NEW: Sample tracks added!
About 6 years ago, I was sitting with friends in our usual Friday-night watering hole. Usually, most of us rarely ventured anywhere but home after drinks, but this time, a plan was hatched to head to The Bishop’s Collar –- a bar near the Philadelphia Art Museum at that time attempting to make itself the destination spot for alt-country bands. A band we’d heard of, but not seen, called The Drive-By Truckers was playing that night, and if the local alt-weekly rag’s words were worth believing, this bunch would provide some lean, mean trucker-rock -– perfect drinking music.
A cab-drive and pizza-joint-stop later, a bunch of us were crowded into The Bishop’s Collar’s narrow space, not exactly an optimum area for a show. Not too much later, we were ready to go home. We had expected something tough, rowdy and Skynyrd-like. In truth, The Drive-By Truckers seemed like callow, if well-meaning youths.
Several years later, I was back at The Bishop’s Collar with a friend from out of town. The Collar’s days as a live venue had been in the past tense for some time. Said friend shared with me an affinity for some lynchpins of alt-country: Gram Parsons, Wilco, Old 97’s. I mentioned that I had seen The Drive-By Truckers here and how mediocre I found them, and my friend was enthused to find someone who shared his underwhelmed emotions regarding this band. Apparently, a coworker had long tried hard to convince him of the band’s merits, to little avail.
And so, I wryly smiled when I received my assigned Hear Factor CD. Who knew? I don’t think I ever expressed my flatlined reaction to this band on RTH. Listening to the CD, my feelings are more or less confirmed. Granted, The Drive-By Truckers aren’t receiving truckloads of plaudits, but I always felt like the press overrated this second- or third-tier band. Occasionally, you hear something about live prowess or literary and/or conceptual ambitions, but I’ve yet to see or hear concrete evidence.
Apart from some occasional tasty slide-guitar playing (see – better yet, hear “Where the Devil Don’t Stay”), there’s little here to distinguished this from other alt-country bands. Maybe it’s my Jeff Tweedy bias, but there’s a lot here I’ve heard before from Uncle Tupelo. It sounds like The Drive-By Truckers also have two lead singers: one to do the Jay Farrar-style stern-faced ruminations on hard livin’ (“Women Without Whiskey”) and another to handle Tweedy-esque sweet love songs (“My Sweet Annette”).
If I understand the Hear Factor concept correctly, I am supposed to get a sense of living inside someone else’s musical world, or at least part of it. [Ed. – Hey, someone gets it!] I’m not sure who made this mix, though I have a culprit in mind. But this mix confirms that I cannot conceive one would want listen to nothing but certain genres. And alternative-country is one of these genres; others include techno, death-metal, and lo-fi indie rock. All these styles tend to the monochromatic to my ears – a lot of alt-county reminds me of that dusty, ill-flavored coffee you get on Amtrak trains. Mind you, I’m not suggesting the maker of this mix listens only to Amtrak-coffee alt-country.
But I generally need a palette-cleanser after even the best of this genre, perhaps The Beach Boys, John Coltrane, or Blur – something big, ambitious, and filled with colors. It probably says something that my favorite track on this disc is “Goddamn Lonely Love” which has this pretty chord – I’m gonna guess it’s diminished or something, anyway it’s sounds like a Beatles chord to me. What can I say? I need chords like that.
FYI: I will post some Drive-By-Truckers tracks in the coming days, although I’m afraid it may have to wait until Tueday night. It seems I can’t get to our FTP through my hotel internet connection. Hold tight, and think about what Townsman Oats has to say here. Good stuff!
Coming soon we hope to get reports from Geo, KingEd, Kpdexter, and myself. Tomorrow I should begin to embark on my frightening Hear Factor mix!
Hey Oats, Goddamn Lonely Love is hands down the best song in the DBT catalogue. It’s written and sung by Jason Isbell, who was the third singer in the band/third guitarist. He recently went George Harrison and left the band and is set to release his solo debut in a few weeks.
interestingly enough, he used to be in a band with Bo Bice, from American Idol, back in the day.
I don’t hear much of Uncle Tupelo at all in the Drive-By Truckers. They are a lot more exciting than many of those popular alt-country bands as well. While your favorite song is a great song and I mean no disrespect to it, I think it’s a surface song. If you dive into their catalog a bit deeper, I think you will find lots of hidden gems that aren’t as automatically catchy as “GD Lonely Love” for example. Basically, I think you should give them more of a chance. Ha.
I don’t even know that I would consider them an alt-country band. I guess by default they are, they have to be something, ya know? I hear alot more going on there than just Uncle Tupelo, I think that’s only a small side of the equation. I’d bet that there’s more/just as much ac/dc in the mix than Tupelo.
Southern Rock isn’t the same as alt country, right? I’d say they’re just good old fashioned ROCK, with a southern tinge. I love the southern gothic tinge to their songs, especially the lyrics.
A song like Tornadoes says a lot more to me than say Gun from Tupelo. That’s some story telling right there, with FEELING.
None of the bands you mentioned Oats, really sound at all like the DBT to me, and I think the difference is in the songs, and lyrically what they have going on. I think the lyrics are indeed personal, yet they are told through the eyes of someone else, almost making them little short stories, or snapshots of a certain era or event. Maybe that’s just a songwriting device, I’m not sure about that, but it sets them apart from the pack for me as a listener.
Listen to the stories that are being told my man. Grab yourself a few beers and kick back and listen to the rock!
I was pleasantly pleased at how little DBT sounded like I thought they’d sound, that is, like the worst aspects of any Uncle Tupelo and any assortment of bands made up of middle-class college kids affecting truck driver chic. I thought they sounded more like a straight-ahead rock ‘n roll band with a general Southern basis. They have more of a Big Star’s 1st-style pop sensibility than I’d expected. Not knock-your-socks-off stufffor me, but more like a Terry Anderson (I think that’s his name) album I own – or parts of one of those Ray ______ albums (New England guy I own a few albums by, including some sent to me by Townsman Al) – and nothing like their band name. I look forward to getting tracks up there for folks to sample.
Ray Mason
For genre type, if we must, I consider it just some good ole rock and roll with a nice punk flavor (especially their earlier stuff and in the live shows, you can hear the punk a lot as well) and a little taint of country as well (moreso in the Cooley songs.)
I’m a fan of the track “18 Wheels of Love” ever since my friend Mike played it on his alt-country radio show Tupelo Blue Whiskey a couple years back. I haven’t truly gotten into their music, but I like what I’ve heard, generally speaking.
I consider the live version, off of Alabama Ass Whuppin, of 18 Wheels of Love to be the definitive version.
I wonder if whoever made this cd put it in the mix?
That song was just played on the tv show The Shield the other day.
I’m with Oats. I saw the Drive By Truckers about a year back for their opener. I was pretty interested in seeing them because of some of the recent reviews I’d read and Poindexter’s recommendation. They suffered severely in comparison to Bobby Bare Jr, who opened for them. He was unexpected, they were predictable. He was a little out of control, they were staid. He wasn’t afraid to take some detours that didn’t fit into even the widest definition of roots rock, they colored strictly between the lines. I’m generally in agreement DBT fit better in the Southern Rock tradition than the alt-country tradition, and I’m not a giant fan of Southern Rock anyway, but I’d say rather than the Allman’s, or Skynrd, they came off to me like 38 Special.
Woot!
OK, I’ve got the sample tracks up for this post. Please do yourself a favor and check them out. Then, more importantly, do us a favor and report back. I may add a fourth track down the road that hits on what I think is the best side of this band, a poppy Rod Stewart side, that is, before Rod outright sucked.
“My Sweet Annette” had an emotional undertow that sort of reminded me of early Little Feat. Easily the most passionate–and best–song out of the three.
“Where the Devil” is the kind of slide odyssey that I’ve heard countless bands do. In a way this song reflects a de-evolution from the Allman Bros, who could really work out a melodic structure yet keep it rockin to the pointless Lynyrd Synyrd approach of playing scales over and over again to create a big “epic” ending.
“GD Lonely Love” has a surface prettiness, but not much else. Even the “Beatles” change (where the same chord changes from major to minor) is rather predictable.
I’ll give the Truckers credit, for they do shift things up, like a good baseball pitcher, but they just don’t have the “heat” to compete with big-leaguers like Jeff Tweedy.
I confess I can’t even get past the name of the band…
Mrclean, now that’s the spirit! I felt the same way when I received that package.
Oats!
I listened to that track!
SNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZZZZZZ!
That people would actually piss away good money on that shit is absolutely frightening!
Ya got good ears!
E. Pluribus
I’m a big fan of DBT, Wilco, Son Volt and Tupelo, and there’s really no comparison. . DBT is Southern Gothic, dark and rockin. Wilco doesn’t rock. Son Volt is more Americana, if that makes any sense, and Tuleplo is more alt country. None of them are particularly southern-sounding. However all these bands take more than a casual listen to get inot, so i would suggest giving DBT a second chance. Go to:
http://www.archive.org/details/Drive-ByTruckers
and check out some great live shows.
Thanks for the tip, and thanks for checking in mookielives.