Check 'em out: Prison Book Club

I love the dude in the red shirt

The band: Prison Book Club

Hometown: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

The sound: "sloppy twang rock executed with punk-rock precision"

The link: http://www.myspace.com/prisonbookclub

I think the band's self-description above makes them sound sloppier than they actually are, but it conveys the general gist of this band: guitar-driven rock from rural America from dudes who listened to punk in high school. The upbeat rocking tracks was what grabbed me about these guys, but the slower songs are also really good and they all fit well together on their debut album ($8 for 8 songs, postage included. Worth every goddamn penny). This is another band that would benefit tremendously from ramped up production values* as this record is a bit lacking in that category. I'd really like to hear this band after 100 more shows under their belt...

* with all I hear about fucking Pro Tools and all that other software shit, I'd figure that even the poorest band could record an excellent sounding album with 3 mics, a laptop and 2 gum wrappers these days...

note: a shout out to the guys at ninebullets.net for turning me onto this band.

Tour Dates: Two Cow Garage

From a conversation I had with Micah last month I was under the impression Two Cow was off the road until this summer. But then these shows popped up today.

Sun 03/07/10 Urban Lounge Salt Lake City, UT

Mon 03/08/10 Road 34 Bike Bar Fort Collins, CO

Tue 03/09/10 Larimer Lounge Denver, CO

Wed 03/10/10 Triple Nickel Tavern Colorado Springs, CO

Fri 03/12/10 The Conservatory Oklahoma City, OK

Sat 03/13/10 The Riot Room Kansas City, MO

Sun 03/14/10 George's Majestic Lounge Fayetteville, AR

Thu 03/18/10 Double Wide Dallas, TX

Sun 03/21/10 The Korova San Antonio, TX

http://www.myspace.com/twocowgarage

Micah Schnabel solo: "When the Stage Lights Go Dim"

Last week I posted 2 videos I shot of Micah playing some Two Cow Garage songs solo at Valentines here in Albany. At that show I bought his solo CD When the Stage Lights Go Dim. Acoustic/singer-songwriter stuff isn't usually my thing - it's not that I don't like it or that I don't think it's good, it's that my general M.O. involves rocking hard, and such music does not usually do so. When buying it I assumed I'd like it good enough because (1) Micah's a really good songwriter and (2) I like/am accustomed to his style. However, I didn't think I'd like it this much. Holy crap, this is a really great record. Now you've always got to be careful with such proclamations - not me in making them, but you in reading them. When someone is a big fan of a band (as I am with Two Cow), they may have a tendency to go ga-ga over anything that artist does (Micah drops silverware in the sink..."That silverware dropping was the best I've ever heard - check out the resonance when the spoon collies with the tines of the fork. That "ka-pling" was the coolest sound on earth. It's my new ringtone!"). I don't think I'm doing that here (but I can never know if I'm free from any bias - no one can). This record is that good.

This recording of this album is very sparse. There's just some small accompanyments - mixed in here and there there's some cello, a female singer, some piano. And they fit perfectly. You can clearly tell this was recorded very raw and simply and without much forethought and it gives the album a lot of weight and really draws you in. In this day and age where everyone's got some sort of angle, a well defined marketing plan and Pro-Tools the shit out of everything, some straight-from-the-heart, no pretention, no bullshit music really strikes a chord with me.

Apparently Two Cow's label Suburban Home has picked up the album and are going to release it within the next month or two. And it's going to come with a free live Two Cow Garage recording (live in Colorado at the Suburban Home anniversary bash, I guess. I haven't heard any of this, but I've been interested in a good quality live Two Cow CD for a while now (actually, I'm really interested in a super quality, shot-to-film (or at least with film-like depth) with crisp audio DVD of Two Cow playing a show straight through in front of an apeshit crowd. Get Scorcese on the horn...))

http://www.suburbanhomerecords.com/releases/micah-schanbel-when-the-stage-lights-go-dim/

Listen to some tracks on Micah's myspace (why the hell it's rivervalleycancerscare and not micahschnabel I have no fucking clue). http://www.myspace.com/rivervalleycancerscare

Anyway, here's a cool video of a track from the album, "American Static". Let me know what you think.

Video: Slobberbone "Lazy Guy" SXSW 1999

Slobberbone fans may be interested in this older video of "Lazy Guy". Pretty good video and audio quality, which is nice for a change. It's a safe bet this was filmed onto VHS tape - in this day and age I guess that's considered fucking old school. I definitely dig the black and white.

video: Micah Schnabel of Two Cow Garage

I caught Micah Schnabel of Two Cow Garage the other night. Never have I seen so much raw energy from just one guy and an acoustic guitar (OK, Hamell On Trial comes close. Let's call it a tie between Micah and Hammell). I do love how he uses the foot-stomp on the wooden stage as his own form of percussion. I guess Shane (Two Cow's bass player) just had a baby* and the band is laying a bit low for now, but Micah said they plan to record a new record this spring in Buffalo with a July release and tour. We here in Albany have been lucky over the years with bi-monthlyish Two Cow shows at Valentines, so waiting till summer is kinda long. Damn!

Hey Two Cow you could make a weekend trek out to Albany before/during/after recording you know (hint, hint).

* congratulations Shane. Really. But....the bass player of the band you dig having a kid is never a good thing if you're jonesing for some heavy touring from said band...


No Shame





Skinny Legged Girl

Check 'em out: The Future Farmers of America

Band: The Future Farmers of America
Hometown: Bovina, NY
The Sound: electric Americana rock

The short version: Why do I even need to bother struggling to type up some lame description* when you can just listen to 'em courtesy of the interweb thingie:

http://www.myspace.com/futurefarmersofamerica (listen to "Tearing My Heart Apart" first, then the other 3 tracks - they're all good.

* "...sounds like that band you saw when you visited your buddy out west and the night you got there you went to this local bar with sawdust on the floor, drank the coldest beer you've ever had in your life and the band played the exact type of music you needed to hear on that night..."

I'm not the biggest fan of the montage-style video, but the studio version of their song "California" that plays behind this one is good:






And here's another montage video with a studio version of "Tearing My Heart Apart."






The Long, Rambling Version That No One Really Wants to Read:


Every Friday after Thanksgiving local Albany Americana/cowpunk band Grainbelt plays a show at the textbook dive-bar The Garden Grill in Albany's gritty Delaware Ave/South End neighborhood. Now I like me a good dive bar, but when I really think about it, I like dive bars in theory more than in actuality. You see, the problem with dive bars is that they usually have a die-hard - and I mean fuckin' die-hard - group of regulars. Or as I like to call them, lower-class alcoholic losers. And it's surprisingly rare for a dive bar to have that good dive bar ambience. The main culptit is usually weird/outright bad lighting, usually in the form of some sort of way-too-fucking-bright flourescent light fixture incessantly grating upon my retina.





Anyway, this event leads to a modest influx of Grainbelt fans into the Garden Grill and the regulars don't really know how to digest such a thing. And the bartenders certainly could be more friendly, too (hey bartenders I've encountered at this place - fuck you! Giving me change for a 10 when I gave you a 20. That's the oldest trick in the book and an unimaginative and lame one at that...) So the band mentioned how a new song they had written was about a music festival in Bovina, NY. Having never heard of Bovina my brain jumped to a number of conclusions, which can be summed up as "a scarey, low rent music festival packed with drunk-as-shit hillbillys." When I looked it up on the monsterweb the next day I learned I was pretty far off base. From the pictures and stuff on its website (http://www.livestock.com/) it looks very cool. I like the concept of music festivals, but the average festival seems to have a "bigger is better" philosophy, which can certainly make for a great smattering of high-quality entertainment, but it can be an out-and-out pain in the ass for the attendee. So I'm drawn to these very small festivals since they're so logistically easy on the attendees. While at the festival's website I stumbled upon the Future Farmers of America, bought their CD*, been digging it quite a bit, and now I'm typing out a post about them.





* which just so happens to have cover art by Brooklyn artist Steve Keene, an artist I'm liked for years and whose art I have hanging in various places^ in my house.





^ OK, most of those places are the basement, since my wife kinda doesn't like his stuff at all. She just doesn't get it, man...

The album cover art

http://stevekeene.com/

http://www.myspace.com/therealgrainbelt

Live Slobberbone download: 12/5/09 Smith's Old Bar Atlanta

Well, the Slobberbone Winter Tour 2009 didn't unfold the way I had hoped - they only went out for a week, and didn't come within 500 miles of tallboycan HQ. Damn! Here's a link to a recording of one of the shows. I've only listened to a song and half of it, so I can't comment on it yet, though the sound is pretty good. Enjoy.

http://www.patchndent.com/

cool elevator video: The Gourds

Check out this very cool video of The Gourds playing super-stripped down in a cramped elevator in Holland or something. Besides the uniqueness factor that they're playing in this elevator as it continues to make stops at floors (and Jimmy Smith drinks what I'm sure is quite an enjoyable elevator beer), the performance is actually really good. This is a testament to what good musicians these guys are that they can pull this off so well.

Seeing shit like this causes me to think: What other cool shit like this may exist on websites overseas?

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/30326083#ondemand.30326083

video: "Friends" by Cracker with Patterson Hood

The simplest of simple videos as far as concept goes, but with fucking MTV having shot itself in the foot over the past 15 years by replacing videos with those STUPID fucking shows, it's just good to see a goddamn music video.

This is the mellowest and only song on Cracker's new album ("Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey") that has that classic Cracker-style twang they do so well. It jumped out at me when I first bought the album as a standout track. The rest of the record is much more rocking, built around some cool classic -ock influenced riffs. It's damn good. Check out "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out with Me", "Time Machine", and "Hey Brett (You Know What Time it is)", in addition to the previously mentioned "I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right". Be sure to turn. it. up.

Slobberbone winter tour 2009

A broken-up band can only play so many gigs before they stop being "reunion shows." Slobberbone may be at that point. I don't really know what's going on in the Slobberbone camp, so I ain't gonna risk jinxing it by saying "They're back!" Maybe I'll give it a "They're back?!?!". Either way they've got a few upcoming gigs booked with a promise of "more on the way" (http://www.slobberbone.com/tour.html). This is all very excellent in my book.

November 27- Dan's Silverleaf - Denton,TX

December 1- White Water Tavern - Little Rock, AK

December 4- Barley's Taproom - Knoxville, TN

December 5- Smiths Olde Bar - Atlanta, GA

December 30th - Granada Theaterv - Dallas, TX

I'm really hoping they dip into the Northeast for a few shows. I'll be calling in sick and roadtripping if necessary Goddammit.

Podcast: Ninebullets

Ninebullets.net (http://ninebullets.net/) is a pretty popular (I deduce) website that focuses on music that's similar in style to what I bring you on this very site. The guy is a huge Lucero and Drive by Truckers fan (the site gets its name from the Truckers song "Nine Bullets"). While he leans a bit more towardthe blues and even acoustic side of the spectrum than we here at tallboycan, there's no doubt the guy listens to a lot of the music in this general genre. He has a podcast that you can get on iTunes, and while I'm not crazy about all the stuff he plays, I highly recommend the July 09 episode. This just so happens to be some sort of Blues Festival wrap-up show and, though I normally don't gravitate toward blues, this episode is really good (and not really that bluesy. Or at least bluesy in all the right ways). Check it out: http://ninebullets.podbean.com/2009/07/31/ninebulletsnet-july-podcast/

This podcast is worth checking out if only for these 2 songs:

Amy's in the Kitchen by Left Lane Cruiser (at 37:17): Absolutely kick-ass pedal steel. I haven't heard pedal steel this rockin since I saw Robert Randolph for the first time here at The Egg in Albany 6 years ago.

Rich Man's Table by A Night in the Box (40:38): Another over-the-top ass-kicking track! Holy shit man. I had this on at work the other day and even the ditsey 23 year chick I work with (who usually listens to dance music and Dave Matthews - I understand listening to dance music at a dance club and shit, but I come in at 6:35 in the morning and she's fucking listening to some techno shit. What the fuck? ) couldn't help but get down to this song.

Also check out the songs off this podcast by these artists:

Truckstop Coffee (@ 13:00 min mark)

Chris Knight @24:25

Matthew Dean Herman @ 30:25

Also check out the end of the September podcast when he talks about songs that are"about the devil and killing people".

Dash Rip Rock: Beer

You gotta love it when a band intros a song with, "This is a song off our new album about beer" and then, like 5 songs later, they say "This is another song off our new album about beer." And they're good songs. Check 'em out.


Beertown, USA




It's the Beer

Videos: Country Chick songs

I'm no redneck. Really. I'm from Queens NY for Chrissakes! But 2 songs that have been getting a lot of play around here just so happen to be about country chicks. The first is from Dash Rip Rock, who I just experienced for the first time last week here in Albany. Where the hell has this band been all my life? (Ans: playing their asses off in bars these past 25 years. They should be asking me Where the fuck have you been Tom?!?!) Great show, great band, great album I got at the show (their latest CD "Country Girlfriend"). Going in I thought they may be too far toward that rockabilly/cow-punk stuff that I don't really like, such as the Revend Horton Heat. I always found that stuff a bit too hokey/joking. But they're much more of a straight-up rock band when it comes down to it. And they're completely deserving of the "best bar band" tag I've seen associated with the band. This track "Country Girlfriend" is super catchy and absolutely worth checking out.





The second is"Country Gal" by The Gourds from their latest album "Haymaker". For some reason I've found myself liking the second half of albums much more than the first part recently (I enjoy side 2 more than side 1? God, remember album sides...) and that's definitely the case with this Gourds album. This song is another one that's pretty damn catchy.

Listen up: Cracker - "I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right"

Cracker has some really great records, so great that I consider them to be classic albums ("Kerosene Hat" and "Cracker" for instance). But even their less-popular albums are worth listening to. Every song isn't stellar, but there are some really good songs mixed in. Their new album "Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey" probably won't fit into the classic category with the records mentioned above but there's some really good stuff on it. You may have heard the single "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" which is quite good (watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_HtYcmHpEM). You may not have heard "I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right", but it rocks very hard. Check it out.

I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right - Cracker



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_HtYcmHpEM

Video: Two Cow Garage at Valentine's

There's not a lot of good quality Two Cow Garage videos out there on the interweb. So I took matters into my own hands and shot this video. It came out pretty decent. The sound isn't great, but not bad considering the shrimpy video camera I have.

Town: Albany, NY
Date: 8.14.09
Songs: Should've California/Come Back to Shelby
Show summary: Kick-ass

Live Slobberbone: Netherlands 1998 FM Broadcast

I've been searching for good live Slobberbone recordings for a while now and man, this is it. Download this show! Originally an FM radio broadcast, I'd classify the sound as "great bootleg quality". The band is in their prime and on fire. Live rock and roll doesn't get much better than this.

http://nathanscountryranch.blogspot.com/search/label/slobberbone

Check 'em out: The Gourds

The band: The Gourds

Hometown: Austin, TX

Sounds like... a Texas Rock and Roll Ho-down

There's a good chance you're more familiar with The Gourds than I am. For years I had heard about them and what I heard made me think that this is a band that I'd definitely like. But for some reason I dragged my feet. Well, they came to Albany last year. I went. They were great.

Their country influence may seem a bit strong at first listen, but as you listen to them a bit you'll begin to realize that they're a straight-up rock band. The first thing that jumps out at me about this band is their catchy songs - man, some of them can really stick in your head (in the good way, not in the "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba kinda way...). Secondly, the instrumentation and what I'm gonna call song craftsmanship really sets these guys apart. They work mandelin, fiddle, accordian, organ and a host of other instruments into their songs so well and it all gells together nicely, producing a captivating overall sound. Thirdly, the bands rocks pretty hard, even though they don't have a dominant instrument that leads the band down that road (ie. a strong electric guitar). When I saw them there was a point where I was like, "These guys are jamming so hard," even though no one in the band was soloing or even playing fast for that matter. These guys are a fluid musical unit and they lock in with each other instinctually. And that's some special shit when a band can do that.

I saw them at the performing arts space of the local public radio station, which is sterile/snooty to say the least (In In the Aisles I had written that I wouldn't be going to this Gourds show because "I'm not going to that place ever again until they start selling beer"). So I look forward to see them in a packed club with 200 other people who are drunk and ready to get down. Cause this is the band you want to see in that situation.

http://www.thegourds.com/

www.myspace.com/thegourdstx

I only have 3 of their albums, but you gotta check out the first 7 tracks of their 2006 album Heavy Ornamentals. A pretty kick-ass 7 straight songs to start a record for sure. Listen here:

The Gourds - Heavy Ornamentals

The dudes are serious road warriors, so a picture with the van is appropriate

Video: I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House

Here's a pretty great video of the fantastic "Westboro Baptist Church" (which I mentioned in the previous post) by the shit-kicking band I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House.

note: I gotta be honest here - I have no idea who Fred Phelps is or anything about the Westboro Baptist Church. But after hearing this song, I can do nothing but want to fuck 'em.

Check 'em out: I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House

Band: I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House

Hometown: Portland, OR

Sound: hard edge new-Southern Rock

Status: broke up 2006

I just got my hands on a CD by these guys a few days ago (actually, I downloaded it from iTunes, so I guess my hard drive got its hands on it...) and I think people need to check 'em out. I often think of Two Cow Garage as a "child of Slobberbone" in a way (that's a compliment), and I'd call I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House Two Cow's sister band. Actually, it would be fraternal twin sister band, as the 2 bands are stylistically so similar. Lead singer Mike D's voice is across between Tow Cow's Micah Schnabel and Patterson Hood of the Drive by Truckers. The harmonica in the band will reach out and grab you. Listen to tracks on their myspace page (listen to "Gone" first, since it totally kicks ass. If you don't think that song is absolutely rocking, click off their page, turn off your computer, wrap a plastic bag over your face and duct tape it really fucking tight around your neck. Or something like that.) And don't listen to "Westboro Baptist Church" in mixed company or aloud at work...

http://www.myspace.com/icanlickanysonofabitchint

More on these guys as I get some time to digest this album more.

more Two Cow...

I just have to add that I've been captivated by the song "Swallowed by the Sea", the last track on the new record. While I love Two Cow for their balls-out, rock-your-face-off live shows, this slower song has stuck with me for days now. Shane's less-than-awesome voice fits the song like a glove, the sparse lyrics work so well with the cool harmonica and there's just something about the guitar...Listen to it at their myspace page:


http://www.myspace.com/twocowgarage