Steve Earle - Townes out today on New West

The new Steve Earle record Townes you read about on JS-NYC a couple weeks ago is out today on New West.

Pick it up here in a myriad of formats.

R

Steve Earle - Townes

Do I really have to convince you to buy a record comprised of Townes Van Zandt from Steve Earle? I want to hear Steve doing songs with turntablists and Tom Morello like I want to replace all my records with Gaslight Anthem bootlegs, but this is a project I can condone whole-heartedly. I'm sure Steve is resting a little easier now that he has the JS-NYC seal of approval.

Steve Earle could have very easily gone the Townes route. He made a pretty good run of it, dropping out of music altogether for a bit to wallow in all the darkness that South Nashville had to offer. That self-proclaimed 'holiday in the ghetto' as a crackhead seemed to assuage (most of) his self-destructive urges, but he's been close enough to the TV path to be able to sing the fifteen covers here with more authenticity than the average pretender to the hard-core troubadour throne. Quicksilver Dreams Of Maria is a high point, as is the duet with his son Justin (Townes) Earle on Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold, but everything on Townes is harrowingly top-notch. Oddly enough, I think Steve's best recorded Townes cover is the version of Tecumseh Valley from Train A Comin' , but there is nothing bad about Townes. 

Here's a tracklisting:

1. Pancho and Lefty 4:01
2. White Freightliner Blues 3:27
3. Colorado Girl 3:35
4. Where I Lead Me 3:29
5. Lungs 2:18 *
6. No Place To Fall 2:52
7. Loretta 3:14
8. Brand New Companion 5:12
9. Rake 3:22
10. Delta Momma Blues 5:14
11. Marie 4:52
12. Don’t Take It Too Bad 3:12
13. Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold 2:17
14. (Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria 3:20
15. To Live Is To Fly 3:40

I'd like to see a companion DVD.  Townes won't be out until May 12, but here's a link to it at New West anyway. Keep track of Steve Earle here. Official Townes Van Zandt site is here.

R

Justin Townes Earle - Midnight At The Movies

If there's anyone this side of Hank III that is growing up in a bigger shadow of their family, it's probably Justin Townes Earle. If you haven't done the math, JTE is one of the sons of Steve Earle, a man who is pretty definitively this generation's Johnny Cash.  

To be frank, Steve's had a lot of wives, and most certainly wasn't around much for Justin's formative years. JTE has been pretty candid about the large numbers of Nashville kids he grew up with that had single mothers and wanted for a father figure in their lives. These kids, Justin included, shied away from the music industry as a result, but the younger Earle was soon playing bitten by the music bug and finger-picking up a storm. He came up in old-time combo The Swindlers and eventually played in a gang of rock bands to boot. 

His increasingly formidable chops garnered him a gig touring with his Dad, but he managed to lose it in pretty short order due to substance abuse issues. I trust that all parties involved were aware of the ironies therein, but Justin has remained on the straight and narrow, releasing a his debut full-length The Good Life and EP Yuma last year to much adulation and acclaim. Midnight At The Movies is his second full-length for Bloodshot. I haven't been all that crazy about the newer acquistions to the Bloodshot roster, but I can't say enough good things about this record.

Earle is smart enough to know that comparisons with his father are inevitable, but he is hardly a clone of his old man. His fingerpicking and arpeggiation are obviously influenced by his Dad, as are songs like Someday I'll Be Forgiven For This, but the songs on Midnight At The Movies assert JTE as his own man. Walk Out is a good example, with rollicking harmonica and swaggering vocals that should get young and old out on the floor and two-stepping. Lest you think that JTE is trapped in a slavish old-school mentality, the bluegrass inflected Replacements cover of Can't Hardly Wait reminds us of his past in his old Nashville rock band The Swindlers and shows us he's got a broad base of influences that favor Paul Westerberg and Jackson Browne as it does his namesakes and Lightnin' Hopkins. Midnight At The Movies is definitely a record that has one boot in the past and another firmly up the ass of the future.  

Justin Townes Earle is the real deal, a hell of a player and singer who has managed to prosper despite having not one, but two, albatrosses hanging conspicuously around his neck. He gets better with every show and every album. Midnight At The Movies is his best record yet, but listening to the songs here, it's very obvious that we'll be seeing the young Mr. Earle doing very big things in the very near future. Justin Townes Earle can be found on the Interwebs via this link. See him in the small rooms while you still can, and pick up a copy of Midnight At The Movies immediately here from the good folk of Bloodshot. Support independent roots music!

R

Rocks Off Live with Lucero and Justin Townes Earle

Rocks Off Cruises are a good time, by and large. Provided the weather holds up, that is, and this cruise had to take place on a Sunday where we were to be beset by summer thunderstorms. Doing the math, it was a Lucero show, so some beers were probably going to be in order. Did I want to do that on an empty stomach, or was that going to prove messy and ill-advised? These are the conundrums I wrestle with in my old age.

Of course, if I didn't get on the damn boat, that would eliminate the lion's share of the indecision. I had opted to have the ticket mailed to me so that I might A: get something for the stupid 'service fee' and B: because, yes, I collect the stubs. Are you really shocked? All obsessive-compulsion aside, it helps if you actually receive the ticket and by Saturday morning I had not. Good times. Cue a couple hours of phone and internet deal-brokering and by early afternoon, I finally managed to get the ticket switched to will call.

I budgeted some extra time for audible calling, but arrived at The Temptress to find that I actually was on the will-call list. Luckily I brought a book, as things were a little slow to get under way, but by 7:30 Justin Townes Earle and his backing duo took the mikes. The drummerless combo featured Justin on guitar, with a mandolinist and bassist who was later revealed to be JTE's lady friend. Who says the apples don't fall far from the tree? It is also very important to point out the uncanny resemblance young Mr. Earle has to Steve-O from Jackass. That is a cruel hand to be dealt, but luckily Earle is pretty talented, playing skillful fingerstyle guitar and working his way through a set that featured covers by Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and The Replacements. Original material was pretty scant, but the three or four that were readily identifiable as such were pretty solid, reminiscent of Robert Earl Keen's less frat-boy friendly fare. His new record on Bloodshot is called The Good Life and they've also re-released his first tour demo. Check out the links below.

Justin's got a charming aw-shucks personae that shows his 25 years, but there's something in his grin that tells me there's some hell-raising in him. He reminds me a lot of a slicker Will T. Massey. There are rock and bluegrass bands in his younger days, but I see him taking a more David Rawlings route as he nears the end of his twenties. There are a lot of possibilities, but we can rest assured that we're going to hear a lot from Justin Townes Earle in the future.

The time between sets showed that there were a hell of a lot of the regular Hold Steady kids out for the show. Shout-outs to the lovely Heidi Vanderlee, Jersey Ben, Joelle from Chicago and the rest of the kids. This package has been out with Glossary for the last couple of weeks and while their steel guy sat in with Lucero for the set, they were conspicuous in their absence. It would have been nice to triple that shit up, as I hear Glossary are really tearing it up live lately. Sightlines aren't so great on these shows, even for big dorky guys, unless you're upstairs. Ben isn't the tallest gent, so this was a show that was heard more than seen. Not seeing the band is one thing, but I could have done with a whole lot less of the frat boys hugging and high-fiving their way through the set. With all due respect to actual gay people, it's really kinda homo. Guys, find a circle jerk and take it there, it gets kinda fucking old playing romper room with you all night.

When you take in the Lucero and you're not drinking at competition level, it's important to see them before they get too far into the whiskey. It's a slippery slope: two drinks in and Ben's great, but after four it's all downhill. I guess Rocks Off has a curfew, because it was all rock and very little talk once the fearsome foursome tread the boards. Set-wise, it was pretty much business as usual with a couple of new songs that leaned more towards the guitar rock of the That Much Further West era, but that may very well just have been for lack of a keyboard guy. Lucero don't have too many bad songs. At this point it's about gauging which songs will elicit the biggest douchebag response. The set ran maybe an hour and a half. No Little Brother or Little Silver Heart or any really old stuff (unless you count the Jawbreaker cover), but the boys were in good form. The 250+ shows a year that they've been doing for the last ten years certainly help, I'm sure.

The cat is out of the bag about the DBT/Hold Steady shows, but I had heard rumblings about Lucero factoring into the equation as well. Be interesting to see if that comes to fruition. Had it not been for the good crowd, I would have been a little salty about the $30 ticket, but it ended up being a good show with some great people. Lucero are recording for a new one, but check out Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers if you haven't already. Justin Townes Earle has his first record out on Bloodshot as of March. I haven't listened to it as yet, but it definitely seems like it's going to move a lot closer to the the top of the pile. Look for a review in the next couple weeks. Links below.

R

www.luceromusic.com

buy lucero records here

myspace.com/justintownesearle

www.bloodshotrecords.com

Rocks Off Cruises