Rants

So for a number of years...say 20, I have been a fan of a genre of music known by various affectations including Alt-Country, Americana, Roots, Twang et-cetera, et-cetera, et-cetera...I like it. It speaks to me. Alt Country took me back a long time ago to “doscover” the beauty of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, The Carter Family, The Louvin Brothers and many, many, more. Alt-Country was about to “break through” and become mainstream with the movie “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” but...didn’t quite, although the songs “Oh Death” and “Man of Constant Sorrows” along with the beautiful crooning of Gillian Welch we finally spotlighted for a larger audience. Alt Country has as its foundation the old time vocal and musical and lyrical traditions of gospel and country. I would say the Carter family might be the fount out of which my twang flows. This basic, stripped down beauty was discovered in the lat 80s and early nineties by various kids playing punck rock (including but not limited to Belleville’s own Uncle Tupelo) where you had this beautiful, powerfully angry and disenfranchised music. Hee Haw meets Black Flag. It was a beautiful thing, angry and awkward but still graceful and always...always respectful of the music. The immediate roots paid homage to Neil Young but once you scraped back the first layer of Crazy Horse feedback you started to see all those layers of country imagery, coal mines, working people, drunks and...people...just real people.
Wikipedia as always does a fairly nice job with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_country

See also their non definitive list of Alt-Country artists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Alternative_country_musicians
About the same time these new country stars started coming on the scene. Vince Gill, Toby Keith, that Mc Graw fellow, Kenney Chesney, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley...the list goes on and on and we will not even get to the women. Bands like Alabama, Lonestar and most recently Rascal Flats. All these bands had several things in common, big pretty hats, big pretty teeth, big belt buckles and...oh yes...they all sounded like the Eagles. I do not mean in a general way...they sounded like the Eagles in very specific, totally ripped off ways. Do not get me wrong. I loved the eagles and I respected the genre of country rock embodies by bands like theirs and Poco, the Byrds, the great Gram Parsons... this was good stuff in the 70s and it carried me into high school with sweet songs and steel guitars and just a little L.A. (and I do not mean lower Arnold) polish. But the Eagles with hotel California changed. Henley took over the band and they found a formula that sold billions and...well, that was that. Jow Walsh who was ihteresting as a solo act was a side show, Henley ran the show with pretty psuedo deep songs and talented guys like Timothy B. Schmidt (formerly of Poco) all sang and harmonized and followed along...and made millions.

These Big hat country bands grabbed the sound as their own but everyone over looked the fact that this was not country music at all. It was slick, LA country rock. Sure these guys moved to Nashville but only as a marketing ploy. Then came 9-11 and they all became Big Hat patriots...and then I really got sick. Country music as much as Jazz and Rock are Americas root contribution to the world of Music. Country music is about struggling with your demons (and losing a lot). It is about dark truths, alcoholism, failed marriages (not just unhappy relationships), God, the devil, addictions, failures, hard truths, real life. I mean it was a real Country tragedy when a married Johnnie Cash went public with June Carter. Broke her families heart that she could sin like that. Got him banned from the sacred Ryman auditorium. Forced him to write “Ring of Fire” to document his main. These new Big Hat country boys are pretty but they understood none of the angst that goes with being country. As the band the Hangdogs in their critique of this genre said:

“You give Hank his do but sound more Eagles-esque with every breath
If your so country...drink yourself to death.”
Indeed.

So, if you like this music I feel sad and dismissive of you and that is pretentious and likely unforgivable but...it just feels to the humble diner reviewer that it has neither soul nor substance. I love America and I guess everyone loves Chevy trucks but they do not move me like when Jay Farrar (The Wagner “voggner” of alt country) sings:

“Catching an all night station. Somewhere in Louisiana, sounds like 1963 but for now...sounds like heaven.”
In Son Volts “Windfall” That is good stuff. It is also a genre that can make fun of itself with Robbie Fulks odes to “Roots Rock Wierdos” and “Countrier The Thou” making fun of pretentious turds like myself.


Beware of pretty people pretending to sing country music. These people have not suffered rejection and pain enough as the ugly alt country boys. Alajandro Escovedo (former mex/L.A./punker is certainly as bad looking as any ugly badger. Farar looks like every kids you made fun of in the schools Audio/Visual “club” and if he would not have discovered guitar would certainly have been a king hell Dungeons and dragons player. Jeff Tweedy (now of non alt country Wilco but formerly of Tupelo) now looks like an angry Hobbit, Robbie Fulks and elongated Howdie Doody, Lucinda Williams an ageing crack whore, Walter Silas Humara (Silos) a bad skinned Cuban thug, gary Louris of the Jayhawks is the ageing Tiny Tim, Bryan Henneman of the Bottlerockets (the original angry Hobbit)...the point being that these are not pretty people. Ugly people sing better songs. There. I said it.