A Truer Sampler 04 - Drive By Truckers

Now this one was incredibly hard to whittle down, they have so many good songs. And I don't want to hear any crap about the artwork either....I tried and tried and that's the best I could come up with...I just went for the cheese factor like their early album covers :P......besides, you can print it out and color it if you want. So I talk about DBT alot on here, they are one of my absolute favorite bands, they are actually THE band that restored my faith in new music. See I had kind of lost faith in new music sometime around '98/'99. I just couldn't find anything that excited me, that is until I discovered the mighty Drive-By Truckers.

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But before I get into that let me talk about the local record shop (RIP) I used to frequent. This is the same shop I would go buy all the SCOTS & Old 97's albums and they had a killer section for this type of music that didn't have a label on it because that was before anyone had settled on a proper name. Well anyway, this section on the CD rack was only about 4 rows of CD's but it was all killer stuff, and sometimes I would just buy something from there to see what it sounded like. Well one of the CD's they had in there that I must have picked up a gazilion times to look at but for some reason never bought was a CD called "Gangstabilly" by a group called "Drive-By Truckers". Now I never bought it cause I thought it would be some cheesy cheesy music....novelty music. This is one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made concerning a music purchase. It wasn't until years later that I heard about this strange band called Drive-By Truckers again....I had read a few reviews in a couple magazines of their album "Southern Rock Opera" which was highly spoken of. So I downloaded a few tracks (this was in Napster's heyday) and was just blown away by songs like "Zip City" and "Ronnie and Neil". I went out and bought "Southern Rock Opera" the next day. Now this was right before "Decoration Day" came out. When it did come out, I ran out and bought that too.....the day it was released.....which I have done with every one of their albums since. They were the first band I was genuinly excited about in years.....I felt like I was a young'n again just discovering music.....and they opened the door for me to dig deeper into new music and I started discovering all kinds of stuff I was not even aware was out there. And I'm still excited about music now, their's in particular....and for that I would like to thank them.

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I had to cut alot of good songs from this, some of my faves too like: Nine Bullets, Ronnie and Neil, One of These Days, Company I Keep, Sounds Better In A Song, Sinkhole, Where The Devil Don't Stay, Cottenseed, Danko/Manual, Goddamn Lonely Love.....just too many to list that I had to cut, I could have easily made this a double discer.....but I would encerouge each and everyone of you, if you don't already own them to go out and get everyone of their albums. If you only got the bread for a couple albums, then definitely at least get "Decoration Day" and "The Dirty South". Those two are essential. After that get the DVD "Live at the 40 Watt", then "Southern Rock Opera", "Pizza Deliverance", "Gangstabilly", the amazing early live album "Alabam Ass Whoopin" & Patterson Hood's solo album "Killers & Stars"....then if you like all that get "Blessing and a Curse".

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Buy Their Albums Here

http://www.drivebytruckers.com/

http://www.ninebullets.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-By_Truckers

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MP3 @ 128

ATS04 - Drive By Truckers

A Truer Sampler 03 - Ray Wylie Hubbard

OK, this one was really hard to whittle down to 80 minutes. But I think what I came up with is a good overview of an artist I can only describe as a lyrical genius. Ray Wylie Hubbard is my latest musical obsession, download this sampler to find out why. Nasty grooves, gruff vocals, killer slide guitar, and some of the best damn lyrics you're likely to ever hear. Now on this disc I had to leave out his most famous song (made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker in the 70's) "Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother" but you can find a killer version of it on the Stingaree bootleg I previously posted. I also did not put a song off his first album after his reinvention as, what I like to describe as "a mystic troubador", 1992's "Lost Train of Thought". Though It has some good songs on it, the flow was better without them.

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Now I seriously love Ray Wylie Hubbard....I think he is the best artist out there performing and recording right now. I first heard of him a long time ago....with the aforementioned song "Redneck Mother". I kind of thought he just faded into obscurity during the 70's never to be heard from again. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, I hear the song "Choctaw Bingo" on a DBT station I created on Pandora.com. "Holy Shit, this song is amazing" I thought, so I did a little research and found out that he had in fact faded into obscurity & drug addiction during the 70's and 80's, only to clean himself up and be "musically reborn" in the early 90's. He took his first guitar lessons, and learned to play the blues like Lightnin' Hopkins....and man he can play it too. Then he started putting out killer album after killer album....I went out and bought them all (well I had to order most of them). Every album was fantastic, I especially like "Eternal and Lowdown". I would call that his masterpiece, it's just a perfect album from start to finish. And "Choctaw Bingo" though it's a James McMurtry song, is in my top 10 of greatest songs ever....it's a song I wish would never end....I just want to hear more and more, and when Ray Wylie sings it you believe every last word of it

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Buy His Stuff Here

http://www.raywylie.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Wylie_Hubbard

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MP3 @ 192

ATS03 - Ray Wylie Hubbard

Ray Wylie Hubbard - Stingaree Music Festival - April 13th, 2007

I've made no secret of my love for Ray Wylie Hubbard, I will get to that in more detail in my RWH sampler post. But first here is a killer bootleg from the Stingaree Music Festival, or as Ray calls it "Hayesapalooza". This was the first stingaree festival, the brainchild of Hayes Carll (I love that guy too) to showcase some of his friends and favorite artists and held in his "base camp" town of Crystal Beach, Texas. And man what a lineup they had....I would have loved to have gone: Todd Snider, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Hayes Carll, Corb Lund, The Dedringers....man talk about a killer line up. This is the first of what I hope is many bootlegs from this festival.

And what a great one it is too....Ray Wylie puts on one hell of a show and has some of the best banter you will hear. This also contains probably THE BEST version of "Wanna Rock And Roll" I have heard to date.

http://www.stingareemusicfestival.com/

MP3 @ 192

Download RWH - Stingaree 2007 here

Hayes Carll & Ray Wylie Hubbard - Chickens (Live from Stingaree) (Video Clip)

Two of my absolute favorites together

A Truer Sampler 02 - Old 97's

OK, so here's the second of the planned Samplers......which I'm calling "A Truer Sampler" (clever eh). Now the Old 97's were my second musical obsession after I got burnt out on SCOTS. I first heard them on some sampler CD that came with some long out of print magazine...it was the song "Time Bomb" off their 1997 masterpiece album "Too Far To Care". Now I'm not one of those "indie cred" types that pretend they were into every band before they got popular, I think that is about as douchebag as it gets, so I don't have any problem admitting I was late to the game on them....as Too Far To Care was that one thing all those aforementioned indie douchebags hate to see....a MAJOR LABEL DEBUT (oh the horror). But I digress....I seem to have gotten off track.

So after hearing this song "Time Bomb" I went out to my favorite local record store (RIP) and picked up Too Far To Care.....sounded like heaven to my ears. Then I did what I always do with a band I get obsessed with, I dug through their back catalouge....which was pretty easy cause the only older album still in print was "Wreck Your Life", which is also a masterpiece.

Then out comes "Fight Songs" and I rush out to my local record store (RIP) to pick it up, jam it in my discman and the first song is "Jagged"..."holy shit! this is good" I thought. Then the others songs played on, but I wasn't as excited about them cause they weren't as "twangy" as I thought they should be....but it was still a damned good album. Then "Early Tracks" came out which was a collection of early singles....THIS was the old 97's that I loved, they even had a Johnny Cash cover on it, and it was a NEW Johnny Cash song...unheard of....but great!

Around this same time I was waiting for the much fabled "Ranchero Brothers" album (Rhett Miller & Ken Bethae acoustic) but I'm still waiting for that, as I'm sure alot of Old 97's fans are. What they did give us was Satellite Rides. Now I know alot of people out there love this album....but to me, all I could think was "what happened to my favorite band", "where did the twang go". This was the album where they really went downhill for me, and even the newest one didn't really do much for me....Rhett Miller's solo stuff REALLY didn't do it for me. But I still hold a dear place in my heart for those first three albums (I eventually got their out of print first album) and the "Early Tracks" EP.

So anyway, here is my collection of songs for you guys to check them out with....you'll notice that the tracks lean towards the early stuff, but like always I try to include at least one song from each album (and the later albums weren't all bad anyway). Really there is not a bad track on "Too Far To Care" though, I could have put that whole album on here. Rhett Miller really knew how to turn a phrase too, those early albums hold some of my favorite lyrics ever. I hope you guys enjoy this, cause I enjoyed compiling it.

Buy Their Stuff Here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_97

http://www.old97s.com/

MP3 @ 192

ATS02 - The Old 97's

A Truer Sampler 01 - Southern Culture On The Skids

Ok, so here's the first sampler.....one of my favorite groups....Southern Culture On The Skids, or as the fans call them SCOTS. Now let me just preface this by saying that when I was around 12 or 13 I used to steal my sister's hair metal tapes, and tape over them with my boom box that sat in the headboard of my bed. Now I would always just tape stuff off the radio that I thought was cool, and typically I would end up taping stuff off the local college station. This was always late at night too and if you've ever listened to college radio you know that they play some pretty weird stuff, especially late at night. Well I had a bunch of these tapes, and my favorite was a taped over Night Ranger tape that had this bad ass song about a mexican wrestler who was also a super hero at night.

Fast forward a few years, and I had completely forgotten about those tapes. I hear this cool song on the radio (different station this time) about little debbie cakes and snack crackers. So I search it out and find out it's a group called Southern Culture On The Skids. I go buy the CD "Dirt Track Date" and loved the hell out of it...used to cruise around to it in my old LTD with the discman plugged into the tape deck. Naturally I start collecting their back catalouge....and find stuff that just keeps getting better and better....songs about wrestling bears & eatin' biscuits and chicken shit. Then I get a newly released EP of some early tracks, it was called Viva Del Santo....I walk out of the local record shop (RIP) plop it in my discman...and holy shit! it's that song I taped off the radio about the mexican wrestler! Pretty Cool I thought.

They became one of my all time favorite bands, and if you've never seen them live you really need to, one of the (if not the) best shows I've ever seen.

Now the way I'm gonna do these samplers is to try my best to put at least one song from every album an artist or group has. On this one though I did not include a song from their very very early first album (from 1985) cause they weren't really the same band then, and I didn't include one from the "Zombified" EP cause well....I kinda ran out of room and the songs weren't as strong as others. Also, the songs I pick are based purely on my tastes, and nothing else.....so if you think something is missing or don't like what I picked, well.....they are just songs I like and think other people should hear.

Buy There Stuff Here

http://www.scots.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Culture_on_the_Skids

MP3 @ 192
ATS01 - Southern Culture On The Skids

Drive-By Truckers - Rare Tracks

OK, so we'll get to the sampler's shortly. First I wanted to post this, it's a little "EP" I worked up of some rare DBT tracks. Now half of these are from the "Blessing and a Curse" bonus disc....which I've already posted, but I felt they deserved to be on here. The real gems of course (unless you haven't heard the bonus disc either) are the cover of Skynyrd's "Every Mother's Son" and the Dirty South outtake "Great Car Dealer War". This actually makes a nice little cohesive EP and has satisfied me as something new to listen to until a new DBT album comes out (they are in the studio RIGHT NOW!)

Some other DBT news: They are currently doing their "Dirt Underneath Tour" where they are road testing their new songs. I also read there is some kind of documentary coming out possibly sometime this year.....HOLY SHIT, I cannot wait for that.

1. Outfit - from "Austin City Limits Music Festival: 2003 Collection"


2. Every Mother's Son - from "Under The Influence: A Jam Band Tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd"


3. Great Car Dealer War - Outake from "The Dirty South", from "Comes With A Smile Vol. 16" (Comes With A Smile is a British magazine)


4. When The Well Runs Dry - from "Blessing and a Curse" Bonus Disc


5. Like A Rolling Stone - from "Blessing and a Curse" Bonus Disc


6. Careless (Live) - from "Blessing and a Curse" Bonus Disc


7. Marry Me (Live) - from "Blessing and a Curse" Bonus Disc


8. Dress Blues (Live) - from the official Drive-By Truckers website

MP3 @ 192
PW=truersound
http://sharebee.com/9fa1797d

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Upcoming Posts

I'm gonna do a few "samplers" of certain artists, here's what I have planned:

Southern Culture On The Skids (by request)
Old 97's (almost by request)
Ray Wylie Hubbard (my favorite guy)
Drive By Truckers (my other favorite)
Scott Miller/V-Roys (another favorite)
70's Texas Music (by request)


there's a few others I could do, but I'll leave it at that for now....If anybody has any requests for one of these samplers, I'll try my best to fulfill it.

It don't matter who's in Austin,Bob Wills is still the king

A gift from Eek! The Cat from Twilightzone: What do you get when you cross big city jazz music with hillbilly music.....why Bob Wills of course, who pioneered the sound in the 30's.

Read about him here

Eek! The Cat Presents:

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Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys
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I grew up listening to Bob Wills as he was one of my father's all time favorite musicians. Back in the early '60's, we lived in Texas, and Mr. wills would play in a lot of the local venues. My Dad would always be there, and he (Dad) used to tell stories about buying drinks (vodka straight up) for Mr. Wills all night, and with each drink, Dad would write a couple of song requests on the napkin served with the drink, and Bob Wills would play them all! They actually got to be pretty fair friends. Dad said if Mr. Wills heard someone in the audience refer to his music as "Country," he would get "fightin' mad," and his band would have to talk him out of going out into the audience to "have a talk with the gentleman." :>}

This album has most of my favorites (with the exception of "Bubbles In My Beer" and "Take Me Back To Tulsa"). If there's enough response, I have MUCH more.

Anyway, I still love Bob Wills' brand of Western Swing. The way he interacts and kids around with his musicians while they are playing has always been one of my favorite aspects of his music. Lines like, "I told you, Sheriff, 'shoot low, she's ridin' shotgun!'" and "A man after my own heart ... with a razor!" always make me smile no matter how many times I hear them. "Come here ... no ... stay there. Play! Waaaaah!"

Haaawww!

Eek! The Cat

Download Link Removed

Adam's House Cat - Town Burned Down (Out of Print Pre-DBT album)

Adam's House Cat was Patterson Hood's and Mike Cooley's first band together, pre-DBT circa 1985-1991. This album as yet still unreleased was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 1990. It features early versions of "Lookout Mountain" & "Nine Bullets" and a slew of other kickass songs. One of my favorites off this is "Runaway Train". It nice to hear some early work of Patterson & Cooley....and this album is a nice glimpse of the genius work that was to come.

MP3 @ 192
PW=truersound
http://sharebee.com/69479eae

Torrent