Rocking Retro: Riverboat Gamblers – Something to Crow About
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
