BAR D WRANGLERS

 
I was on the bus Sunday evening after a pretty miserable day, mindlessly scrolling social media. The Grammys had just ended and the mainstream internet was all abuzz; the surrounding hubbub was a pleasant but temporary distraction from reality, so I scrolled. There were a lot of artists I don't care about and a lot of artists I've never heard of using their moment in front of the microphone to actually speak out and call out some of the bullshit that has consumed so much of the insanity that has clouded the minds of people who give a shit over the last year (or so). It was refreshing and honestly a little surprising. Some highlights....
BILLY EILISH said "No one is illegal on stolen land. Fuck ICE."
SHABOOZY said: "Immigrants built this country. Literally."
ISRAEL HOUGHTON won the award for best Contemporary Christian Album and said: "To those who are hiding in the shadows in America, those who are scared, we are citizens of a kingdom that cannot be shaken and that will not end."
KEHLANI said: "I hope everybody is inspired to join together as a community of artists and speak out against what's going on. Fuck ICE."
BAD BUNNY said: "Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say ICE out. We’re not savages, we're not animals, we're not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans."
And then there was TURNSTILE. Apparently the people in this band come from the DIY hardcore/punk scene, but they sound a heavy/alt outfit with a few (admittedly sick) generic 'core riffs and some 311 groove parts...shit lands like a weak ass SNAPCASE rehash to me, but a lot of people I know love them and swear their live shows are good. They are an important band, those people say. They are innovative and they are bringing the spirit if DIY punk and hardcore to mainstream kids and that's a powerful thing, they say. Well, TURNSTILE won the Best Rock Album Grammy and I bet they used that platform to say some shit about the state of things in this country (and this world).....
TURNSTILE said: "The community we found through punk and hardcore music has given us a safe place to swing in the dark and land somewhere beautiful. So to our family, our friends, our partners, our peers and to Baltimore: Thank you. We love you."

Damn, that band is a fukkn waste. If you want to hear what TURNSTILE would sound like if they were good, listen to THIS and lose me with any nonsense about how TURNSTILE are relevant to punk in any way. They are a commercial rock band. Period. Nothing wrong with that, I like plenty of commercial rock bands....just call it what it is and please don't reference punk and hardcore when you talk about them.

Anyway, there's a group of actual die hards from Durango, Colorado called THE BAR D WRANGLERS and they play a mix of classic country and western swing and fuck me if this version of "San Antonio Rose" ain't a straight banger. Throw in the JERRY REED influenced "Parkin' Worries" and standards like "Cool Water" and "Ghost Riders In The Sky" and you've got yourself a bona fide winner. They are Durango's Favorite Family Entertainment Since 1969 for a reason, y'all.

WAY OUT THERE

A BROKEN HEART FOR EVERY GUITAR IN NASHVILLE

 

I feel like this one could have just as easily been compiled by some LA hipster trying to front as a country expert by releasing DIY mix tapes. This is to say: A Broken Heart For Every Guitar In Nashville is an absolutely stellar comp with artists you know, artists you love and artists you didn't know you needed. The FREDDY FENDER cut (one of my favorites from a criminally underrated singer) would be at home on a Barrio or East Side Story collection, you've got Willie and George mingling with Wilma Burgess and Jack Scott. THE STATLER BROTHERS' track is a shock to my system and the tape starts to fail just before you start to cry, B.J. THOMAS delivers an all star performance with "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)" and if I start talking about the BARBARA MANDRELL contribution then I won't stop so.....so I'm just gonna stop. 

A BROKEN HEART FOR EVERY GUITAR IN NASHVILLE

HOWLIN' AT THE MOON

 

First - go back and check the first three Pinhole Mixtapes. Please. They're perfect. Then - download this fourth volume and just fukkn relax. Wallow in the joy that comes from listening to a perfectly crafted and meticulously curated mix tape. The first three are near perfect, and Howlin' At The Moon continues the tradition. Off the beaten path essentials from ESCO HANKINS, CHARLIE FEATHERS, VERNON WRAY, JOHHNY SKILES and TERRY FELL rubbing elbows with lesser known classics from PATSY CLINE, GEORGE JONES, WAYLON JENNINGS, LORETTA LYNN and a few others you thing you don't need to pay attention to because their very names are institutions in themselves. Listen to BILLY RUFUS sing "A Way To Die" and tell me you don't need more country music in your life...the shit is the realest, and Mr. Pinhole is doing an amazing job of keeping the sounds simultaneously mysterious and relevant. 

HOWLIN' AT THE MOON
I was appropriately whiskey drunk and may or may not have been crying when I edited this cassette, so typos (should they exist) in the track listing are not just excusable, they're a part of the experience.

OLIVER with guests....

 

Thanks to Pat's tapes for continuing to insert mystery into my ears. As near as I can tell, MILO HERNĆ was a Croatian pop singer and who the fukk knows what NARODNE MUZIKE was all about. Apparently both collaborated with someone named OLIVER and apparently someone Pat knew copied these recordings onto a cassette that I digitized last week. Pat wrote "demos" on the label he put on the case. And now we have reached then end of my knowledge and the beginning of my questions. Notably: Who is Oliver? So enter a different realm of sound and please enjoy yourself. See you tomorrow.

MILO HERNĆ + OLIVER // OLIVER + NARODNE MUZIKE

LORETTA LYNN

This is how you're supposed to listen to this shit. It's not supposed to sound perfect. No one busts out a '70s country record so you can check out the fidelity and check the sonic ceiling on a fancy hi-fi system. They give you Revolver or Aja for that shit. You listen to They Don't Make 'Em Like My Daddy so you can fukkn cry. You try to listen to feel nostalgic for something you never actually knew, but really you just end up crying. You want to hear her version of "I've Never Been This Far Before" and think about how sketchy Conway's original sounds in hindsight and wonder what the actual fuck Loretta's people were thinking when they signed off on this shit....but then the tape starts to tweak and everything starts to feel fukkd and wrong and you wonder why you were ever doing anything other than crying into your solitary beer. You want t turn it off but you keep hoping it'll even out and you'll feel okay just crying, but by the time "Ain't Love A Good Thing" shits all over what's left of your listening experience and the beer is gone and.....dude, what were you even thinking. You don't get to have a good pathetic cry, you're too fucked up for that. There's one song left though....it's called "Nothin'" so sit with that while it grinds (you) to a warbling halt. It's your life, so keep listening and keep living. If you want to.

THE DON'T MAKE 'EM LIKE MY DADDY

 

ELECTRON PANIC

 

When most people come across a tape like this, they just keep walking. I don't. When I come across a tape like this, I wonder.....because you just never know. It probably won't change my life, it might not even enrich my life, but curiosity is a powerful beast, you know? So I dust it off, squint to read the faded labels and then pop it in the deck hoping it plays - and if it does play then I listen to something that logically no one should have ever heard again. And sometimes? Sometimes it's instantly apparent that I have made the right decision. The first side is titled Electron Flagration, a collection of ambient and electronic experimental sounds that instantly validate my curiosity. Primitive electro-prog periodically invaded by soundtrack scores and the previous inhabitants of the cassette....an indescribably brilliant listen. Panic In Detroit on the flip is a Detroit-themed proto-punk mix masterfully curated and packed with hits, I almost presented it as one untitled track so you could listen the way I did (probably should have, actually). It probably didn't change my life, but do I feel enriched? Yes....yes I do. 

ELECTRON FLAGRATION // PANIC IN DETROIT

EXCESS EXPRESS

 

A few weeks ago I took my lady friend to see Toronto's BAD WAITRESS at Permanent Records Roadhouse in LA - extremely good night at a very chill spot with a courtyard so we could avoid the testosterone and hang out with our Canadian pals before they played. They were (predictably) fantastic loud as fukk, but.....the bar doubled as a record store, and there was a wall rack of cassettes right in front of the stage. Now, a lot of things have changed in my life over the last couple of years, but if you put a wall of cassettes in front of me, then I'm still gonna be distracted. No way I covered everything (it was dark there was a band playing) but I snagged this one because scrawled across the case in black marker I saw "STEAL THE, LOVE EE. IT'S FREE." So look, either the band gave them away (good move) or it sucks so bad that the store can't sell it or it just got lost in the wall rack and someone realkized that the tape has been sitting for years and no one is buying. Either way, I'm here to help and I felt like a winner when I walked out that night to rest up for a trial board the following morning (where I was also a winner). After daylight observation, my hopes were not exactly sky high - borderline MINOR THREAT-sitting-on-a-porch-in-Virginia cover vibes, but the cast here all present as mustachioed Los Angeles cool guys (this is not a diss - I'm a bald bearded middle aged man living in San Francisco, after all - it's just how the band presents on the cover). Judgement aside, I was not at all prepared for the sounds that were waiting for me....absolutely straight dusty barn floor singer/songwriter country without a shred of irony or pretense. The hits roll off their fingers and you can practically feel your boots kick up when the guitar hits the pick up notes that lead into the solos - it's a thing, and EXCESS EXPRESS nail it. Opening bars of "Side Hustle" are a straight rip of "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" so my critical ears were on alert for frauds and posers but by the time I got to "Devil's In The Details" I was straining to make out every word so I could follow the story lines and figure out the hidden themes that simply must be lurking underneath the twang. The vocals take a couple of track to settle in, but ultimately they are what seals the deal for me because they play it straight instead of searching for something that they are not (even though at times the music kinda begs for it). Authenticity is a motherfucker, and it's a real hard thing to fake - fortunately it doesn't sound like these young gents are trying to be anything at all, they're just playing some damn good country/rock songs. Headed back to LA in a couple of weeks...might stop by the Roadhouse for one of those delicious NA spicy margaritas and watch Kelsey smile and roll her eyes at me while I try to find the other nuggets hiding on that wall rack of cassettes....even if I have to pay for them.

A-FRAME SESSIONS

TERMINATORS OF ENDEARMENT

 

Here you go - both tracks from the not-at-all-sought-after Stranger In The Manger 45 with a few other doses of campy acoustic country rock from late '80s San Francisco. There's a BIRDBOYS connection here and you've got Kevin Army production to help confirm my suspicion that these are sounds from aged-out SF punks. I suppose I probably should have dropped this on (or closer to) the referenced holiday, but it's not a thing that I historically celebrate so I'm gonna jam the ukelele driven "Christmastime In California" and "Merry Christmas, Manic Depressives" in mid-August. Can't think of a reason for to not do the same.

JESUS CHRIST I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S CHRISTMAS ALREADY 

JIMMY C. NEWMAN

 

Spent last weekend in sunny Fresno, California shopping for a couch. Hit a few furniture super stores and scoured second hand market places online and mostly struck out before we made an appointment to meet with a kid selling a slightly stained brown number for a cool $75. Looked comfy enough and we are probably going to stain it anyway so we headed over....but wait, there's a Goodwill on the way so we decided to pop in. The couch selection was atrocious, but they had a few tapes (and let's be honest here, that's the real reason I suggested stopping) and I snagged some private press '80s white mystic shit and this jammer from Louisiana's JIMMY C. NEWMAN. Jimmy C. Newman & Cajun Country was released in 1986 with his radio hits and time on the Louisiana Hayride barely visible in the rearview mirror, but "Rhinestone Cajun Rides Again" is a dusty floor '80s country stomper of the highest caliber, proudly announcing that Newman had assembled new ensemble and his brand of Louisiana swing was back in action. The cajun influence that defined Newman's career is blatant on tracks like "Tawna Woo Woo" and "Cochon De Lait," adding a distinct swing to a tape that is filled with could-have-been hits like "Good Ole Boys From Louisiana" and "My Toot Toot." We ended up grabbing that $75 couch from a nice kid who was willing to deliver it for a few extra bucks, and it turned out the stain probably isn't bodily fluid. Basically? It was a really nice day with a few really good scores. 

JIMMY C. NEWMAN & CAJUN COUNTRY

ODILIO GONZALEZ

 

This fucker. GodDAMN this fucker makes me cry. The tapes came from Pat so I shouldn't be surprised when Odilio hits in that way because Pat didn't fuck around, but Odilio is the sound of love - unrequited, lost, passionate....love. And that voice lands like Wayne belting out "Oh, Heart" in an otherwise lonely hotel room and if you know what that means then you fucking know what I mean. There's a KALX segment where Pat opines about Odilio and another DJ tries to sell him on other Puerto Rican and/or Latin singers and Pat stiffens because Odilio is so honest and raw. It's unique...it's special. Love is special, my motherfuckers - the love of person and the love of sound. It is to be sought after, fought for and celebrated. 

15 EXITOS ORIGINALES 

HEE-HAW GOSPEL QUARTET

 

If you are of a certain age and grew up in a certain kind of household, then Hee-Haw was an integral part of your youth whether your family listened to country music or not. So I grabbed this tape for a cool quarter last year, thinking the twenty five cents was a good price for a trip down memory lane. Fucking thing is full of gospel and bluegrass standards though, no Grandpa Jones in sight. So ignore the cover art (or be confused like I was) and move right along if you're not interested. "Give Me My Flowers While I'm Living" is a winner and there will be grindcore tomorrow. 

(NOT ACTUALLY THE) HEE-HAW GOSPEL ALBUM

ODILIO GONZALEZ

 

Odilio stopped by these pages last year with a greatest hits collection. As good as that collection is (I mean - by definition, it's full of the greatest hits, right?), this full length from 1979 is darn near perfect. The raw, honest lilt in Gonzalez's voice, the backing choruses, the varied pace as the songs pass by. You want to know what a backyard family party sounds like....? It sounds like this.

ODILIO GONZALEZ CON NIEVES QUINTERO Y SU GRUPO

GRUPO ALBORADA

 

Some listeners might need to get past the pan flutes (it's worth the effort) before the traditional Andean folk of GRUPOA ALBORADA can really settle in. Others will be instantly grabbed by the group's honest vision. And others will wonder where the DBeat is (it's coming tomorrow). These folks moved on to more spiritual and/or new age sounds in the '90s...but I'm going to stick with "Cuerpo de Mujer" for the rest of the day. 

MY FARAWAY LAND

THE WELLSPRINGS OF HOPE

 

Three doses of independent rocking country from THE WELLSPRINGS OF HOPE led by Pat Johnson. who is perhaps most notable (to punks and general alts) as the guitarist for BIRDBOYS, who backed a post-AVENGERSS Penelope Houston in the '80s. Picture an amped up Sweetheart Of The Rodeo-era BYRDS, with a stomping barroom country swing. Recorded in 1991...for true 'heads only, perhaps. 

THE WELLSPRINGS OF HOPE

INKAQUENAS

 

Peruvian folk circa 1981, rescued from a Nevada junk shop circa 2021. Does the pan flute start to grate a little around "Pirulay Puka Pulie Racha?" Perhaps. But do the strings in "Lago Titicaca" (and especially near the end of "Poco A Poco") more than make up for it? Definitely. 

VOL. III

LEO GRECO

 

Imagine you're a radio personality and regional country/polka star in 1960s Iowa. You crank out a few records and folks...well, they know who you are. Fast forward to the 1990s and you're old(er) and your legacy has been all but cast aside. No one under the age of 75 gives a shit about polka, and the classic swing you know as "country" has been replaced by Alan Jackson and Billy Ray Cyrus. So, what do you do? How do you stake your claim on your own history...how do you leave your mark? Obviously, you self release your debut LP on cassette so some other irrelevant fellow past his prime can pick it up in a thrift store in Utah for 49¢ a few decades later. 

LITTLE RED WAGON: REQUEST TIME WITH LEO GRECO

Was it worth it? Absolutely. The guitar (most notably on "Wheels") has a Billy Mure caliber pep, the occasional horns add an indescribably Midwest drunken lumber, and Greco's second tier croon is smooth and endearing. Half dollar well spent - legacy secured. 

A MUSICAL NEWSPAPER

 

Before you think that A Musical Newspaper is some schlock/joke comp meant to trick you into wasting your time, just hear me out. We may be a long way from the world where ELSE POPPING AND HER PIXIELAND BAND receives legitimate accolades, even from outsider music devotees, but that might be part of what makes their inclusion here (and WESTERN ELECTRIC PIANO STYLE "X," and THE PIPE ORCHESTRATION FROM THE PRAGUE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MECHANICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, and ANTON WEBERN...you get the idea) work so well. There's no moment on this tape where you think, "oh, I get it....this is the weird song" because everything here is fucking weird. Spaghetti Western schmaltz mingling with MARTIN DENNY, experimental solo vocalists, and non-music torture from NOGGIN while shit-fi acoustic croons by AMBERGRIS make periodic interruptions just to keep things honest. A true outsider comp for true outsiders; a comp clearly put together by the folks at with reverence rather than irony. 

A MUSICAL NEWSPAPER

BOY IN LOVE

 

Back to the roots of BOY IN LOVE for 1989's Pracise Make Perfec. You'll hear the dirty blues churn of "Ain't Got No 'Lectricity Blues," the thoughtful hippie croon of "He's A Man," and adolescent genius like "Beat The Flush" and "Sandbox (I Wanna Play In Your)." The Peehole Sessions is still me favorite BOY IN LOVE release, probably because I heard it first but possibly because "I Got A Bible (It's A Boy)" might be on my All-Time Top 10 List(*), but this sophomore effort sets a really high bar for low brow anti-music. 

PRACISE MAKE PERFEC

(*) - I don't actually have an All-Time Top 10 List. 

Even if I did, it would probably change daily. 

UNSOLVED MYSTERY

You might think that the television theme song intro track is just a little teaser, but JAMES MICHAEL WILLIAMS is setting the table for a very strange dining experience. From LETTUCE VULTURES to PEPPERMINT TEABAG, from "Bloodshed" to the rousing gospel chorus in "Is God Real?"  ("god might be real but it really doesn't matter"), to FOSSIL FUEL's "Mystery Of OJ," Unsolved Mystery is outsider music, non-music, freak music...but it's also dark and ominous cuts like the burning electronics like the deadly serious "Our Mother Cries For Us In Hushed Static" by MEMORIALS. Putting PIMP OF PERVERSION and MIKOLAS KUNZ on the same release is....pretty genius. 

UNSOLVED MYSTERY

 

DALE NOE

 

It's fortunate that my interest in under the radar country is a curiosity more than an obsession. I'll leave the obsession to the folks at Dollar Country (and I thank them for putting in the work), and just snag the odd nugget when it appears...like this collection of songs from (and by) Dale Noe. A quick listen to this 1992 collection will make it clear why Noe was more noted as a songwriter than as a singer, but if you're repertoire includes "It's Such A Pretty World Today" (recorded by Loretta Lynn, Johnny Paycheck, Nancy Sinatra, Wynn Stewart and countless others) then you get a pretty wide berth in my book. The title is pretty self explanatory, and I love the notion of an accomplished songwriter self releasing a cassette in his late 60s. Secret should-have-been hit: "Angel In A Devil's Arms."

SONGS I WROTE