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| |
| Date |
City |
Venue |
| Fri 5/2/08 |
Birmingham, AL |
Schaeffer Eye Center Crawfish Boil |
| Sat 5/3/08 |
Jackson, MS |
Miller Lite Crawfish Boil |
| Thu 5/8/08 |
Kill Devil Hills, NC |
Port O'Call |
| Fri 5/9/08 |
Kill Devil Hills, NC |
Port O'Call |
| Sat 5/10/08 |
Beaufort, NC |
Beaufort Music Festival |
| Sat 5/17/08 |
Carrboro, NC |
Cat's Cradle |
| Fri 5/23/08 |
Newport, KY |
Southgate House |
| Sat 5/24/08 |
Dayton, OH |
Canal Street Tavern |
| Sun 5/25/08 |
Louisville, KY |
Headliners |
| Fri 7/4/08 |
Kingsport, TN |
Kingsport 4th of July Celebration |
| Sat 7/26/08 |
Columbus, OH |
Skully's Music Diner |
| Wed 7/30/08 |
Annapolis, MD |
Ram's Head Tavern |
| Thu 7/31/08 |
Washington, DC |
9:30 Club |
| Fri 8/1/08 |
Philadelphia, PA |
World Café Live |
| Sat 8/2/08 |
Northampton, MA |
Iron Horse Music Hall |
| Sun 8/3/08 |
Blue Hill, ME |
The Shangri-La Music Festival |
| Sun 8/31/08 |
Los Angeles, CA |
The Echo |
|
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"Countrypolitan
transcends music. It's a lifestyle, not a category of music,"
says Southern Culture on the Skids front man, Rick Miller. "It's
where rural and urban sensibilities meet. I mean, it's when
you see trucker hats being sold in Beverly Hills boutiques or
notice folks eating pork in Mebane, where I live, drinking a
glass of merlot. Or best yet, when you see a motor sport invented
by backwoods moonshine runners and bootleggers broadcast on
Sunday afternoon into potentially every living room in America,
there ain't no doubt it's a countrypolitan world and SCOTS'
new album, Countrypolitan Favorites, is the soundtrack for it."
Long the bards of downward mobility, Southern Culture on the
Skids have always embodied countrypolitan. Recently described
by Dwight Yoakam (in Filter) as "really on the outside,
like Dick Dale meets Hank Thompson," SCOTS have mixed high
and low culture for decades, endlessly touring, serving up moonshine
martinis and poultry picking for fans everywhere. Now, with
their new fifteen song covers collection, Countrypolitan Favorites,
they've given the Go-Go country treatment to some of their favorite
songs, creating a tasty buffet of tunes from Don Gibson to T-Rex.
"It's a party record," Miller says. As if anything
Southern Culture on the Skids might put on tape wouldn't be
a party record. Since 1983, when they formed in Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, SCOTS have played their unique hybrid of Americana,
surf, R&B, rockabilly, and swamp pop (the band describes
their sound as "toe sucking geek rock – kinda weird,
but it feels good when you're doing it"), all the while
driving fans into ecstatic, sweat drenched paroxysms of joy.
Assisted by his cohorts in white trash renaissance – drummer
Dave Hartman and bassist/singer/heartbreaker Mary Huff –
Miller and crew have been prolific and ubiquitous for over twenty
years. From their 1985 debut Voodoo Beach Party, to the international
smash, 1998's Dirt Track Date (featuring the hit single "Camel
Walk"), and up to their last studio album, 2004's barnstormer
Mojo Box, Southern Culture on the Skids have continued to throw
what Rolling Stone dubbed "a hell raising rock and roll
party." Their 2005 live outing, Doublewide and Live!, captured
all of this on tape, dirty and rough and wild.
"The live album was so raunchy," Miller said, "the
production on this one we wanted to be slick."
Recorded at Miller's own studio (The Kudzu Ranch), Countrypolitan
Favorites might be slick in spots, but there's no mistaking
that this is the same Southern Culture on the Skids who wrote
"Eight Piece Box."
"Countrypolitan was an outgrowth of the Nashville sound
of the 60's. It was an attempt to go more mainstream and put
dents in the pop charts and create more sophisticated tunes
– for country jetsetters," Miller says. "It
was a deliberate blend of country and pop. I always think it's
cool to blur the lines between genres," Miller adds, "But
we took the countrypolitan concept a bit further [on Countrypolitan
Favorites], adding and subtracting, updating – getting
respectfully irreverent, you know, close to the cuff but all
mixed up."
And mix it up they did, giving traditional country songs the
rock treatment, and vice versa. T-Rex's "Life's a Gas"
appears here with country harmonies atop heavy synthesizer;
"O Lonesome Me" has an upbeat twist, again with the
harmony vocals; "Tobacco Road" sounds like CCR, while
CCR's "Tombstone Shadow" gets stacked with three part
bluegrass harmonies, and "No Longer a Sweetheart of Mine,"
originally a bluegrass tune by Reno and Smiley, gets rocked
up with surf guitar and honky tonk piano and more harmony vocals.
"Funnel of Love" (made famous by Wanda Jackson) is
a standout track, featuring Mary Huff's sultry lead vocal, and
her duet with Rick on the swingers-on-the-rocks classic, "Let's
Invite Them Over" (an Onie Wheeler original), explores
the relationship of a couple who don't love each other, but
do love their best friends.
"'Let's Invite Them Over' is the most thematically correct
song on the album, as far as countrypolitan goes," Dr.
Miller says. "It's suburban roulette!" When asked
why the "countrypolitan" social phenomenon works so
well when put into a musical context, Miller expounded, "It's
an overlap of high and low culture. Homogenization, though probably
not a good thing, makes for some interesting observations."
Sounds like a true academic. But then Dr. Miller added, "But
we're not sociologists or anything. I mean, we just want to
party."
And so, let us party, with Southern Culture on the Skids' Countrypolitan
Favorites. For additional information, photos or to set up an
interview, please contact... |
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Countrypolitan
Favorites
Yep Roc
2007 |
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