Blitzen Trapper “Whiskey Kisser”

by teabog on March 13th, 2007

Blitzen Trapper “Whiskey Kisser”
“Whiskey Kisser” (From the albumBlitzen Trapper)

If you’re judging bands only by the quality of their recorded output, Blitzen Trapper is easily the most unfairly ignored American group of this decade. I liken their releases to early Beck in that they manage to blend and bend dozens of different genres while producing distinctly American rocks that’s both easily accessible and completely unique sounding. It’s not only good music; it’s appealing music, the kind of music that hepsters would initially attach themselves to and then all sorts of college kids would pick up on. This is like Modest Mouse or Spoon, only better than the recent releases of either group. Simply put, it’s very good music that everyone can enjoy.

Why, then, does no one listen to it? As far as I can tell, it’s only because they’re self-released, and the band’s meager budget doesn’t buy them much press coverage. Their self-titled first album, from which the tobacco-soaked, sun-stained “Whiskey Kisser” was taken, wasn’t reviewed anywhere. Their second album, Field Rexx got a fair amount of overwhelmingly positive press coverage, but received little support otherwise. Yeah, a good review in Music for Robots might encourage a few people to check for the group at Amazon, but few are going put forth the kind of effort that tracking down a reasonably priced copy of a self-released album requires.

Anyhow, here’s Blitzen Trapper. They’re really, really good, and you should do what it takes to find and buy their albums.

Blitzen Trapper’s official website

Myspace.

Hank Snow “90 Miles an Hour (Down a One-Way Street)

by teabog on February 28th, 2007

Hank Snow
“90 Miles an Hour (Down a One Way Street)” (From “Snow Country”)

I’m kinda ambivalent about the whole postmortem resurgence of Johnny Cash. On the one hand, I throw up a little bit in my mouth every time I see a 14-year-old emo kid wearing a black “Cash” T-shirt. On the other hand, it’s nice that indie kids have finally realized that, once upon a time, country and western music were decent, sometimes even good.

The modern country music industry is like the WWF of music. Most of the industry’s biggest starts don’t write their own songs. Many don’t even play their own instruments. Every song sounds exactly the same and the lyrics range from moronic and trite to infuriatingly retarded. Like, these people are proud of being retarded. Who in the fuck wants to listen to that?

But there was a time my friends when country/western music was a legit, honest-to-god artform. Although the subject matter was often deplorable in one way or another, it was also raw and honest. You just don’t hear people singing about beating their wives anymore, and as it odd as it may sound there’s something refreshing about coming across pictures of smiling men in crazy getups who sang songs titled “I’m gonna get drunk and kill you.”

Hank Snow doesn’t fit into the image standard image of the outlaw country singer. He’s more Hank Williams than Johnny Cash, so his music is more proto-rock than it is the sounds of a man who is coked out of his mind. He’s Canadian, actually, and so I’m sure that some country music people would immediately discount him for that fact. That and his songs often feature a slightly bluesy piano line and if it weren’t for the slide guitars and the strained twang in his voice these songs probably wouldn’t be country. He…umm, every picture of him I see he’s wearing a cowboy hat so that must mean something, right?

Hank’s Site

Buy Hank Snow at Amazon