Coming in the shadow of the great Coachella announcement of 2008 was that the Deep Blues Festival has added 2 more band to their line-up:

The Black-Eyed Snakes: This is a band who I just recently heard of after a fellow blogger referenced them in a Left Lane Cruiser review. Very similar frantic garage-blues sound.

The Black-Eyed Snakes - Chicken-Bone George

Those Poor Bastards: YES! ninebullets.net’s favorite prophets of doom country are coming to the show! I can not tell you how excited I am that TPB are gonna be there! If you’re looking for slick, overproduced, commercial songs, you’d better cover your delicate little ears. Those Poor Bastards play it raw and they play it mean but if old-time gothic country music sounds like your cup of tea then get with the program.

Those Poor Bastards - With Hell So Near

The album opens with a song called “Death of the Life of the Party”, and since You Can’t Live This Way is a posthumous album for Drag, the song seems appropriate in that opening position. Though, I keep finding myself wondering if this really is a posthumous record. I mean, the album comes out after the band calls it quits, and they are about to embark on a mini-tour in support of the album, and it all just seems a little soon to be considered a reunion. The whole DTR split thing seemed a little odd to me, and since I am pretty new to the Drag bandwagon I’m hoping that their death announcement was premature.

Regardless of what is going on with the band, though, the fact is that they have a new album in stores tomorrow and if it really is their final release, it’s a fucking shame. Passing on the ‘almost all drinking songs’ formula, You Can’t Live This Way is easily the most mature effort of their catalog. It seems like the guys were/are finally beginning to fully realize themselves as songwriters and as a band, and to cut that short is a pity. Featuring the classic cowpunk/country sound fans have grown to love, some are gonna say this is their best effort yet, while others will argue that It’s Crazy is a little better. I agree with both, depending on my mood, but I will say You Can’t Live This Way hits me in the exact same way The Fox Hunt’s (favorite album of last year) cd did the first few times I heard it, so it obviously gets to share the driver’s seat on the 2008 Essential Listening list with Left Lane Cruiser.

Drag the River - Death Of The Life Of The Party
Drag the River - Br00tal
Drag the River - Bad Side Of A Good Time

Drag the River’s Official Website, Drag the River on myspace, Buy You Can’t Live This Way

So, I am sitting in my local bar the other night having a descent conversation with my good buddies Beam and Ginger when a new email comes through in the cell phone. I open up the email to read:

PINE BOX BOYS, BLIND BUDDY MOODY AND
SOME DANCING SKELETON JANUARY 25th AT
DAVES AQUA LOUNGE

At first I thought I was just drunk so I read it again; slowly…Pine. Box. Boys. Can’t be the same guys…scroll down…yup that’s them. OH SHIT! The Pine Box Boys are playing Dave’s! At which point I did the happy dance. Last year when I wrote about the band I described them like this:

They classify themselves Southern Horrorbilly and/or Darkgrass. I have no idea what either of those terms mean. Personally, I would describe their sound as a darker version of Old Crow Medicine Show…. a much much darker version. Like, OCMS meets Those Poor Bastards. These are dark blue grassy songs for the dark humored. Call em’ love songs for the recently deceased.

Come see it for yourself on Friday night @ Dave’s Aqua Lounge. Showtime is 9:30 and the cover is seven dollars.

Pine Box Boys - Just a Crush
Pine Box Boys - Arkansas Killing Time
Pine Box Boys - I Had To Cut Her

EDIT: I just got this message from Dobbs (Pine Box Boys drummer):

it is going to be nuts because i am from there and family and friends will decend upon there with a vengence.

This show has officially gotten 150% better!

Brett’s House of Harlots has been restocked with 20 new aspiring porn queens….twice the silicon, twice the collagen and one busted ass Frenchy known as Angelique (of course). Oh yes reader, it’s y2k+8 and we are getting treated with a brand new season of Rock of Love.

This season season started out much like the last one. 15 girls get let in, 5 get held back. However, this year there was a slight curve ball. Instead of being denied access to the house, these 5 chicks were given VIP (”Very Important Pussy”, as one of them so eloquently put it) status. Being VIP got the girls their very own special room, a ton of free clothing and 15 immediate enemies in the other housecats. I’d imagine this is how the backstage area of a strip club reacts when a new feature dancer comes in.

Now that the whole VIP thing had settled in, the cameras start to introduce us to the “women”. We got Daisy (tranny much?) and the busted ass Frenchy I mentioned earlier, Angelique. She runs over to the stripper pole and proceeds to…..hell, I dunno what you’d call it…she was trying to do a pole dance, but it ended up looking more like something you would have seen in Napoleon Dynamite.

Next it was off to the customary episode one photo shoot. Angelique flopped her FF bolt-on’s out and the tides altered. Then we learn this freakshow has had two boob jobs, a nose job, her lips inflated and her teeth done, and from the looks of things she got it all on a $9.99 Value Menu by some hack. Seriously folks, this woman is a damned disaster…but she is a character, and in the infancy of any reality show you need a character until people can remember the other girls names. Angelique the circus freak, Daisy the post-op, Peyton the Season 2 Rodeo, Catherine the sausage bangs cougar and Kristy Joe the winner…..errr…I mean the former Playmate.

The only other things of any interest this time around included the girl that was supposed to be the Season 2 Jes heading off on some “everything I need to know I learned on myspace” speech (our future is doomed people). Some other girl also got so unbelievably drunk she passed out and slept through elimination…thus sealing her fate as one of the episode 1 fallen, which could have been the worse story of the night, had it not been for VIP turned myspace commercial Erin getting blasted at the first elimination.

So here we are, a new season and from the previews there will be fights, vomit and mudball. Life is good. Lacey, Heather and Rodeo make appearances this season (anyone think Heather will get to stay at the house ala New York in Flavor of Love Season 2?) and more amateur porn videos are certain to surface. See y’all next week.

Season 2 Theme song?: DJ Funk - There’s Some Hoes In This House
In honor of the girls: Ludacris - Youse A Hoe

Let’s flashback to last season for a moment. Remember Jes, the little hottie who won and promptly dumped Brett at the reunion show? Well, from the looks of things she’s been living la vida loca since then. Homegirl hosted some shit out in Nevada recently and showed up looking…I dunno…not so hot I guess. Did she get her nose done?: Pic1, Pic2

Imagine spending the better part of a year planning. Shelling out tons of money over said year. All to bring the best of the punkass-blues scene together for a weekend somewhere in Wisconsin. Only to have record rains show up; on your weekend. Attendance falls well below what you expected and you lose a lot of your own money. What do you do?

Chris Johnson will tell you- you make that muthafucker even bigger the next year…and that’s just what he’s done…2 days become 3 and the Deep Blues Festival of 2007 blossoms into the Deep Blues Film and Music Festival of 2008 which will include a screening of Col. J.D. Wilke’s film, Seven Signs.

When I found out about last year’s festival, I wrote that it was like they made a lineup just for me. It was too late for me to make all the necessary planning for me to get out to the show last year, but I vowed should there be a 2008DBF , I would not be missing it. Now, look at that lineup up there….I have no idea where Lake Elmo, Mn. is, but I can tell you my ass will be taking an airport taxi there on Thursday, July 17th. For my musical tastes, this is the festival of the year. If you’re planning on attending, email me. The wife is staying home, so I’ll be looking for nice folks who like whiskey and fish stories.

Here are some audio examples of the super awesome headed toward Minneapolis:

Scott H. Biram - Blood, Sweat & Murder
The Legendary Shack*Shakers - Somethin’ In The Water
Left Lane Cruiser - Pork & Beans
Black Diamond Heavies - Poor Brown Sugar
Patrick Sweany - Your Man
Jawbone - 4-11-44
Charlie Parr - Miner’s Lament
American Relay - Bonedry
The Pack A.D. - Gold Rush
Boogaloosa Prayer - St. James Infirmary
Chris Cotton - The Gamblers
Sliver Lion 20/20 - Fight For Her
.357 String Band - Stillest Hour
Hillstomp - The Woman That Ended The World
John Schooley - Black Diamond Express Train To Hell
The Moaners - Yankee On My Shoulder

As an unapologetic Counting Crows fan I feel obligated to repost some news I saw on Stereogum. The Counting Crows have set a release date of March 25 for their first studio release since 2002’s Hard Candy. It is divided into to parts; rockers (Saturday nights) and acoustic/country tunes (Sunday mornings). They have also made one track from each section available for free download on their official site.

Tracklisting:

Saturday Nights:

• 1492
• Hanging Tree
• Los Angeles
• Sundays
• Insignificant
• Cowboys

Sunday Mornings

• Washington Square
• When I Dream of Michelangelo
• You Can’t Count on Me
• On Almost Any Sunday Morning
• Anyone But You
• Le Ballet D’Or
• On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago
• Come Around

Sticking with the Counting Crows theme, I recently stumbled upon a live recording of The Crows covering Bruce Springsteen’s song, Atlantic City. They do a pretty good job but it really pales in comparison to Hank III’s version…which, personally, I like better than the original.

Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City
Hank III - Atlantic City
Counting Crows - Atlantic City

Over on the Lucero Message board, we have ushered in 2008 with one of our best comp efforts to date. I advise you to download it, pour yourself a whiskey drink while it comes down, then sit back and let the musical goodness wash over you like a warm buzz. You can head over to the Lucero Message board to see who submitted each track and a brief description of why they chose that specific track. You can even download it here for the next 2 weeks or so. If you enjoy it, sign up for the message board and contribute to the February comp.

Track listing:

• Sunday Valley - Pretty Polly
• Left Lane Cruiser - Amy’s in the Kitchen
• Lightnin’ Hopkins - Happy New Year
• Drag the River - JJ’s Driving
• Mississippi John Hurt – Legend
• Joseph Plunket and The Weight - I’ll Be FineCory Branan
• Cory Branan - It Gets The Worst At Night (Lucero Cover)
• Cartright - The Series
• Sunday Valley - Pretty Birdie
• Jason & The Scorchers - Country Roads
• The Most Beautiful Losers - Asshole
• Matthew Ryan - Youngstown
• SNFU - This Is A Goodbye
• Nathan Asher & The Infantry - Turn Up The Faders
• Slaid Cleaves - Sinner’s Prayer
• Rodrigo Y Gabriela - Tamacun
• Uncle Tupelo - Sauget Wind
• Okkervil River - Love to a Monster
• Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash - Burn Down
• The Drams - When You’re Tired
• Jim Cuddy - I’ll Make Believe It’s You
• Robert Earl Keen - Feeling Good Again
• Etta James - Tell Mama
• Brock Zeman - 50 Dollar Bill
• Chad Rex and the Victorstands - Lonely 2
• Hem - The Pills Stopped Working
• Screaming Trees - Dollar Bill
• The Mountain Goats - This Year
• Jack Penate - Have I Been A Fool

Hey guys. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, the new album from The Drive-By Truckers comes out next Tuesday (Jan. 22) but you can hear the full thing over on Rhapsody. Give it a few listens and tell me what you think. I plan on posting a review next week.

Drive-By Trucker’s - Perfect Timing

I’m gonna be honest, I’m not really a fan of soul music. I don’t dislike soul music, but when left to my own vices I am never gonna listen to it. Had it not been for The Drive-By Truckers backing Bettye on this album, it would have gone completely ignored by myself. Hell, it almost did anyway, regardless of that fact but I kept seeing it on top 10 list after top 10 list throughout the month of December. Finally, while trying to find a way to spend a gift card I got that didn’t include boobs, booze or deep fried foods I stopped by a record store and bought it.

I haven’t ever heard anything else by Bettye Lavette that I know of, so I’m not gonna sit here and reword the Wiki biography in an effort to look more knowledgeable than I am. Apparently she had a little bit of a career in the 60’s/70’s, experienced something of a comeback with the 2005 release I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise, and has now come out with this most recent effort, The Scene of the Crime. I learned all of that from one of Patterson Hood’s DBT mailing list messages.

I am surprised by the fact that almost this entire album is covers. In fact, all but one of the 10 tracks is a cover. I’d be a liar if I said I recognized all of the songs as covers right away, but a couple that I did recognize immediately were her versions of Willie Nelson’s “Somebody Pick Up My Pieces” and Elton John’s “Talking Old Soldiers”. I am also pretty impressed with how well Lavette’s voice goes with the swampy Southern sound of the Truckers, who probably put in their best musical effort in quite some time as a mere backing band. Sometimes the steel guitar seems a little out of place, but as a whole it works more often than not. In the end, I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed this album. I’m not gonna run out and start buying soul comps or anything, but should DBT start playing backing band for old Motown artists looking to make a comeback, I think I’ll at least pay attention to them from now on.

Bettye LaVette - Before the Money Came (Battle of Bettye LaVette)
Bettye LaVette - Take Me Like I Am
Bettye LaVette - Talking Old Soldiers

Bettye LaVette’s Official Site, Bettye LaVette on myspace, Buy The Scene of the Crime

The seriously bad ass Parker Griggs and Co. recently recorded a live session for Hear Ya. You need to head over there and check out one of the best young guitarists coming up today.

New, as of yet, Untitled Track

5 more over on Hear Ya