Eddie Spaghetti at Popmatters

All:

Review of the new solo record by your friend and mine, Mr. Eddie Spaghetti, is up at PopMatters.

Here's a link.

Thanks to Sarah Zupko at PopMatters

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

Live: Bobby Bare Jr. @ Mercury Lounge 9.22.8

I've said it before and will say it again: Bobby Bare Jr. is most important artist of our generation. No one straddles genres like he does, nor is there anyone who has a broader sense of songwriting. When you come from his genetic roots, grow up living in between the Cash and Tillis families and have Mike Grimes (of Nashville's Grimey's Record Store) as an ex-band slash roommate, you're going to have a much deeper well to draw on than the average performer.

This show was with The Broken West, who play the type of tuneful pop-rock that LA bands like Gingersol and I See Hawks In LA seem to make popular and are evidently on Merge. I prefer the power-poppy end of their material over the fairly generic Americana stuff, but they seem to be a decent, albeit average band. They evidently share the same booking agent and all parties involved were purported to be stewing it up at said agent's wedding for most of the weekend. It lent a very 'Sunday Night' vibe to the proceedings which was just as well for this old asshole, especially as I was straight off the bus from Maryland. The Broken West wrapped up on time and Bobby was on stage in short order. Evidently his drummer plays with And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and was tied up at ATP, so Bobby called an audible and decided to play acoustic with a little help from uber-sideman Chris Masterson. Masterson is from Houston, but has lived in Brooklyn in recent years. He is, in the parlance of the field, a motherfucker, playing lap steel, acoustic and beautiful Gretsch White Falcon as well as singing his ass off for the duration.

We've come to expect that from Bobby. No matter who he has backing him, they are absolutely terrifying players. Not that he needs the crutch. Over the course of his last four or five records, the quality of the songs have gone through the roof. His records have been on Bloodshot in recent years, the most recent being the Longest Meow. Bare is a man for whom music is music. If you're looking for a guy who will play a Smiths cover as readily he would a Hank Snow cover (or on this night a bitchin' cover of Bob Seger's Night Moves) this could be your type of renaissance man.

The set was pretty fast and loose, with Bobby taking requests for most of the set. As great as Bare is, much credit is due to Masterson, who fielded every song as if he had been playing it for years. I was bummed that we were going to miss the full Young Criminals Starvation League treatment, but Bare would do well to record one of the duo shows for a DVD. He is as engaging a banterer as he is a singer, and the chemistry between him and Masterson is a special thing that is a joy to behold. I assume there is a new record coming down the pike soon, as he played at least one new song, but look out for upcoming dates/info here and buy his Bloodshot back catalog here. You won't regret it.

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