Path: newz.oit.unc.edu!usenet
From: Chris Riser 
Newsgroups: alt.music.chapel-hill
Subject: Re: Poor Whiskey Bride
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 21:01:18 -0500
Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Speaking of Whiskeytown, this is from a recent article in the Journal of
Country Music.  JMC is an outstanding publication of the Country Music
Foundation in Nashville.  It's sort of like Bluegrass Unlimited or Dirty
Linen or the Old Time Herald in that it is mostly for serious
afficionados and contains much in-depth history, but in my opinion, JCM
has better writing than most.

Anyway, from an article about "alternative country" called 'No
Depression, Any Country?' by Jim Ridley (a writer for the _Nashville
Scene_):

"If Freakwater reluctantly embodies the best of No Depression, the North
Carolina group Whiskeytown - the band _No Depression_ itself seems to
regard as the best - is much more problematic.  On its CD _Faithless
Street_, the Chapel Hill quintet sings tales of hard living and woe over
ragged asses-and-elbows country backing that perserveres just this side
of decrepitude.  Whiskeytown's looseness isn't the problem: on "What May
Seem Like Love" the band pulls of a ramshackle but near-perfect
_Sweethearts of the Rodeo_ imitation, and "Too Drunk to Dream" staggers
sweetly into the gutter.

"What's troubling is the band's annoying ironic distance from its
material, a sense of play-acting that seems more condescending than
good-humored.  "I'm a fast-talking, hell-raising son-of-a-bitch," crows
a Whiskeytowner in "Hard Luck Story," swearing with about as much
authority as a deacon tipsy on fruit punch.  Now, if the singer sang
these words over a crunching AC/DC metal riff, he knows he'd sound like
some chestbeating dork.  Instead, by drawling them over some twangy
music in a sing-songy Buck Owens voice, he can poke fun at the character
in the song while making sure no one thinks he's singing about himself. 
Most importantly, he still gets to say "I'm a fast-talking, hell-raising
son-of-a-bitch." The Texas Rubies sing that they want a truck so they
can learn to say... well, a word that rhymes with truck; sure enough,
here's Whiskeytown's lead singer, Ryan Adams, using a form of the same
word - but in character, you see, as a virulent redneck in "Oklahoma." 
The sour observations Whiskeytown's Caitlin Cary makes about "Matrimony"
would be unforgivably smug and nasty if sung over a quiet neo-folk
melody - but when she sings them oer a dinky little country waltz, it's
impossible to tell if she's serious or joking,  ?in this manner, the
band can have its cake and beat it too.

"In a review of the French Connection, Pauline Kael complained about
liberal screenwriters putting racist jokes in the mouths of bigoted
characters; that way, the writers could simultaneously one-up their
characters and stil score easy laughs from the jokes.  There's a similar
impulse at work in the most bothersome aspects of the No Depression
movement - the events that feature trailer-park themes and white-trash
slideshows [sic -was that supposed to be sideshows, maybe?], the songs
that treat rural people and their customs as fodder for jokes.  It's one
thing to keep a culture's music alive by adding new themes and elements;
it's quite another to use that music as a weapon of ridicule against
people with little else."

I think Ridley might be getting a little too touchy, seeing as how
plenty of supposedly real country artists have poked fun at rural folk
and have maintained their share of ironic distance, but there's some
substance to what he says.  It's something I've thought about a little
for the past year or so as I've tried to write.

"King of Swagger" (on the XDU Power of Tower CD) is based on what I've
thought about a lot of assholes I've known and is, typically for me,
written in the third person.  "Hundredth Broken Heart" is older and is
in the first person, and sure as shit is a little tongue-in-cheek, but
considering how I was getting separated and eventually divorced at the
time makes it a little more real than most people might think.  But I'll
admit to having written a few songs in which I'm guilty of wimping out
and going for the cheap joke.

I'm working on some western swing songs now, trying to write fun stuff
that's fairly earnest or sincere at the same time, and I wonder if
people aren't just going to think it's all a big joke anyway, or write
it all off to some non-existent Squirrel Nut Zippers wannabe-ness.  

But this guy Ridley likes Jolene too, so then maybe I shouldn't take
_him_ so seriously...

Well, since Pine State's getting ready to put out our posthumous
"retrospective" CD, I guess I shouldn't give a shit about people who
want to take much of anything too seriously.  Yes, a CD for those 20
diehard fans; that reminds me - I guess I need to get their names from
Karen Mann...

C. Riser