Culture Greyhound

This is probably the newest collection of music I’ve done for Rocking Retro (Something to Crow About was released in 2003, not necessarily retro compared to other artists I’ve written about for this feature), but if 2009’s Underneath the Owl is any indication, the Riverboat Gamblers we know and love, that uninhibited, beer-swilling, brash Denton, Texas, punk band, are dead and gone.  Luckily we still have this, their Gearhead Records debut, to swig Lone Star to.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve been crazy familiar with this group until a few months ago.  I mostly knew them as a Texas punk group my buddy David Ward was in love with, but that was about it.  Then someone put them on the jukebox at Shangri-La one Friday night.  I ran to the machine to find out what the hell this badass sound was – I suppose we all get educated at one point or another – only to find this album as the selection.  From a band whose name I heard a million times but had never listened to.

I’m almost certain most of the lyrics in this album are complete drunken gibberish, but that’s totally ok – it fits perfect with the sloppy hammered sound the Gamblers provide.  Something to Crow About, I imagine, is a pretty great studio rendition of their energetic live show.  The album slows only for the outro, “Lottie Mae.”

Today, as AllMusic has pointed out, they sound more like Sum 41 than a raw Texas punk group, as is the typical regression most bands of this caliber tend to make.  Nevertheless, Something to Crow About remains a brilliant musical example of the independent and fist-pumping spirit of the Lone Star State.  Makes me proud to be from here.

The Riverboat Gamblers – What’s What

The Riverboat Gamblers – Rattle Me Bones

The Riverboat Gamblers – Ice Water

Today I continue a series of posts dedicated to the best albums of the last decade, posting analysis of one album at a time.

47. Fall Out Boy – From Under the Cork Tree

Coming home from the Green Day concert I attended in 2005, we stopped at a mall somewhere and my sister purchased Fall Out Boy’s second album From Under the Cork Tree. Because of the source, I was admittedly biased from the start – if my sister introduces me to it, I am unfairly skeptical of its validity.  In retrospect, I can see how this is utter idiocy; turning a blind eye to a young pop-punk group immediately after watching the elder statesmen of pop-punk live in concert is incredulous.  Once “Sugar We’re Going Down” hit Fuse, I was officially hooked, and I begrudgingly asked my younger sibling if I could burn a copy of the disc.

The appeal to Fall Out Boy, other than their uncanny ability to write something undeniably catchy and radio-ready, is their experimentation with several standard rock rhythms in one song.  It’s pretty typical today in the emo/power pop circuit, but back in 2005, I hadn’t really heard anything like it.  Combining elements of punk, emo, and even rap cadence, the group expanded from their mostly standard pop-punk debut Take This To Your Grave.  To the untrained ear, this is just a conventional album – the key is the passionate Pete Wentz-penned, sex soaked lyrics, crooned by the effervescent Patrick Stump.

Take for example, the unusual rhythm of “Of All the Gin Joints In the World,” a start-stop guitar-led anthem about a superficial, purely sexual relationship.  The chorus is blunt: “All the way/Your makeup stains my pillowcase.”  Or observe the so-honest-it’s-sexy pick-up lines in “Dance Dance” – “Why don’t you show me a little bit of spark you’ve been saving for his mattress?”  And of course, who could forget the candid observation from “Sugar We’re Going Down” – “I’m just a notch in your bedpost, but you’re just a line in a song.”

The best pop albums, whether they be backed by instruments or computers or whatever, are ones that feel instantly familiar, yet provide a unique, progressive approach all their own.  Much like most music for the masses, pop-punk is a slowly progressing medium.  With mainstream success, Fall Out Boy opened the next chapter in that book with this album, a brilliantly accessible, glossily produced power-chord love affair with something subtly new to offer.

Fall Out Boy – Of All The Gin Joints In All The World

Fall Out Boy – Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down

Fall Out Boy – 7 Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen)

Today I continue my ongoing feature showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of the past decade, posting ten songs at a time.

110. Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows

This band has always been awesome.  Go back in time and take a listen to the self-titled debut or Rated R if you don’t believe.  But I suppose it was this song (and video, and album Songs For the Deaf) that put Josh Homme’s brilliant stoner/stripper rock concoction on everybody’s map.  Probably because everybody recognized the temporary drummer (isn’t he in Foo Fighters?!).  But still, these guys bring the rock.

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Music, Movies, Television, etc.  Pop culture reviews for the short-attention-span Internet age.

Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday

Call it a case of the hype machine, but upon several initial listens, it would seem Nicki gave away her best verses to other people’s songs.  Certainly we are asking too much if we expected the album to be more “Roman’s Revenge” and less “Your Love” – and that is something (albeit a disappointing fact) that I’m willing to overlook.  The production is slick, the melodies are catchy, and Minaj has a great singing voice.  So what if the finished product is a little too soft R&B and less manic schizo rapping?  Nicki has many faces; the first impression was obviously just one of many styles.  But the rhymes on this album do not live up to Minaj’s past work on tracks by Diddy, Trey Songz, Kanye, etc.  The cadence is samey, the words are lazily repetitive, the dead air is filled by stuttering, and the unwritten law of rap is violated many times (the one that says you can’t rhyme a word with the same word….it’s the same word).  Pink Friday will be a moderate success, but it’s not strong enough of a debut to give Nicki the promotion from “featured” to “standalone” artist.

Rating: 6

Two more after the jump…

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OFF! – Upside Down

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Cool Kids – Big-Talk

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The Death Set – Yo David Chase You P.O.V. Shot Me In The Head (feat. Diplo)

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Star Slinger – Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins Rework)

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Warm Ghost – Open the Wormhole in Your Heart

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Greg Gillis put the Internet in a fury this morning when he dropped his latest album All Day around 8AM.  The comp is available for free download from Illegal Art and highly recommended.  It’s a Girl Talk album, so you already know what to expect – Gillis has been the king of mashups for many years now. Just don’t call him a DJ.

Like the classic Night Ripper and Feed the Animals before it, Girl Talk incorporates new hip-hop and R&B with old school classic rock, alternative, indie, and even 80’s synth pop.  Clever mashings include Fat Joe with Spacehog, Miley Cyrus and M.O.P., Radiohead and Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and (in an unbelievable moment of brilliance) Aphex Twin alongside Lady Gaga and Soulja Boy.  Overall, there’s probably sixty years worth of music on here, and it all sounds like it belongs together.  God it’s good to have you back, Mr. Gillis.

My thinking is you can’t be a true Texan and not love the Toadies.  They embody the spirit of Lone Star State Rock Music (along with Pantera, of course…sorry Drowning Pool), and they’ve been delivering their twangy punk since the late 80’s.  I’ve been a fan since I first heard them, which was around ’96 – my cousin Joe brought a copy of Rubberneck while visiting one Christmas.  I saw them twice in September 2008 (in Lubbock and Amarillo) and I recently caught their show at Stubb’s here in Austin.  The boys are still loud and rowdy, and the proper release of the lost album Feeler this year has reignited my never-ending love.

And so I bring you my twenty favorite Toadies tracks.  Some are from the new disc, only one is from the disappointing No Deliverance.  But most are from the group’s two classics – Rubberneck and Hell Below, Stars Above.  Turn the volume way way up.

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