A couple weeks ago, while I was working on something, Austin City Limits had Ryan Adams on. Struck me as a decent singer-songwriter and so I took a much needed break and enjoyed. In the process, I realized I recognized him from somewhere. Then it dawned on me that at one time he was the frontman for an alternative country (or as we would say nowadays, Americana) band called Whiskeytown. Here is a live video of the band performing what should have been their big hit, 16 Days (a song that really should have been their big hit), which was in heavy rotation for a while back around early 1997 on our local college radio station. Enjoy!
For those of you wondering how I and Neon Vincent are circumventing Sucuri to embed videos, here is an example of the embed code we use, so that you can replicate as wanted:
Just remember that each unique 11-digit video code in YouTube needs to be pasted in two separate locations within the embed code in order for your video to show up properly. So easy that I can do it!
And it’s still midweek in my time zone. The infinite capacity jukebox still has experts puzzled. All I can say is that it came with the Tardis. Long story. Enjoy some music – Americana and otherwise – and the beverages (adult and otherwise) are on the house.
I couldn’t think of anything for Ryan Adams, but Cowboy Junkies inspired me. Since they’re a Canadian band, I decided to feature a Canadian drink, the Calgary Herald’s recipe for Stampede Caesar.
The paper even posted a video to show its readers how to make a Stampede-inspired caesar cocktail.
Here’s the video.
Drink up, eh.
Learn something new every day! š
Cheers!
And with Ryan Adams as the frontman at one point for a band called Whiskeytown, a whiskey-based drink seems entirely appropriate.
Somehow I would be remiss not to include Cowboy Junkies. Their cover of Sweet Jane was stunning back in the day, and holds up nicely nearly three decades later. I have so many memories connected to this particular tune, which was played quite often at the pub I and my friends frequented as we conversed over many pints of Guinness.
No surprise that I listened to Replacements at some point in my life, and after they broke up, I made a point of getting a hold of Paul Westerberg’s first solo album. I was not disappointed. There are other songs from that first album that usually get mentioned, but this is the one that really mattered to me:
Like a number of bands that started out punk, the Replacements seemed to be evolving into something much, much better. They never really did get their break – much of that was self-inflicted perhaps. They produced some great songs along the way, even as they were on the verge of breaking up.
Mazzy Star: another band that had both a bit of an alternative rock and country vibe going on. Always loved Hope Sandoval’s voice. The Paisley Underground scene in SoCal was beginning to fade just as I moved into the area, but I still remember catching some of the remnants of that old scene live around 1985 and 1986. Mazzy Star was one of the acts that would rise from the ashes of that scene.
Continuing with the Canadian theme, I present The Crash Test Dummies.
If we’re going to sample bands and artists from Canada – and ones with eclectic influences at that – Red Rider seems like a good choice. Beyond hard rock, not sure how classifiable they were. Did their singles belong on AOR stations? Were they New Wave? And what was up with that hint of country influence in their writing? At their best, they took those influences and struck gold. Lunatic Fringe was a bit of a minor hit where I lived and got some airplay for a while in late 1981. The west coast had its share of neo-Nazi enclaves at the time as I recall, and somehow this song seemed to resonate. Seems as timely now as it did back then. Oddly enough I thought of this tune a lot while I was reading Neiwert’s Alt-America. The more things change, eh?
Those wondering about the frontman, Tom Cochrane, you might remember him as the guy who wrote and performed a song called Life is a Highway. That became a huge hit for him in the early 1990s, and then for Rascal Flats around a decade later.
And yeah, promo videos from the late 1970s and early 1980s could be a bit meh. Fortunately the song more than makes up for it.
We haven’t had anyone post any Wilco tracks in a while. We’re long overdue.