Old 97's: Part 2

As I continue to swim through the world of country music that doesn't conform to the aesthetics of so called 'pop-country', I usually won't be spending two posts on one band as there's a lot to be covered in the genre (or genres).  However as previously stated, the Old 97's-- along with a few others-- bear particular importance to the music I'm covering and how I came to love it.  Along with that, the 97s also have had a relatively long career in the Alternative Country genre that rose to prevalence in the 1990s and are in many ways indicative of the ways it fell and is possibly beginning to return.

Their major label debut and alt country classic, Too Far Too Care, came at peak time for the genre and reflected the ethos of the movement as a whole.  However, when time came for their next album, 1999's Fight Songs, the genre had already began to fade and many the genre's staple bands like Wilco and Whiskeytown had began to take a more pop based approach.  When I say pop-based I'm not referring to the type of country that was coming from Nashville at the time, but rather to a song structure and recording ethos that recalled that of Brian Wilson and The Beatles.  Stemming from a likely combination of aesthetic choice and major label pressure for some kind of hit, Fight Songs shed much of the twang and rough edges of their earlier recordings and produced something much more polished with a tighter song structure.

That's certainly not to say this album sucks-- Pitchfork really likes this one-- or is any kind of sell out, as I particularly like the song above (Jagged, the lead cut off the album) as it retains the rolling bassline and harmonic backing vocals of Murray Hammond that still gives the 97s their flavor.  The album is certainly different though and marked a new era for the band.  Their next release, 2001's Satellite Rides, continued this approach and is one many of their older fans felt completely left behind their alt country roots.  This album I feel is more than anything indicative of it's time, when power-pop rock was in heavy rotation in the mainstream with bands like Sum 41 and Blink 182 on top of the charts; and seems to be Elektra's last push to get the band to mainstream status.  This album contains perhaps their most well known song, Question, one that features only Rhett Miller and his acoustic guitar and is the one that makes the ladies swoon.

I'm not particularly fond of this one (maybe when I have that special lady I can my own I will be, but that's neither here nor there) but the album still has some gems that retain a little of that 97s twang.

So in the early Aughts, the 97s certainly shifted from country band with a (traditional) pop influence to a kind of pop-rock band with a country influence; but their still remained a thread within their music that made them who they are.  Despite this new direction however, the album wasn't mainstream or poppy enough for Elektra Records, and as the label was going through changes they did a little cleaning house which led to a drop of the Old 97s and bands from other alternative streams such as Austin's Spoon. 

The drop led to a short hiatus for the band that saw a solo album from frontman Rhett Miller and was a time when many of the band members (now in their thirties) took some time to focus on their families.  They returned however in 2004 with their most stripped down effort yet, Drag It Up.  The band joined up with indie/alt-country label New West Records, the distributor for the Austin City Limits television show and a fitting home for a band who helped establish the musical stream which the label represents.  With more creative control and a likely desire to get back to roots, Drag It Up is a bare bones album only recorded on 8 tracks (as opposed to 16 or even 32) and was done in just a few takes.

Though the album takes a much more back-to-basics approach, it is far from their best album and they seem to be carving out who they're going to be in the indie rock age.  After a live album and a greatest hits compilation - my introduction to the band, and a comp that got a wait for it... 8.2 from Pitchfork-- , the boys came back to Dallas in 2008 to record Blame It On Gravity, an album that finds them mixing together everything they've been in the past to help define who they are in the present.  This album more than anything marks a new era for the 97s,  a band of veterans who know exactly what they do well and how to do it.

With a seemingly new found zeal, the band came down to Austin a few years to record a double album released in 2010 and 2011, The Grand Theater.  For me, both of these albums are the strongest they've put out since Too Far To Care and fully solidifies they're sound, approach, and place in country music.

Since I couldn't find any studio recordings of their new stuff on YouTube I had to post some live stuff, which leads perfectly into my teaser at the end of the live post.  As implied, The Old 97's are one of the best straight up rock shows one can go to.  I know a lot of people say this about a lot of bands, but 97s bring an energy and passion to their shows that's not matched by many bands I've seen.  There's no elaborate light set up, no drawn out 20 minute jams, no eyeliner, and no other stage gimmicks besides four dudes on stage pounding through almost 30 songs in a couple of hours.  Whereas some of their studio recordings are a bit too polished up, none of that is present in their live show and the music showcases the thread that ties all of their different sounds together into one big kick-ass country rock throw down.  I would recommend seeing them in Texas (particularly Dallas if you can), as flying cans of Lonestar and Shiner are the perfect and inevitable companion to any of their shows here.  If you're into country music, Texas music, or have had a lifelong hatred of country music due to stuff that's on the radio, needless to say, I would recommend checking these guys out. 

The Old 97s: My Country Introduction

So there I was, just a young punk rocking teenager filled with youthful angst and energy and would never be caught dead listening to any of that schmaltzy crap people were calling country music in those days.  At the wise age of 14, all I wanted to hear was either Green Day's American Idiot all the way through or spin one of NOFX's many, many rants against the status quo.  One weekend I found myself on a boy's barbeque trip throughout central Texas with my youth group in a small bus and I was pissed because I didn't have my headphones and had exhausted my rights to song choosing at this point.  It was around this time that a twenty-something year old guy named Wes through on a jam by a band called the Old 97's, a band from Dallas (where we were all from) which all the other twenty-something year old's seemed there to be happy to hear.  The song was called Timebomb:

I remember being very confused and intrigued upon hearing this as a kid.  It wasn't exactly country and it wasn't exactly the snot-nosed punk rock I was listening, it just seemed to ride the line somewhere in between the two (minus the snot-nosed aspect).  At the time, I don't think I was quite emotionally ready for such a shake on my grasp in music so I went back to listening to the snot-nosed crap for a little while longer; however, the name stuck with me.

As I went through highschool in the following years I eventually moved away from the punk stuff and into the Indie Rock scene that was beginning to establish itself as a major musical force by the middle of the Aughts; you know Modest Mouse, The Shins, stuff like that.  By my senior year I had tired a bit on that and was looking for something new and different.  With my departure from the city only a year away I began to have a desire to discover some of the music from ol' D Town.  I remembered the name the Old 97s (thanks in part to a very random shout out in the sub par film The Break Up) so I went up to Best Buy and bought a compilation of theirs; after popping the disc into my Nissan Sentra's CD player that old feeling of intrigue and confusion returned as the first chords blared through my speakers.

This one didn't quite have the breakneck speed and energy of Timebomb, and though I admittedly felt this number was a bit "too country" upon first hearing it, this was my true introduction to the world of Alt-Country.

I'll skip the rest of the crap (as I feel I've already done a little too much personal story time and not enough talking about the band) but needless to say, these fellas quickly became one of my favorite bands and single-handedly eased me into a whole  genre of music I had ignored for so long.  With a sound that is oft times described as "Cash Meets the Clash", the Old 97's are one the staple bands of the alternative country scene that took off in the 1990s.  Incorporating some of the slack-vibe from 90's Alternative Rock bands like Pavement and mixing it with more traditional styles of folk and country along with a punk rock edge, the Old 97's-- along with some other bands I'll cover further on down the line-- the Old 97's brought a sound to the table that was fresh and very contrary the country that was dominating the charts at the time such as Garth Brooks' "Callin' Baton Rouge".  The 97s first album, Hitchhike to Rhome (cleverly named for a small town northwest of Dallas), is certainly not their best; as they're still throwing a lot of different sounds and ideas against the wall and trying to see what sticks.  Their sophomore effort, Wreck Your Life, brings them much closer to finding the sound that fits the aforementioned tag that has come to describe them; as heard in the first lick from album opener, "Victoria":

This album was certainly good, however it's their next effort and major label debut, 1997's Too Far Too Care (hey check out the year, weird), that is the best effort from their early years and has since become a staple of the Alt-Country genre.  Too Far Too Care has all the elements that make the Old 97's who they are working in full force; and here they toe that line between rock and country as well as anyone ever has.  It's an album with fast-paced stompers, tear-in-your-beer ballads, and tight song writing on Rhett Miller's part that seems to show equal influence from Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Johnny Cash, and Joe Strummer.

This album is certainly the best intro to the Old 97's and is solid introduction to 90's Alt. Country in general.  Because these guys hold such a dear place in my musical upbringing, later on in the week we'll check out what these guys have been up since that whole Alt Country thing kind of died out, and I'll explain why I'd go to see 97's over U2 any day...

Introduction

I'm from the city. Not any city either; I'm from smack dab in the middle Dallas, which is a pretty damn big city.  Having said that, I absolutely despised country music growing up.  In my adolescent mind I found no sentiments that could connect with songs about barbeque stains, friends in low places, or boot-scootin boogies.  To add to that, I was a little punk rocker as kid and subsequently an indie rocker as teenager and the glitzy glamor that dominated the mainstream country music was something I tried as hard as could to distance myself from.  I stood firm in these views up until about my senior year of highschool when my views began to change.  I'll get into more of the specifics of this story later, as it involves one of the major players of the alternative country genre; the main point is that around this time everything I had ever thought about what country music is changed.
Unfortunately, there's more subgenre names for "country music that doesn't come out of Nashville" than there are sad Hank Williams songs.  Alt Country, Americana, Country Rock, Folk Rock, Cowpunk, Outlaw Country, Roots Rock, Rockabilly, Progressive Country, Bluegrass, and "Cosmic American American Music" are just the first little handful that come to mind.  However, this litany and subgenres and historical musical movements shows that within the umbrella of the term "country music", there's a well of music as deep and genre blurring as there is under the term "indie rock".
For a few years now, whenever I get into a music conversation with someone that goes a little deeper than the tired rhetoric of "I like everything"; I've always tried to explain this genre that I love as "It's like the Indie Rock scene of country music, only it's been going on for 60 years now".  Over the semester I look to highlight specific artists within this broad umbrella of non-Pop Country, past and current, in order to further understand this stream of music that is so unique and tied to our country.