Concert Memories: Drive By Truckers and Old 97s - March 16, 2013

Old 97s are a band that I got into in my late 20s thanks to a colleague of mine. He was almost as obsessed with music as I was and turned me on to some fabulous bands during the time we worked together. Old 97s were one of those bands and my love for that band ignited when he loaned me a copy of Fight Songs. After hearing “Jagged” just once, I was hooked. By the end of that album I had a found a new band to fall in love with. I immediately got my own copy of Fight Songs and from there I branched out to their other releases. Satellite Rides was next and then I purchased their double live album Alive & Wired. That put this band over the top for me! Their live concert sounded amazing! From that moment, I knew they were a band that I wanted to see in concert.

The opportunity finally arrived in March of 2013. Old 97s were opening for the Drive By Truckers at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, New Jersey. Having seen several shows there in the past, it was a familiar venue for me. Admittedly, I had no idea who Drive By Truckers were when I purchased tickets for this show. This was my opportunity to see Old 97s live, so I decided to take a chance that the headliners would be decent. I talked Mrs. Vie into attending the show with me and the evening was set.

The Old 97s were still supporting their Grand Theatre records (Volume One and Two) as the spring of 2013 approached. Unfortunately for me, I did not have either of those records, so I wasn’t familiar with the songs they contained. 2013 was an odd year for my music collecting capabilities. Record stores were phasing out completely. Big boxed stores were carrying less and less music, and I had yet to embrace the digital format. It was harder and harder for me to know when new albums came out, or how to get a copy of those albums. Between 2013 – 2016, a lot of albums were released that escaped my notice, or I wasn’t able to add to my collection.

I was also doing a lot of review writing for Hard Rock Hideout at that time, so my desire and availability for new music was limited to what I would get for reviews. Ironically, managing my music collection was becoming a chore that was more hassle than it was worth. Hence, I did not know that Old 97s had two new releases. I went to that show expecting to hear the Alive & Wired hits. What I got instead was a mix between classics and songs that I did not know. Which was okay, because shortly after the concert, I went out and got copies of The Grand Theatre Volume One and Two, and my love for Old 97s was reignited!

Their opening set was short and sweet (10 – 12 songs if memory serves correctly), but it was fantastic! The fact that it is still the same original four members making music together almost 20 years later was impressive. Very few bands stay together with the same exact lineup for every album, so to see the Old 97s do it was a testament to their longevity and dedication.

I knew they were the openers, so we didn’t expect them to play too long of a set. I think we got about 50 minutes from them, which was great. Of course, I wanted to hear more, they were the band that I had come to see, but I understood why that wasn’t going to happen. All in all, I was glad that I got to see what I did from them and I told myself that I would need to see them live as headliners at least once in my lifetime.

Prior to the show, I tried to give myself a crash course lesson on the Drive By Truckers. I purchased their greatest hits record and listened to a couple of live concerts on the internet. They seemed like a solid band and I was hopeful that I would enjoy their show. They weren’t a band that I fell in love with right away, but they had a lot of solid songs, enough to hold my interest, that I figured I would enjoy their set and perhaps walk away from that show wanting to see more.

Sadly, my crash course did nothing to prepare me for most of the Drive By Truckers set. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t good in concert, or that I did not like them. I liked their performance a lot and could tell that they were a finely tuned, talented group of musicians. The problem was that I did not know enough of their songs to really lose myself in the performance like I do with most bands that I see live.

One of the songs I did fall in love with on first listen was “Zip City.” This is a fantastic song about love, lust, angst, and anger, with vocals by the uber-talented Mike Cooley. It was the one song that I wanted to hear that night and fortunately for me, The Drive By Truckers obliged. They performed it as the first song of the encore and it got the biggest roar of the night from me. I sang every word at the top of my lungs with glee. I was ecstatic.

Memories of this evening are dominated by seeing Old 97s live for the first time, but I also have fond memories of my first time witnessing Drive By Truckers in concert. I was impressed by their performance and left with a desire to see them in concert again. After the show, I spent more time listening to their music and while they aren’t at the top of my “go-to” list when I am wondering what to listen to, I do pay a lot more attention to their music and have added a few more of their records to my collection. Sadly, I have not seen either of these bands live since this night. I need to change that in the near future.

Drive By Truckers Setlist

The Southern Thing

Get Downtown

The Fourth Night of My Drinking

Space City

Why Henry Drinks

Women Without Whiskey

Drag the Lake Charlie

Self Destructive Zones

Steve McQueen

A Ghost to Most

Sink Hole

Uncle Frank

Lookout Mountain

3 Dimes Down

Used to Be a Cop

Where the Devil Don’t Stay

Hell No, I Ain’t Happy

ENCORE

Zip City

Let There Be Rock

Shut Up and Get on the Plane

Buttholeville

Angels and Fuselage

The Black Crowes To Re-Release Their First Four Albums On 180-Gram Vinyl

Formed in 1989 in Marietta, GA, by brothers Chris and Rich Robinson while still in high school, and originally named Mr. Crowe’s Garden after a children’s book,The Black Crowes recorded a total of eight studio albums, starting with 1990’s Shake Your Money Maker, which was released by Rick Rubin’s Def American label.  That debut, named after a classic Elmore James blues song, peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200, selling more than 5 million copies worldwide (and 3 million in the U.S.), with two singles, “Hard to Handle” and the acoustic ballad “She Talks to Angels,” going Top 30 on the Billboard 100 and #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with three more, “Jealous Again,” “Twice as Hard” and “Seeing Things,” also charting. The group went on to sell 30 million albums internationally, being named Best New American Band by Rolling Stone readers in 1990.

Shake Your Money Maker will now be released by American Recordings/Universal Music Enterprises (UMe)December 4 as a one-album set, along with the band’s following three releases as double-LP sets – 1992’s The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, 1994’s Amorica and 1996’s Three Snakes and One Charm–all on high-grade 180-gram vinyl, with lacquers cut directly from the master tapes. The first two originally came out on Def American, the latter two after Rubin changed the name of the label to American Recordings.

Shake Your Money Maker:The band’s debut album featured two Top 30 Billboard singles in their cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” and the acoustic ballad “She Talks to Angels.”  Recorded in the summer of 1989 in Atlanta and Los Angeles with producer George Drakoulias, the album featured Allman Brothers keyboardist Chuck Leavell. Several of the songs, including “Could I’ve Been So Blind” and “She Talks to Angels,” whose riffs were originally penned by Rich Robinson when he was 17, come from the band’s incarnation as Mr. Crowe’s Garden.  Critics compared them to the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and the Faces.

The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion:The Black Crowes’ sophomorealbum, which went to #1 on the Billboard 200 upon its release in May, 1992,eventually going double-platinum, will be released for the first time as a two-disc 180 gram vinyl set.  It was previously released as a single LP in 2004 only in certain countries and only appeared in the U.S. in 2009 by way of an inferior quality third-party pressing. Now remastered for vinyl, the album was the first to feature Marc Ford on lead guitar, replacing Jeff Cease. The title comes from the full name of an influential hymnal compiled by William Walker in 1835. The four released singles each topped the Billboard Album Rock Tracks charts, including “Remedy,” (11 weeks), “Thorn in My Pride” (four weeks), “Sting Me” (two weeks) and “Hotel Illness” (six weeks), breaking a record previously held by Tom Petty.  The disc also includes the band’s cover of Bob Marley’s “Time Will Tell.” Guitar World named it to the magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitar albums of all time.

Amorica:The first Black Crowes album to come out on Rubin’s newly renamed American Recordings label, the two-disc 180-gram vinyl reissue has been out of print in LP form since its initial 1994 release as a single album.  The band, now a six-piece, had previously ditched the unreleased Tall, and its subsequent release caused plenty of controversy in the marketplace, with several retailers refusing to carry the album, whose original cover (later airbrushed) depicted female pubic hair visible under an American flag bikini.  The original release eventually earned RIAA-certified gold for selling more than 500,000, peaking at #11 on the Billboard 200, spurred by three more Top 10 Mainstream Rock Tracks in “A Conspiracy” (#5, #23 Modern Rock Tracks ), “High Head Blues” (#8) and “Wiser Time” (#7)

Three Snakes and One Charm:The Black Crowes’ fourth album, also on American Recordings, was previously available on vinyl only as  a boxed set of 7” singles, but now comes out for the first time as a two-LP set on 180-gram vinyl since its initial CD release in July, 1996. The original album peaked at #15 on the Billboard 200, with its two singles, “Blackberry” and “Good Friday,” reaching #6 and #3, respectively, on the magazine’s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.  Produced by the band with Jack Joseph Puig – who also manned the boards for Amorica–the album was recorded in a rented home, which helped soothe the frayed relationship between the brothers Robinson, then finished at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles. The new production touches included the Dirty Dozen Brass Band on tracks like “(Only Halfway) to Everywhere” and “Let Me Share the Ride.”  Two bonus tracks, originally included in the boxed set, “Just Say You’re Sorry” and a cover of Bob Marley’s “Pimper’s Paradise,” are included on the fourth and final side of the double-vinyl set.

New Music Monday Featuring The Glitch Mob, Memphis Crawl, and Money First

Welcome to another edition of New Music Monday. Cousin Ryo has some excellent selections for you this week to get your feet moving, your hands clapping, and your blood flow circulating. What better way is there to start the week?

The Glitch Mob – We Can Make The World Stop
Up first for this edition of New Music Monday is The Glitch Mob with “We Can Make The World Stop.” This is an incredible dance tune with an amazing beat that you are bound to listen to multiple times. I know that I did. A very catchy tune, “We Can Make The World Stop” will have you looking into The Glitch Mob with much more curiosity.



Memphis Crawl – Wildflower Annie
Up next is something a little harder. With a taste of southern rock blended with heavy metal, Memphis Crawl have hit a home run with “Wildflower Annie.” Check out the single below and see for yourself. This is some great rock and roll!







Money First – We Soaring
We close out this edition of New Music Monday with the incredible single, “We Soaring” by Money First. What a fantastic hip-hop tune this is! It reminds me a little of old school DMX, which is a great thing. Hailing from Trenton, New Jersey, Money First is a young and hungry hip-hop group backed by Block Starz Music. I see big things for the future of this group and you will too. Give “We Soaring” a listen!





Glitch Mob, Memphis Crawl, and Money First --- You rock!

Black Stone Cherry - Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

Vanilla. Plain, simple, vanilla. That was my initial reaction when I first heard Black Stone Cherry’s latest album, Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea. And while I love vanilla in a dish of ice cream, I’m not crazy about it in my hard rock music. Something is wrong. This is Black Stone Cherry we are talking about. They are the perfect blend of southern rock and modern flair. These are the guys that recorded “Drive,” one of the best new rock songs to come out in years. This is the band that was set to take the world by storm in 2011. What the heck happened?

Don’t get me wrong, Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea isn’t a bad album. Actually, this record is quite good. However, it’s not a good Black Stone Cherry album. They’ve gone from southern rock with a modern flair, to modern rock with a twinge of southern flavor. That’s not the formula that put this band on the map, and it’s not the formula I was expecting to hear upon the release of Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea.

Yes, I know that bands change and evolve over time. I know that if a band produces the same album year after year, they stagnate and turn into Nickelback. Yet, evolution is a slow moving process that happens over time. To go from Folklore And Superstition to this is quite a fast turnaround and a complete about face from what they once were. Again, Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea isn’t a bad record, but it’s hardly a Black Stone Cherry album.

My biggest concern with this album is that Chris Robertson doesn’t sound like Chris Robertson. What attracted me to Black Stone Cherry in the first place was Robertson’s deep, gravelly voice. It was such a unique sound---a voice with power, a voice that fit perfectly in the style of southern rock that Black Stone Cherry was performing. Now, Robertson’s vocals sound like every other modern band that can be heard on Octane. His true voice does not appear often on Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea.

The other area where improvement would be welcomed is the style of music. This is not southern rock done in the modern style. This is not even modern rock done in the southern style. The only southern flair on the entire album is a cover of The Marshall Tucker Band’s “Can’t You See.” And while their cover is a solid one, it’s still a cover. How can a southern rock band only sound southern on a cover song? What was producer Howard Benson thinking when he gave the thumbs up to the final masters?

Overall, Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea is a solid album, but it lacks the unique flair and style that fans have come to love from Black Stone Cherry. Will you be disappointed if you buy the album? Absolutely not. However, if you are buying this disc expecting to hear the style of Black Stone Cherry that put the band on the map, then you will be in for a letdown. If you get the album just wanting to hear some good modern rock, then you will be very happy.

Ryo’s Rating: 6.5 (out of 10)

Track Listing
White Trash Millionaire
Killing Floor
In My Blood
Such A Shame
Won’t Let Go
Blame It On The Boom Boom
Like I Roll
Can’t You See
Let Me See You Shake
Stay
Change
All I’m Dreamin’ Of