The Drive-By Truckers are undoubtedly my favorite rock & roll band of the 21st century. Not only are they the most important Southern Rock band playing and touring today, they just may be the most important live Rock & Roll band touring today (along with The Hold Steady). These keepers of the faith of rock & roll and all things Americana and all things Southern have been my Rosetta Stone and my musical Faulkner of being able to explain not just the moral ambiguity of the South, but bring Southern folklore into the mainstream and make it feasible and cool to like at the same time. And they do it without once waving a Confederate flag (although you know it is on the landscape somewhere, just not THEIR landscape).
Not since Uncle Tupelo has a band done so well at interpreting and sounding the cry of working class and rural ennui. They use punk and country & western styles to easily establish the DIY ethics of both genres. Poignant songwriting covering spoken word about the history of George Wallace to a song about Bush-league car racing; they sing their brand of Americana with humor and personal experience without being apologists over the not-so-polite aspects of Southern culture. On two separate occasions they have been enlisted as the backing band for R & B/Blues legends Booker T. on his 2009 release Potato Hole and Bettye LaVette on her brilliant Scene of The Crime.
At the same time the Drive-By Truckers never forget to rock with the 3-lead guitar assault of hard Southern Rock just like their older siblings Lynyrd Skynrd, the Allman Brothers Band, and Little Feat.
Now that I have been so gushy I wanted to praise their latest effort the final print (a collection of oddities and rarities) 2003-2008. Back when I was in college starting with R. E. M. Dead Letter Office it became vogue for indie rock bands to make a collection of outtakes, rarities and b-sides. This is exactly what this album is. It does not have a concept or appeal of a standard issue album, but it sure is nice to get a taste for some recordings that you might hear at their concert but didn't make it on a proper album. This is not their best work because it doesn't have to be. Their outtake and b-side work is better than what passes for most indie rock or rock bands' standard album issues! This is an album for Drive-By Trucker fans...an intimate portrait of a Southern rock band on tour in America.
The album's standouts for me is the covers they do. One of my favorite songs is Tom T. Hall's Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken) off the long out of print 100 Children album. It's the rumination of a Vietnam veteran returning home after being crippled from the war, losing his legs. Google the lyrics because it's so heart-wrenching and funny at the same time. They do a ham-fisted big-ass sound version of Tom Petty's Rebels and it is very good indeed. DBT had been on a Bob Dylan tribute album and got stuck with what Patterson Hood begged 'please not let it be the song they would have to do' which turned out to be Like A Rolling Stone. But they pull it off very well by simply making the song their own. It's from their Jason Isbell period and all the singers including bassist Shonna Tucker, Jason's Wife, take a turn singing a verse. It's a wonderful cover...overblown in a "we are having a goddamn good time doing this" sort of way. And who can be upset at anyone covering the great and legendary Warren Zevon. They do a great, if heavy (if you can make it heavier) Play It All Night Long. You know the one that "starts grampa pissed his pants again..."
This is not the best DBT album but I sure like it and say to any fan you need to own this for the cover versions if nothing else.
Not since Uncle Tupelo has a band done so well at interpreting and sounding the cry of working class and rural ennui. They use punk and country & western styles to easily establish the DIY ethics of both genres. Poignant songwriting covering spoken word about the history of George Wallace to a song about Bush-league car racing; they sing their brand of Americana with humor and personal experience without being apologists over the not-so-polite aspects of Southern culture. On two separate occasions they have been enlisted as the backing band for R & B/Blues legends Booker T. on his 2009 release Potato Hole and Bettye LaVette on her brilliant Scene of The Crime.
At the same time the Drive-By Truckers never forget to rock with the 3-lead guitar assault of hard Southern Rock just like their older siblings Lynyrd Skynrd, the Allman Brothers Band, and Little Feat.
Now that I have been so gushy I wanted to praise their latest effort the final print (a collection of oddities and rarities) 2003-2008. Back when I was in college starting with R. E. M. Dead Letter Office it became vogue for indie rock bands to make a collection of outtakes, rarities and b-sides. This is exactly what this album is. It does not have a concept or appeal of a standard issue album, but it sure is nice to get a taste for some recordings that you might hear at their concert but didn't make it on a proper album. This is not their best work because it doesn't have to be. Their outtake and b-side work is better than what passes for most indie rock or rock bands' standard album issues! This is an album for Drive-By Trucker fans...an intimate portrait of a Southern rock band on tour in America.
The album's standouts for me is the covers they do. One of my favorite songs is Tom T. Hall's Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken) off the long out of print 100 Children album. It's the rumination of a Vietnam veteran returning home after being crippled from the war, losing his legs. Google the lyrics because it's so heart-wrenching and funny at the same time. They do a ham-fisted big-ass sound version of Tom Petty's Rebels and it is very good indeed. DBT had been on a Bob Dylan tribute album and got stuck with what Patterson Hood begged 'please not let it be the song they would have to do' which turned out to be Like A Rolling Stone. But they pull it off very well by simply making the song their own. It's from their Jason Isbell period and all the singers including bassist Shonna Tucker, Jason's Wife, take a turn singing a verse. It's a wonderful cover...overblown in a "we are having a goddamn good time doing this" sort of way. And who can be upset at anyone covering the great and legendary Warren Zevon. They do a great, if heavy (if you can make it heavier) Play It All Night Long. You know the one that "starts grampa pissed his pants again..."
This is not the best DBT album but I sure like it and say to any fan you need to own this for the cover versions if nothing else.
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