Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

Over the last few years I have become increasingly enamored by original Christmas tunes. I'm not talking about mall soundtrack, elevator muzak, or the same old Bing Crosby songs that get pumped through public sound systems or bloat out oldies stations. I've been on the search for original Christmas songs since I bought the Flat Duo Jet's "I'll Have a Merry Christmas Without You" from Norton records years ago. But recently something has me searching for new stuff. I've compiled a collection of sad old country songs, rocking jump blues tunes, alterna-rock one-offs, and purely novelty creations. Two of these tunes really struck a chord this year; I can't stop playing them. Austin's Backsliders  "Christmas (Doesn't Have To Be So Bad)" underscores the assumption that many people grow up and the holiday loses its meaning, yet there is still much to be happy about even when you aren't a kid. The song rocks along with sweet guitar lic...

"Christmas Day" is a seven-minute gothic country exploration of loneliness. White tells the story of another lonely man stranded on his way to Mobile. The "devil is in the details" as the narrator sits crying at the Greyhound Station on Christmas Day in 1998. The sparse guitar work underlines the tragic experience and White's vocals only make it more harrowing. The song is one of the loss and love that are seldom explored in most well-known Christmas songs which typically prefer to gloss over the loneliness that comes with this season, instead piling up a hootenanny of pleasant experiences. Even the songs rife with loneliness prefer to traffic in what the narrator hopes to find at home or misses, instead of reveling in loss. "Christmas Day" doesn't do that; the narrator wallows in self pity and continually returns to the sweet smile of his love. He discusses the good fiction that the situation might make, weaving in between reality and unreality...

10. Black Joe Lewis - Electric Slave (Vagrant) Black Joe Lewis and company serve up a healthy dose of lo-fidelity R and B that will get your ass shaking and leave a spring in your step. Rawer than 2011's Scandalous, but even more driving, if that is possible, Electric Slave pulses from the first dirty notes of "Skulldiggin" until the last of "Mammas Queen." The energy remains palpable and the melodies simmer long after. "Young Girl" is more garagey, but the tempo never lets up. "Dar Es Salaam" is just as manic as Scandalous' best cut "She's So Scandalous." While not as cohesive as that earlier effort, Electric Slave piles on one classic track after another, filtering it through a lens of blues, rock 'n' roll, and funk, and it just never lets up. 9. Subrosa - More Constant Than The Gods (Profound Lore) Salt Lake City's Subrosa slowly infiltrates the psyche. Their albums are like little else out there an...

20. The Night Marchers - Allez Allez (Swami) John Reis always has his hand in so many projects that sometimes it's hard to keep up. The release of the second Night Marchers' album, Allez Allez keeps up his tradition of putting out high voltage rock 'n' roll at a time when it is almost extinct from the shelves. Not as vibrant as See You In Magic , but just as raging, the tight guitars and manic drums deliver Reis's amped-up message to the masses. While it might not be as raging, chaotic, or fun as another Rocket From The Crypt release, it is good to know that Reis is still making music. Long may he "wear the horns." 19. Dawes - Stories Don't End (HUB)  "Stories Don't End" is another minor triumph from Los Angeles's Dawes. The songs drift in like an amalgamation of 70's Laurel Canyon song-writing mixed with all too modern Suburban housewife ennui. Each seems so knowable and so perfectly formed that they seem to have been...

This year has been really slow at Snobbin'. Grad school and other engagements have kept me from posting like I would like to. One of my resolutions is to post more often and write more about music and other important cultural artifacts. I even amended the title of the blog and excised the word "Indie" because the topics of the blog have never been quite that narrow. As the end of this year neared, I had no idea just what albums I would put on the list. It has been so busy and I'm sure I missed a ton of good stuff. I've never been one to say that older music was better, but as I drift into my 30's, I understand the lure of this trap. I was second guessing this year's crop of albums from the start. There was nothing so immediate as what made the list last year. I even recalled conversations from the past that cursed odd years as being worse for music. While these types of High Fidelity conversations can be fruitful at times, they trend fairly closely to t...

There is nothing quite like digging in old closets, through shirts and sweaters like past shrift. A confession of sorts is in the hem and stitch of each garment. Myriad stains on white shirts mingle with frayed collars and dust bunnies. The shelves look forlorn in half-light. Those old clothes look alone even in abundance, each telling a different story about the minuscule and the larger. Moments are defined by those old shirts. So are basic daily decisions. Some are transitory and momentary. They are gone in months. They may fit wrong or remind us of a lost love. Perhaps they fall apart in multiple washes or bleach out in the sun. Some hang much longer, years even, before they are folded and put in drawers or donated to become part of other lives. They mean something more to us. Something as simple as comfort, as undefined as fashion, as amiable as a cool slogan or pattern. These things matter to us as we scan the tired folds. A new shirt is too clean, too loose, too inanimate. Not ...

Cal Smith, born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, died on October 10. He was best known for the 1974 hit, "Country Bumpkin." A tangible part of my childhood, the song still echoes in my head whenever pumpkins are displayed or the newest batch of Pumpkin ales hits the store shelves.  Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, the old  Blues Brothers  adage rang true that there were two kinds of music, "country and western." My parents always listened to country music in our house (My mom preferred '90s country radio) and there was always a bunch of western in there as well.(Mostly from my dad). I remember hearing "Streets of Bakersfield" often drifting from car radios and home stereos. I developed an early attraction to some of these songs, even though years later I would hide it behind a sheen of four chords and punk rock. A secret shadow self of country knowledge and Western Swing bravado remained, only unsheathed for music trivia and in the dar...