Drive By Truckers

Inspired to post this after reading Grant's southern rock thread I wanted to comment on the Drive By Truckers ALABAMA ASS-WHUPPIN' album.

Here's a unique band who transcend the rock/country genre that they are frequently tageed with. This particular album is a live cut and just listening to it you almost could imagine seeing the band on a small club stage complete with a cage and broken bottles everywhere. Irreverency and in-your-face trash-talking tunes is what to expect. At times they get a bit more irreverent than one might like but all's fair game in this set. What with songs called "Buttholeville" and "18-Wheel Love" you wouldn't expect less.

They come from the deep south, Athens, GA. I believe, so they've been steeped in traditional country, southern rock and probably a bit of grunge to be sure. They reveal one of their influences in the song "Steve McQueen" when they segue into an inebriated version of Skynard's "Gimme Three Steps".

All in all, it's a fun album with plenty of talent inside. If you buy this one looking for alt-country then look again. It goes a few steps beyond that at the least. Look more for a punked out Neil Young on TONIGHT's THE NIGHT mixed with a little of Los Angeles' X.

If you give this one a try you may want to stop at a package store on the way home from the CD shop and pick up a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon cause your in for a wild redneckin' ride!

 

Pabst Blue Ribbon, eh? The brew of choice for Frank Booth(Dennis Hopper)in Lynch's BLUE VELVET. Booth: "Heineken? F**K THAT ****!!! PABST BLUE RIBBON!!!" Always get a laugh out of that one....

Package stores?!? In NH, just about every store is a package store.
You want brew, you can buy it from 7am to 11pm, seven days a week.
This state promotes alcoholism; I figure mainstream gambling--forget wimpy things like lotteries and scratch tickets--is a few years away, at most.

ED

 

Athens GA, the deep south??
I guess you have never been there. I've spent way too much time there over the past 20 years. One of my favorite places in the world. More like a very mini-New York than the deep south.

 

Although based in Athens, GA., Patterson Hood of DBT is originally from Alabama. He is the son of legendary Muscle Shoals bassist David Hood. Check out DBT's "Southern Rock Opera", first released independently & hard-to-find, it was recently reissued by the Lost Highway label & now widely available. This album smokes, recreating the sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Neil Young!

 

Is that a sound that really needs to be recreated in the year 2003? I recently saw the Truckers, and must confess that I found their "rock opera", complete with spoken-word interludes, to be even more ridiculous than previous examples of the genre such as the Who's Tommy.

 

Re: Re: Drive By Truckers

Well, I guess my question would be what, exactly, does "deep south" mean to you? Athens is halfway down the state of Georgia. On that end, there's nothing "deeper" 'cept the elongated state of FLA, Home of the Hangin' Chads.

Athens is a quite enlightened little college town, so it can't be Deep South! Why, that means "mint julips and plantations" and a lot of other stuff we definitely don't want to get into. I'm not with the "Deep South Chamber of Commerce" and this country has a lot of areas that have big problems, but there are implications in your reply that are patently unfair.

If I didn't know better, I might suspect a little "cultural discrimination" goin' on--and from a Brooklyn boy!

That's cool. You might be surprised if you got out of Athens and into a few other areas of the deep, semi-deep and not-so-deep south. Chattanooga, for instance. Picked by Outsider magazine as one of the ten best cities in which to live, and featured on the cover of U.S. News and World Report (along with Portland and a Nordic city that escapes me now) for livability and progressiveness. Other nice spots: Charleston, SC, New Orleans, Memphis, Oxford, MS (former stompin' grounds of John Grisham, William Faulkner, et. al . . .

And, oh yeah, I've been to Manhattan, and Brooklyn twice for a week within the last six months. Great places, both. Nothing but good times. Had dinner with a couple of friends who live in a brownstone a block behind the Brooklyn Academy of Music just over the river. Of course, if you're talking regional/local history, there's Gangs of New York, which displays some of the same sort of "dark side" racism and human cruelty that the phrase "Deep South" seems to conjure for some . . .

OK, all together now: "Come on people, now, smile on your brother, learn to love one another . . . right now."

Sorry if I got carried away there.

doug

 

Maybe so, but I am specifically talking about the AA-W album here. I personally have not heard the "opera" title. Have you heard it?

 

I've heard the Southern Rock Opera, and have the lost hwy release. Had heard rumblings of "classic" etc. some months before. It's got its moments, though I tend to think some critics have gotten carried away with praise. They have a good sound and definitely some interesting approaches to songwriting, socio-political commentary, etc.

If you want to understand George Wallace and Alabama circa-1950's-60's(not that it's a place we all want to revisit, you understand), one spoken song is fairly insightful. Compared to some of the dredge that passed for "Southern rock" in the '70s (bland boogie like Black Oak, and Grinderswitch and post-crash Skynyrd for that matter), these guys show a lot of promise and talent.

doug

 

Ok got curious an picked up this CD set. Wow - its the best southern rock album I've heard in many, many years. Not being much of a Skynard fan I did not expect much - but many of the songs are excellent - great hooks and lyrics. Yes, these guys have talent and promise.
Much thanks for the heads up.

 

This is a band I'd like to check out.
How does their music compare to, say, The Bottle Rockets?
Dan C

 

I just listened to an advance copy of DBT's new 15-track CD, "Decoration Day," in its entirety. Only about 5 or 6 tracks roar; the rest is much softer on the ears. That tact makes for a very enjoyable listen, as the focus can naturally shift to what I think is the band's greatest talent: their poignant, common-man lyrics.

Every one of the ballads is PHENOMENAL, and I'm not talking one or two tunes to slow things down. They are at the core of the album -- six or seven, four to five-minute plus songs.

I almost quit listening after the three loud-ass openers -- these guys have loads of talent, but I can only take so much of that.

I hope you DBT fans/converts give it a listen. The scheduled release date is May 6.