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The Drive-By Truckers play the pimp AND prostitute: how to sell your new album and stay off your knees
If the Drive-By Truckers sold an album of nursery rhymes interpreted through the sounds of armpit farting noises...I would buy it. I would...on CD and Vinyl.
Seriously, I would buy that. It is not because I am a big fan of old timey armpit harmonies (I think Smithsonian Folkways sells a box set of this stuff from the early 1900's). I would buy it for the simple fact that the Drive-By Truckers are chock-full of integrity. In fact, I would argue that they have the most integrity of any band traveling the highways and byways of the Good Ol' USofA today.
"Give us your tired, your hungry, your poor...and we'll sing about 'em". That is the fundamental ethos that underpins the DBTs music. Their songs are filled with the stories of the American underbelly. They sing with an "I've been there" tone that makes believers of the music and them as an integral part of it.
Their latest album, "The Big To-Do" doesn't stray from the (dirt) path either. This is their "critical mass" album. This has been brewing for sometime. In 1998 they released their first album that was full of guts-balls, piss and gasoline rock. Since then they have been one-upping themselves with each album release. In the process, they have been positioning themselves to be a big deal with "The Big To-Do". How they got here:
- "Gangstabilly" & "Pizza Deliverance": building the rabid fan base
- "Southern Rock Opera": critic's darlin's
- "Decoration Day" & "The Dirty South": flexing muscles
- "A Blessing and a Curse": the transition album
- "Brighter Than Creation's Dark": looking inward
- "The Big To-Do": critical mass
- They also backed Booker T. and Bettye Lavette on their respective albums: building artist cred
Why do I think that The Trucker's have moved on to the "critical mass" phase? The push behind this new album, that's why. They are going all in on this one. Yes, I am a fan so I have been on the lookout for this album. I am also signed up to their newsletter, facebook fan page and twitter account. So, yes, I am where they are broadcasting their message, but it is how they are using those channels that has my antennae buzzing.
Why such a push? The Truckers have a new label, ATO. This has got to be it. New West Records put all the blood and sweat into the band during their "muscle flexing, transition and introspective" works. Now ATO is throwing the party and they are whooping it up.
What have they been doing:
- Free downloads of new songs
- The new webisodes
- Streaming the entire album on their site
- Deluxe pre-order packages (I bought the vinyl one)
- Appearance on Letterman
- Live in-store record store performance
- Live video streaming on iClips.net
- Massive push through their social media outposts (facebook, especially)
- an iPhone app (!)
- The traditional PR...but on human growth hormone
Like I said, critical mass. ATO is smart. They have a band on the apex of going BIG. Here is why I think the Truckers can pull this push off without looking like street corner whores: the "slow build" and that they are still the same ol' same ol'.
We ain't never gonna change
We ain't doin' nothin' wrong.
We ain't never gonna change
So shut your mouth and move along
...Well I ain't much different than the man I wanna be and the man that I already am"
Those are lyrics from one fo their earlier songs, "We Ain't Never Gonna Change"...and they haven't. Integrity
They have been working hard for a long time. They have experienced all the time-tested up's and down's that all bands that are in it for the long haul go through. They never sold out and sacrificed who they were. They are still here...better than ever...the same as ever. Integrity.
Sometimes, when you see a fave band go from "yours" to "every one's", you feel let down. "Let down", because they start to get all tarted up and homogenised, ready for a safe coming out party ("carrying a bucket of wealthy man's paint"). Here is why I think the Truckers have earned the right to play pimp and prostitute.
They aren't pushing any bullshit. What you are seeing is what has been all along. They aren't saying anything new about themselves, just talking a bit louder is all. ATO is doing a good job of keeping it real...and I'm sure that is the law that the Truckers laid down. If you just let your label pimp you out like a blue light special, people will see through that. The stench of bullshit is stronger than it has ever been. People are more empowered and keen on how to spot a fraud...and most often there isn't a trial by peers.
The kicker is that the Truckers can walk the talk. They know they have a winner here; it is a winner because the content is damn good.
This is a Rock record through and through. My first thoughts were: guitars, guitars, GUITARS and drums...lots of them. There isn't a clunker on here. It is full of that muscular, passionate, soulful ruckus that is the DBTs sound. It also has their signature storytelling in each and every song. The storytelling: my fave part.
Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley are natural born storytellers. The artful illustrations of rough-hewn characters and hard-luck cases are full-frontal on this set of thirteen tall tales. What I love about their storytelling is that that both come at it from different angles.
Hood gets right down in the muck and mire with excellent first person narratives. He tells you like it is from where he is at...smack dab in the middle of the story. Cooley, on the other hand, most of his stories are told from the third person. He is the ultimate voice-over in rock and roll today. The new story, "Birthday Boy" is told so well.
He's inside the head of a hired hooker here:
Working for the money like you got eight hands
Flat on your back under a mean old man
just thinking happy thoughts and breathing deep
Between your mama's drive and daddy's belt
It don't take smarts to learn to tune out what hurts more than helps
Flat on your back under a mean old man
just thinking happy thoughts and breathing deep
Between your mama's drive and daddy's belt
It don't take smarts to learn to tune out what hurts more than helps
Hot Damn! You get it all there: the back story (is she a single mother that needs to keep her kids fed), the characters (the nasty son of a bitch, who payin' for it and probably cheating on his wife...who hates him anyway), the martyr's resolve (she ain't no dummy, she's doing it for her kids).
This is my favorite song on the album. Cooley only has three vocals "TheBig To-Do", but that's OK. Keith only got one or two per album for a while, too. Here is the first in a series of webisodes from the DBTs. They talk about the songs and stories behind them. This one focuses on "Birthday Boy":
This is the audio for the entire "Birthday Boy Song"
There is so much on this record. I hear some Chuck Berry. I hear some Neil Young & Crazy Horse circa "Ragged Glory". There are great vocal performances...check out Hood's on "Fourth Night of My Drinking". There is a fist-pumping anthem, too..."This Fucking Job". There are tender moments..."You Got Another".
This whole record is bow-down material. It ain't armpit sounds...but it's damn good.
Stream the new album here
Download the free MP3 of "Birthday Boy"
- Posted from Kensington and Woking, United Kingdom
Stolen Melodies, Copped Riffs and Royalty Robberies: What do T-Bone Walker, Chuck Berry & Keith Richards Have in Common? (The RIff)
My wife is nowhere near the music fan that I am. She does not know (or care to know) a fraction of what I do about the songs and the story behind them are concerned. She does, though, have quite an ear for music.
She regularly surprises me when she will say, "hey, this sounds exactly like such-and-such". She asked me one time, "don't these people get mad when someone else plays their song and claims it as their own"?
Oh, boy. That is a can of worms I'm not sure I want to open up?! On second thought, why the hell not...
The history of recorded music is full of various stories about stolen melodies, copped riffs and royalty robberies. Some of the stories are legendary:
John Fogerty was sued (unsuccessfully) by his old CCR label, Fantasy Records, for sounding too much like himself! Fantasy said that "Old Man Down the Road" sounded too much like "Run Through the Jungle" and that Fogerty was plagiarising himself. What a joke. Fogerty had to go to court to defend his style. Hear for yourselves:
In an even more maddening example, Neil Young was sued by Geffen Records for not sound like himself enough. How can anyone say this about Ol' Neil?! They way the man shifts musical directions, you'd think the moon is controlling him as it does the tides (I love Neil for this reason). When Neil put out "Everybody's Rockin", Geffen sued him for making "uncharacteristic and uncommercial records". Ok, ok, maybe "Ol' '80's Cantankerous Neil" wasn't trying to break new ground with this one, but to be sued by his label...? Here is a little ditty from that album:
And then there is this story about the Aussie band, Men at Work, that is making the headline news. You all remember their 80's hit, "Land Down Under", right? How could you not remember that jaunty, lilting, flute melody in it? Larrikin Music Publishing managing director, Norm Lurie, remembers it to...from his childhood. Larrikin is now suing Men At Work for back & future royalties on the song. They claim the flute part comes from the refrain of an old Aussie children's song, the "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree".
Check out this link to see/hear the similarities between the two. When done watching, please proceed to vomit in your lap. This lawsuit is a joke, too. Post Script: I lived in in Sydney for five years...Vegamite sandwiches are good.
Crazy stories, hunh? Can you imagine if the guy that wrote "Happy Birthday" had it copyrighted!?! We'd all be in court!
There are many, many, MANY other examples like this. Sadly, most of them are about money. What I want to do is celebrate influence. A few months ago I wrote a post about artists wearing their influences on their sleeves.This may be a quasi-Part II to that one. In that post I quoted two people:
Neil Young: "It's all one song". (read here for the story behind that quote)
Hunter S. Thompson: "I've been plagiarising all my life. Its called learning".
And that is exactly what it is, isn't it...learning. You like/listen to someone. They have an impact on you. You are influenced by them. You take on some of the characteristics in your own playing. You develop your own sound from this. Is this stealing or is this influence?
Case in point: where would we be without T-Bone Walker, Chuck Berry and Keith Richards? My guess is the insane asylum from having to listen to Pat Boone for a decade longer than we should have.
Let's have some good ol' music fun with influence using these three R&R behemoths.
T-Bone Walker was an early pioneer (in the truest sense of the word) with the electric guitar sound. Once he plugged it in, he made that fiddle squeal and sing out like no one had ever heard before. Surely that would influence young hot-shot guitarists; and it did. Hendrix stated that T-Bone was a big influence. Even more importantly, Chuck Berry sites T-Bone as one of his two biggest influences (Louis Jordan being the other). We all know Chuck's sound, right? Yes, but was it really Chuck's in the first place? Listen to this T-Bone cut, "T-Bone Boogie", that predates any Chuck recordings:
"WOW", right? Chuck has bitched and moaned for years about how he got robbed by people stealing his sound. Most famously, he sued the Beach Boys for stealing the riff from "Sweet Little Sixteen" and won (check out this cool site called, "Sounds Just Like" for a Berry/Beach Boys comparison). Yeah, Chuck, I guess you were influenced by T-Bone. Have a listen to one of Berry's Great 28, "Bye, Bye Johnny". Sound a little like, "T-Bone Boogie"? Hell, yes.
Now we all know that there are a lot of "Chuck's children out there playin' his licks" (thanks for that lyric, Bob Seeger), none more famously than Keith Richards. Keith is an unabashed Chuck disciple. Keith has said that all he wanted to do when he started out playing was, "to sound like Chuck Berry". Chuck's riffs are found all throughout Keef's playing with the Stones and with his solo band, the X-Pensive Winos. Here is a track off his first solo album, "Talk is Cheap". Listen for those Chuck riffs like they "were ringing a bell". Also, Johnny Johnson, Chuck's long-time pianist is on this track pounding out on the 88's.
There are way too many Chuck/Keef stories to talk about here. You should watch the most excellent movie, "Hail, Hail Rock & Roll" to get a feel for the relationship Master and Pupil had. Here is a clip of the two Gunslingers "learning" how to play "Carol".
There you have it: influence in all it's rock and roll glory. It is cool to listen to those three songs in succession to see how that guitar riff has evolved. Can you think of any other great cascading riff lineage?
_____
Bonus Cut:
While we're at it, here is one last example: the Bo Diddley Beat. Bo's Beat was the new sliced-bread and may never be topped. Here is an early Bo classic and a song by the Allman Brothers from the same name:
Whole lotta coolness goin' on...
Small gestures are a big deal...at least with me. My buddy, Rocky Cox (yes, you read that right...that is his real name and no he isn't in porno) was recently in Memphis touring the sights, sounds and smell She has to offer.
Rocky knows what a music fan...Memphis Music...and he picked me up a little something: two Sun Records stickers. A Jerry Lee & Elvis (pre "King" a.k.a the real Elvis) 45 record label sticker. I just got them in the mail today. Sun Records via Sydney. Sweet. \
Small gesture. Big deal. Thanks Rocky. I'm hoisting a beer for you now and there will be good rockin' tonight fo' sho'...
- Posted from Balmain, Australia
