Release Radar Notables
“Daddy Was A Badass”
Jesse Dayton
Well Daddy was a badass, ole bit of white trash
Never took nobody’s lip
He was a honky tonk dancer, even beat cancer
Forty years of smokin’, just quit
We went to see Joe King Carrasco, my girlfriend heard him on KROQ, back when it was a free-form station, before it became the ROQ of the 80’s, before it played Human League and Soft Cell, when Deaf School was alternative, Carrasco sat in and she took a liking to him.
I won’t say the Whisky was full, I can’t even remember the song we spun at home thereafter, but I’ve still got the vinyl and the t-shirt purchased at the gig from back when it was a badge of honor to be into bands no one had heard of, before no one had heard of most of the bands.
So, this was the last song on my “Release Radar” playlist. And I was immediately enraptured by the lyrics, they showed wit and intelligence, two elements so rarely evidenced in hit music.
I don’t think “Daddy Was A Badass” ultimately makes the Spotify Top 50, but I’m sure I’d have never heard it if it weren’t for Spotify, and I didn’t only listen once, I played it again, to make sure I caught the lyrics, was that really the “University of Texas”? It most certainly was.
I don’t know what fringe artists do these days. Then again, there’s a slew of red dirt acts who can tour Texas to good livings that those outside the Lone Star state have never heard of. It’s a conundrum, we decry the pop hits, but too often what is lauded in other genres is substandard, stuff that no one not already a fan of can be convinced to like.
But I think “Daddy Was A Badass” will crack you up.
“Light Of Day”
Aubrie Sellers
Right now I’m not sure this is the best cut on her album. Now I’m more into “Liar Liar,” but I was walking in the neighborhood and heard that guitar…
If you think playing is irrelevant, that machines rule the world, listen to this. There are great players in Nashville, and some of them are on this record. Used to be our country rock heroes were people who got a ton of press that never got any traction, like that six foot foot tall woman whose name eludes me who was on Columbia and didn’t break through, although her album was okay.
This is better than okay.
Aubrie Sellers is the daughter of Jason Sellers and Lee Ann Womack. And instinctively, I’m against progeny following in their parents’ footsteps, they didn’t have the same hard life, they don’t have the same inspiration, give someone else a chance. But now I’m re-evaluating, it appears, especially in the country world, these kids have the roots in them and therefore they can do something true in a way the newbies affected by all the money cannot, whether it be Patterson Hood, Thomas Rhett or…
Aubrie Sellers.
It’s not only the sound, but the lyrics, they hearken back to days of yore, when you were wronged and pushed back, when you weren’t afraid of airing your dirty laundry, when no one else cared, when there was no TMZ.
The vocal is a bit too pop, but the tracks are earthy and real, if you crossed Skynyrd with Nashville you’d end up with something like this. This is someone to watch and this is the kind of record you play once and then you end up playing again, it grows on you, when almost everything is disposable.
P.S. I’m gonna include “Liar Liar” on the playlist which has a wailing guitar solo but doesn’t grab you immediately like “Light Of Day” but sticks with you even more. I heard “Light Of Day” and had to know more, it’s all hiding in plain sight on the web, you can find out someone’s story, and in this case I wanted to.
“Vaporize”
Amos Lee
Used to be we depended on radio to turn us on.
Now we count on the playlist.
I know this guy’s name, I think I know his genre, but I couldn’t name a track.
It’s Yom Kippur, I never write on the Jewish holiday, but I’ve had such a tough year I think God will give me a pass, inspired I want to live for another year.
This has got a killer chorus, this is music that penetrates your brain and heart, gets you from the inside, makes you want to see him to feel this as opposed to going to a show so you can take photos and say you were there.
There is hope.
“Wish I Knew You”
The Revivalists
I’d be lying if I told you I listened to everything on my Release Radar playlist all the way through.
But I played this.
This is a strange track where the verse is better than the chorus, usually it’s the reverse. But if the chorus were better, this would be a total winner, it would supersede the cuts above, it has radio potential, it’s genre music that could go all the way, because it’s catchy and infecting.
If only someone had pushed the act a bit further. I don’t need to hear this again and again, but it was a great antidote to the paint-by-numbers country tracks of today, the stuff made to sound inoffensive, formulaic crap made on an assembly line, is that what we’ve come to, are the rules that rigid, where everybody has to make music that sounds exactly like what came before?
These acts did not, they shot for their own version of excellence.
And you can hear it in the grooves.
These are the tracks that popped out of my Release Radar playlist.
