Untangling the alt-country pile-up
Waco Brothers
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Trying to pin down "alt-country" as a cohesive genre is kind of like dredging a lake. When the net’s unloaded, everything comes from the same place, but you’re just as likely to find a leather boot as a lost wedding ring (or maybe even a decomposed body). Likewise, alt-country encompasses everything from backwoods banjo pickers to punk-inspired bands that barely skirt the rusted edges of the “country” they’re lumped in with. Two alt-country label showcases hit town this week: The Cedar Cultural Center hosts a commemorative Bloodshot Records Beer-B-Q on Aug. 23—marking the Chicago indie label's 15th anniversary with a lineup of longtime and recent artists from its roster. And on Aug. 24, Triple Rock Social Club hosts a trio of performers led by Drag The River's Jon Snodgrass from Denver-based Suburban Home Records, which has been boosting the genre since the late '90s. The A.V. Club endeavors to help separate the clang from the twang.
Big guitars and boozy fun
Two Cow Garage (Suburban Home Records): Two Cow Garage’s Micah Schnabel sounds a little bit like the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood—that is, if Hood ran his vocal cords over a cheese-grater before throwing them in a washing machine. TCG’s sound is as fierce as it is ragged, but it still produces enough infectious melody to inspire toe-taps to go along with the all fist-pumps.
The Bottle Rockets (Bloodshot Records): The Bottle Rockets have spent most of their career huddling under the alt-country umbrella, dating back to when the term first found legs as a lo-fi catchall in the early '90s. The Rockets' everyman tales do well to chronicle middle America, but at times it takes a whole lot of straining to hear anything sounding remotely alt or country. With these guys, maybe we shouldn’t sweat the subgenres and just enjoy it for what it is: good ol’-fashioned rock 'n' roll.
Deadstring Brothers (Bloodshot): The Deadstring Brothers' frontier iconography looks like it’d be perfect headlining a marquee in Deadwood in the 1870s, though their music would surely be more at home 100 years later. Channeling '70s-era Stones with a blues-rock-country fusion, the Deadstring Brothers’ rumble is a perfect soundtrack for a honky-tonk bar brawl.
Do you prefer Cash or Rotten?
Waco Brothers (Bloodshot): Chicago’s Waco Brothers come by their cross-genre leanings honestly—lead singer Jon Langford came up in first-wave punk band Mekons, and formed the band to scratch an itch he had to play more country-influenced music. At times it can be a little strange to pick up Langford’s British growl behind a wall of honky-tonk and rockabilly, but what the Waco Brothers do is still a long way from Mekons’ minute-long blast of “Never Been In A Riot.”
Deano Waco & The Meat Purveyors (Bloodshot): Deano Waco (a.k.a. Dean Schlabowske) of the Waco Brothers joins with Austin quasi-bluegrass outfit The Meat Purveyors to create a sound that’s similar to the Waco Brothers, but a half-tick less upbeat and bouncy.
Jon Snodgrass (Suburban Home): Jon Snodgrass is the lead singer of Drag The River, a band that, like Waco Brothers, has members with punk roots who put them on mothballs for their current bands’ incarnations. Snodgrass’ solo efforts work particularly well when run through a nasal and gravelly delivery that provides just as much melancholy as the words he’s singing.
Left of the dobro
Ha Ha Tonka (Bloodshot): Ha Ha Tonka’s name is inspired by a state park in the Ozarks, and its first album, Buckle In The Bible Belt, recalls the band's Missouri roots. That said, HHT still piles a whole bunch of indie cred into the bed of its pickup. Its latest, Novel Sounds Of The Nouveau South, doesn’t kick up its heels quite as much as Buckle, but it’s no less enjoyable as it weds melodic pop with brushstrokes of bluegrass and rock.
Ben Weaver (Bloodshot): Twin Citian Ben Weaver’s voice manages to carry a lot of drama, and he has continually expanded his bleak Americana to mix in eccentric elements, from chilly electric piano to glitchy drum-machine tracks. (He's also a visual artist—some of his works are currently on view at the recently opened Sauce Spirits & Soundbar in Lyn-Lake.)
Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals' Starvation League (Bloodshot): Bobby Bare Jr. is the son of outlaw-country legend Bobby Bare, but he’s not afraid to branch out in his pain, as evidenced on his rootsy take on The Smiths' “What Difference Does It Make?” Put it all together, and Bare Jr. moves effortlessly between psychedelic rockers and disconsolate dirges to create a world uniquely his own.
No sleep ’til Nashville
Austin Lucas (Suburban Home): Banjos, pedal steel, and fiddles are all pretty good indicators of where Austin Lucas resides on the alt-country continuum, but there may be no better signpost than the dog barking at the beginning of the album version of “Somebody Loves You.” If it’s not a three-legged hound, it should be, as it’d be the ideal, limping mascot for Lucas’ beautifully aching songs.
