Random Thoughts: September
2000

Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a
man of... well, little wealth and questionable
taste. So screw the Stones for not writing
that song about me. No, I'm a writer and a
musician trying to carve out a living in this
industry because a world without music, to me,
is a post-apocalyptic Twilight Zone where I'm
Burgess Meredith without eyeglasses. So I
figure I've got a vested interest in music, and
these are my thoughts.

Kenny Roby has released the best solo album
most people may never hear. After Six String
Drag drifted apart, he got frustrated trying to
find a domestic label to release Mercury's Blues
and released it in Europe on Glitter Box. "We
were trying to figure out what we were going
to do with it, just shopping it around and
seeing what was going on, and we eventually
just said, screw it, and we released it ourselves.
Same old record stuff, you know. It just takes
time to get things done," Roby said in an interview
I conducted for Amplifier Magazine. "Part of it,
I'll guess and say that a lot of it was probably
just with all the weird stuff going on in the industry
in the last year. Nobody was really picking
anybody up. Everyone was scared, all the way
from the bottom to the top. No smaller labels
wanted to sign smaller acts, or medium sized labels,
independents and stuff, or imprints wanted to sign
smaller acts because probably a lot of them were
waiting around to see how many big hit bands got
dropped that they could pick up on a smaller level.
Maybe not bigger bands, but medium sized bands
on bigger labels. Just a lot of fear going on in the
record business." Mercury's Blues has been a hit
with just about everyone who's heard it. It's
available now at Roby's Ricebox Records site
(www.riceboxrecords.com) or at Amazon, but get
it from the source. And thank the folks at Redeye
Distribution for getting it out to anybody.

The number of great No Depression artists looking
for labels is a crime.

Beaver Nelson is still shopping his new disc. Nelson
was on Freedom Records, yet another great little
label that folded when it couldn't pull together
the resources to keep going (see Watermelon
Records). He'd fought hard to get The Last Hurrah
released, and it was well worth the effort. I mean,
there's a guy on the record named Scrappy Jud,
and he's backing a guy named Beaver. What more
do you need? Go get the album, right now. In fact,
go get The Last Hurrah, Mercury's Blues, and any
album you can find by these guys. If you want
there to be a second album, you gotta buy the
first one. (Go to www.beavernelson.com for more
info.)

Robbie Fulks is set to release two new albums of
his stuff on his own. After a high-energy show at
TT the Bear's in Cambridge, Ma, Fulks said he's
recording an album's worth of oldies to release on
www.robbiefulks.com, which should be coming soon.
As for the next CD release, it's apparently recorded
and in the bag. Bloodshot passed on it because it
didn't fit their sound, according to a story that ran
in The Boston Phoenix. No hard feelings between
the two, and if he records another album like South
Mouth, I'd expect to see it on Bloodshot. Fulks will
release the album himself. No word on a street date
for it.

Whiskeytown are also looking for a place for a record
they already have recorded and in the bag. It was
supposed to be released this summer, but that hit a
major snag when Outpost, the division of Geffen the
band was signed to, bit the dust. In the meantime,
look for solo albums from founders Caitlin Cary (on
Yeproc) and Ryan Adams (on Bloodshot). Try
www.bloodshotrecords.com for info.

Jay Farrar is recording a solo album. No due date,
or official word on the status of Son Volt. No
Depression covered their last show as if it were just
that -- their last show. They didn't seem entirely
too sure. So that's still up in the air, but a solo album
certainly would be interesting. I wonder where he's
going to go with it -- acoustic or electric, maybe
some weird new direction. Farrar has set a standard
for blue collar country blues and he has his trademark
bash and twang. There's no reason to hope for
anything different, but there's got to be some reaso
n this is a solo album and not Son Volt or another band.
That makes me curious. Just as long as we don't get
the Puff Daddy remix of "Whiskey Bottle," it sounds good.

The new Alejandro Escovedo album will feature Jon and
Mac from Superchunk, at least on one tune. The song
is called "Castanets," and it also features Mitch Easter
on guitar. It's a great combo, and it works better
than you might think. It's a great fit. Check it out on
the latest Oxford American compilation. If you're not
familiar with the magazine, check it out. John Grisham
publishes it, and the magazine is almost enough to make
me forget about his hypocritical challenge against Oliver
Stone over Natural Born Killers.

The Tarbox Ramblers, a great band from Boston, are
touring the country right now. Catch them when you
can, and look for their self-titled debut album on Rounder.
Dusty Delta blues never sounded this good, especially
from a band that regularly plays this close to Harvard.

Those are my thoughts for now. Or at least the ones
that I've decided to write down. And vote Nader. Or don't.
I've never been good at endings.

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