Jason Minus The Scorchers

Here's a review I just wrote of the latest compendium (there are many) of the work of Jason Ringenberg, who has labored mightily to show there's life after his beloved hard-rocking Scorchers (They came up with what is to my mind the best goddamed Bob Dylan cover ever with their take on "Absolutely Sweet Marie").

I once met Jason and his guitar player Warner Hodges, a great thrill. They were really nice guys and indulged me as I asked them about rare songs they played in concerts I had seen. Anyway, give Jason the benefit of the doubt. In a better world, he'd have a much bigger career

Mix Tape: "Basket Case," by Warren Zevon

When I was in college, I had the thankless task of editing and publishing the residential college newsletter, and I think I poked fun at a colorful homeless character who used to hang around our gates. One woman approached me one day to tell me the humor was in bad taste. I suspect she would not find "Basket Case" by Warren Zevon amusing in the least.

Here's a wonderfully off-kilter tune that marries a story about a romance with a "bipolar mama in leather and lace" with a jaunty guitar lead and background harmonies. As you can tell from the lyrics, it's not a Top 40 romance tune, but rather something to help peel the paint off of normal conventions. As such, it's vintage Zevon - the same scribe who penned classics such as "Excitable Boy" and "Desperados Under the Eaves."

The Jayhawk Will Soon Fly Free

Gary Louris has spent the better part of his musical career helping others take flight - he has led his band, the Jayhawks, throughout many permutations; he's been a member of Golden Smog, a Traveling Wilbury-esque group of alt-rock musicians; and he's been a songwriter for everyone from Nickel Creek to the Dixie Chicks.

At last, he's striking out on his own.

While I've long been a Jayhawks fan, it's always been my thought that its members were playing under protest. Once they achieved a certain level of fame, they thought better of it. It became obvious after the band - which during its greatest moments mixed the harmonies of the Byrds with the rough-hewn guitar sound of Buffalo Springfield or Crazy Horse - released one of its greatest discs, "Tomorrow the Green Grass." After it launched, Mark Olson, one of the two principal songwriters, struck out on his own. Louris soldiered on, taking the band in more pop directions and even using Pink Floyd producer Bob Ezrin on one disc.

So I'll be really curious to hear what he sounds like just doing his own thing.

Even so, he apparently has a disc in the works with Olson, which just goes to show it's hard to leave that group dynamic behind.

Creaky Old McMurtry Grabs Me Again

I thought I had done a thorough search of the best of James McMurtry, only to find this AM that he has more work out there I need to seek out. WFUV - pretty much the only station I listen to in NYC these days (with a few casual time outs for WAXQ, the classic rock station), offered up McMurtry's "Every Little Bit Counts," from an older album of his I don't have in my collection, "Walk Between The Raindrops." ...This guy's got a voice as dry as a desert prairie, so don't come to him hoping to hear female backup singers or a horn section or even some Beach Boy harmonies. It's just one guy, his Lou Reed of the Sahara voice and an acoustic guitar (and, in more recent days, a really crack rock band). In any case, "Every Little Bit Counts" has a surprisingly hooky chorus that just might grab even a casual listener. I'm up in the air about whether I just download the song or buy the whole album.....besides, according to Mr. McMurtry's Web site, he has a new album due out in April, with lots of Austin-area guest stars....

Carlene's Still Kicking

I'm excited but nervous to hear the new disc from Carlene Carter, the daughter of June who has surfaced over the years with interesting pop-rock gems but has not been able to keep up a sustained career with them

I obtained a preview disc of "Closer," and was half-impressed. I need to give it another listen. The disc is a little more earnest and country than I'm used to from Carlene, who has gained critical notice by working with former husband Nick Lowe and then former boyfriend and Heartbreaker Howie Epstein to create songs that were more like pub rock than country-esque. Some folks may recall songs like "I Fell in Love" or "Every Little Thing" (the last was penned with former NRBQ guitarist Al Anderson, which may give you a sense of why Carlene broke out)

But she's had a tempestuous life -drugs, bad lifestyle, several marriages, you name it. I'd like to see her do well and get some of the recognition she deserves. We'll see if "Closer" can seal any deals.

Smiles About "Smilers"

Word is out from Aimee Mann's Web site that she has a new album in the works - "Smilers." Ggiven her penchant for cutting lyrics and stories about people with intense emotional problems, dysfunctional personalities or dependency issues, I suspect the album will have little to do with smiling.

But it may prompt a few chuckles. Mann has a way with a lyric, often penning cutting odes that use irony and word choice to insinuate their way into one's consciousness. One of my favorites, penned to someone one drugs, one suspects: "They'll have a big parade / For every day that you stay clean / But when the trumpets fade /You'll go under like a submarine" (from "Going Through the Motions," on her last album, "The Forgotten Arm.")

Mann's discs aren't the most joyful noises I've ever heard, but they are clever, concise pieces of baroque pop that bear up to listening again and again. So there is reason to be happy

Considerations: "After Awhile" by Jimmie Dale Gilmore

I bought Jimmie Dale Gilmore's "After Awhile" back when it first came out, in 1991, and keep going back to it.

At the time, I was just sorta getting into the various albums by musicians who had been in the Lubbock mob known as the Flatlanders. Had purchased Joe Ely's "Live from Liberty Lunch" with its great rollicking acoustic version of "Me and Billy the Kid" in college and had seen Joe open for Little Feat some time that year. He was larger-than-life on stage, a Texas gunslinger who had to make do with a guitar. So when I heard he had a bunch of confreres, and that Elektra was issuing a bunch of "American Explorer" roots albums featuring mavericks such as Charlie Feathers and Jimmie Dale, I immediately picked it up.

What a great album - from a new version of the meditative Austin classics, "Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown" and "Treat Me Like A Saturday Night" to a cover of Butch Hancock's wordy "My Mind's Got A Mind Of Its Own" to the Western-swing stylings of "Go To Sleep Alone" and the lovely "Story Of You" and "Don't Be A Stranger To Your Heart," this is just song for song, a beautfiul album.

Where Ely utilizes a crack rock band to spin yarns of Western desperadoes, and fellow Flatlander Butch Hancock relies heavily on Dylanesqe wordplay, Gilmore tells simple contemplative tales in a high lonesome voice that helps carry the day. Like Guy Clark, Gilmore is not a prolific writer, but you can tell that just like Guy, Gilmore seems to really hone his lyrics making sure that each word counts. He has put out lots of other discs, but "After Awhile," I'd suggest, feature more of Gilmore's own writing, rather than depending more on covers of songs by contemporaries or classics. It's well worth seeking out.

Melody Where There Is None

I'm getting more and more into a group known as the Heartless Bastards (not to be confused with the two guys who back up James McMurtry and who are known by the same touchy-feely sobriquet).

Power trio with a female singer-songwriter at the helm and who blast out guitar riffs carved from stone - in other words, they seem to create something melodic out of guitar blasts and drum beats. No backup vocals, no annoying synths (although there is some piano once in a while). Even singer Erika Wennerstrom yelps it out with the best of them, rather than going the Sheryl Crow doo-da-doo-da-how-dya-like-our-catchy-chorus route. Not sure how much the band can evolve from its premise, but the White Stripes seem to be doing just fine with a lot less at their center. I'll be curious to hear more from these Bastards (as well as McMurtry's).

A Creaky Classic

Greg Brown's pipes aren't the most melifluous. Put him in a boxing ring with Leonard Cohen and they could have a croak-off. But a chance spin of Brown's "'Cept You and Me Babe" on the radio reminded me of how much I always liked this tune.

The lyrics paint a tough picture: "it's raining sheets of rain / everything is cold and wet /nobody's going out of doors / they're all at home living it up on the internet /so i guess nobody's lonely any more /'cept you and me babe / 'cept you and me." It's the last couplet that blows the whole thing up.

Add to the stew Brown's deep, rumbling voice, which reminds me of (as noted) Leonard Cohen holding forth on the misery of life on songs like "Everybody Knows," and the effect is pretty devastating.

Let's just say "Cept You And Me" is not a tune to load into the iPod for a workout at the gym.

How'd I Miss This?

Didja ever buy an album, give it a few listens, just say "Ehhh!" and then put the thing aside. Well, I did that with a disc from one of my perennial favorites, and I guess I must've made a mistake.

When Tom Petty released "Echo" in 1999, I had grown less enchanted with the band. They had gotten a new drummer, had ridden off the rails with a disc produced by Jeff Lynne and come up with an oddball soundtrack album. So I was probably a little biased when "Echo" came out and I didn't like a few of the songs and that was it.

Upon recent listens, however, I've really come to love some of the defiant, underdog-gets-revenge scenarios on these tunes. Petty has always been able to express a little raised-middle-finger attitude in nearly everything he does, from "I Won't Back Down" to "Refugee" to "You Got Lucky." Well, just take a listen to "Billy The Kid," Swingin'" or "Counting On You" for more not-so-subtle rebellion. But this time it's tinged with the knowledge that the narrator is taking a pretty hard fall.

Word is Petty wrote this songs for this disc after his divorce from Jane, his longstanding wife (who had been with him even before he made it big). You can definitely hear it in many of the tunes, such as "Counting On You" (Cuz there's a rumor going 'round / Somebody's gonna let me down / And I don't know what it's all about / Or if it's true / I'm counting on you). I mean, that's pretty rough stuff, to be telling your girlfriend or whoever that you know it's her who's about to put the knife in your back.

Or the phrase "Oh, mama I'm about to give out /I'm Davey Crockett in a coonskin town" from "About To Give Out." How can you be the hero when everyone is gunning for what's on your head?

There are some missteps here - guitarist Mike Campbell shows us why he's never sung lead vocal before on a Heartbreakers disc on "I Don't Want To Fight" (not the best work of Campbell, who helped write Don Henley's "Boys of Summer."

I think it's fair to say the direction of the Heartbreakers has been uncertain in recent years - why are Petty's solo albums always more interesting affairs? Why is his next disc going tobe with his old Gainesville band Mudcrutch? But there's also proof that you can't write the band off -ever. Now I have to go and dust off "The Last DJ."