02.23.07

Finally on Friday there’s a few top fives

Posted in a little bit rock and roll, back catalogue, random - February 23rd, 2007 at 7:56 pm by Cricket & Mimi

Before I go on about my own random blather, I’d like to point out a little bit of utter awesomeness to you. Brody, one of the lovely folks over at The 9513, has crowned the country music blogs with their Golden Age counterparts. We at HCT are stupidly thrilled to be compared to Townes in such a way—not just because our blog is named for a song written about Townes, but more specifically Brody seems to like the way we play. So go check out the post, check out all the other awesome blogs there and give Brody and his kin some love. Also I would like to say an extra thanks from the HCT cat, whose name is, in fact, Townes Van Cat (a stray that lives in the yard, how appropriate, eh?). [Aw, that’s sweet. Is it one of the feral cats?—Daisy]

Indeed, this past week seemed to be all about the love. I don’t know if it’s some sort of Valentine’s Day over-saturation or impending Lent. [You have to get all the lovin’ in before Lent? --Daisy] Maybe it’s the crazy weather that’s been freezing or burying everything east of the Mississippi. It’s hard to say really, but we here at HCT have been getting a lot of love from our counterparts, and we figured the best way to respond to that was to share with you all some things we love. Of course, that’s 90% of what we do around here anyway, but there are always some little things that fall between the cracks or aren’t quite what you’d expect. This time it’s single songs that we haven’t had other opportunities to yammer on about. More specifically it’s my top five songs I’m listening to on heavy repeat that you might never have heard, and then Mimi’s on the same play, because that’s how we roll.

You might find that some of these songs aren’t the usual alt-country or what have you that we spend so much time talking up here. That’s because these are our real playlist songs, and while we do listen to everything we review here, we also listen to other stuff, so this is like sneak peek inside our iPods. If the song is available for download or listening on something like MySpace, we’ve provided links.

Cricket’s five:

“Love” – Lisa Hayes
I haven’t talked much about Miss Lisa here, mostly because I procrastinated on reviewing the album for so long, now I’m just waiting for the new one to come out. But I listen to her all the time, if not daily, then pretty close. She’s a rockin’ real country singer out of Austin. “Love” opens with the lyric: “You say love is the answer/Well what was the question,” so is it any wonder that I adore this song? Lisa’s got twang and soul. She walks a line between alt-country and mainstream country, but she’s got so much heart and emotion that it’s genuine country music she’s making, nothing near the fake radio pop stuff. Did I mention that I love her to death? Yeah, watch this space for my spasticness when her new album comes out.

“Reno to Vegas” – Chuckanut Drive
Back home there’s a lovely stretch of highway, one of the most beautiful in the country called Chuckanut Drive. These boys come from my neck of the woods and they picked a great name. I was trepidacious at first, could their music live up their name? Oh my yes, yes it does. This is twangy country music that’s very western in its influence, but still holding down the fort for the indie rock/alt-country battle. This a band I’m definitely surprised hasn’t broken bigger in the alt-country scene.

“They’ll Need a Crane” – The Wrens
I love a good cover. I define that as someone taking a song I love and making into something entirely different than the original, yet staying true to the spirit of the song. This is an excellent example of that. It doesn’t hurt that both They Might Be Giants and The Wrens are among my favorite bands. This song completely blew my mind when I first heard it. It’s moody and deeply emotional in a way that the original isn’t. It makes a fun song suddenly hurt without actually drastically changing it. It’s hard to explain, just go listen.

“Bus Back to Birmingham” – Drunk Stuntmen
I swear there was a brief period where this would come up daily when my iPod was on shuffle and I’d think “OMG! What is this? It’s AMAZING!” And it is. Overall, the whole album from these boys is impressive, but this song in particular feels like something that transcends time and space to just be perfect. It’s had a very 1950s country-rock feel to it and yet retains an odd sort of musical freshness. I also find it strangely satisfying that these guys look more like Hank III than Buddy Holly, despite how this song having that 50s feel. This particular song, however, isn’t necessarily indicative of how the band sounds in general. They are country-rock and sort of all over the board in terms of influences. Definitely worth checking out.

“Full Grown” – Goodbye Sons
I love this band, although sometimes not as much as I think I should. This song is why. The band is awesome, brilliant, talented, but this song is, to me, so totally spectacular that it completely outshines everything else on their albums. Guaranteed, no matter how shitty of a mood I am in, all I have to do is hear this song and suddenly it’s like I’m sitting in the shade, on the grass, by sparkling creek, on a warm summer’s day, and I have not a care in the world. I don’t even have any idea what the lyrics are about. They might be depressing, I haven’t listened closely. Which is weird considering how I’m always about the lyrics and how many hundreds of times I’ve listened to this song. Here it’s really the music that overtakes me, overwhelms me. There’s just so much joy in this song. The band is very Southern influenced folk-rock, heavy on the mandolin, accordion and banjo.

Mimi’s five:

“Rehab” – Amy Winehouse
This one and “Me and Mr. Jones” are sort of a toss up. This one’s about substance abuse and the other has the word “fuckery” in it. How can one choose? [Usually, I’d say when in doubt, go with “fuckery”, but “Rehab” is pretty freakin’ awesome.—Daisy] I have some trouble sometimes knowing how famous certain acts are because of my strange peer group. Everyone I know loves Amy and has for a while. Y’all, meet Amy. You can thank me later. You are thinking to yourself that I hate female singers, so what’s the deal here, I know. I hate most female singers. I make exceptions, mainly for standard and torch song singers and the odd hip-hop artist.

“Float On” – Ben Lee
Yeah, the Modest Mouse song covered by an Aussie singer-songwriter. This is one of those weird covers that really works. Ben Lee is the exact sort of scenester wanker I normally loathe, but something about his songs makes me like him. I have no real reason for this other than self-indulgence.

“Hockey Song” – Corb Lund
Right, so we love Corb and it’s no secret. It’s actually sort of pathetic (but not as pathetic as another friend of ours who has elaborate fantasies of running off to Alberta to homestead with him; I love it when our friends are crazier than we are). This is why I love this song: it rules. To elaborate: in Canada, this song is sort of like “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” or something which I can’t explain, really. The guy who wrote it is an institution (his name is Stompin’ Tom, what more needs to be said?). Now, what elevates Corb’s version of this song is that he tacks on a final verse that is a parody of the final verse of “You Never Even Call Me By My Name” by David Allen Coe. This is brilliant and it makes me sad that his target audience for this song (hockey fans who like 70’s country music) is just me and a dude named Gord in Saskatoon.

“Fiji Baby” – Good Shirt
It would appear this album wasn’t ever even released in the States—that’s me, Indier Than Thou for the win! My friend, Fiona, from New Zealand gave me this. If you send me an email and beg/barter, I will send it to you. It’s pop music at its best.

“Non-Believer” – Joel Plaskett
Plaskett is hands-down my favorite Canadian artist. It’s funny, too, because the band he was in before he went solo I had an unholy hatred for. This guy is the best the Halifax indie scene produced—he’s real, honest, can write a pretty pop song with real content, and is fantastic live. This clip I linked to is funny. WTF is he wearing, and he cut his hair off? Woes. Anyway, this song is deep and thoughtful and full of the random sort of mourning people do about the Futility of It All.

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