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 14, 2004 8:57 PM

I Hate Lists

Filed under: Imported

Last year, after reading Heartaches by the Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles, by David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren, I posted my own Top 100 Country Songs of All Time. My old pal Perfesser Al Kunz then emailed me to say, "it would be interesting to see in a year if you came up with the same list." Well, guess what?

I cheated a little, in that I worked from the flat list I made last year. But, I haven't gone back and read the old list, nor have I re-consulted (is that a word?) the Cantwell/Friskics-Warren book. That doesn't mean you shouldn't consult it though, because, at its best, it's one of the most essential and vital pieces of writing ever done about Country Music. At its least, it's one of the best books to have near the crapper in the history of time. Who doesn't want to read about Johnny Cash recording The Ballad of Ira Hayes while taking a dump?

Nothing's more summery (God, is THAT a word?) than lists of shit you should be listening to or reading or taking in suppository form. I threw all 100 in at once this time, so you can print it off and take it to the bar, café, or Port-O-Let. I'd like to believe there are one or two things on this list that everyone can agree on; I also pray that there's stuff on this list that absolutely pisses someone off and makes them start stalking me with a high powered rifle ("He hates these cans!").

As always, there is absolutely no Kenny, Garth, Faith, or Shania on this list anywhere. Those people, and their music, suck. In fact, I have half a mind to make a list of the Top 100 Worst Country Songs of All Time, and number 1 on that list, with a bullet, would most likely be She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy, the most idiotic, shitty song, possibly in the history of recorded music. But I'll save that for another day.

Feel free to email me with your reactions, I love criticism and invective. This list was not the result of votes by Paul Demko, the Academy of Country Music, or the 17 members of the immediate family of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. And remember, this is just a blog.

Jack's Top 100 Country Songs of All Time
1. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hank
The words of this song are the very embodiment of "lonesome." In lyric and music, this is a perfect song, from Hank's drawn out vocals, to the loping steel guitar fills that animate feelings of shuffling discomfort. And the beauty, the real killer of it all, is you know that Hank Williams himself was so lonesome, he could cry, when he wrote it.
2. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny
"I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die." This song really is 1A, more than it's a 2. This song contains murder, trains, and prison, because those are all part of the story. It's a single knot in a narrative rope, but it's got about 50 loops in it, and there's an intensity to the emotion that goes well beyond the simple image of a daydreaming convict.
3. Walking the Floor Over You, Ernest Tubb
His wife had left him, his career was on the line, and he was pacing back and forth in his bedroom, with no sleep. Wait a minute, that's a song! Country songs, at their best, capture the layers and folds of the simplest imagery, and this is one of those tunes.
4. Hello Walls, Faron Young
(See Number 3). I've always thought that Faron Young kind of butchered this song, but, the song itself saves the recording. Along with Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy," this is one of the first hippie songs ever recorded, even if Willie's hair was still short when he wrote it. A marginal, broken down man, sitting alone in a sparse room, talking to the walls and windows (big long toke...exhale...)
5. Dead Flowers, Rolling Stones
Ya see, runnin' shine was still a art, but then them city boys went and started makin' stuff like heroin and cocaine and meth, and damn, if there wasn't money to be made in that too! It's always amazing to me that a bunch of prep school boys from London wrote such hardcore country music in the early 70's. You read about Larry Gatlin picking through the hotel carpet for bits of crack and you look at Glen Campbell's DUI mug shot, and you realize that there's a seething underbelly to what's gone on in Nashville for the last 60 years, and the suits have tried to keep the lid on it. This song embodies hillbilly vice more than any other ever recorded.
6. Together Again, Emmylou Harris
This song is like being wrapped up in a warm blanket after coming in from being soaked in a Fall rain.
7. Help Me Make It Through the Night, Sammi Smith
Kris Kristofferson momentarily blew the lid off of Nashville with about 5 songs that absolutely deconstructed in every way what were thought of as the proper themes for country music. This record is gorgeous and full; but, it's vital because it says, "come fucke me!," as much as it says, "make love to me."
8. Blue Suede Shoes, Carl Perkins
Aside from the Japanese couple's fight in Mystery Train, I've always thought this song was revolutionary both musically and lyrically. There's no mention of a switchblade fight in a pool hall, but I'll guarantee you, something like that was the true inspiration. And, the guitar work made a lot of young white boys drop their ball gloves and start begging their parents to buy them a guitar. Someday, Perfesser Al Kunz will write an essay about how "Blue Suede Shoes" ended baseball's designation as America's pasttime.
9. That'll Be the Day, Buddy Holly & the Crickets
Buddy Holly is the absolute ROOT of punk rock AND West Texas hillbilly hippie music. Examine this song in the light of where it was recorded and when, and forget for a moment, all the tunes that came after it. It just doesn't fit. This is some X Files, Area 51 shit here.
10. It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, Kitty Wells/The Wild Side of Life, Hank Thompson/Great Speckle Bird, Roy Acuff
One song, 3 absolute smash records. Maybe this song is the best example of how a melody can capture something primordial in large groups of people, regardless of the words.
11. Lovesick Blues, Emmitt Miller
This is some crazy, cross-eyed, hillbilly shit here. I started looking into Miller after reading Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'N' Rollby Nick Tosches. If you've combed through a lot of music in your life, and the tuning fork in your loins is sensitive to the weird vibrations of ethereal good and evil, this record will go right down your spine and cause you to lose sleep at night. Hell, it made Tosches criss-cross the country and write hundreds of thousands of words about someone who seemed to disappear like a ghost in the night.
12. Knoxville Girl, The Louvin Brothers
If memory serves, in last year's list, I wrote something like, this song should be used as evidence of a confession in a murder trial, rather than be celebrated as a great piece of music, because that one Louvin brother was a flat-out psycho. Just pop this into your music playing machine and listen the first time through for the light, airey instruments and soaring harmonies; now, pop it in a second time and listen to the lyrics. He beats the living shit out of this girl even AFTER he kills her. It's terrible, and people ate this song up with a spoon when it came out. It's an extremely complex duality and it makes me cringe sometimes, knowing that it's one of my favorite songs.
13. Love's Gonna Live Here, Buck Owens
Buck was Buck was Buck. I don't want to apply any "academic" makeup to the face of Buck Owens' music, because his stuff simply "is." If this song doesn't make you want to dance, fuck, fight, and throw-up, you have no pulse.
14. Blue Eyes, International Submarine Band
Country went through a psychedelic period too, and few of those Nashville shit-heels noticed. Think about all the gray-haired, pony-tail dropouts you know, and then sing this bit to yourself, "I bite my nails/and if that fails/I go get myself stoned." Exactly.
15. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, Bob Dylan
"When your rooster crows/at the break of dawn/look out yer winduh babe/I'll be gone"
16. Screen Door, Uncle Tupelo
Generation X (God I fucking hate that term) embraced country music very enthusiastically, maniacally, and truthfully. The only problem was, fucking peacocks like Garth Brooks covered it all up, and only a handful of people know what the hell you're talking about when you bring some of these bands up around a bonfire. Overall, I think Jay is the better songwriter of the two, but, Jeff wrote the best song. This is a tune about pretty much nothing and everything, all at once. It embraces the apathy for the rat race of grunge without ever mentioning it; that is to say, it makes you think of all the shit in your life because it paints a very matter-of-fact portrait of some folks with very little in theirs.
17. This Land is Your Land, Woodie Guthrie
I wonder how many of the jackoffs who have recorded this song really believed it like Woodie did? E Pluribus Unum, Bubba.
18. Blue Yodel (T for Texas), Jimmie Rodgers
Rodgers put the wild-eyed, crazy, Texas fuck into Country music. There's a kind of paid-in-cash, blown-at-the-bar in one hour, roughneck quality to all the songs he made. And where the hell did that vocal come from? Ya gotta gitchya some-a this!
19. He Stopped Loving Her Today, George Jones
"He said 'I'll love you, til I die..." A LOT of people would make this their Number 1 Country song of all time, and I wouldn't have too many arguments to refute them. The story just gets worse and worse and worse, and just when you don't think Ol' Possum can't heap a bunch more hurt on you, he throws one more verse in and makes you unscrew the cap on that bottle. Just a deadly piece of music. And STILL the greatest award acceptance line ever: "I'd like to thank my ex-wife for this award..."
20. Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, Willie
Willie's best recording is an old Lefty tune, and his technique and approach was one of many attempts by true musicians to right the wrongs of the shit factories on Music Row. This is another one of those moments where minimal instrumentation and lyric create a very complex emotion based on a the very simple scene of a heart-broken, blue-eyed girl, crying in the rain.
21. Crazy, Patsy Cline
The most-played song on American jukeboxes in history. Willie wrote it, Patsy hit it out of the park.
22. Family Tree, Loretta Lynn
I replaced some other Loretta songs on this list with this tune from her new album, Van Lear Rose. This is a modern twist on all of those songs where she confronts the chick who's trying to take her man. But, Jack White's dirty south, Memphis, all-junkie band puts a straight-razor edge to what sounds like a Lynn chestnut from the '60's. There's a well of hurt, somewhere deep in this woman's soul, that she draws on when she sings this song; it's so pure and real she simply can't be topped at the sub-genre, and you would be wise to immerse yourself in this material.
23. Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash
June's words, Johnny's delivery...June was the darling of the Opry, and Johnny was the whiskey drinkin', pill-poppin' sharecropper with balls as big as bells. There's REAL fire and REAL redemption in this song, along with Jesus, the Devil, and all sorts of other sulphuric, skin-burning delights.
24. Coat of Many Colors, Dolly
I have this essay in my head where I explain why Dolly Parton is the Jane Austen of our time, I just haven't gotten around to writing it. Ponder that and stop thinking about her huge boobs.
25. Stand By Your Man, Tammy Wynette
It's all about the delivery baby. A really messy song that's enjoying a bit of a revisionist renaissance with respect to where it falls on the feminist spectrum. Whatever. To me, it's just the only time Billy really let Tammy fill up the glass and crack it with a hammer. She put real hurt and real emotion into it, and melted the wires out to the amps.
26. Sing Me Back Home/Mama Tried, Merle Haggard
Hello Merle. There are some guys on this list who are absolutely forced to be autobiographical in what they do. There's a purity to Merle's act that can't be manufactured. If you've ever seen him live, you've seen the expression on his face when he sings prison songs that's as much about not wanting to glorify or romanticize the experience, as it is about singing prison songs because that's what Country singers do. His face says, "that sucked and I wouldn't recommend it," more than it says, "I wear my stretch as a badge of courage and experience."
27. Chug-A-Lug, Roger Miller
People appreciate Miller, but no one's really going to understand him until we're all dead. One of those genius things. I like this better than "King of the Road" because it's more manic and explosive. You can make your own choice.
28. Lookin' Out My Back Door, CCR
"Dinosaur Victrola/Listenin' to Buck Owens/Do do do, lookin' out my/Back door" I mean, c'mon. Are you kidding? The rhythm guitar sound in this tune is extraordinary, and the words are positively down the rabbit hole. I keep thinking there's more to it, then I shake loose and take it at face value, then I change my mind again. Somebody help!
29. El Paso, Marty Robbins
"...a deep burning pain in my siiii-IIII-iiiiide..." Marty Robbins had the most beautiful voice in the history of country music. It was fucking operatic. I've got about ten moments in my day-to-day life that cause my euphoria meter to go off the charts; one of those is when I'm tooling down the highway in my pickup truck, with the windows down, outside the city somewhere, and some REAL country station puts this song on the airwaves. I always have to pull over and get a pop or something right after because I sing myself hoarse with it, trying to be Marty.
30. Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin
I don't know if I wrote this last time, but Kristofferson didn't hear this until a few days after she OD'd. He was sitting in the studio with her producer and engineer, and they put it on the system for him. He listened, and when it was over, he said, "she did that to me on purpose."
31. There Stands the Glass, Webb Pierce
At the boozehound job site, this is the song the Super always puts on the jukebox. This record would make anybody fall off the wagon.
32. Always Late (with Your Kisses), Lefty Frizzell
I guarantee you this has never been written about this song before: This is a fucking song for people who like to fuck. Just listen to it...no, listen again...I'm telling you, listen.
33. I've Got a Tiger By the Tail, Buck Owens
Buck is.
34. Good Hearted Woman, Waylon Jennings
How DO you write a drinkin' and partyin' song, that people listen to while drinkin' and partyin', about a victim of a man who drinks and parties too much? It's like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer chuckles at the funnies and says, "Ahhh Andy Capp, you wife-beating alcoholic..." I live for this shit man.
35. Your Cheatin' Heart, Hank Williams
Alter your listening habits for a second with this tune. Play it once, and incorporate the fiddle part into your noodle as an equal voice to the lyrics that Hank's singing. You'll get that living, breathing, telling cheatin' heart bit, and it'll take your breath away.
36. I Never Go Around Mirrors, Lefty Frizzell
I've had some times in life where I didn't want to look in a mirror. If your tuning fork is set right, this record will make you cringe at the discomfort this man feels inside his own skin. Ish.
37. When You Say Nothing At All, Alison Krauss & Union Station
I believe in God, the Devil, the whole nine yards, when I hear Alison Krauss sing. The slow songs she does usually make me want to cry, and I don't cry a whole lot.
38. Windfall, Son Volt
Trace has been called the best "road" album of all time by junkies, hipsters, and hobos alike. "Windfall" is another one of those grunge era, detachment songs that makes you vomit the ugly things inside your heart because it's such a beautiful piece of travelling music. "Catchin' an all night station/Somewhere near Louisiana/Sounds like 1963/But to me/It sounds like heaven..." Ugh...puke...purge...no, no, I'm feeling better...really I am.
39. Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine, Tom T. Hall
About five minutes after I posted the last bit of the list, last year, I was fucking embarrassed by the dearth of words on Tom T. Hall. He's another one of those artists who's enjoying a renaissance of his work right now, and the chief reason is the bedrock truth and reality to the things that he wrote. I've written about this part of Country music that's been lost by pursuit of demographics and meaningless record sales, but it's a simple idea: unique experiences, when written about thoughtfully, evoke common experiences, that play to common emotions. I don't know shit about old dogs, I hate children, and I've never drank watermelon wine, but somehow, I know exactly what he's singing about. Fuck you Kenny Chesney.
40. The Ghosts of Hallelujah, The Gourds
Recently, I've had a few moments to ponder why the Gourds A) are my favorite band, and B) matter. I won't bore you with A), but B), I think, is interesting. They really are the perfect, or nearly perfect product, of a synthesis between basic Texas hillbilly music, and all that punk, grunge, new-wave shit that happened in the late 80's and early 90's. Seven times out of 10, their lyrics are impenetrable, but you know what they're singing about regardless, you know it in your bones. And their instrumentation is decidedly and unabashedly, Country. On paper, it's impossible to reconcile those two things, and the shit-heels in Nashville and at mainstream country radio stations won't do it; but somehow, Kev, Jimmy, Claude, Max, and Keith pull it off. And, it's not some narcissistic, Seussian, bullshit like Phish. This is hillbillyism realized in song. I saw them do "Ghosts..." down at First Avenue last week and decided that it really is their best song, and one of the best songs I've ever heard.
41. Great Balls of Fire, Jerry Lee Lewis
People are always playing Ozzie and Metallica and Dio records backwards, looking for the Devil. Here's the Devil, right here. I don't want to make this all metaphysical and deep, but if you don't think this record is demonic, then there's a hole in your soul. This is another one of those songs about fucking for people who like to fuck.
42. Illegal Smile, John Prine
I've never quite figured out if eating cereal makes people want to smoke dope, or if smoking dope makes people want to eat cereal.
43. You're Still On My Mind, Byrds
Kind of an awkward little song, performed awkwardly, by a bunch of guys who were very realistically facing the awkward situation of being rock stars and dealing with one woman for the rest of their lives. You can hear it, it's just occurring to these guys what this song is about, and the immediacy of that point in their lives is sweeping over them. When they belt out the chorus, it's like they're trying to shout the truth of the matter away.
44. Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town, Kenny Rogers and New Edition
My Mother, called me on the phone, and screamed at me, "Mel Tillis wrote that about Korea, not Vietnam, you dummy." And why wouldn't she? I mean, I knew that fact, but somehow, my fingers got ahead of my head, and the misinformation was spouted without edit. Oh well. This was a very different Kenny Rogers who sang this song, and his spare, almost shy delivery, is the perfect character for the story.
45. Pick Me Up On Your Way Down, Charlie Walker
The best song to dance to with a woman who's not your wife, fianceé, or girlfriend.
46. Up Against the Wall Redneck (Mother), Jerry Jeff Walker
Ray Wylie Hubbard should be given a medal for writing this song, and it's vitally important that a guy who could rarely remember his name recorded the signature version.
47. If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time, Lefty Frizzell
Here's what gets lost about the songwriting of Hank, Harlan, and Lefty: these guys lived this shit. If Shania Twain sang, "we'll go honky-tonkin' and we'll have a time/Bring along your Cadillac/Leave my old wreck behind...," it wouldn't work, BECAUSE SHE LIVES IN A FUCKING PALACE IN SWITZERLAND!!! I wouldn't begrudge her one bit if she sang piano pop songs about how the French drive her crazy, but Jesus, somehow, a buncha jackoffs in suits have forced her square ass into the round hole of the music I love.
48. Galveston, Glen Campbell
The collaborations between Campbell and Jimmy Webb produced some really special performances.
49. Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again), Tompall Glaser & the Glaser Brothers
Here's another Kristofferson tune that's full of some of the most spare, yet deeply descriptive poetry you'll ever hear.
50. Heart of Gold, Neil Young
Is it possible for the first grunge song ever recorded to be just a plain ol' country record too?
51. Me and Billy the Kid, Joe Ely
A lot of the things that people loved about Johnny Cash's music are present in Joe Ely's. He's a man whose act is kind of epic and larger than life, and his songs tell tales and weave emotions that instantly resonate with disparate groups of people. Travel around Texas, you're going to find almost as many people who know, "It was just my way of getting even/With the man who shot my horse...," as do "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die."
52. I Ain't Never, Webb Pierce
The song just belongs in the list. Don't question it.
53. Hey Good Lookin', Hank Williams
"I got a hot-rod Ford/And a two-dollar bill/I know a spot/Just over the hill..." Uh-huh. Somebody's gonna get fucked.
54. Sixteen Tons, Tennessee Ernie Ford
I met Ford once, near his death, at Rosatti's Beer Garden in Woodside, California. He looked like he owed his soul to the company store.
55. Sing a Sad Song, Merle Haggard
Merle sings a sad song every way a sad song can be sung when he sings this. It's like some artist painting 360 pictures of an apple from each degree around the thing, and then hanging them up in a round room around you.
56. Flowers on the Wall, Statler Brothers
It's hard to believe they recorded this given the direction their career has gone. It's association with the cartoonish Quentin Tarantino has dulled some of the depth of the darkness of the thing. It gets played at parties, like it's some kind of happy, "Louie Louie" thing, when it's closest cousin is probably "Ring Around the Rosie."
57. Absolutely Sweet Marie, Jason and the Scorchers
Sigh...if only.
58. Postcard, Uncle Tupelo
"And the bar clock says three A.M./Fallout shelter sign above the door/In other words don't come here/Anymore." The hate and the hurt this man has in his heart is astounding sometimes. I have a hard time envisioning him ever laughing at anything. But everyone laughs, or even just smiles, once in a while, don't they?
59. Lyin' Eyes, Eagles
There's a lot of phoney, LA, country-rock, cowboy bullshit in their music, but they really hit a homerun with this tune. Besides, people didn't hate them because they were bad, people hated them because they thought they were bad taste (sinking in...sinking in...sinking in...boom! gotcha).
60. Farewell Party, Gene Watson
For every Country song that speaks to redemption, there are 2, 6, or 12 about a guy who fucking just gives up. I had a professor once who told us that you know you're suicidal when you start listing the ways you WON'T kill yourself, "no, not with a gun..." The brilliant, soaring delivery of "When I'm gone!" at the end of this tune makes me cringe.
61. Detroit City, Bobby Bare
Country is full of songs that are historical. This is one of the better pieces of art about the post-War auto boom.
62. Before the Next Teardrop Falls, Freddy Fender
When he slides into the Spanish bit of this song, it's absolutely magical. One of those tunes that transcends language and culture.
63. Coal Miner's Daughter, Loretta Lynn
One of the best autobiographical songs ever written or recorded.
64. Suspicious Minds, Elvis Presley
It's hard to bitch about Garth Brooks and then put Elvis into this list, but hey, what the hell?
65. Behind Closed Doors, Charlie Rich
The Silver Fox is one of my guilty pleasures when it comes to Country music. I just love this damned song.
66. Concrete and Barbed Wire, Lucinda Williams
I've seen Lucinda live at First Avenue, and it was one of the filthiest shows I've ever been to...and that's a good thing. The joint literally dripped with her sensuality, and it's because of songs like this. Stark, confessional, and angry, few people sing about the frustrations of love and love lost like Lucinda.
67. Oh Yeah, Poco
Richie Furray did some pretty amazing things with Poco in the early days. Bigger stars emerged from the "Country rock" phenomenon, but he was probably the most talented guy of all of them. This is probably the best song on Pickin' Up the Pieces.
68. La Despedida, Terry Allen
I had "High Plains Jamboree" in this slist before, but in retrospect, I think Juarez is a more fully realized work, and "La Despedida" is the culmination of the tragedy of the story. I love concept albums, especially Country ones, and all of the love and despair built into Juarez is stunning and rich.
69. Pocket Full of Gold, Vince Gill
Vince is one of the few Nashville toadies I can stand. He's a great guitarist, songwriter, and everybody knows about the voice. The soaring, choral quality of the vocal on this morality tale is perfect, and it's a great story, along the lines of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler."
70. Hands on the Wheel, Wille Nelson
The second best song on Red-Headed Stranger, it's a great example of how Willie and Tompall and the guys weren't afraid to stretch the limits of lyrical content, rhyme, and meter.
71. If We Make It Through December, Merle Haggard
Here's Merle again. Few people capture life's little fears like Merle.
72. Kiss An Angel Good Mornin, Charlie Pride
This is another one of those perfect records. Charlie Pride's voice has that "papa" quality to it, that gives this tune the confident, man-of-the-house air it needs.
73. Lucille, Kenny Rogers
Want to stump your friends in a bar? Ask them what city the bar is in? "In a bar in...." Toledo is the answer. Sometimes you gotta just join the group, cut your losses, and sing along..."ya picked a fine time to leave me Lucille/Four hungry children and a crop in the field..." Try to get that song out of your head now.
74. Jesus Was a Capricorn, Kris Kristofferson
This song became pretty poignant for me during all the hype over The Passion. There's a lot of people who focus way too much energy on the "judge and jury" aspects of what they believe is Jesus' message. This is a song that expresses anger at those sky-pilot kook types, and tries to refocus them on his love.
75. Tear-Stained Eye, Son Volt
"Walkin' down Main Street/Gettin' to know the concrete/Lookin' for a purpose/From a neon sign..." Jay Farrar has gotten off about ten rock solid zingers in his life, and this song is no different. There's a high-fallutin' literary quality to this tune, but it pulls off the bizarro effect of coming across as a very simple song, and the guitar work is absolutely beautiful.
76. Guitar Town, Steve Earle
There are a handful of songs on this list that will get several generations and several different types of people bouncing and hopping and singing right along. I don't think I've ever met anyone that didn't like this tune, and it's one of the most covered songs in the Country canon.
77. One Road More, The Flatlanders
One of the world's greatest sittin' around with a jug songs.
78. Hot Burrito #1, Flying Burrito Brothers
I don't get why this song has its title, but it's a lovely piece of music, and a great hillbilly hippie love song.
79. Uneasy Rider, Charlie Daniels Band
"And I ain't even got a garage/You can call home and ask my wife!" Where did this Charlie go?
80. Amarillo By Morning, George Strait
There's a simplicity and honesty to what Strait does that I like. He actually does a little Rodeoin' too, which comes across in his performance of this tune.
81. I've Been To Georgia on a Fast Train, Billy Joe Shaver
All the sudden, Shaver's catalogue has caught up with him and artists are beginning to realize how talented and prolific this man has been, and still is. "Georgia..." is really a signature tune for the pictures he paints and the stories he tells.
82. White Freightliner Blues, Townes Van Zandt
All of Van Zandt's demons crammed into one tune. You want a clue as to why he did it to himself, listen to this song and shudder.
83. Elmo Lincoln, Jack Ingram
Jack's foray into something somewhat distasteful from his childhood is also his best song.
84. I've Always Been Crazy, Waylon Jennings
Waylon was bigger than life, and this was his "don't fuck with me" song.
85. Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts), BR5-49
BR5-49, unfortunately, was forced to announce that a lot of us had had enough, and we weren't going to take it anymore. They got gobbled up for a short time by a shit factory in Nashville, and were forced to record This Is BR549. Let's all agree that they didn't record "A Little Good News," and we'll all feel a lot better. The fuckers even made them get rid of the dash in their name. I would have LOVED to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. Anyway, this song is as much a statement about what Country can be, as it is an infectious dance number.
86. Drive (For Daddy Gene), Alan Jackson
I've heard from more than one industry type that Jackson is an absolute asshole behind the scenes, but I actually respect the man's songwriting, and I think he has a great voice. Of all the Country knuckleheads who wrote knuckleheaded reactionary songs about 9/11, his was probably the best. This song reallly focuses well on the rush of getting to drive something, anything, for the first time. It's a very well crafted tune.
87. Laredo Rose, Texas Tornados
"Crumpled bills on the dresser/Father confessor/Knows the wages of sin..." Here's a gorgeous piece of music, built by four master players, surrounding an absolutely ugly topic. After half a bottle of tequila, it might make a grown man cry.
88. Atlantic City, Bruce Springsteen
"Well they, blew up the chicken man in Philly last night..." One of the all time great openings to a great song that really frays the edges of what country is or isn't. Bruce has always been sneaky country like the way football announcers say white wide receivers are sneaky quick. Nebraska was his foray into a Folk/Country/Rock fusion that should have influenced the genre a little more than it did.
89. My Hometown, Charlie Robison
"Went back home at the end of that week, and we spent it all on pot..." Charlie has always been good at going for the jugular on songs about small town ethos. He'll paint you a familiar picture of downhome simplicity, then he'll cram the fucking paint brush right through the heart of the canvas. This song has its dark moments, but it stays pretty tame, and its Robison's signature tune.
90. Lucille, Fred Eaglesmith
You have to see it live. You have to hear him tell the story behind it. There's an excellent version on Ralph's Last Show, but you gotta get out and see him do it live.
91. Indianapolis, Bottle Rockets
A road hog song written by road hogs for road hogs.
92. Gringo Honeymoon, Robert Earl Keen
There's an out-of-control, hillbilly karaoke quality to what this guy does in concert. You risk getting ganged up on in a bar if you say one song is better than his others, but this one is requested of me a lot, and it cracks me up every time I hear it.
93. I Was Drunk, Alejandro Escovedo
Unfortunately, this is Alejandro's signature song. You want to know why he's in the shape he's in, listen to this song. Makes me cry now.
94. Passenger Side, Wilco
One of the best hillbilly stoner road songs ever recorded.
95. La Grange, ZZ Top
They're going to make a movie one day about the meth epidemic in America's rural towns, and this is going to be song number one on the soundtrack. It just screams "illegal shit going on outside of town." The exact opposite of "Country Roads" by John Denver.
96. Amos Moses, Jerry Reed
One of the weirdest and best story songs ever written and recorded. Jerry Reed is one of those hillbilly guitar idiot savants.
97. Good-Bye, Good Lookin', Robbie Fulks
You'd do a lot worse than anything off of Fulks' first two albums. This one, off of South Mouth, I believe, is his best.
98. Thunderstorms & Neon Signs, Wayne Hancock
In his recent live album, The Train says, "that there's the story of my life." This list is populated with high lonesome songs about the dull dreariness of life on the road, and this is one of the best.
99. Tampa To Tulsa, The Jayhawks
I saw the Jayhawks at First Avenue recently and Gary Louris told the crowd this was his favorite song on the album. Funny that, mine too. Another road song, another great lyric, and another masterful musical performance.
100. Pay No Attention To Alice, Patterson Hood
I've only heard this song once on a demo version that a buddy of mine brought to the radio station, which I needle dropped on the air. First off, it's another fantastic piece of truthful poetry from Tom T. Hall; second, it was done by Patterson Hood, probably bombed, in the living room of some shithole he was living in somewhere in Georgia. It cut my heart out, and I almost begged him to play it last time the Truckers were in town, but I said "fuck it" and backed off. This song is going to get discovered someday and people will be howling it at perturbed bartenders who are trying to get everybody out of their damned bar and lock the doors.

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 9, 2004 10:17 PM

Random Thoughts During Commute...

Filed under: Imported

I have a fairly long commute to the day job, so my mind wanders a lot. Is it me, or has Michael Stipe's songwriting gone downhill? It's to the point where, if you had the time and programming know-how, you could build a Michael Stipe Song Generator. Just throw a bunch of clichés together, then toss in a chorus built of one dark phrase and something that makes absolutely no sense. To wit:

Hail to the queen
Bases loaded, no one out
How the elephant
Got in my pajamas
I'll never know

Chorus:
We're all gonna die
Please don't make me waffles

Just slap his name on it now, and have Mike Mills and Peter Buck play a bunch of minor chords in the background. Instant hit.

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 9, 2004 10:54 AM

Gogitchyershinebox

Filed under: Imported

Some of you are dumb. You've already made the gross mistake of not planning to be at First Avenue tomorrow, Wednesday, June 2nd. You've explained it away with apologies and excuses like "it's a weekday," "it's downtown," "the bathrooms are so dirty there," and "well, i'd like to, but my kids..." Always those kids.

In both my secret role as Dara Moskowitz, darling Twin Cities food critic, and, Jack K. Sparks, psychotic hillbilly expatriate, living in the land of the passive-agressive "no thank you," I constantly run into walls of apathy aimed at my enthusiastic endorsements. I want to reassure all of you, however, that there is no finer band in the land than The Gourds. A lot of casual fans will bore their stoned friends to death with constant replays of their cover of Snoop Dogg's Gin and Juice, but the Gourds are much more complex than that. Their hollers from the holler involve the deepest conflicts of a man's soul, and their happy go-lucky detachments represent the finest somersaults in the dandelions of everyone's childhood.

There's TOO MUCH STRESS IN YOUR SHIT LIVES!!! You waltz into crappy sports bars, and half ass suburban clubs where some jackass is aping Michael Bolton's version of Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, and then you wonder out loud to your friends, who are wearing expensive and uncomfortable clothes, "where did the music go?" Well, Toots, it's down at First Avenue, Wednesday, June 2nd. Five fairly dishevelled looking gentlemen from Austin, Texas will take the stage, and I will triple dog dare all of you not to start stomping your feet and clapping your hands. Everybody needs a break every now and then...a time to veg out and shake the kinks out of their giddyup.

But some of you are dumb. You've decided that petting your cat, watching your Law and Order reruns, or stalking that cute girl from the Starbucks is more important. That's okay. The bell curve is all about having plenty of dull people like you at one end so there can be more people like us on the manically happy end.

To wit:

So I rolled up my dirty red pants
Took my shoes off
Crossed my legs when I danced
I did the hyena, the milkman and the fox-trot
We smoked our last then headed for the Pine Knot
In my fine leather truck

I've always wondered what a leather truck is, but somehow, I know what it is without asking...I know it in my bones...

Posted by Jack Sparks at June 1, 2004 4:41 PM

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