Showing posts with label Todd Snider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Todd Snider. Show all posts

Jun 3, 2021

Yellowstone Country Reaction Gifs

When you hear Blake Shelton singing about good sex

When I flip by the country station and they're playing a country song

But most of the time when I flip by a country station

When your best friend can't go to the Whiskey Myers show with you

Name an underrated George Strait song

Todd Snider's songwriting process

When dad secures those Strait to Vegas tickets

When a Kane Brown fan strings a whole sentence together

Feb 19, 2021

Eric Andre Show Country Reaction Gifs

When you ask a Kane Brown fan if they've heard of Waylon Jennings

A country DJ having to play a Sam Hunt song

When a guest starts playing Florida-Georgia Line at your own party

Country radio be like...

But when I hear it...

Any show with Luke Bryan on it

When Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See" comes on

Todd Snider on his day off

What would you rather do than go to a Dan + Shay concert?

Apr 25, 2019

Album Review / Will Kimbrough / I Like It Down Here

By Trevor Balthazar

If you were to sit down with Will Kimbrough’s new album & simply glance over the track listing, you could surmise that this is a record of place. Titles like, “I Like It Down Here,” “Alabama (For Michael Donald),” and “When I Get to Memphis” make it abundantly clear that this album is going to be dealing in mostly southern matters.

The ever-consummate sideman, Kimbrough’s years of music with artists such as Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, and Todd Snider are probably impossible not to mention. He’s done solo work, been in groups, written songs for others, produced albums for others, and more. But on I Like It Down Here, we find Kimbrough returning to a very natural version of himself and to a very familiar place, both geographically and emotionally.

The American south is full of things we all love—good music, good food, and good people. This beautiful trifecta is also riddled with bullets of extreme racism, crooked politics, and bad people. Unsurprisingly, Kimbrough’s album echoes these ideas throughout. The lead-off track, “Hey Trouble” is a minor groove about a man lost and, invariably, in trouble. With trouble as his companion throughout the journey, Kimbrough speaks in vaguely heartbroken blues lyrics about the lonesomeness and longing that accompanies a woman gone. If I wanted to wax poetic (or political), I’d tell you that the woman is a metaphor for hope—and that the man left behind is our country, having to deal with the hostile climate we find ourselves in today.

The most interesting lyrical content is delivered in the title track—a greasy creeper about a couple of trashy characters who, unmistakably enjoy their lives in the south. Rife with imagery and language that could be foreign to someone not from down there, the song and message sit in stark contrast to the following track, “Alabama (For Michael Donald)’—a gruesome recounting of the 1981 lynching of a young black man in Mobile, Alabama. These two songs not only define the album, but also the double-edged sword that many from the south have to lay down upon when speaking about where they’re from.


The rest of the album bounces around quite a bit, but has something for most tastes. “I’m Not Running Away” is a jangly pop anthem about getting away from it all; “Salt Water & Sand” is a lilting ode to the gulf shores, and “Anything Helps” is a mid-tempo jaunt about homelessness. 

Lyrically, the album has some bright spots of quirkiness (“I Like It Down Here,” “It’s A Sin”) but is mostly comprised of classic blues-based phrasing and generality—in my opinion, on purpose. Musically, Kimbrough is s fantastic producer and played a myriad of instruments on the album. The songs, though many may be sparse instrumentally, are tightly arranged and well-executed. There’s no over-playing, just tasty riffs and licks—which brings me back to southern food. 

This is an easy afternoon record. If you’ve got nothing to do, put it on and shuck some oysters, stew over a pot of dark gumbo, or crack a beer next to the barbecue pit and you too can ponder where you’re from and what that might mean to you. 

—————

I Like it Down Here is available now on Amazon, iTunes, and pretty much everywhere you like to consume music.


Dec 3, 2013

New Video: Hard Working Americans - Stomp and Holler

With their cover of Hayes Carll's "Stomp and Holler," here's Hard Working Americans, the new Americana supergroup featuring Todd Snider, Neal Casal, Duane Trucks and Chad Staehly.

Feb 23, 2013

Congratulations to Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires!

Alt-country super-couple (ever heard that term before?) Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires are casting their lot with the married life today. Guess who's marryin' 'em off? Todd Snider. I'm serious. Does it get much cooler than that? Congrats you crazy kids!





And now, one together:

Jan 7, 2011

YouTube Gems: Todd Snider

From the wonderful upcoming double live album Live: Storyteller, here's Todd Snider with "Stuck on the Corner."

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