Before Sunday night (March 07, 2010) I had missed every chance to see Tim Barry play live. Circumstances had aligned against me and I was either out of town, sick, without transportation, or possibly dead (I got better) every time he rolled through Houston. In a very short amount of time I realized what I had been missing. Before I talk about any of the specifics let me make clear that this was the most intense show I can remember seeing bar none. It takes that spot from some great shows with absolutely crazy stories attached to them, like waking up in New Orleans on a tour bus, that are now put to shame by a show where nothing really all that crazy went down. The only way to chalk it up is to the sheer intensity that Tim Barry radiates on and off the stage. Now lets get on to the story…

So me and my brother showed up way too early because I thought the show would sell out. (As a side note: Fuck you Houston for not selling this show out. You bunch of bitches!) So we stood outside smoking and talking while trying to stay out of the possible line of fire from some asshole calling himself “Pony” who was waving around what he referred to as “My nine”. I thought he was the manager or one of the owners which would make his asinine behavior legal so we didn’t call the cops on the jackoff. We should have. He’s not even employed by the club. And eventually decided to wander down the street and grab some food and hope that “Pony”, who actually said “Man fuck that book (The Outsiders) I’ve been going by Pony since before that asshole write that book”, didn’t kill anyone and ruin the show before we got back.

When we managed to wander back I caught up with Tim and, much to my surprise, was taken aback at his humility. We hung out for a while before the show and I got permission to shoot some pics of the show as well as met some pretty cool people including a dude who had bicycled from Tampa, FL to Houston, TX and had come to see the show. Tim deflected most of the compliments people had about his music preferring to talk about life and wander through random topics. It was more like meeting an old friend for the first time rather than meeting a rock star.

That all changed when Tim took the stage. “I’m Tim Barry and I’m from Richmond Virginia” While there was a lot of intensity about him before the show, especially when he talked about the incident where he broke his hand, that intensity took on a whole new form when he picked us guitar. It’s almost impossible to describe him on stage to someone who hasn’t seen him play. He obviously enjoys what he is doing but there is an underlying “fuck you” that’s just waiting to break through. It almost felt like I was watching someone about to fight with themselves. With the crowd yelling along with every song the energy in the club was something that must be experienced to be believed.

All of that was almost destroyed when the aforementioned asshole “Pony” got on stage between songs and began ranting about why he didn’t understand why Tim would tour with those pussies on the Revival Tour and he was out of their league and much worse. Being as that the Revival Tour is put on by one of Tim’s best friends and musicians on it with him are all friends of his you can imagine that this went over like a ton of bricks. But Tim restrained himself and “Pony’s” friends pretty much got him out the door, into his car, and told him to fuck off before coming in to finish the show. Tim handled it well even taking time to say he understood that the guy was trying to compliment him and just went about it in the exact wrong way. And then he started playing again…

There were beers, there were shots, and there was even an asshole but most of all Tim Barry took the stage, owned the crowd, and played like a man possessed. If you have seen him you know what I mean. The tense arms, the spittle flying, the random “fuck you” between verses or songs, and him leaving all the blood, sweat, and tears on the stage. Like many shows it was over way too soon. We all said our goodbyes and parted ways into that moist Texas air. I know I normally share stories about the bands I cover and whatnot but the stories I have from this show, outside of the show itself, aren’t the kind of stories a body is inclined to make public. They seem, as weird as it sounds, too intimate to shove into a few words and post on the intertubes. So you’ll have to be satisfied with this write up and the pics I took. Quoth Tim Barry: That’s all I got…Goodnight!

Feel free to stop by my site to see all the pics from the show. I need to crop a couple a little differently but they are all posted. And as usual if Virgil or Tim, or hell anyone, wants to use the pics to promote Tim then just drop me a line and they’re yours to use.

Tim Barry – Exit Wounds (Live)
Tim Barry – Wait At Milano (Live)
Tim Barry – Avoiding Catatonic Surrender (Live)

Tim Barry’s Home Page
Tim Barry @ Suburban Home Records

Hailing from South Carolina American Gun graces us with their third full length album: Devil Showed Me His Hand and they seem like a kid with ADHD the way this album screams through different sounds and feelings. From radio-friendly pop like “Girl In Texas” into rockers like “My Friends” with detours into bluesy roots like “How Not To Fall In Love” and they even let their punk hang out a little bit on “The Underground” and to top it all off they do it all very well. Devil Showed Me His Hand seems scattered at first listen but on the second and third times, and trust me you’ll spin it more than that, around it becomes obvious that this is a coherent album. It moves like a Saturday night out with all of the ups and downs that us mortals tend to have when perusing the dirty streets. Whether it’s cheep beer and hell raising or drinking your baby goodbye there is a tune on this album for you. You can bet there is something on this one for you and for your friends. So grab your poison of choice, give your better half your keys, and queue this one up. It’s not Saturday yet but it’s worth a drink or six while you listen. American Gun won’t let you down with this release even if they are letting the whole state of Texas down this tour.

Here’s a little sample of Devil Showed Me His Hand to listen to while you go buy the whole thing:
American Gun – Thirteen Women
American Gun – My Friends
American Gun – The Underground

Linkage
American Gun – Official Site
American Gun – Myspace

So this week’s top 5 is one I have been wanting to a whole lot. I love this topic and much like the last top 5 my list changes daily on this one. I tried to skip some of the more obvious, or mainstream, choices. Although thinking about the crowd that reads our site those might have seemed more obscure. Oh yeah, the topic: I want to know your top 5 cover songs! Mine are, as usual, on the tape below but since this is cover songs I included the original versions as well and since I couldn’t decide between two of them I took a little liberty and declare slot five a tie. So this week’s top 5 tape has a cool dozen songs on it and an totally bitchin’ cover as well. Press play and don’t forget to let us know your top 5, but for this one make sure to let us the original artist as well as your favorite cover of the song!!!.

Track Archive

Autopsy IV’s Answers:

American Gun – Moonshiner (This is a traditional song (you can read about the history here) and I have to say American Gun does one of my favorite versions of it)

Johnny Cash – Hurt (I mean…Duh! I swear to god, in 10 years the fact that Nine Inch Nails wrote this song will be forgotten)

Drive-By Trucker’s – Play It All Night Long (the most rocking song to come out of the DBT camp since The Dirty South just so happens to be a Warren Zevon cover)

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel (is it a cover or a collaboration between Old Crow and Dylan? The easy answer is yes. I might be stretching a little on this one but I’m including it anyway.)

Drag The River – Old Sad Songs (one of my favorite Lucero tracks, covered and extended. Too awesome! The lyrics of this song are the theme song to my life.)

AS A SIDE NOTE: IF YOU’RE UP TO IT. EMAIL ME 1 OR 2 OF YOUR FAVORITE COVERS AND WE’LL MAKE A MIXTAPE OUT OF THE WHOLE THING.

I am not usually one for folk music. To start with most of the modern folk music tends more towards the sixties and seventies style protest music rather than the older style folk music about life and love and family and thinking free. Once in a while an album makes its way into my collection that makes me think twice about my, admittedly, prejudice view of modern folk music. Drifter’s Church is one of those albums. If you are a regular ’round these parts you know that John Schnabel is the tree that Micah Schnabel didn’t fall far from and you know that we here at 9b are huge fans of Micah and Two Cow Garage. I probably would have never discovered John if I wasn’t a Micah fan but that alone isn’t enough for me to review an album. I started talking to John over e-mail when he was offering When The Stage Lights Go Dim as a pay it forward kind of thing. He sent me a bunch of stuff including some of his own work and while he and I are likely polar opposites on the political spectrum his music resonates with ideals that even I can relate to. The stories he tells on this album are not fantastical stories that will take you out of reality nor are the protest songs so far idealized that they lose sight of the real world. John takes emotions that we all feel and wraps them in simple rhythms and lyrics and comes out the other side with songs that are real, filled with emotion and conviction without becoming preachy.

Even the title track War At The Door, an anti-war song, is not like the modern protest songs I have come across. The song begs for an end to war without placing blame on the people involved while crying out for the protections promised by god. It seems that John doesn’t claim to cry out to any single person’s god but rather to any god who will listen for an end to the killing in the name of the same. Simple words show that John has lived a full life throughout this album and if you listen close on songs like the title track you can hear where his son gets some of his inspiration. My favorite track on this one has to be No Way In Hell with its story of one of the most messed up relationships, or series of them depending on how you read the songs, I have ever heard of. Overall this album is little more tame than I tend to drop on the iPod but there are exceptions to every rule and this one made it on there with the last re-load.

While I feel that some of you are at a disadvantage on this one, not being from or living in Texas, this week’s top 5 is “Songs About Your State”. I left it kinda’ open so you can pick the state you where you were born, where you live, or where you have lived. Being from Texas I am all sorts of proud to be a Texan and all that but I do realize that the 49 lesser states have history, color, tradition, and even songs written about them so I figured that we’d try this one out and see what came of it. Yeah I’m a little arrogant about being a Texan and if there’s a problem with that then I’ll just join one the elder statesmen of our music music in scene in saying, with all due respect: “Screw you, we’re from Texas!. (Gotta love Ray Wylie)

Bragging aside post your top five songs about your state and let’s have the good time we always do in the comments on these top 5 lists. And don’t feel too bad about not being from Texas you can still move here. Heck I’ll even buy you one of them there bumperstickers that says “I’m not from Texas but I got here as fast as I could”.

Autospy IV says, “This is the first song I think of when I think of Texas.“: Revolting Cocks – Beers, Steers and Queers

And here are Autopsy IV’s Top 5 about Florida:

Johnny Cash – Orange Blossom Special (I mean, duh…)
Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, James Cotton & Pinetop Perkins – Deep Down in Florida (when Muddy writes a song about your state…it’s one of the top songs. That’s music rule #5)

These next 3 have a common theme: development raping and ruining the state:

Mofro – On Palestine (Tackles the old-meets-new Florida, where timber companies came to Lake Palestine and virtually wiped out the forest. True story)
Mofro – Florida (should be the new state song)
John Anderson – Seminole Wind (interesting note; my family was one of the 5 founding families of the city Micanopy mentioned in this song)

Folks I have to apologize for last week. I just never found my groove at all. So this weeks, maybe first of two, Top 5 is a tribute to every single day last week. This one is a lot easier than the last one, in my opinion, and I am looking forward to all of your lists. In case you missed the last one: I am posting a weekly Top 5 list in the form of a mix tape and you all post your answer to “What are your top five songs for (insert title here)?” So this week’s comes down to: What are the top five songs you queue up when you are having a bad day. And, yeah, mine is schizophrenic…so what?

(As an aside I have a working backend for that cassette tape widget I use and if anyone else wants to use it drop me a note and I’ll hook you up.)

AUTOPSY IV’S SONGS: I think RSV and I are having the same kind of week and I have a playlist on my iPod called “Anger Managment” dedicated soley to bad days. I decided to play a version of the iPod game by queing up the playlist on random and listing the first 5 songs to play. Enjoy:

KMFDM – A Drug Against War
Klute – Desert Storm (remix)
Dr. Dre and Ice Cube – Natural Born Killaz
Pantera – Fucking Hostile
Skinny Puppy – Killing Game

I think this sampling shows you one thing; When I get in a shit mood, I am perfectly content to stay in it.

I look forward to seeing y’all’s Top 5 in the comments.

AUTOPSY IV NOTE: This is a feature we’ve kicked around a little and RSV finally decided to give it a go. Since drinking is as integral to the culture of ninebullets as music is it would only make since that there should be booze reviews/discussions here from time to time. So, what do you guys think? Should this become a semi-regular feature? Let us know in the comments.

I shop at a local chain of liquor stores, here in Texas called Spec’s that has been around for a long while. They even have a cartoon rabbit with glasses as their mascot/logo. The Spec’s Warehouse in downtown Houston is an icon and until 2008 was the largest liquor store in the world. I love shopping there because their selection is amazing. Like many of our readers I am a whiskey aficionado who appreciates everything from American bourbons to Irish whiskeys so a large selection is very important to me. I read reviews online, talk to friends, and generally know what my next three or four bottles will be when I walk into a liquor store. With all this I usually give the whiskey guy a polite bit of conversation and purchase what I intended when I walked in to the store. Until Christmas Eve last year I had never let one of the whiskey salesmen talk me into buying a bottle I hadn’t already intended to buy.

I went in to Spec’s on Christmas eve to get whiskey for the annual party because it’s sort of a tradition that I bring the whiskey and was planning to just pick up either a bottle of Clontarf Single Malt, which is my preferred house whiskey, or a bottle of Knob Creek, which is the backup house bottle. I was eying a bottle of Sam Houston Very Small Batch because it’s a nice whiskey when the salesman approached. Now usually this where I spend a few minutes looking at ~100 bottles of whiskey which is out of my normal price range but one has to be polite. Now this time was different. The salesman wanted to tell me about this whiskey he tried last weekend and didn’t describe it like he had just memorized the marketing materials. He was impressed by it’s flavor both straight and mixed and it was less than 45.00 for the bottle. I decided to give it a chance and walked out with a bottle of Willett Single Barrel Special Reserve.

Back at the party I poured some into a whiskey glass and added two cubes of ice, swirled it, noticed the long legs (yes I know how to describe whiskey), put the glass up to my nose and inhaled deeply. The first whiff is strong and has hints of honey. In fact I’d say the first nose is stronger than the whiskey. It’s a 94 proof whiskey and has a nose that is only slightly less than Booker’s which ~120 proof. However the first sip wasn’t harsh at all. It was amazingly smooth and rolled over the tongue in a very welcoming manner. The start is smooth and fells good and the finish is a burst of tartness with hints of vanilla, oak, and honey all the way through. It is not only an amazing whiskey for a price it deserves a place in your liquor cabinet and may well be my house whiskey for a while.

You may be asking yourself “We are all drinkers and that sounds good but how does this tie into music?” Well I got to thinking, this weekend, while drinking out of the third bottle of Willett’s I have purchased that what this whiskey needed was some music. So I put together this compilation of songs that should take about the amount time it takes to consume two decent pours of Willett Single Barrel Estate Reserve. (that’s four fingers and two cubes of ice per pour, cleaning your glass in between). With as smooth as this whiskey is I decided to go with a low key playlist to accent the flavor in your mouth and the warmth in your chest as you sample this amazing Kentucky bourbon but it is still bourbon so I didn’t go easy listening. You’ll get it if you are a whiskey drinker. So go get yourself a bottle of Willett Single Barrel Estate Reserve, come back to this post, play this little mix, and enjoy your newfound whiskey.

Track Archive

Autopsy IV added track: Murder City Devils – Rum and Whiskey

Imagine, if you will, driving through East Texas heading eastbound on I-10. You are almost in Louisiana and the car starts to sputter. It’s just after midnight and there isn’t another car or filling station at night and wouldn’t you know it your cell phone has no signal at all. You think to yourself “Can you hear me now…” and start wandering down the road looking for a signal, a pay phone, a gas station, another human being, or anything except what you are doing right at this moment. You come upon a side road and down that road you see light peeking around what looks like a bend in the road. You are not sure you want to make the trek down a road that could easily be described as wagon path, and besides that it’s starting to get pretty swampy, but in the end you set off down the side road hoping your boots don’t sink too far into the mud and that whatever is making that noise, that you would swear didn’t come from anything natural, doesn’t catch up with you. As you round a bend in the road you see what looks like a roadhouse. There are a couple of Harleys parked out front, a pickup-truck or three, a neon Pearl Beer sign flickering in the window, and a bug zapper lazily zapping whatever it can. And out of the open door, cutting through the humidity, the heat, and the mosquitoes there floats a dirty guitar groove and a voice full of gravel that gives clues in that it’s A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is no C).

This is an album full of down and dirty grooves and subtle backbeats and it is a classic Ray Wylie album from start to finish. While I can’t say the Godfather of Texas Country has grown, matured, or is expanding his musical styling I can say that all of that wouldn’t matter one single bit. On this one Ray reaches into his bag of tricks and comes up with a tried and true Ray Wylie’s sound. Pulling from Delta Blues to Texas Country to Bluegrass and piecing it together in a way most men his age couldn’t pull off. I mean how often does a man nearly sixty years old not sound bad singing about making a woman moan? I am here to tell you that Ray Wylie is one of those that can. I can’t think of anything he could sing about and sound wrong. The grooves on this thing definitely make it a candidate for having queued up to end an amorous evening with your lady friend if you know what I mean. It’s the sort of thing that’ll make you leave the windows open in summer’s most heat in coastal Texas just so you can get the sweat mixing in with everything else and need a good shower when you are done.

Of course you probably all think I am insane after that description and you may be right so you’ll just have to decide for yourself. Here’s three tracks to listen to while you slide somewhere to grab this one. Even if you disagree with my suggestions above this one is still a must have if for no other reason than Ray’s rendition of “Drunken Poet’s Dream” is just amazing.

Autopsy IV note: I’m not much of a Ray Wylie Hubbard fan and I flat out fell in love with this album. Essential Listening regardless of which side of the RWH fence you’ve found yourself on in the past.

Ray Wylie Hubbard – Pots and Pans
Ray Wylie Hubbard – Whoop and Hollar
Ray Wylie Hubbard – Every Day Is The Day Of The Dead

Linkage:
Ray Wylie Hubbard Official Website
Wikipedia on Ray Wylie Hubbard
Ray Wylie Hubbard at the Amazon MP3 Store

..well at least some of us do. Which leads me to this top five. Without delving into my own past lets just say this was a hard list to make because it could have be a top twenty or thirty easily and with that your top 5 topic for this post is “What are your top five favorite songs about drugs”. It can be songs against drugs like Social D’s Drug Train or songs about enjoying drugs. It’s up to you. By now everyone knows how this goes but just in case you’ve been under a rock: I post this little top five, you listen to it, while you are listening to it you share your top five songs on the topic with the rest of us…

AUTOPSY IV’S ANSWERS:

Lynyrd Skynyrd – That Smell
Johnny Cash – Hurt
Old Crow Medicine Show – Tell It To Me
Kenny Rogers – Just Dropped In (to see what condition my condition was in)
Jane’s Addiction – Jane Says

Since Slobberbone reformed last year, toured, and rocked the asses off of fans both new and old I figure it’s about time for a little intro to one of my all time favorite Texas alt-country bands. I couldn’t get enough of these boys out of Denton, TX when they were first around and the same holds true today. While I completely missed their tour last year, mostly because they skipped anywhere I could have been, I hold out hope they will hit down here on the Gulf Coast this year and that the reunion isn’t over. So if you only heard the hype and didn’t know what it was all about then this mix is your chance to jump into Slobberbone along with the rest of us.

While the band has always insisted they’re a rock band it’s pretty obvious the alt-country tag fits them like a comfortable old flannel shirt. They released four LPs and 2 EPs between 1994 and 2002 before it all came to an end. Brent Best (Attorney at Law) played guitar, sang, and wrote most of the songs they recorded. Their shows were just dammed amazing. I, along with many fans, was crushed when Brent posted the notice the band was breaking up but the music was out there and I’ve been diggin’ on it for more than a decade. I won’t go into all the history here since you can get on the band’s website along with the lyric to all of their albums. It’s time for me to shut up and give you the music…

Track Archive

9 Comments »