|
|
|
|
|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
|
|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
1100 Springs
Bandwagon\r\n(Palo Duro Records
By Jeff Prince
Bashing Nashville was bread and butter to Texas Music outlaws in the 1970s. Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Jr., Willie Nelson, and others enjoyed taking lyrical jabs at corporate country. The trend was picked up again by a new generation of Texas Music acts in the 1990s to the point of overkill. The original Outlaws survived in an ear when a handful of record companies held the industry in their grip. New Outlaws have access to inexpensive digital recording systems and can self-produce albums and sell products from stages and web sites and do fine. Self-motivated musicians have more opportunities than ever. So if Nashville doesn’t want you, quit your bawling. Pamela Anderson won’t return your calls, either. Get over it. Which brings us to the Dallas-based Eleven Hundred Springs. Listening to Bandwagon as background music at dance halls and honky tonks would be fine. The tunes are country-and-western toe-tappers with echoes of pop and blues (and liberal borrowings from Waylon). The musicianship and vocals are solid. But these are some whiney dudes. Nashville doesn’t get them. They’re bad outlaws with long hair and tattoos. People misunderstand them. Boo-hoo. Meanwhile, the album’s clichés flow like, uh, wine. These poor boys “Can’t Win For Losing” and “The Only Thing She Left Me Was The Blues,” and so they roll up another joint and get drunk and blah blah.
They do know how to play. Now if they’d just get creative. And go see somebody about that persecution complex. (On the other hand, maybe this music is what fans want to hear, and music critics are just jerks?)
Email this Article...
