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Reviews (2)
03 December 2006
No Sin Owning This CD!!
Rich Copley and the boys in the Carpetbaggers served up a little known classic with this cd.
I first heard the Carpetbaggers on an imported compilation cd in the mid 90's,and was hooked on thier single track on that disc. Living in Cornwall back then there was no chance of following up on thier music,hence my recent purchase of Sin Now.
The 'Baggers manage to sound retro without being kitch. They sound not unlike the early Sun Studio recording artists such as Presley and Cash,due to the fact that they only have two guitars,acoustic and electric, and a stand up slap bass. Again like thier musical ancestors, they manage to combine songs that are sometimes country,sometimes hillbilly, and othertimes rockabilly in nature.
The songs deal with the usual country topic such as debautchery,drink and dying relationships..but for all of that the muscians sound as if they are having a ball playing the tunes and that infectious feeling passes on to the listener.
For me the standout tracks are the tile track,Jeanie In A Bottle and Estranged Bedfellows.
all in all if you are like your country unpolished and primative,and with a raw rockabilly heart,then this is an ideal cd to collect!
02 January 2007
It's Country Jim...But Not As We Know It!!
The trouble with sampler albums is that by thier very nature they aim to bring to the listeners attention all the different styles that the label offers. This album is no different.Country music is a genre that brings out strange reactions in poeple....some love it and some hate it. Those that hate it,hate it period. Those that like it may only like certain artists ,or only certain trends such as bluegrass or mainstream.
Bloodshot's sampler is definitely not mainstream...in fact the sleeve notes admit as much! The closest the album gets to a singer sounding anything like New Country or mainstream is Rex Hobart's Gotta Get Back To Forgetting You. The rest of the tracks are Alt Country and left field...and some tracks are so left field that they nearly drop off the radar!! That in itself is not a bad thing...it allows the listener to get a good cross section of the Alt Country scene.
There is something here for all tastes country,or at least those prepared to open thier minds to the possibility that there is country beyond the Nashville Music Machine.
I will attempt to briefly illustrate each track...
1) The Sadies- Empty The Chamber... A haunting guitar instumental evocative of western plains and spaghetti westerns...Clint would be proud!!
2) Kelly Hogan- Green Green Grass Of Home... Backed by the Pine Vally Cosmanauts, this track is a revellation!! What a voice,what a version of this song!! Forget Tom, play this instead!!
3)Trailer Bridge- Hope Is A Thing With A Feather...Very Alt Country,haunting and melancholy
4)Waco Brothers- Poison... A good introduction to the Brothers brand of stomping Alt Country,its got fiddles and pianos..but it just bounces along away from Nashville!
5) Bobby Bare Jr- I'll Be Around... Daddy Bare would be proud!! An understated piece of melodic Alt Country.
6) Wayne Hancock- Johnny Law... A slab of turbo-charged honkytonkabilly from "The Train"...Imagine Chuck Berry meets Hank Williams and you get the picture.
7) TH' Legendary Shack Shakers- Pinetree Boogie... A mixture of swampy bluesy psycho rockabilly with thier own unique brand of delivery.
8) Jon Langford-Solitaire Song... backed by the Sadies this track is a toe-tapping Alt Country romp with steel guitars to the fore.
9) Alejandro Escovedo- Velvet Guitar...Country rock that reminds of Tom Petty in a way.
10) Sally Timms- Homiside... The Pine Valley Cosmonauts do backing duties once again on this track. This sounds even more Tom Petty than the last track!!
11)Robbie Fulks- Sleeping On The Job Of Love...A real toe-tapper...very Texas sounding a la Dale Watson.
12)Jon Rauhouse- Circle The Wagons Babe...A swooping retro steel guitar insrumental.
13) Rex Hobart- Gotta Get Back To Forgetting You...About as mainstream as it gets...a country rock stomper.
14) Ryan Adams- To Be Young...Probably the best known artist here...doing a resonable Dylan sound!
15)Split Lip Rayfield- Movin To Virginia...A stunning bluegrass track,thumping bass and melody hook...track of the album!!
16)The Meat Purveyors- Hey Little Sister...Cowpunk...Dixie Chicks on acid!!
17)Asylum Street spankers- Monkey Rag...An old time sounding Dixie Rag.
18) Devil In A Woodpile... I Shall Not Be Moved...A feelgood version of this old spiritual song...very bluegras and so infectious
19)_Old 97's-Ray Charles... A fast paced Alt country rocker finishes the set.