STREAM THE NEW CHAD PRICE ALBUM, SMILE SWEET FACE:

Oct 232009


Last week our own RomeoSidVicious wrote a terrific piece on the new Chad Price album, Smile Sweet Face.

I don’t really have anything to add to his posting about the album except for a possible “yeah! what he said!” but I do have the next best thing…A FULL ALBUM STREAM.

That’s right kids. Suburban Home has been kind enough to lend us their full stream of the album so be sure to read RSV’s eloquent musings on the album while listening to the entire album. After that, head over to Suburban Home Records and buy it.

THE MAGPIES – STRANGERS

Oct 232009


Ever since Roger Hoover and The Whiskeyhounds became The Magpies I’ve been pretty disappointed in the musical direction the band has taken. That said, I still check out anything new they release on the off chance they might recapture that Whiskeyhounds spirit I’d so loved. So, when I saw they had released a new album, Strangers, I decided to check it out.

Right off the bat I recognized the songtitles “Vagabond” and “Blueberry Wine” as old Whiskeyhound songs and as the album played I quickly came to suspect that all the songs were old Whiskeyhound songs. A little digging through a cd rack proved my theory correct. Turns out, Strangers, is essentially redo of the Roger Hoover and The Whiskeyhounds album, Panic Blues. The songs are slightly revamped and the recording quality is vastly improved but 9 of the 11 songs on Strangers originally appeared on Panic Blues. At first, this felt lazy to me (and still does to some extent) but listening to the competing versions of the songs back to back leaves no doubt that the songs have been improved and honestly, Panic Blues was my favorite of the Whiskeyhounds albums so it would stand to reason I’d like Strangers. That said, I think I’m gonna follow Hoover’s lead and just copy/paste a slightly altered version of my thoughts when I originally wrote about Panic Blues:

“Sounding uncannily like David Gray of Marshall Tucker Band greatness, Roger Hoover sings songs that sound as though they could have been written long before his time. Much like I felt when I wrote about Backyard Tire Fire, the songs these guys write would have fit right into the Capricorn Records catalog perfectly. While most of the time they posses a decidedly southern rock sound they aren’t afraid to let their primal blues side out for a track or two here and there.”

The Magpies – Keep Me Away from You
The Magpies – Vagabond
The Magpies – Blueberry Wine

The Magpies’ Official Site, The Magpies on myspace, Buy Strangers

CHUCK RAGAN – GOLD COUNTRY

Oct 222009


To call me a Chuck Ragan fan, you’d pretty much have to stretch the limits of elasticity of the word to it’s breaking point. A couple of years ago, while my friends were buzzing like meth heads about an upcoming Chuck Ragan show, I’d never even heard of the man. Their references to Hot Water Music also fell on deaf ears, as I’d never heard of them either. Then, as the initial Revival Tour was announced, I looked into the album Feast or Famine only to find myself underwhelmed and that’s why I’m as surprised as anyone else to be making the following statement.

I can not find a single fault with Chuck Ragan’s newest effort, Gold Country. Since it’s release, Gold Country has been one of my favorite cds on my iPod, and my attachment to it seems to be growing with every listen. The improvement from Feast or Famine to Gold Country is not something to be glossed over. Feast or Famine, to me, felt like the standard punk frontman putting out his obligatory folk album, as was the rage those days, but Gold Country is something else all together. Gold Country is, at is core, a country album. There are still some punk ethos bubbling through lyrically, but even this is cast in a much more mature light. Now I’m not gonna pretend to know anything about Chuck Ragan, but you can tell he spent some time working on these songs and the result is a instrument-heavy, passionate album that should make everyone (non-fans like myself included) sit up and take notice.

So I guess this bears the question, am I now a Chuck Ragan fan? For now I’ll just say I am a Gold Country fan. It’s a great album, possibly my favorite this year. There something about its passion that keeps pulling me back in and it certainly seems to be standing the test of time and the constant onslaught of new music that my ears endure. I guess that if the growth seen from Feast or Famine to the Austin Lucas collaboration, Bristle Ridge, to Gold Country continues, then the answer, quite simply, will be yes. There will be plenty of time for those conversations in years to come, though. For now, let’s just enjoy the fuck out of this album.

Chuck Ragan – Rotterdam
Chuck Ragan – Get Em All Home
Chuck Ragan – Don’t Say A Word

Chuck Ragan’s Official Site, Chuck Ragan on myspace, Buy Gold Country

MAT D. AND THE PROFANE SAINTS – DIRT TOWN CITY LIMITS

Oct 212009


I’ve probably written about Mat D. & The Profane Saints as much as anyone that isn’t named Lucero, Drive-By Truckers or who resides under the Suburban Home umbrella. They come out of Sioux City, Iowa with a brand of blues-fueled rock and roll that celebrates the decaying underbelly of the American Dream. There is a quote from Hunter S. Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing that comes to mind when listening to Mat’s songs. “We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” Dive bars, dead lovers, drag queens, and liquor-fueled nights rode that wave out and The Profane Saints aim to document it, and they do so with a Southern-fried rock-meets-blues style, adding in a combination of rockabilly & country to spice it up.

Dirt Town City Limits was recorded over the course of two years and has a decidedly rawer, rustier edge to it than their previous album, Small Town Burning. When the band did Small Town Burning, they were splitting their time between various other projects. Now the side projects have fallen by the wayside and the result is a more clearly defined focus and direction. Keep these guys on your radar folks, they could be going places.

See for yourself.

Mat D. and The Profane Saints – Mudflap Mamma
Mat D. and The Profane Saints – Spark Plug Rain
Mat D. and The Profane Saints – Dead In New Orleans

Mat D. and The Profane Saints’ Official Site, Mat D. and The Profane Saints on myspace, Buy Dirt Town City Limits

TAMPA/ST. PETE: TO DO: SCOTT H. BIRAM @ PASTTIMES PUB, SARASOTA: SUNDAY NIGHT

Oct 212009

Sure, plenty of shows come to town and there are plenty of reasons to be excited about each and every one of them. But, unlike people, all shows are not created equal. Some shows are just more worthy of your unbridled enthusiasm. Scott H. Biram falls into that category. When Scott comes to your town you need to lock up the womenfolk, drink a few whiskey shots and get your ass to the show. I think my card carrying status in Scott’s Church of the Ultimate Fanaticism Fan Club is well documented here on ninebullets, so I am gonna quote a Biram show review a friend of mine wrote after hearing/seeing Scott for the first time ever a few years ago:

“Finally it was time for Scott Biram. I had heard him earlier when he was doing his sound check and the amount of music he can generate all by himself is really staggering. He was really a great performer and musician. He was able to banter with the audience, tune his guitar, work a bass pedal to keep the beat, blow on the harmonica, and growl into his mic/bullhorn. You don’t really know what to expect when the little guy in the green trucker cap sits down on the stage. Biram looks like a guy you’d pass coming out of the bathroom at a Flying J truckstop on I-10. However he attacks honky tonk and blues with a vicious growl and doesn’t let you go until you are stomping your feet and screaming “Whiskey!”

I know Scott’s shows had started to get a bad rap as being drunken messes a couple of years back but the script has been flipped. Last years show in St. Pete (and all of Florida for that matter) were the best I’ve (or others who’ve seen him) seen. He played damned near all night and was 100% awesome from beginning to end. Don’t miss this show, Tampa Bay area. Trust me on this.

Who: Scott H. Biram
Where: Pasttimes Pub (Sarasota)
When: Sunday, October 25, 2009

Scott H. Biram – Spoonful
Scott H. Biram – Long Fingernail
Scott H. Biram – Blood, Sweat & Murder
Scott H. Biram – Sinkin’ Down
Scott H. Biram – Judgment Day

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