Tag: drag the river

ENTER: TWO COW GARAGE

I haven’t been a fan of Two Cow Garage for that long, which is a travesty, but they have taken a rightful place among most played artists. I went a different route with this intro as, much like Cory, I was working with a limited selection of releases only this time I had but a single bootleg recording with which to supplement. So instead of walking through the Columbus, OH rockers’ career in chronological order I decided to slap down one tape of my favorites from all of their albums and give you the only concert I have in full and un-cut. While seemingly limited two tapes is more than enough to show anyone who’s tastes cross mine that Two Cow Garage is an awesome band. I advise listening to these tapes while point you browser at Suburban Home Records and buy their three albums as quickly as you can.



  • Tracks 01, 08, and 11 are from Speaking In Cursive
  • Tracks 02, 03, 05, 12, and 15 are from III
  • Tracks 04, 07, 09, and 13 are from The Wall Against Our Back
  • Tracks 06, 10, ad=and 14 are from Please Turn The Gas Back On

Track Archive Here



This is a show I found linked on the Drag The River message board. It was formerly hosted on cotapers.org but isn’t in their database anymore. Thankfully there were two seeders for the torrent and it took about eight hours. I’ll probably never know who the seeders were but I owe them a debt of thanks. Also thanks to the original taper: James Freeman for making this available for us. I did convert the FLACs to MP3 for this tape but it’s always nice having FLACs of concerts laying around. And there you have it….

Track Archive Here

Well folks that’s all for this intro. I have one more in the alt-country vein then I am going to bring in some Texas/Red Dirt music to fill out the intros series. I may have two or three more months of weekly intros in me. If you have heard me mention a band and would like to request an intro please feel free to drop me a line on twitter and I’ll see about taking care of it for ya’.

NINEBULLETS.NET AUGUST PODCAST:

Here we are. Another month, another podcast. Can you believe it’s been 6 months? Traffic on these is improving a little and that’s raised my spirits about doing them…I know I’m supposed to be all about doing them regardless of the amount of people who listen….and I will be, just as soon as the podcast’s monthly traffic gets in the same neighborhood as ninebullets.net’s daily traffic. That said, let’s talk about this month’s podcast.

The moment I sat down and started mapping out what songs I wanted to play this month I started getting excited. It quickly became obvious that this month’s song selection was gonna be the bomb. We got unreleased tracks from The Fox Hunt, Left Lane Cruiser, Carolyn Mark, Malcolm Holcombe, Pete Bernhard (Devil Makes Three) and Chuck Ragan, as well as newborn songs from Chad Price (Drag The River), Mat d. and the Profane Saints, The Builders and The Butchers, The Takers and Lonesome Wyatt (Those Poor Bastards) w/Rachel Brooke.

In the middle of the show I decided to do a set featuring bands who will be performing at Suburban Home‘s 14 Anniversary Weekend Party, which I’ll be attending in 15 days. Hopefully I’ll come back from it with some good stories, good pictures and a few interviews.

And that does it. I’m really happy with this month’s podcast and I think y’all will like it. Do me a favor, though. If you listen and you enjoy the show, please tell other people about it.

Thanks, everyone. ~Autopsy IV (twitter: @autopsy4)

Tracklisting:

  1. Adams House Cat – Nine Bullets [00.00.00]
  2. Autopsy IV Commentary [04.00.00]
  3. The Fox Hunt – It Suits Me [05.11.00]
  4. Carolyn Mark w/N.Q. Arbuckle – All Time Low [08.03.00]
  5. Lonesome Wyatt & Rachel Brooke – This Painful Summer [11.56.50]
  6. Autopsy IV Commentary [15.48.00]
  7. Chad Price – Cursed [17.30.00]
  8. Jon Snodgrass – Brave With Strangers [21.08.00]
  9. The Takers – Diamond Ring [24.14.00]
  10. Two Cow Garage – Swingset Assassin [27.36.00]
  11. Autopsy IV Commentary [30.28.00]
  12. Chris Knight – Highway Junkie [31.50.00]
  13. Malcolm Holcombe – A Bigger Plan [36.20.00]
  14. Deadstring Brothers – Sao Palo [39.16.00]
  15. Chuck Ragan – Let It Rain [45.04.00]
  16. Autopsy IV Commentary [47.34.00]
  17. Pete Bernhard – Townes [49.48.00]
  18. The Builders and The Butchers – Down in the Hole [53.54.00]
  19. Autopsy IV Commentary [57.40.00]
  20. Left Lane Cruiser – Black Lung [59.30.00]
  21. Mat D & The Profane Saints – Mudflap Mamma [63.54.00]
  22. The Drive-By Truckers – Play It All Night Long [67.02.00]


Download this episode (right click and save)

GETTING TO KNOW DRAG THE RIVER:

I have to admit that this intro was a little harder than I expected to put together. I am a big fan of Drag The River or I wouldn’t be slapping these tunes up here for people to get to know the band but wow the history here is daunting by itself. Couple that with the amount of work produced by the band and its members and I had a pretty huge project staring me in the face. Of course I didn’t let that stop me from putting together a set of tapes that will hopefully show the band’s growth as well as their history. I should make it clear that I didn’t even try to find music from everyone who has been in this band and simply pulled from own collection. That may be a little lazy but if I had tried to track down a little from every single member this intro wouldn’t have come out until next month. So we all just have to make do with I had laying around and hopefully three tapes will be enough to make anyone go out and track down the full DTR catalog as well as the works of all the members current and present.

This first tape is all Drag the River all the time. The first three tracks are off of Hobo’s Demo’s (2000) which was recorded in ’96 and ’97 at the Blasting Room in Ft Collins, CO. Chad Price and Jon Snodgrass played and/or sang on all the tracks and a slew of other musicians in and out of the studio such as Chad Rex, Paul Rucker, and Zach Boddicker. This session also produced Chicken Demo’s (2004) which tracks 7 thru 9 hail from but which was released after Closed. (2002) which is where tracks 4 thru 6 can be found. I decided on release order for this one and freely admit it was an arbitrary decision. The next three tracks, if you managed to keep up through the above mess of a description, come from It’s Crazy (2006) and track 10 is the first DTR track I ever heard and the one that caused me to fall in love with this band. Tracks thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen all make an appearance on You Can’t Live This Way (2008) and the last three tracks can be found on Bad at Breaking Up (2009). This does not represent the full catalog of releases as there have been EPs and other appearances along the way but I feel it covers the major releases for DTR and gives a good solid overview of the band as a whole.


Tape 1 – Track Archive

The next tape, much to my dismay, only has one track from the whole band live. I was shocked to discover I hadn’t collected much live DTR and will have to remedy that in the near future. This tape is mostly Jon Snodgrass live and couple off his Visitor’s Band solo release. That covers the last track and the all the middle tracks but the first two tracks are Chad Price live and are well worth listening to. Chad’s has his first solo effort in the breech and ready to fire over at Suburban Home (there’s even a single track sneak peak) and I really wish I had more of him to put on this tape but woe and alas it is what it is.


Tape 2 – Track Archive

I almost didn’t make this last tape, and then after making it almost didn’t post it but decided it was a neat look at the forces that created DTR and the history of, admittedly only a small few, the band members. These are all tracks from the bands that the members of DTR played in prior to forming DTR with the exception of tracks seven, eight, and nine which are from Chad Rex and the Victorstands gravity works fire burns. The first three tracks are from Armchair Martian which was a Jon Snodgrass punk band. The next three are from the Karl Alverez days with All, yet another punk band, which was the kicking, screaming, live-birth of the Descendants when Milo Went To College. These three tracks are off of Allroy’s Revenge. The last three tracks are also from All but feature Chad Price and are from Mass Nerder. While not even close to a complete rundown of all the bands that the members of DTR have played in this tape should serve as a decent overview of the history and the roots of Drag The River. Since it is, according to Jon, “Chad’s and my band” I think I captured the history of the driving forces behind the alt-country powerhouse that is DTR.


Tape 3 – Track Archive

With such an amazingly dynamic lineup over the years I can’t do justice without listing the members, past and present, and tossing some links out to any current projects they may be working on and any projects that may have passed away but still have some internet presence left hanging around. So without further ado, and according to wikipedia (which may be wrong) I present Drag The River’s members:

And of course the standard linkage:

Suburban Home Records
Drag The River Homepage
Drag The River Myspace
Drag The River on PunkNews
Prior Drag The River Coverage on 9b
Drag The River on Wikipedia

DID THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM "BORROW" FROM DRAG THE RIVER?

When I heard this song by The Gaslight Anthem for the first time it was at their show at The State Theater here in St. Pete. When it first started I was sure they were doing a cover of Drag The River‘s song “Having A Party”. Turned out that wasn’t the case but I made a mental note to compare/contrast the songs when I got home.

Well, Mr. Beam made that mental note get lost in the annals of shit I think about when I am drunk until today.

Today, I was finally getting around to checking out the back catalog of The Gaslight Anthem and I heard the track again and everything came rushing back.

Now, I am not gonna say The Gaslight Anthem stole anything…but I will say I imagine there are some Drag The River cds on someone in the bands iPod. Perhaps it’s just a tip of the cap to Drag. Gaslight Anthem made liberal of such things on their latest effort, The ’59 Sound.

Listen and tell me what you think. Tip of the hat to Drag, coincidence? What say you?

The Gaslight Anthem – Say I Won’t (Recognize)
Drag The River – Having A Party

Edit: Or, as Kevin pointed out in the comments….they could both be related to Sam Cooke’s song.

Sam Cooke – Having A Party

So yeah, now I look like a dummy….but sticking to my steadfast rule of never deleting anything I’ve posted no matter how wrong I am this post will now hang out as a testimate to the fact theat I indeed, do not know everything.

CHAD PRICE (DRAG THE RIVER) SOLO ALBUM GETS RELEASE DATE:

Suburban Home Records announced that Chad’s debut solo album, Smile Sweet Face, has been given an official street date of October 20th. You will be able to preorder the album on August 21st (no mention if you’ll get a digital copy then) and there will be the normal package options including tshirts, beer coozies, pint glasses and what not.

More importantly, this ensures that Chad will have the album when he rolls through Florida on the Revival II Tour:

11/20/2009 Gainesville, FL @ Common Grounds
11/21/2009 St. Petersburg, FL @ State Theatre
11/22/2009 Orlando, FL @ The Social

Here is the studio version of the lead single: Chad Price – Cursed

ALBUM STREAM: TWO COW GARAGE – SPEAKING IN CURSIVE

So, Paste Magazine finally finished the internet’s equivalent of “spanging” and came back into the office in time to discover what the rest of us figured out last year…that the latest Two Cow Garage album is awesome.

Congratulation’s Paste. Next month perhaps you can tell us about that awesome new band, Drag The River.

All snark aside though…It’s nice to see a “major” press outlet giving Micah, Shane and Co. some props. Two Cow is easily one of the most underrated bands touring right now and any press is good press.

Two Cow is also currently on the road on a tour that not only shuns Tampa but doesn’t even come near us on a weekend. This breaks my heart.

Anyhow, tour dates are here and if your as late to the party as Paste you too can experience the awesome via the Suburban Home album stream below.

(Give track #10, Swingset Assassin, and tell me you don’t like it…I dare ya.)

TAMPA/ST. PETE: TO DO ALL NEXT WEEK: GRAYSON CAPPS/CORY BRANAN/JON SNODGRASS/JOEY CAPE/CITRUS CIRCUIT TOUR

You know what they say, “when it rains, it pours”, and such is the case next week with three shows in four days. While I don’t expect anyone else to adhere to such a rigorous schedule I do think you could find something you like in one (or more) of these shows. If you do make it out to any, find me and we’ll tell fish tales over a beer.

WEDNESDAY 6/24 @ THE RITZ: GRAYSON CAPPS

I am so excited about this show. Honestly, I just assumed Grayson Capps would never come to Florida. BUT! Here he is and he’s bringing his full band, The Stumppknocker’s, with him.  If the sound of Southern soul mixed with back-country stomp with a little road-house blues sounds like something that might tickle your fancy, you need to get to The Ritz on Thurday night for this show.

When I last wrote about Grayson I said, “I find myself drawn to the drunks, whores and vagabonds that haunt Grayson’s songs. They’re like old friends you keep up with via letters in the mail, and with a new album comes new updates.” It’ll be nice to finally meet this motley crew of characters in person.

Grayson Capps – Going Back To The Country
Grayson Capps – Ike
Grayson Capps – Mermaid
Grayson Capps – Junior & The Old African Queen

THURSDAY 6/25 @ NEW WORLD BREWERY: CORY BRANAN, JOEY CAPE & JON SNODGRASS

The following night, Joey Cape (Ladwagon/Me First & The Gimmie Gimmies), Jon Snodgrass (Drag The River/Arm Chair Martian) and Cory Branan will be playing New World Brewery. All three of these guys have crossed paths and shared stages at various times in their careers, but this is the first time all three have played together. This tour was engineered by Jon (and booked by the fine folks at AES Presents) and, as I understand, it will mimic The Revival Tour where the artists will all share the stage. Should make for a fun show.

Cory Branan – The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis
Joey Cape – Errands
Jon Snodgrass – Brave With Strangers
Cory Branan & Jon Snodgrass – Wild One (Thin Lizzy Cover)

SATURDAY 6/27 @ NEW WORLD BREWEY: THE CITRUS CIRCUIT TOUR with LAURIS VIDAL, TRUCKSTOP COFFEE, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL & THE TAKERS

After giving the liver a brief break on Friday, the musical week plans to knock us out with a right hook powered by another all-Florida band lineup brought to us by thxmgmt. This is the second all-Florida band mini-tour thxmgmt has done this month. Like the last, the idea is to get a collection of Florida bands together who can pull within their own markets and put them all on the road together with the “home band” headlining their respective market. This time we’re getting Tampa’s own Have Gun Will Travel, Lauris Vidal (Daytona Beach), Truckstop Coffee (Lake Worth) and the latest Suburban Home Records signee, Gainesville’s own The Takers.

To say this is a must-see show is a complete understatement. Everyone in the Bay Area should know how good HGWT is at this point (and if you don’t then shame on you), and the amount of love ninebullets has shown Truckstop Coffee over the years is still pitifully inadequate. In addition, I’ll finally get to see the *much hyped* honky-tonk outfit The Takers.

This will be one of the best nights of music of the year and it’s all homegrown. In addition, it’s a Saturday night so there’s no reason not to go.

Lauris Vidal – Good Years, Dark Clouds
Truckstop Coffee -Way Down South
Have Gun Will Travel -Blessing And A Curse
The Takers – Taker Easy

MICHAEL DEAN DAMRON – FATHER'S DAY

This is Michael’s third album w/o his former Portland, Oregon bandmates, I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In The House. His first cd, A Perfect Day For A Funeral, was a toned down exceptionally personal affair, while his second, Bad Days Ahead, was more of a midway point between ICLASOB and A Perfect Day For A Funeral. The two left me wondering where Michael was gonna go with his solo career.

Lucky for me the answer was a descent back to the calmer, quieter, more introspective, personal version of Michael Dean Damron, and the result is a total home run. The problems with the equalization/mix that seemed to plague Bad Days Ahead are gone and the biting songwriting is back, giving us a beautiful blend of country, folk, blues, and rock music that highlights the more emotional side of Damron.

Among the 14 tracks there is a cover of 9b faves, Drag the River. A cover of the Thin Lizzy track “Dancing In The Moon Light” (also oft covered by Drag the River) is here, too, as well as Damron’s take on the Townes Van Zandt track “Waiting To Die”. Despite the well-rounded selection of covers, the real standouts on the album are Michael’s originals. Whether is be the sentimental title track “Fathers Day” or the get fucked attitude of “Boy With A Car”, Michael always seems to shine when he is blazing his own path. While some people seem to pine for the bombastic Southern-rock sounds of Mike’s former band, I find the solo Michael Dean Damron sound to be Essential Listening.

Michael Dean Damron – Boy With A Car
Michael Dean Damron – Waiting Around To Die
Michael Dean Damron – Dancin’ In The Moonlight

Michael Dean Damron’s Official Site, Michael Dean Damron on myspace, Buy Father’s Day

NINEBULLETS.NET APRIL PODCAST

Okay, last month we stumbled, both technically and performance wise, through the debut podcast. Now come month two we’re pretty much about to drop the cream of Americana podcasts (from one of the best Americana blogs) on you, and our tech is prepped for the amount of awesome that you’re likely to find yourself listening to multiple times a week. I know I’m coming off like the Kanye West of the Americana blogging community, but I don’t give a fuck. I like fish sticks and (having listened to this thing 10 times since I made it) I’m telling you, you’re gonna love it and you’re gonna listen to it numerous times. I feel that confident.

Some of the improvements this month are a new microphone (thanks to Trevor’s suggestion) so there’s no more overwhelming hiss and instead of shuffling (and struggling) through 3 different programs for the podcast, I found a one-stop shop program in Mixcraft that’s programmed in the same manner as I work. These changes have given the whole effort a much more professional feel, and added to that is the fact that I am starting to embrace the drunken talking to yourself in the middle of the night reality of podcasting. That said, I worry this may be the crest. I fear this may be the best 9b podcast ever and it’s all downhill from here. Yes, I am that confident in the material in the hour that’s posted under this text. That said, I am gonna bust my ass to match it in May.

So, here is the tracklisting for what very well may be the best ninebullets.net podcast there ever will be:

  1. Drive-by Truckers – Nine Bullets
  2. Autopsy IV Commentary
  3. Strawfoot – Cursed Neck
  4. Pinebox Serenade – Woven Arms
  5. Uncle Sinner – When Jesus Comes
  6. Autopsy IV Commentary
  7. Olin & The Moon – Call Me Up
  8. American Aquarium – California
  9. Eileen Jewell – Sea of Tears
  10. Autopsy IV Commentary
  11. Drag The River – Old Sad Songs [extended] (Lucero Cover)
  12. Gillian Welch & Old Crow Medicine Show – The Weight (The Band Cover)
  13. Scott H. Biram – Sinking Down (FD Session)
  14. Jon & Chad (Drag The River) – Dancin’ In The Moonlight (Thin Lizzy Cover)
  15. Autopsy IV Commentary
  16. Grayson Capps – Going Back To The Country
  17. Chris Knight – Enough Rope
  18. Autopsy IV Commentary
  19. Two Cow Garage – Should’ve California

IF YOU LISTEN TO THIS AND ENJOY IT PLEASE FORWARD IT TO SOMEONE ELSE!

KATE MANN – THINGS LOOK DIFFERENT WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN

Things Look Different When The Sun Goes Down is singer/songwriter Kate Mann’s third album. I’d never heard of her and, to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting to like her for some unknown reason. Well by the end of the second track, “Robert Johnson Knew”, I was adding her name to my list of people I need to write about.

To fully appreciate Kate’s music you need to know a little of her background. She’s from New Mexico but now makes her home in Portland, Oregon. In 2005 Kate had an awakening, quit her job as a high school teacher, traded her car for a van and hit the road touring the Western United States. That gypsy nature permeates her music which mainly focuses on her soulful, musky voice and acoustic guitar, while cellos, fiddles, harmonicas, and accordions fill in some of the space in the rear. The characters in Kate’s songs are tortured, be it by the secrets they keep (“Robert Johnson Knew”), the paranoia that haunts them (“Bird In My House”) or by the things they’ve done (“Drag The River”). There is little room for happiness within the 11 tracks of this album.

While there are some tracks on this album that are not gonna make it onto my iPod, the tracks that I am keeping are more than enough to label this album as Essential Listening.

Kate Mann – Robert Johnson Knew
Kate Mann – Bird In My House
Kate Mann – Funny Thing

Kate Mann’s Official Site, Kate Mann on myspace, Buy Things Look Different When The Sun Goes Down