Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

I've been a fan of Cory Branan since I stumbled on to him during a Revival Tour (an acoustic, mostly ex-punk review) date a few years ago with Chuck Ragan of Hot Water Music and Tom Gabel of Against Me; I was blown away. Ragan has always put on an awesome show, and to be truthful his set was the best. I've never been much of an Against Me fan, and although they have a few good songs here and there, they've never done all that much for me. Gabel's solo set was fine, but not explosive, even though our group quickly realized that much of the crowd was there for him. He wasn't able to make me a believer in his punk retread as acoustic act though. Overall, the set was quite impressive.  Branan was the unknown variable, and we found ourselves transfixed beyond expectation. He had heartfelt lyrics, drunken amiability, and a penchant for damn good storytelling, complete with a catchy rhythm style that got us dancing. He was all over the map, and drunkenness was o...

Haunted thoughts of rusty pens sheathed, That you should be mad in the darkness drifting, That the world is nothing if not yours bequeathed. Though the doldrums that kept me wreathed In scholastic cages monthly shifting, Haunted thoughts of rusty pens sheathed. I never got to write, but static noise leaked, From my pen like a random shifting , That the world is nothing if not yours bequeathed. I slowly forgot your name, barely breathed. My glamorous past kept me listing, Haunted thoughts of rusty pens sheathed. The dogs in the cages seethed, Their barks vulgar and resisting, That the world is nothing if not yours bequeathed. Oh my lover and my cheap pen creased, A tragic benediction of misused time twisting, Haunted thoughts of rusty pens sheathed, That the world is nothing if not yours bequeathed.

Chuck Ragan has come a long way from his days fronting Gainesville, Florida's post-hardcore stalwarts Hot Water Music. He has reinvented himself as a “boss-obsessed” singer-songwriter with a subtle, yet substantial, collection of songs to match. His always hoarse vocals have mellowed and he has introduced more melody to his ramshackle songs, and his band has started stretching out and showing their abilities. Till Midnight is his fourth proper album for SideOne Dummy records following Feast or Famine, Gold Country, Covering Ground, and numerous other EPs and split projects with other punks turned Americana artists. With each release, Ragan becomes more self-assured in the style, honestly telling stories of the road and covering the trials and tribulations of daily life. Many of the songs on Till Midnight are brimming with infectious energy that puts many of his compatriots to shame; he makes them all look like they are going through the motions. Ragan is having tons of fun s...

Time once again emerges the winner in its perennial battle to change our hearts and minds, ravaging (perhaps, that's too harsh a word) along parameters that stretch from our youth to our deaths. What are these you ask? Only the old man himself knows and he's not telling. Winter fades to spring on the Elk River and the flood waters recede, streaming rivulets of mud and murk. I pack again for the cabin trip, like every summer since my summers began, excited, except for those few years in high school, when I fled from my parents, a high-minded but foolish youth, escaping into books and records, with friends. We surreptitiously visited the cabin on weekday nights, beers in hand, talk in mind. I pack and pack some more -- the right records, the right books, the right attitude -- looking forward to seeing the Elk overrun its bed or settle back into its groove, and anticipating the smell of the forest, the plants, the early summer.  I make my annual lists and call around...

Adam's House Cat was the first band that featured Drive-By Truckers' mainstays, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Their first and only record, Town Burned Down, has never been officially released, even though it provides the blueprint for everything the two have done for the past thirty years. It is, perhaps, too lo-fi for those who like the more recent direction the Truckers have taken, post Jason Isbell and Shonna Tucker, and it surely harkens back to the pre- Southern Rock Opera era of the band. I first heard their song, "Runaway Train," after downloading it on Ninebullets.net a few years ago and was hooked. I hope it someday gets an official release, but tracks have turned up on the internet and the Truckers have streamed it on their Facebook page. A few tracks can be found on YouTube, at least for now. Archive.org hosts an excellent live reunion show Live at Nuci's Space from December 1st, 2006 that captures the power and variety of AHC. The band existe...

Simone Felice  has traveled a far different path on his solo records than his work in the Felice Brothers. While they added extra, electronic instrumentation after he left the band on Celebration, Florida, Simone has explored the vagaries and sound of 1970's folk singer-songwriter pop, channeling the likes of James Taylor and Randy Newman, yet writing striking and relevant modern songs. Both of his solo efforts are low key, literate affairs miles away from the rocking Americana of the Felice Brothers, but as memorable as their early efforts. Felice has an ear for quiet melodies and poetic phrases -- worn vocal exercises mingle with catchy harmony vocals. "Our Lady of the Gun" from 2014's revelatory Strangers catches him at full strength, sounding like the understated, yet equally tragic, sister song to The Felice Brother's "Frankie's Gun!" The song is stark and melancholic, yet clear and well-defined. Felice sings, "there's a stranger...

The buzzing of far away tools run roughshod over my static mind as the waxing of Lou Reed relates the modern state of "viciousness." Another day in the intellectual rat race of love, shattered by promises of work and relaxation, mugging for some far off camera Will you be the true prospect, or clear delineation and demarkation, of a confident future, nay past, clowning like a businessman? The terminus of this period of stagnation ends in three bangs, like celebrity deaths or folkloristic tropes or statistics -- the year is clearly marked as 2014, the jigsaw puzzle of being bailed out is consistently cut from my parent's best wishes. The lines of a Catholic school girlhood are marked clearly on your face; lines of my pagan youth mark mine like the aged face of a forgotten prom queen. Tell me again of your hopes and dreams. No rest is all that matters. We run. We fall. We continue on and on. The fuzzy cat with a scepter knocks us down like pawns. The leaves...