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

> 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."

This seems both incredibly disingenuous and grossly condescending. He
seems to be saying "oh, how terrible that this sense of ironic distance
has infested country music," when in fact it's been there all along. Or
did he think "Kawliga" was 100% serious? What the fuck did Hank Williams
know about cigarstore indians anyway?

Or, closer to his argument, did he take all of George Jones' silly 70s
output 100% seriously? Or would he lump it all in with Whiskeytown?

What really bugs me about this is the fact that *he's* the one
pigeonholing "rural people and their customs," and demanding that they
somehow be *protected* from being the fodder for jokes. Fuck, if I lived
in a trailer, I damnsure hope I'd be able to joke about it. And given
the fact that Ryan Adams grew up in crappy old Jacksonville NC, and
almost certainly has *relatives* who live in Trailers, if he didn't
himself, then who the fuck is supposed to say what's "appropriate" to
write about and what isn't? Some la-di-da journalist from Nashville,
which is itself the biggest fucking mean-spirited joke on rural people
that ever existed? I mean, has he been to Dollywood?

Ah, phooey. He writes like a folkie "one thing to keep a culture's music
alive . . ." Fuck that. This ain't the Smithsonian. Most of the folks in
so-called No Depression bands are playing whatever the fuck they feel
like playing, with not much thought given to keeping anything but
themselves alive. Given what Chet Atkins did to country music in the
70s, I'd think there are probably bigger targets for Mr. Ridley to be
aiming at.

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

Exactly. Jolene are one of the worst examples of overly-earnest
country-sound-adopters who have kept on writing the same wussy
sensitive-frat-boy crap, only with pedal steel. This guy Ridley
obviously has a big problem with the fact that country music never has
been quite sophisticated enough--he obviously gets a little embarrassed
when he tells the folks back at Yale that he writes about country, so he
tries to hide it under this pathetic veneer of "cultural preservation." 

Makes me fucking sick. If Lemuel Huffines were still reading this group,
he'd make short order of this clown. Kruse? Wanna step up and finish him
off?
> 
> 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...

Look. I've already told half the members of your goddamn band this
individually, but here goes again: you really need to find some company
to can those fuckers in large-sized potted meat containers filled with
some kind of congealed meaty gravy, so the poor sap consumers have to
pop the top and then fish the CD out with a finger and rinse it off
before playing.

Okay, don't say I never gave you anything.

Ross
--
http://sunsite.unc.edu/grady/ch-scene
the alt.music.chapel-hill Guide to the Triangle
factory@sprynet.com        Ross Grady